Laudator Temporis Acti

Goethe, "Das Göttliche," lines 13-19 (tr. David Luke):

For Nature is unfeeling: the sun shines on the evil and on the good, and the criminal as well as the best of men sees the brightness of the moon and the stars.

Denn unfühlend
Ist die Natur:
Es leuchtet die Sonne
Über Bös' und Gute,
Und dem Verbrecher
Glänzen, wie dem Besten
Der Mond und die Sterne.

Cf. Matthew 5.45:

For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Otto Skutsch (1906-1990), "Recollections of Scholars I Have Known," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 94 (1992) 387-408 (at 406-407, footnote omitted):

In 1937 I was in Paris and decided to call on Jean [sic] Marouzeau, Professor of course at the Sorbonne. He had very little time for me, because, as he told me proudly, he was off to Spitsbergen the next morning. He was not a very impressive-looking man, but he was a remarkable scholar (although I find some of his books a little dull), and above all he was a wonderful organizer. Where would we be without L'année philologique? But he put his organizing ability to even more practical use. He was in fact the head and organizer of the French Resistance in Paris. One day a pamphlet, through an error signed M., fell into the hands of the Germans. Being somewhat suspect already he was arrested. Fortunately a German officer, who was a classical scholar, succeeded in persuading the people in charge that as a classical scholar Marouzeau was obviously harmless and innocent; and so he was released.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), "In Partibus," stanzas 10-11:

But I consort with long-haired things
    In velvet collar-rolls,
Who talk about the Aims of Art,
    And “theories” and “goals,”
And moo and coo with women-folk
    About their blessed souls.

But that they call “psychology”
    Is lack of liver pill,
And all that blights their tender souls
    Is eating till they’re ill,
And their chief way of winning goals
    Consists of sitting still.

Euripides, Hippolytus 3-8 (Aphrodite speaking; tr. David Kovacs):

Of all those who dwell between the Euxine Sea and the Pillars of Atlas and look on the light of the sun, I honor those who reverence my power, but I lay low all those who think proud thoughts against me. For in the gods as well one finds this trait: they enjoy receiving honor from mortals.

ὅσοι τε Πόντου τερμόνων τ᾽ Ἀτλαντικῶν
ναίουσιν εἴσω, φῶς ὁρῶντες ἡλίου,
τοὺς μὲν σέβοντας τἀμὰ πρεσβεύω κράτη,        5
σφάλλω δ᾽ ὅσοι φρονοῦσιν εἰς ἡμᾶς μέγα.
ἔνεστι γὰρ δὴ κἀν θεῶν γένει τόδε·
τιμώμενοι χαίρουσιν ἀνθρώπων ὕπο.

Commentators compare Hippocrates, Airs, Waters, Places 22 (tr. W.H.S. Jones):

if indeed the gods are pleased to receive from men respect and worship, and repay these with favours.

εἰ δὴ τιμώμενοι χαίρουσιν οἱ θεοὶ καί θαυμαζόμενοι ὑπ᾿ ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀντὶ τούτων χάριτας ἀποδιδόασιν.

Seneca, On Anger 3.36.1 (tr. John W. Basore):

Sextius had this habit, and when the day was over and he had retired to his nightly rest, he would put these questions to his soul: "What bad habit have you cured to-day? What fault have you resisted? In what respect are you better?" Anger will cease and become more controllable if it finds that it must appear before a judge every day. Can anything be more excellent than this practice of thoroughly sifting the whole day?

faciebat hoc Sextius, ut consummato die, cum se ad nocturnam quietem recepisset, interrogaret animum suum: "quod hodie malum tuum sanasti? cui vitio obstitisti? qua parte melior es?" desinet ira et moderatior erit, quae sciet sibi cotidie ad iudicem esse veniendum. quicquam ergo pulchrius hac consuetudine excutiendi totum diem?

The Digital Loeb Classical Library has a misprint in this passage. For consummate read consummato:

Labels: typographical and other errors

Otto Skutsch (1906-1990), "Recollections of Scholars I Have Known," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 94 (1992) 387-408 (at 407-408, on Arnaldo Momigliano):

I once heard him conversing in Russian with a visitor and said to him: "I didn't know, Arnaldo, that fluent Russian was one of your numerous accomplishments." "Languages were created for communication," he replied, "I refuse to let them be a barrier."

Caesar, Gallic War 7.1.3 (tr. H.J. Edwards):

As a matter of fact, whenever any event of greater note or importance occurs, the Gauls shout it abroad through fields and districts and then others take it up in turn and pass it on to their next neighbours; as happened on this occasion. For deeds done at Cenabum at sunrise were heard of before the end of the first watch in the borders of the Arverni, a distance of about one hundred and sixty miles.

nam ubicumque maior atque illustrior incidit res, clamore per agros regionesque significant; hunc alii deinceps excipiunt et proximis tradunt, ut tum accidit. nam quae Cenabi oriente sole gesta essent, ante primam confectam vigiliam in finibus Arvernorum audita sunt, quod spatium est milium passuum circiter centum LX.

In John Mortimer, "Rumpole and the Right to Silence," Rumpole à la Carte (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990), pp. 80-120, barrister Horace Rumpole figures out that Martin Wayfield, professor of Classics at Gunster University, has murdered Vice-Chancellor Hayden Charles, because the latter planned to eliminate the Classics program at the University.

If plans are afoot to shut down the Classics Department at your university, I don't recommend that you resort to such a drastic measure, mind you.

Hat tip: Mrs. Laudator.

Otto Skutsch (1906-1990), "Recollections of Scholars I Have Known," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 94 (1992) 387-408 (at 403, on H.J. Rose):

He was a wonderful chessplayer. I thought I was reasonably good myself, but every time we played he had me tied up in knots after half a dozen moves. It was many years later that I got rid of the feeling of inferiority which that gave me. It was when Prof. Penrose,⁶⁷ the father of the British chessmaster, told me that old players would sometimes wonder what had become of young Rose, who had drawn with Capablanca or whoever it was. And when they were told that he had become a Professor of Classics, they would say: "What a pity!"

⁶⁷ Not identified.

Some chess games of H.J. Rose here.

From Kevin Muse:

Your Skutsch anecdote reminded me that the great physicist Roger Penrose is the son of Lionel Penrose the psychiatrist, geneticist, and chess theorist. That must be the one Skutsch talked to about H J Rose. Roger's brother became a chess master.

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), Heretics (London: John Lane / The Bodley Head Ltd, 1928), p. 171:

[A]n enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful.

Homer, Odyssey 1.367 (tr. Emily Wilson):

Telemachus inhaled

Τηλέμαχος πεπνυμένος

On the meaning of the epithet see M.P. Cuypers, in Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos, fasc. 20 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), cols. 1157-1161, s.v. πέπνυμαι, who says (col. 1160) that the epithet is applied 49 times to Telemachus in the Odyssey. See also John Heath, "Telemachus ΠΕΠΝΥΜΕΝΟΣ : Growing into an Epithet," Mnemosyne 54.2 (April, 2001) 129-157.

Richmond Lattimore consistently translates the formula as "thoughtful Telemachus." Elsewhere in the first book of the Odyssey Wilson translates the epithet as applied to Telemachus differently each time it occurs:

• 213 careful
• 230 moodily
• 306 brooding
• 345 sullen
• 388 his mind alert and focused
• 412 soberly