Laudator Temporis Acti

Diogenes Laertius 6.1.6 (tr. R.D. Hicks, on Antisthenes):

"It is strange," said he, "that we weed out the darnel from the corn and the unfit in war, but do not excuse evil men from the service of the state."

ἄτοπον ἔφη τοῦ μὲν σίτου τὰς αἴρας ἐκλέγειν καὶ ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ τοὺς ἀχρείους, ἐν δὲ πολιτείᾳ τοὺς πονηροὺς μὴ παραιτεῖσθαι.

Livy 8.11.1 (tr. B.O. Foster):

These particulars, even though the memory of every religious and secular usage has been wiped out by men's preference of the new and outlandish to the ancient and homebred, I have thought it not foreign to my purpose to repeat, and in the very words in which they were formulated and handed down.

haec, etsi omnis divini humanique moris memoria abolevit nova peregrinaque omnia priscis ac patriis praeferendo, haud ab re duxi verbis quoque ipsis, ut tradita nuncupataque sunt, referre.

Diogenes Laertius 5.1.20 (tr. R.D. Hicks, on Aristotle):

The question being put, how can students make progress, he replied, "By pressing hard on those in front and not waiting for those behind."

ἐρωτηθεὶς πῶς ἂν προκόπτοιεν οἱ μαθηταί, ἔφη, "ἐὰν τοὺς προέχοντας διώκοντες τοὺς ὑστεροῦντας μὴ ἀναμένωσι."

Cf. Horace, Epistles 1.2.70-71 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough):

But if you lag behind, or with vigour push on ahead,
I neither wait for the slow nor press after those who hurry on before.

               quod si cessas aut strenuus anteis,
nec tardum opperior nec praecedentibus insto.

Livy 8.10.4 (tr. B.O. Foster):

Rise up now, and with fresh strength confront the weary enemy, remembering your country and your parents, your wives and your children, remembering the consul who lies dead that you may conquer.

"Consurgite nunc" inquit "integri adversus fessos, memores patriae parentumque et coniugum ac liberorum, memores consulis pro vestra victoria morte occubantis."

Augustine, Sermons 289.6 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 38, col. 1312; tr. Edmund Hill):

After all, what were you, man? Everyman, notice how you were born; even if you were born a noble, you were born naked. What's nobility, anyway? At birth, poor and rich are equally naked. Or perhaps because you were born a noble, you can live as long as you like? You came in when you didn't know, you go out when you don't want to. Finally, let the graves be examined, and the bones of the rich told apart.

Quid enim eras, homo? Omnis homo, attende quid natus es: etsi nobilis natus es, nudus natus es. Quid est nobilitas? Nativitas pauperis et divitis aequalis est nuditas. An forte quia nobilis natus es, quantum vis vivis? Quando nescisti, intrasti: quando non vis, exis. Postremo sepulcra inspiciantur, et ossa divitum agnoscantur.

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), Die Heimkehr LXVI, from Buch der Lieder (tr. Hal Draper):

I dreamed a dream: I'm God himself,
All Heaven kneels to me,
The angels sit around my throne
And praise my poetry.

I eat the finest cakes and sweets
That golden coin can get,
And drink expensive wines to boot
And never run up a debt.

Sometimes I wish me down on earth
For boredom makes me sick,
And were I not the Lord himself
I might have been Old Nick.

"You lanky angel, Gabriel,
Go stretch your legs a bit,
Go find my good old friend Eugene
And bring him where I sit.

"Look for him not in college halls
But near a Tokay case;
Look for him not in Hedwig's Church
But Ma'mselle Meyer's place."

The angel spreads his wings and soars
Down to the lower sphere,
And finds my friend and picks him up
And brings the scamp up here.

"Yes, lad, I am Lord God himself,
Earth trembles 'neath my sway!
I always told you, didn't I,
I'd make the top some day.

"I pass a miracle every hour
That you would revel in,
And just for fun, today I'll beam
A blessing on Berlin.

"The paving stones in every street
Will split and open wide,
And every stone will have a fresh
And tasty oyster inside.

"The oysters will be sprinkled by
A shower of lemon juice,
And down the street the best Rhine wine
Will flow as through a sluice."

The joyful Berliners rush out
To gulp a bite to eat;
The judges of the District Court
Are swilling from the street.

How glad the poets are to see
This heaven-sent food supply!
The ensigns and lieutenants too
Are lapping the gutters dry.

The ensigns and lieutenants are
The smartest in their way:
They know that miracles like this
Don't come along every day.

German here (Mir träumt': Ich bin der liebe Gott...).

Plutarch, Life of Alexander 26.1 (tr. Bernadotte Perrin):

When a small coffer was brought to him, which those in charge of the baggage and wealth of Dareius thought the most precious thing there, he asked his friends what valuable object they thought would most fittingly be deposited in it. And when many answered and there were many opinions, Alexander himself said he was going to deposit the Iliad there for safe keeping.

κιβωτίου δέ τινος αὐτῷ προσενεχθέντος, οὗ πολυτελέστερον οὐδὲν ἐφάνη τοῖς τὰ Δαρείου χρήματα καὶ τὰς ἀποσκευὰς παραλαμβάνουσιν, ἠρώτα τοὺς φίλους ὅ τι δοκοίη μάλιστα τῶν ἀξίων σπουδῆς εἰς αὐτὸ καταθέσθαι· πολλὰ δὲ πολλῶν λεγόντων αὐτὸς ἔφη τὴν Ἰλιάδα φρουρήσειν ἐνταῦθα καταθέμενος.

Livy 8.9.6-7 (tr. B.O. Foster):

Janus, Jupiter, Father Mars, Quirinus, Bellona, Lares, divine Novensiles, divine Indigites, ye gods in whose power are both we and our enemies, and you, divine Manes, — I invoke and worship you, I beseech and crave your favour, that you prosper the might and the victory of the Roman People of the Quirites, and visit the foes of the Roman People of the Quirites with fear, shuddering, and death...

Iane Iuppiter Mars pater Quirine Bellona Lares Divi Novensiles Di Indigetes Divi quorum est potestas nostrorum hostiumque Dique Manes vos precor veneror veniam peto oroque uti populo Romano Quiritium vim victoriam prosperetis, hostesque populi Romani Quiritium terrore formidine morteque adficiatis...

oroque Forchhammer: feroque codd.

In the 1950 census, the occupation and industry of my great-aunt Annie Bernier (née Paiement) are recorded as follows: Ancestry.com interprets this as Wppe-Tirder and Textile Map.

The first word of the occupation, I am fairly confident, is napper, and the second is probably a faulty spelling of teasler. See Century Dictionary s.v. napper, sense b:

A machine by which knitted goods are cleaned, napped, and surfaced. It consists essentially of a roller on which the goods are stretched and brushed with a card or teazel, to remove specks, burs, seeds, etc., to raise the nap, and restore the softness and pliancy of which the fabric has been deprived by washing.

The word after textile in the industry column is probably an abbreviation for manufacturing or industry (or possibly it's mill).

Diogenes Laertius 5.1.17 (on Aristotle; tr. R.D. Hicks):

He used constantly to say to his friends and pupils, whenever or wherever he happened to be lecturing, "As sight takes in light from the surrounding air, so does the soul from mathematics."

συνεχὲς εἰώθει λέγειν πρός τε τοὺς φίλους καὶ τοὺς φοιτῶντας αὐτῷ, ἔνθα ἂν καὶ ὅπου διατρίβων ἔτυχεν, ὡς ἡ μὲν ὅρασις ἀπὸ τοῦ περιέχοντος ἀέρος λαμβάνει τὸ φῶς, ἡ δὲ ψυχὴ ἀπὸ τῶν μαθημάτων.

Pamela Mensch also translated τῶν μαθημάτων here as mathematics. See Liddell-Scott-Jones, s.v. μάθημα, sense 3:

esp. the mathematical sciences, Archyt.1,3 tit.; τρία μ., i.e. arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, acc. to Pl.Lg.817e, cf. Phld. Ind.Sto.66; later τὰ τέσσαρα μ. （ἁρμονική being added) Theol.Ar.17.

Cf. the supposed inscription at the entrance of Plato's Academy (ἀγεωμέτρητος μηδεὶς εἰσίτω, let no one ignorant of geometry enter), on which see H.D. Saffrey, "ΑΓΕΩΜΕΤΡΗΤΟΣ ΜΗΔΕΙΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ: Une inscription légendaire," Revue des Études Grecques, Vol. 81, No. 384/385 (Janvier-Juin 1968) 67-87.

Jerome, Letters 7.2.1 (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 54, p. 27; to Chromatins, Jovinus, and Eusebius; tr. Charles Christopher Mierow, with his note):

I am now having a chat with your letter, I embrace it, it speaks to me. It is the only thing here that understands Latin. Here in your aging days you must either learn to talk a barbarous language or else remain silent.⁶ As often as the familiar handwriting brings back to me your dear faces, so often am I no longer here, or else you are here. Do believe my love, that it is speaking the truth: in this case too, as I write this letter, you are here with me.

⁶ hic enim aut barbarus seni sermo discendus est aut tacendum est. Jerome gives a small sample of this “barbarous language” in his Vita Pauli 6.—Note the use here of the word seni, “for an old man” (“in your aging days”). If Jerome was born around the middle of the century, say between 345 and 350, and this letter was written in 375 or 376, then Jerome at this time was at the most thirty or thirty-one years old. References by Jerome to his age, evidently at times exaggerated, have complicated determination of a chronology. On the date of Jerome’s birth, cf. Cavallera 2.1—12. Cf. also n. 1 to Letter 14 below.

nunc cum vestris litteris fabulor, illas amplexor, illae mecum loquuntur, illae hic tantum Latine sciunt. hic enim aut barbarus seni sermo discendus est aut tacendum est. quotiensque carissimos mihi vultus notae manus referunt inpressa vestigia, totiens aut ego hic non sum aut vos hic estis. credite amori vera dicenti: et cum has scriberem, vos videbam.

Jerome, Life of Paul the Hermit 6.2 (Sources Chrétiennes, vol. 508, pp. 154, 156; tr. W.H. Fremantle):

Another [monk] in an old cistern (called in the country dialect of Syria Gubba) kept himself alive on five dried figs a day.

alter in cisterna veteri — quam gentili sermone Syri "gubbam" vocant — quinque caricis per singulos dies sustentatur.

See also Jerome, Commentary on Jeremiah 2.12 (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol. 74, p. 65):

hoc autem Latinus lector intelligat, ut semel dixisse sufficiat, "lacum" non "stagnum" sonare iuxta Graecos, sed "cisternam", quae sermone Syro et Hebraico "gubba" appellatur.

Diogenes Laertius 5.1.18 (on Aristotle; tr. R.D. Hicks):

Three things he declared to be indispensable for education: natural endowment, study, and constant practice.

τριῶν ἔφη δεῖν παιδείᾳ, φύσεως, μαθήσεως, ἀσκήσεως.

Euripides, Trojan Women 26-27 (tr. James Morwood):

For whenever the curse of desolation lays hold on a city,
religion grows sickly and there is no will to honour the gods.

ἐρημία γὰρ πόλιν ὅταν λάβῃ κακή,
νοσεῖ τὰ τῶν θεῶν οὐδὲ τιμᾶσθαι θέλει.

Robert Yelverton Tyrrell ad loc.:

Bion of Borysthenes, in Diogenes Laertius 4.7.48 (tr. R.D. Hicks):

He called old age the harbour of all ills; at least they all take refuge there.

τὸ γῆρας ἔλεγεν ὅρμον εἶναι τῶν κακῶν· εἰς αὐτὸ γοῦν πάντα καταφεύγειν.

See Jan Fredrik Kindstrand, Bion of Borysthenes: A Collection of the Fragments with Introduction and Commentary (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1976 = Studia Graeca Upsaliensia, 11), pp. 274-276 (F62A).

C.E.M. Joad (1891-1953), "The Face of England: How It Is Ravaged and How It May Be Preserved," Horizon, Vol. V, No. 29 (May, 1942) 335-348 (at 335-336):

The ravages, of course, began long before the war. The invention of the internal-combustion engine may be regarded with justice as the greatest single disaster in the history of mankind. Not only has it destroyed the security of England and made wholesale death and mutilation familiar things; it has also destroyed the beauty of England, killed quiet, and, with quiet, dignity. Take, for example, the case of Sussex. Who would have thought, as we wandered years ago through the Weald in spring and saw that incredible profusion of primroses and wild daffodils, or in summer through the empty spaces of the high downs, that these things upon which we had been nourished in childhood and had grown to rely upon in manhood, turning to them again and again for rest and refreshment of the spirit, would in our time be destroyed, dying before we ourselves should die? Yet so it is. First, the railways scattered their scurf of 'resorts' along the coast and accumulated little ganglions of vulgarity around their stations, as an alien body thrust into the flesh accumulates a zone of inflamed tissue around its place of entry; but the county as a whole remained inviolate. Then came the cars. The south and south-east of England were brought within the range of daily accessibility from the centre, with the result that London burst like a bomb and scattered its debris far and wide over the faces of Surrey and Kent, and presently over that of Sussex. With the coming of the car the peace of the county was broken, its traditions destroyed, its power to refresh and reinvigorate the spirit, a power which depended in part upon its emptiness and its peace, impaired. Its inhabitants bought gramophones and grew basely rich; its roads became maelstroms of traffic along which cars hurled their inert occupants to the coast, its valleys came out in a rash of angry pink; every hilltop had its villa, every village its multiple store, while the sacred peace of the downs was broken by the snorts of motor-bicycles and the hoots of straining cars. If the horde of invaders had derived benefit from their defilements, the case though bad would have been bearable. In fact, however, the majority of those who rifled beauty were unaware of what they did. Walking, just before the war, on Amberley Down, I came upon a small Austin perched upon its highest point, outraging the sight of all beholders. I approached, intending to draw the attention of the occupants to the beneficent but unobserved law which forbids a car to park itself more than fifteen yards from the highway (see the Road Traffic Act 1930). Within it sat a young man and his girl. Their backs were to the view, their windows shut. Were they engaged in the fulfilment of a function intelligible, if there misplaced? They were not. They were sitting stolidly, side by side, listening to the fat-stock prices over the wireless.

Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

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Labels: Luddism

Giovanni Cecchetti, in Giovanni Verga, The She-Wolf and Other Stories, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973; rpt. 1982), p. xxii:

Lawrence did not know Italian sufficiently well, nor did he have enough time to do justice to the original. As a result, his Verga is full of oddities. He misunderstood or misread many Italian words, so that "a picnic in the country" became "the ringing of the bells," a "fiancée" became a "wife," a "mother" a "midwife," a "hard bed on the ground" a "hard biscuit," a "storeroom" a "millstone," a "rump" a "group"; the olive trees instead of "fading gradually in the twilight," "fumed upon the twilight," etc. He translated southern Italian idioms literally, and thus the common expressions meaning "they had spent a fortune" and "as happy as a king" became "they had spent the very eyes out of their head" and "as happy as an Easter Day."