Laudator Temporis Acti

Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003), The Wartime Journals (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), pp. 121-122 (Dec. 1942; note omitted):

Poor old Rowse says somewhere in his autobiography that he regards the old ideal of Mens sana in corpore sano as arrant nonsense and a contradiction in terms, or words to that effect; for when he rides his hobby-horses he does ride them with whips and spur. He prefers to believe that bodily health and intellectual force are incompatible things, and that art springs from the limitation of experience. Well, I suppose it's a tenable view for such as want to hold it, and for sure, since Flaubert and Leopardi were invalids, there's something to give a smack of taste to the weak, insipid soup of Wackenroder and Proust. But I'm on the side of the Elizabethans, and Goethe, and St Aristophanes, my patron saint, and all whose philosophy is founded on experience, or, at least, on a bottom of common sense which presupposes experience. I'm for Gibbon and Surtees, not these etiolated continentals. Why even style depends on experience and observation, since style needs imagery, and imagery must be drawn from life, from wild beasts in the forest, and storms at sea, and low life in taprooms and circuses and at earthstoppers' dinners, and a relish and recollection of these things, and a sympathy with them. But who can draw a good image from private wards and clinking bedpans and cut flowers and demure white sheets and undertones, an unillumined world, without seasons, without laughter, where even a fart is an austere medical symptom only?

Hat tip: Ian Jackson †.

Poem by Ubayd-i Zakani (14th century), tr. Bernard Lewis in Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew Poems (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 127:

Lord, of your grace all that I hope is this—
keep the realm of my pleasure prosperous
avert from me the calamity of chastity
and keep far from me the doom of repentance.

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), Almansor, lines 1291-1296 (tr. Hal Draper):

                                        I am so tired,
And sick, and sicker even than that; for ah,
The worst of sicknesses is life itself;
And only death can cure it. This is sure
The medicine that is bitterest, but the last,
And everywhere available, and cheap.

                                        Ich bin recht müd'
Und krank, und kranker noch als krank, denn ach!
Die allerschlimmste Krankheit ist das Leben;
Und heilen kann sie nur der Tod. Das ist
Die bitterste Arznei, doch auch die letzte,
Und ist zu haben überall, und wohlfeil.

Related post: Panacea.

Clive James (1939-2019), "Gianfranco Contini," Cultural Amnesia (2007; rpt. London: Picador, 2012), pp. 133-144 (at 137):

Though it can be overdone, there is nothing like a trading of quotations for bringing cultivated people together, or for making you feel uncultivated if you have nothing to trade. Nowadays very few people can quote from the Greek or would think to impress anyone if they could, and even quoting from the Latin — still a universal recognition system in the learned world when I was young — is now discouraged.

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), Almansor, lines 243-244 (tr. Hal Draper):

                     Where men burn books,
They will burn people also in the end.

                                                     [W]o man Bücher
Verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.

Cf. Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), Letters of Obscure Men XXIV (tr. Francis Griffin Stokes):

You may read it, an you will, because I am sending it to you herewith. It seemeth to me that the author and the book ought to be burned together, for it is a monstrous scandal that anybody should compile such a volume.

Vos potestis eum legere si vultis, quia mitto hic eum vobis. Mihi videtur quod autor ille cum suo libro debet comburi, quia est maxime scandalosum quod aliquis debet talem librum compilare.

Related posts:

• A Pungent Smell of Smoke
• Burning Books Written by Epicurus
• An Official Book Burning
• Burn Me!
• A Curse

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II, Chapter 22, § 260 (tr. E.F.J. Payne):

Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking. When we read, we allow another to guide our thoughts in leading strings. Moreover, many books merely serve to show how many false paths there are and how seriously we could go astray if we allowed ourselves to be guided by them. But whoever is guided by genius, in other words thinks for himself; thinks freely and of his own accord and thinks correctly; he has the compass for finding the right way. We should, therefore, read only when the source of our own ideas dries up, which will be the case often enough even with the best minds. On the other hand, to scare away our own original and powerful ideas in order to take up a book, is a sin against the Holy Ghost. We then resemble the man who runs away from free nature in order to look at a herbarium, or to contemplate a beautiful landscape in a copper engraving.

Lesen ist ein bloßes Surrogat des eigenen Denkens. Man läßt dabei seine Gedanken von einem Andern am Gängelbande führen. Zudem taugen viele Bücher bloß, zu zeigen, wie viel Irrwege es giebt und wie arg man sich verlaufen könnte, wenn man von ihnen sich leiten ließe. Den aber der Genius leitet, d. h. der selbst denkt, freiwillig denkt, richtig denkt, der hat die Boussole, den rechten Weg zu finden. Lesen soll man also nur dann, wann die Quelle der eigenen Gedanken stockt; was auch beim besten Kopfe oft genug der Fall seyn wird. Hingegen die eigenen, urkräftigen Gedanken verscheuchen, um ein Buch zur Hand zu nehmen, ist Sünde wider den heiligen Geist. Man gleicht alsdann Dem, der aus der freien Natur flieht, um ein Herbarium zu besehn, oder um schöne Gegenden im Kupferstiche zu betrachten.

Id.:

The truth that has been merely learnt sticks to us like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a nose of wax, or at best like a rhinoplastic nose formed from someone else's flesh. On the other hand, the truth acquired through our own thinking is like the natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. On this rests the distinction between the thinker and the mere scholar. The intellectual gain of the man who thinks for himself is, therefore, like a beautiful painting that vividly stands out with correct light and shade, sustained tone, and perfect harmony of colours. The intellectual acquisition of the mere scholar, on the other hand, is like a large palette full of bright colours, systematically arranged perhaps, but without harmony, sequence, and significance.

Die bloß erlernte Wahrheit klebt uns nur an, wie ein angesetztes Glied, ein falscher Zahn, eine wächserne Nase, oder höchstens wie eine rhinoplastische aus fremdem Fleische; die durch eigenes Denken erworbene aber gleicht dem natürlichen Gliede: sie allein gehört uns wirklich an. Darauf beruht der Unterschied zwischen dem Denker und dem bloßen Gelehrten. Daher sieht der geistige Erwerb des Selbstdenkers aus, wie ein schönes Gemälde, das lebendig hervortritt, mit richtigem Lichte und Schatten, gehaltenem Ton, vollkommener Harmonie der Farben. Hingegen gleicht der geistige Erwerb des bloßen Gelehrten einer großen Palette, voll bunter Farben, allenfalls systematisch geordnet, aber ohne Harmonie, Zusammenhang und Bedeutung.

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), "The Poet and the Cheese," A Shilling for My Thoughts, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1917), pp. 161-164 (at 162-164):

After a few sentences exchanged at long intervals in the manner of rustic courtesy, I inquired casually what was the name of the town. The old lady answered that its name was Stilton, and composedly continued her needlework. But I had paused with my mug in air, and was gazing at her with a suddenly arrested concern. 'I suppose,' I said 'that it has nothing to do with the cheese of that name.' 'Oh, yes,' she answered, with a staggering indifference, 'they used to make it here.'

I put down my mug with a gravity far greater than her own. 'But this place is a Shrine!' I said. 'Pilgrims should be pouring into it from wherever the English legend has endured alive. There ought to be a colossal statue in the market-place of the man who invented Stilton cheese. There ought to be another colossal statue of the first cow who provided the foundations of it. There should be a burnished tablet let into the ground on the spot where some courageous man first ate Stilton cheese, and survived. On the top of a neighbouring hill (if there are any neighbouring hills) there should be a huge model of a Stilton cheese, made of some rich green marble and engraven with some haughty motto: I suggest something like "Ver non semper viret; sed Stiltonia semper virescit."' The old lady said, 'Yes, sir,' and continued her domestic occupations.

After a strained and emotional silence, I said, 'If I take a meal here tonight can you give me any Stilton?'

'No, sir; I'm afraid we haven't got any Stilton,' said the immovable one, speaking as if it were something thousands of miles away.

'This is awful,' I said: for it seemed to me a strange allegory of England as she is now; this little town that had lost its glory; and forgotten, so to speak, the meaning of its own name. And I thought it yet more symbolic because from all that old and full and virile life, the great cheese was gone; and only the beer remained. And even that will be stolen by the Liberals or adulterated by the Conservatives. Politely disengaging myself, I made my way as quickly as possible to the nearest large, noisy, and nasty town in that neighbourhood, where I sought out the nearest vulgar, tawdry, and avaricious restaurant.

There (after trifling with beef, mutton, puddings, pies, and so on) I got a Stilton cheese. I was so much moved by my memories that I wrote a sonnet to the cheese. Some critical friends have hinted to me that my sonnet is not strictly new; that it contains 'echoes' (as they express it) of some other poem that they have read somewhere. Here, at least, are the lines I wrote:

Stilton, thou shouldst be living at this hour
And so thou art. Nor losest grace thereby;
England has need of thee, and so have I—
She is a Fen. Far as the eye can scour,
League after grassy league from Lincoln tower
To Stilton in the fields, she is a Fen.
Yet this high cheese, by choice of fenland men,
Like a tall green volcano rose in power.

Plain living and long drinking are no more,
And pure religion reading Household Words,
And sturdy manhood sitting still all day
Shrink, like this cheese that crumbles to its core;
While my digestion, like the House of Lords,
The heaviest burdens on herself doth lay.

As for the "echoes," see William Wordsworth (1770-1850), "London, 1802":

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

The Very Rev Toby Wright, Dean of Wells, in anticipation of the cider and cheese festival to be held at the Somerset cathedral (photograph by Russell Sach): Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

Related post: What a Food We Have in Cheeses.

Plautus, Amphitruo 648-653 (Alcumena speaking, or rather singing; tr. Paul Nixon):

Courage is the very best gift of all; courage stands before everything, it does, it does! It is what maintains and preserves our liberty, safety, life, and our homes and parents, our country and children. Courage comprises all things: a man with courage has every blessing.

virtus praemium est optumum;
virtus omnibus rebus anteit profecto:
libertas salus vita res et parentes,        650
patria et prognati
tutantur, servantur:
virtus omnia in sese habet, omnia assunt
bona quem penest virtus.

David M. Christenson ad loc. (click to enlarge):

P. Cair. Masp. I 67097 v F, tr. Leslie S. B. MacCoull:

I want always to dance, I want always to play the lyre. I strike up my lyre to praise the solemn festival with my words. The Bacchae have cast a spell on me. . . . When I drink wine, my cares go to sleep. What do I care for pains and groans, what do I care for troubles? I love a young soldier, a Herakles with longing eyes, a lion tamer; ever one to save our cities.

ἀεὶ θέλω χορεύειν,
ἀεὶ θέλω λυρίζμιν.
γεραρὴν λόγοις ἑορτήν
ἀνα[βάϊλλομαι λυρίζειν.

θέλγουσίν με αἷ Βά<κ>χαι
α...υ[
[

ὅταν πίννω τὸν οἶνον,
εὕδουσιν αἵ μέριμναι·
τί μοι πόνων, τί μοι γόων,
τί μοι μέλει μεριμνῶν;

στρατηγὸν νέον ἔραμαι,
ποθοβλήτην Ἡρακλέα,
δαμάζοντα τοὺς λέοντας·
ἀεὶ τὰς πόλεις σαῶσαι.

I owe my knowledge of this poem to James J. O'Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire (London: Profile Books, 2009), p. 23.

Related post: Let Us Be Merry.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), "A Song to Mithras," Puck of Pook's Hill (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916), pp. 193-194:

Mithras, God of the Morning, our trumpets waken the Wall!
'Rome is above the Nations, but Thou art over all!'
Now as the names are answered, and the guards are marched away,
Mithras, also a soldier, give us strength for the day!

Mithras, God of the Noontide, the heather swims in the heat,
Our helmets scorch our foreheads; our sandals burn our feet.
Now in the ungirt hour; now ere we blink and drowse,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows!

Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main,
Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again!
Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn!

Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull dies,
Look on Thy children in darkness. Oh take our sacrifice!
Many roads Thou hast fashioned: all of them lead to the Light,
Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright!

Joshua T. Katz, "Fit as a philologist," New Criterion (September 8, 2026):

A true philologist is what friends will call a careful reader and enemies a pedant: someone who uses deep and broad knowledge and minimal prejudice to try to understand, down to the nuts and bolts, the commas and the words in italics, what a document is trying to tell us.