Laudator Temporis Acti

John Buchan (1875-1940), Mr. Standfast, chapter XV (Launcelot Wake speaking):

Every man should be happy in a service, like you, when he obeys orders. I couldn't get on in any service. I lack the bump of veneration. I can't swallow things merely because I'm told to. My sort are always talking about 'service,' but we haven't the temperament to serve. I'd give all I have to be an ordinary cog in the wheel, instead of a confounded outsider who finds fault with the machinery. . . .

The expression comes from phrenology.

Maurice Baring (1874-1945), The Puppet Show of Memory (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1923), p. 199:

He [Reggie Balfour] took me one morning to Low Mass at Notre Dame des Victoires. I had never attended a Low Mass before in my life. It impressed me greatly. I had imagined Catholic services were always long, complicated, and overlaid with ritual. A Low Mass, I found, was short, extremely simple, and somehow or other made me think of the catacombs and the meetings of the Early Christians. One felt one was looking on at something extremely ancient. The behaviour of the congregation, and the expression on their faces impressed me too. To them it was evidently real.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), "The Portraits of John Knox," Essays on Politics and Society (Oakland: University of California Press, 2022), pp. 309-352 (at 344):

The Mass is a daring and unspeakably frightful pretence to worship God by methods not of God’s appointing; open idolatry it is, in Knox’s judgment; a mere invitation and invocation to the wrath of God to fall upon and crush you. To a common, or even to the most gifted and tolerant reader, in these modern careless days, it is almost altogether impossible to sympathize with Knox’s horror, terror and detestation of the poor old Hocuspocus (Hoc est Corpus) of a Mass; but to every candid reader it is evident that Knox was under no mistake about it, on his own ground, and that this is verily his authentic and continual feeling on the matter.

Basil of Caesarea, Letters 97 (tr. Roy J. Deferrari):

For whenever I look upon these very limbs of ours, and see that no one of them is sufficient in itself to produce action, how can I reason that I of myself suffice to cope with the difficulties of life? For one foot could not make a stride safely unless the other supported it, nor could the eye see accurately unless it had the other as its partner and, working in harmony with it, cast its glance upon the objects of sight. The hearing is more exact when it receives sound through both its channels; and the grasp of the hand is stronger through the combined efforts of the fingers. And to sum up, I see that none of those things which are accomplished either by nature or by deliberate choice is completed without the union of the related forces...

ὅταν γὰρ πρὸς αὐτὰ ταῦτα ἀπίδω τὰ μέλη ἡμῶν, ὅτι ἓν οὐδὲν ἑαυτῷ πρὸς ἐνέργειαν αὔταρκες, πῶς ἐμαυτὸν λογίσομαι ἐξαρκεῖν ἑαυτῷ πρὸς τὰ τοῦ βίου πράγματα; οὔτε γὰρ ἂν ποῦς ἀσφαλῶς βαδίσειε, μὴ συνυποστηρίζοντος τοῦ ἑτέρου, οὔτε ὀφθαλμὸς ὑγιῶς ἴδοι, μὴ κοινωνὸν ἔχων τὸν ἕτερον καὶ μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ συμφώνως προσβάλλων τοῖς ὁρατοῖς. ἡ ἀκοὴ ἀκριβεστέρα ἡ δι᾿ ἀμφοῖν τοῖν πόροιν τὴν φωνὴν δεχομένη, καὶ ἀντίληψις κραταιοτέρα τῇ κοινωνίᾳ τῶν δακτύλων. καὶ ἁπαξαπλῶς οὐδὲν οὔτε τῶν ἐκ φύσεως οὔτε τῶν ἐκ προαιρέσεως κατορθουμένων ὁρῶ ἄνευ τῆς τῶν ὁμοφύλων συμπνοίας ἐπιτελούμενον...

Livy 5.54.2-3 (speech of Camillus; tr. B.O. Foster):

[2] Have the soil of our native City and this land which we call our mother so slight a hold on us? Is our love of country confined to buildings and rafters? [3] And in truth I will confess to you — though I like not to recall the wrong you did me — that as often, during my absence, as I thought of my native place, all these objects came into my mind: the hills and the fields and the Tiber and the region familiar to my eyes, and this sky beneath which I had been born and reared. And I wish these things may rather move you now with love, Quirites, to make you abide in your own home, than afterwards, when you have left it, torment you with vain regrets.

[2] adeo nihil tenet solum patriae nec haec terra quam matrem appellamus, sed in superficie tignisque caritas nobis patriae pendet? [3] et quidem — fatebor vobis, etsi minus iniuriae vestrae meminisse iuvat — cum abessem, quotienscumque patria in mentem veniret, haec omnia occurrebant, colles campique et Tiberis et adsueta oculis regio et hoc caelum sub quo natus educatusque essem; quae vos, Quirites, nunc moveant potius caritate sua ut maneatis in sede vestra, quam postea, cum reliqueritis eam, macerent desiderio.

Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.13.12 (1390 a; tr. John Henry Freese):

They live in memory rather than in hope; for the life that remains to them is short, but that which is past is long, and hope belongs to the future, memory to the past. This is the reason of their loquacity; for they are incessantly talking of the past, because they take pleasure in recollection.

καὶ ζῶσι τῇ μνήμῃ μᾶλλον ἢ τῇ ἐλπίδι· τοῦ γὰρ βίου τὸ μὲν λοιπὸν ὀλίγον τὸ δὲ παρεληλυθὸς πολύ, ἔστι δὲ ἡ μὲν ἐλπὶς τοῦ μέλλοντος ἡ δὲ μνήμη τῶν παροιχομένων· ὅπερ αἴτιον καὶ τῆς ἀδολεσχίας αὐτοῖς· διατελοῦσι γὰρ τὰ γενόμενα λέγοντες· ἀναμιμνησκόμενοι γὰρ ἥδονται.

John Buchan (1875-1940), Greenmantle, chapter IV:

I heard a woman speaking pretty clean-cut English, which amid the hoarse Dutch jabber sounded like a lark among crows.

Nicostratus, fragment 28 Kassel and Austin (tr. Anna Lamari):

If talking unceasingly, often, and swiftly
was the mark of intelligence, swallows
would be considered far more sound-minded than us.

εἰ τὸ συνεχῶς καὶ πολλὰ καὶ ταχέως λαλεῖν
ἦν τοῦ φρονεῖν παράσημον, αἱ χελιδόνες
ἐλέγοντ᾽ ἂν ἡμῶν σωφρονέστεραι πολύ.

The same (tr. Thomas Moore):

If in prating from morning till night
    A sign of our wisdom there be,
The swallows are wiser by right,
    For they prattle much faster than we.

The same (tr. John Maxwell Edmonds):

If copious quick incessant talk meant wit,
you'd say the swallows had the best of it.

Plautus, Casina 443-444 (tr. Wolfgang de Melo):

I'll retreat to the wall and imitate a scorpion.
I need to eavesdrop on their talk secretly.

recessim cedam ad parietem, imitabor nepam;
captandust horum clanculum sermo mihi.

Pauli Festus p. 163 Lindsay:

Nepa Afrorum lingua sidus, quod cancer appellatur, vel, ut quidam volunt, scorpios. Plautus (Cas. 443): „Dabo me ad parietem, imitabor nepam.“

See Erasmus, Adagia iv 1 98 (Imitabor nepam).

Sir,

I wondered if you might be interested in a few notes on some recent posts.

In re Maurice Baring’s account of verse composition at Eton (Laudator Temporis Acti: Latin Verse Composition): verse composition now plays no part in the curriculum at Eton (eheu), though while I was there one master ran an ‘Option’ (a sort of extracurricular class) writing Greek iambics, which, through a quirk of the timetable, the most competent Hellenists could never attend. The reference to a tutor’s tearing up a copy of verses is not perhaps a figure of speech — to this day, when a master requires a boy to redo a piece of work, he is said to give him a ‘rip’. In my time this was usually signified by a small tear on the edge of the page, but tradition held that formerly it would be completely destroyed.

In re Ronald Knox (OE)’s reference to boys concealing their Christian names (in Laudator Temporis Acti: Gods and Dogs): this practice continues, though perhaps from different motives. There was a boy in my house who would introduce himself as ‘Jack’; you can imagine our delight when we learned his real name was Atticus.

Yours sincerely,
Timothy Doyle

Livy 5.30.1 (tr. B.O. Foster):

As to the senate, he ceased not to encourage it in opposing the law: they must go down into the Forum, when the day should arrive for voting on it, in no other spirit than that of men who realized that they had to fight for hearth and home, for the temples of their gods, and for the soil of their birth.

senatum vero incitare adversus legem haud desistebat: ne aliter descenderent in forum, cum dies ferendae legis venisset, quam ut qui meminissent sibi pro aris focisque et deum templis ac solo in quo nati essent dimicandum fore.

R.M. Ogilvie ad loc.:

aris focisque: 28.42.11, often appealed to by Cicero in patriotic outbursts of emotion (Phil. 2.72; in Catil. 4.24; cf. Sallust, Catil. 52.3, 59.5; see Otto, Sprichwörter s.v.). Strictly both arae and foci refer to domestic worship (Nisbet on de Domo 1)—'the altars on the hearth of the house'. There is no evidence of separate altars in private houses distinct from the hearths.

With solo in quo nati essent dimicandum compare Jonathan Bate, Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 114 with note on p. 127:

When asked why he had decided to enlist in the Artists' Rifles in 1915, Edward Thomas stopped, picked up a pinch of earth, and said, 'Literally, for this.'<sup>58

58</sup> Eleanor Farjeon, Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years (Oxford, 1958; repr. 1979), p. 154.

Related posts:

• Things Worth Fighting For (Cicero)
• Battle Cry

"Walking is man's best medicine." Hippocrates You can find this repeated all over the Internet. But did Hippocrates say it? No. See Helen King, Hippocrates Now: The 'Father of Medicine' in the Internet Age (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), pp. 105-110. Why do people keep repeating it without citing an exact source? Call me a pedant, but I always want to see chapter and verse, from a primary source, preferably in the original language.

John Buchan (1875-1940), Greenmantle, chapter II (John Scantlebury Blenkiron speaking):

As I follow events, there's a skunk been let loose in the world, and the odour of it is going to make life none too sweet till it is cleared away. It wasn't us that stirred up that skunk, but we've got to take a hand in disinfecting the planet. See?

Plautus, Casina 857-858 (Myrrhina speaking; tr. Wolfgang de Melo):

I've never, on any day, laughed as much,
nor do I think I will laugh more during all the rest of my life.

numquam ecastor ullo die risi adaeque,
neque hoc quod relicuom est plus risuram opinor.

Wolfgang de Melo didn't translate the interjection ecastor (used only by women, see Aulus Gellius 11.6). Paul Nixon rendered it as "oh dear". Literally "by Castor".

Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585), "Le Satyre, à I. Huraut Blesien, Seigneur de la Pitardiere," lines 31-38 (tr. D.B. Wyndham Lewis):

Thus one sees, when the fine months return,
our ladies of Blois or Orleans, or Tours, or Amboise,
walking along the banks where Loire sings
with her breaking wavelets; on the green banks,
pacing two by two, their breasts displayed,
their neckwear loosened, they tread the
enamelled Spring grass as they follow the river.

Ainsy qu'on voit au retour des beaux moys
Se promener ou nos Dames de Blois
Ou d'Orléans, ou de Tours, ou d'Amboise,
Dessus la grève ou Loire se degoise
A flot rompu; elles sur le bord vert
Font deux à deux au tétin decouvert,
Au collet lasche, et joignant la rivière
Foulent l'émail de l'herbe printanière.

Aristophanes, Birds 1012-1014 (tr. Jeffrey Henderson):

It's like Sparta: they're expelling foreigners, and punches have started flying pretty thick and fast all over town.

                   ὥσπερ ἐν Λακεδαίμονι
ξενηλατοῦσι καὶ κεκίνηνταί τινες.
πληγαὶ συχναὶ κατ᾿ ἄστυ.

1013 ξενηλατοῦσι Elmsley: ξενηλατοῦνται codd.: ξενηλατοῦμεν Dindorf
κεκίνηνταί codd.: κἀκκεκίνηνταί Blaydes
1014 πληγαὶ συχναὶ codd.: πληγαῖς συχναῖς Luck

Henderson put a full stop after τινες, which doesn't match his translation. As punctuated, καὶ κεκίνηνταί τινες must mean something like "and some have been thrown into turmoil" (cf. Nan Dunbar's commentary ad loc.). For a defense of the paradosis (without a stop after τινες) see Eduard Fraenkel, "Zum Text der Vögel des Aristophanes," in Hellfried Dahlmann and Reinhold Merkelbach, edd., Studien zur Textgeschichte und Textkritik (Wiesbaden: Springer, 1959), pp. 9-30 (at 24-26).

See Thomas J. Figueira, "Xenelasia and Social Control in Classical Sparta," Classical Quarterly 53.1 (May, 2003) 44-74.

Related post: Expulsion of Foreigners.

Morris Bishop, Ronsard: Prince of Poets (1940; rpt. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1959), pp. 9-11:

One entered the château from the village side, under the view of two towers, part of a medieval defensive system which served Louis de Ronsard as a quarry for his new buildings. The Middle Ages had based their architecture on fear, not on display. Even in the new Renaissance manor, fear showed its blind face. The outer wall of La Possonnière had few apertures or none at all; there was no need to tempt an enemy with a crossbow or a blazing torch. One passed into the interior court through a low, wide gate surmounted by a Gothic arch and by a single story with its rooms.

One stood then in a rectangular space, securely walled on four sides. The forbidding face of the exterior was not needed here. The builder could indulge his fancy, and make a home for happy people in security. On the north side rose the main building, the quarters of the Ronsard family. It was, and is today, a graceful and comely structure, ornamented with the Italian elegance Louis de Ronsard loved. Enormous windows, symbols of Renaissance enlightenment, open to the southern sun. The grace of the façade is marred, but the charm of incongruousness is enhanced, by a pentagonal medieval tower, out-topping the roof-line, and bearing, beneath its crown, a richly ornamented Renaissance window. The old tower peers abroad like an ancient bedizened patrician of Antonio Moro or Titian.

At the base of the tower opens a narrow door giving access to the spiral staircase contained within. Over the door is an elaborately carved Italian lintel, with the inscribed dedication of the house: VOLVPTATI ET GRATIIS, to pleasure and the Graces. A shield, a part of the decoration, bears the arms of the Ronsards, three entwined fish called rosses, the English red-eye or rudd.

The high window in the tower has the inscription: DOMÎ OCUL. LONGE SPEC., for Domini oculus longe speculatur, the master's eye sees far. Between two of the windows of the facade is carved a wild rose bush, licked by flames, to signify ronce ard, the brambles burn, a punning derivation of the master's name. Elsewhere on the facade the eye catches the words: AVANT PARTIR, before we depart; and RESPICE FINEM, look to the end; and VERITAS FILIA TEMPORIS, truth the daughter of time; and DNE CONCERVA ME, God save me. Here was matter for a child to spell and meditate upon.

The east side of the courtyard was formed by one or those natural, nearly perpendicular walls common in the Vendômois, where ancient streams have cut and quarried the soft tufa underlying all the region. In this yielding stone Louis, or some Ronsard before him, dug a series of eight caves. Each is marked by an appropriate motto. The first is surcharged, LA BVANDERIE BELLE, the pretty laundry; the second, LA FOVRIERE, the hay-loft, with two hay-bundles grossly carved; the third, VVLCANO ET DILIGENTIAE, to Vulcan and diligence, with three kettles to make the meaning clear; the fourth, VINA BARBARA, vins ordinaires, or possibly, wines from afar, superior wines; the fifth, a jug and two glasses, and CVI DES VIDETO, look well to whom thou givest, an ungenerous motto for the storage-place of delicacies; the sixth, CVSTODIA DAPVM, the food-cellar; the seventh, mysteriously, SVSTINE ET ABSTINE, bear and forbear, Epictetus's counsel, perhaps addressed ironically to prisoners whom the cavern quartered; and the eighth, TIBI SOLI GLORIA, to Thee alone the glory, the sign of a chapel or oratory.

The south side of the court consisted of farm-buildings, which have now disappeared. In the southwest angle stood a small chapel. The west side was closed by a crenelated wall, with a continuous step along its top, for communication or for defense.

Of the interior of the manor-house, not much has survived an outrageous century, from about 1750 to 1850, when the building served as farmers' quarters. There is the noble fireplace of the great hall, all carved stone up to the lofty ceiling, and the masterpiece of Louis de Ronsard's Italian sculptors. Viol and lute, the attributes of poetry, enclose the main panel, which represents the burning wild rose bushes of the Ronsards. Out of the flame emerges the family shield, and the confident device: NON FALVNT FVTVRA MERENTEM, the future shall not fail the well-deserving. Above, a stone banner sown with fleurs-de-lis, surrounding the shield of France. And over all, the escutcheons of forty families allied to the master's line.

In the room which was apparently Louis de Ronsard's office and study is another carven fireplace, with cupids, stars, suns, heraldic beasts, viols, and lutes, and the device: NYQVIT NYMIS, dog-Latin for the ancient rule, nothing in excess.

Plautus, Casina 727 (Olympio to Lysidamus; tr. Wolfgang de Melo):

Faugh, faugh! It stinks when you speak.

fy fy! foetet tuos mi sermo.

Id. 730-733:

O Zeus!
Can't you leave me,
unless you want me
to vomit today?

ὦ Ζεῦ,
potin a med abeas,
nisi me vis
vomere hodie?