Laudator Temporis Acti

Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003), The Wartime Journals (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), pp. 165-166 (June 1943):

'And books', I asked myself as I stood in Blackwell’s shop in Oxford one day, surrounded by fat volumes on Soviet Russia and the Virgin Birth, and thin volumes on Education and Democracy, earnest pamphlets, flimsy novels, yellow manuals, reprints, Americana and all. There seemed no end of them. And what is in them all? Learned sawdust — vapour trash. And there were historical works too, lives of saints, and lives of kings, and lives of conquerors and politicians and administrators, and chronicles of wars and politics and movements and revolutions, — all the accumulated mundungus of all the centuries of man, stirred this way, stirred that, and smelling now thus, now thus, as the stirrer stirred. Must I add to these? I asked myself; spend perhaps a whole lifetime to increase this great Sargasso Sea by one wisp of seaweed? Vanitas Vanitatum! And over & around me, in the hidden background, in the Bodleian, in the New Bodleian, in the Radcliffe, I was aware of the unseen, oppressive, brooding presence of myriads of musty tomes, hundreds of tons of them weighing me down with their stifling, persecuting bulk. A feeling of hot spiritual claustrophobia overcame me, as in childhood, when I was besieged by a great herd of panting cows; and I turned and left the shop in disgust.

P. Oxy. XV 1796 (2nd century AD), lines 9-11 (tr. D.L. Page):

This is an immemorial law, surviving still from our lords of old:— to set those trees side by side upon hills, to bind the watery mound and ward famine off.

ὠγύγιος̣ νόμος οὗτος ἀπ’ ἀρχαίων ἔτ’ ἀνάκτων
θέσθαι δένδρεα κεῖνα παρ’ ἀλλήλοισι κολώναις,
χώματος εὐύδροιο πέδην ἀλκ̣τῆρά τε λιμοῦ.

Homer, Odyssey 14.55 (tr. Daniel Mendelsohn):

You spoke to him then in reply, Eúmaios my swineherd:

τὸν δ᾽ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφης, Εὔμαιε συβῶτα·

The line, or something very like it, occurs 15 times in the Odyssey (according to commentators), and Mendelsohn always translates "my swineherd." The possessive pronoun "my" doesn't occur in the Greek original, and I don't understand the reason for its intrusive presence in the English translation. It smacks of the colloquial "my man" and sounds out of place to me. Cf. Richmond Lattimore's rendering:

Then, O swineherd Eumaios, you said to him in answer:

W.B. Stanford ad loc.:

Some editors follow Eustathius' suggestion that it is a mark of the poet's special affection for Eumaeus (cp. scholium on Il. 16, 787). This, however, is highly uncharacteristic of H.'s very impersonal style. Hayman remarks that it may be a vestige of a primitive ballad-singer's phrase.

Eustathius on Odyssey 14.55:

Ὅτι ἐν Ἰλιάδι μὲν Ὅμηρος πολλαῖς χρῆται ἀποστροφαῖς ἐπὶ προσώπων ἀξίων λόγου, οἷον· οὐδὲ σέθεν Μενέλαε θεοὶ ἐλάθοντο, καὶ, τὸν δὲ προσέφη Πατρόκλειε ἴππεῦ, καὶ ἕτερα δὲ ὅμοια· ἐν δὲ τῇ Ὀδυσσείᾳ ἐπὶ μόνου Εὐμαίου σχηματίζει οὕτως ὁ ποιητής, φιλῶν τῆς εὐνοίας τὸν δοῦλον καὶ τοῦ εἰς πολλὰ χρησιμεύειν ἐνταῦθα τῇ ποιήσει. καὶ ἀρξάμενος ἐντεῦθεν λέγει ὁ περ πολλαχοῦ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἑξῆς· τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη Εὐμαῖε συβῶτα.

Related posts:

• No Accounting for Taste
• A Puzzle
• Stopper
• Significant Searfaring Names
• Contractions

Poem by Hafiz (1325-1390), tr. Bernard Lewis in Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew Poems (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 131:

Cupbearer, it is morning, fill my cup with wine.
Make haste, the heavenly sphere knows no delay.
Before this transient world is ruined and destroyed,
ruin me with a beaker of rose-tinted wine.
The sun of the wine dawns in the east of the goblet.
Pursue life's pleasure, abandon dreams,
and the day when the wheel makes pitchers of my clay,
take care to fill my skull with wine!
We are not men for piety, penance and preaching
but rather give us a sermon in praise of a cup of clear wine.
Wine-worship is a noble task, O Hafiz;
rise and advance firmly to your noble task.

Democritus, fragment 296 (tr. Kathleen Freeman):

Old age is a general mutilation. It possesses everything (i.e. all the limbs and organs), but they each lack something.

γῆρας ὁλόκληρός ἐστι πήρωσις· πάντ' ἔχει καὶ πᾶσιν ἐνδεῖ.

The same, tr. André Laks and Glenn W. Most:

Old age is a mutilation intact in all its parts: it has all things and it lacks all things.

Corpus Parisinum 171 (tr. Denis Searby):

It is quite easy to deceive oneself, and, puffed up by vainglory, to imagine oneself to be important while being worthless.

Ῥᾷστον ἑαυτὸν ἀπατᾶν καὶ οἴεσθαι εἶναί τι οὐδὲν ὄντα ὑπὸ τῆς κενῆς δόξης φυσώµενον.

For inexplicably read inextricably.

Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

Labels: typographical and other errors

Philemon, fragment 92 Kock, vol. II, part 1, p. 506 = Comparison of Menander and Philistion II 59-67 Jaeckel, p. 105; attributed to Philetus by Stobaeus, Anthology 4.33.19, vol. 5, part 2, pp. 804-805 Hense (tr. F.A. Paley):

Wealth ever brings its ills, and those not few.
Some envy, some abuse and hate it too.
Trouble, annoyance, meet one without end,
Extortions here, there gifts to help a friend,
Who, as you soon find out, has left a will
To make some other rich man richer still.
Thus modest means, with life devoid of care,
Are better far than with the rich to share
Wealth's high estate, with all its plagues and pains
Your poor man's evils may to him be gains.

ἀεὶ τὸ πλουτεῖν συμφορὰς πολλὰς ἔχει,
φθόνον τ' ἐπήρειάν τε καὶ μίσος πολύ,
πράγματά τε πολλὰ κἀνοχλήσεις μυρίας,
πράξεις τε πολλὰς συλλογάς τε τοῦ βίου.
ἔπειτα μετὰ ταῦτ' εὐθὺς εὑρέθη θανών,        5
ἄλλοις καταλιπῲν εἰς τρυφὴν τὴν οὐσίαν.
ὅθεν πένεσθαι μᾶλλον ἡδέως ἔχω,
ἔχειν τε μέτρια καμέριμνον ζῆν βίον,
καὶ μήτ' ἔχειν πλοῦτόν με μήτε πράγματα·
πᾶς γὰρ πένης ὢν μεγάλα κερδαίνει κακά.        10

The same, tr. John Maxwell Edmonds:

Wealth's always had so much to answer for.
Envy and hate and obloquy galore;
Worry and care in it are ever rife
With frequent levying of the means of life:
And then they look and find the rich man dead,
Leaving his goods to butter others' bread.
It follows that it's better to be poor
With no real cares and only moderate bills;
No man that's poor but spares himself great ills.

The insistence on rhyme spoils both translations.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II, Chapter 23, § 273 (tr. Adrian Del Caro and Christopher Janaway):

There is no greater error than to believe that the last word spoken is always more correct, that everything written later is an improvement of what was written earlier and that every change represents progress.

Kein größerer Irrthum, als zu glauben, daß das zuletzt gesprochene Wort stets das richtigere, jedes später Geschriebene eine Verbesserung des früher Geschriebenen und jede Veränderung ein Fortschritt sei.

Bernard Lewis (1916-2018), Notes on a Century: Reflections of a Middle East Historian (New York: Penguin Books, 2012), page number unknown (chapter 7):

Heinrich von Sybel, the German historian, said a long time ago that students should arrive at the university knowing their centuries. I think that puts it well. If you say fourteenth century or seventeenth century, this should immediately evoke something in the mind of a reasonably cultivated man or woman. When you say seventeenth century, an educated person will think of baroque buildings and Vivaldi or the wars of religion.

Id.:

In this country there is a great dichotomy in that we educate a few very well from the beginning, but we educate a lot of youngsters very poorly. I think we are moving toward a kind of mandarin class which is highly educated, sophisticated, capable of high-level interaction in ways that are unintelligible to others. Then there is a mass of semiliterates whose highest aesthetic appreciation is a good commercial on television. I think that is a very dangerous development.

Philemon, fragment 37 Kassel and Austin (tr. S. Douglas Olson):

One can find anything, unless one tries to avoid hard work, which is the property of those who seek.

πάντ’ ἔστιν ἐξευρεῖν, ἐὰν μὴ τὸν πόνον
φεύγῃ τις ὃς πρόσεστι τοῖς ζητουμένοις.

Related post: Seek and Ye Shall Find.

Corpus Parisinum 138 (tr. Denis Searby):

A quiet life free from public affairs is worth more than brilliant success in them.

Ἀπράγµων ἡσυχία τῆς ἐν πράγµασι περιφανείας τιµιωτέρα.

Philemon, fragment 31 Kassel and Austin (tr. T.F. Higham):

I serve my master: you, and countless others,
Are governed by convention. Some, again,
Obey a tyrant, ruled himself by fear.
Kings have their servants, but submit to gods:
God, to Necessity. Considered well,
All things in their degree give place, the small
By nature's law made subject to the greater.

ἐμοῦ γάρ ἐστι κύριος <μὲν> εἷς ἀνήρ,
τούτου δὲ καὶ σοῦ μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων νόμος,
ἑτέρων τύραννος, τῶν τυραννούντων φόβος·
δοῦλοι βασιλέων εἰσίν, ὁ βασιλεὺς θεῶν,
ὁ θεὸς ἀνάγκης. πάντα δ᾽, ἂν σκοπῇς, ὅλως        5
ἑτέρων πέφυκεν ἥττον᾽· ὧν δὲ μείζονα,
τούτοις ἀνάγκη ταῦτα δουλεύειν ἀεί.

The same, tr. F.A. Paley:

My master calls me his; but him, and all,—
Myself and thousands more,— the laws enthral.
By tyrants some are held; themselves by fear;
Kings rule on earth, but from the heavenly sphere
Gods direct kingly actions day by day;
But gods themselves Necessity obey.
Look round; in everything the law's the same;
The stronger o'er the weaker mastery claim.

Frederick H.M. Blaydes, Adversaria in Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Pars I (Halle: In Orphanotrophei Libraria, 1890), p. 130: Theodor Kock filled the supposed lacuna between lines 3 and 4 as follows:

χοὶ μὲν ξεναγοὶ τῶν σατραπῶν, οἱ δὲ σατράπαι

Bernard Lewis (1916-2018), Notes on a Century: Reflections of a Middle East Historian (New York: Penguin Books, 2012), page number unknown (chapter 1):

The first and most rudimentary test of the historian’s competence is that he should be able to read his sources. This is not always easy, as for example when the language is classical Arabic or the writing is a crabbed Ottoman bureaucratic script.

[....]

I was told that I should study the original documents, which meant British documents, French documents, German documents, Austrian documents and Russian documents. And in my youth and innocence I asked, What about the Turkish documents? I was told that they were not important, and anyway there weren’t any. I found this an unsatisfactory answer. There had to be some Turkish documents. In the books that I read on the Eastern Question, Turkey was a stage and a backdrop and all the actors were Europeans. I felt this needed further investigation. So I learned Turkish, or at least enough to read some documents.

Ecclesiasticus 39:26 (KJV):

The principal things for the whole use of man's life are water, fire, iron, and salt, flour of wheat, honey, milk, and the blood of the grape, and oil, and clothing.

Alexander A. Di Lella ad loc.:

In 39:26 are listed ten indispensable items for human life in ancient Palestine; the list in 29:21 includes only water, bread, clothing, and a house. Several of the items in the longer list are traditional: for grain ("the heart of the wheat," 39:26c; cf. NOTE), wine ("the blood of the grape," 39:26d; cf. Gen 49:11), and oil, cf. Hos 2:10; Jer 31:12; Neh 10:38; 2 Chr 32:28; for "milk and honey," the formulaic pair of words used to describe the Promised Land, cf, for example, Exod 3:8; 13:5; 33:3; Lev 20:24; Num 13:27; 14:8; 16:13-14; Deut 6:3; 11:9; 26:9; Jer 11:5; 32:22; for water and cloth, cf. Hos 2:7. The pairing of iron with salt (39:26b) in this list is noteworthy: manufactured iron goods were apparently considered essential for daily life in Ben Sira's day.