Laudator Temporis Acti

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II, Chapter 21, § 254 (tr. Adrian Del Caro and Christopher Janaway):

When we add to this the neglect of ancient languages as happens ever more frequently today, whereby general education in the humanities is declining and is not helped by learning the languages halfway, then we will see scholars who outside their special discipline are veritable oxen. — In general such an exclusive academic specialist is analogous to a factory worker who, his whole life, makes nothing but a specific screw, hook or handle for a specific tool or machine, in which he of course achieves incredible virtuosity. One can also compare the academic specialist to a man who lives in his own house but never comes out. He knows everything in the house, each little stair, each corner and beam, somewhat as Victor Hugo's Quasimodo knows the cathedral of Notre Dame: but outside it everything is foreign and unknown to him. — A true education for humanity, on the other hand, absolutely requires versatility and an overview, hence for a scholar in a higher sense, certainly some polyhistorical capacity. But anyone who wants to become an actual philosopher must bring together in his mind the most remote ends of human knowledge, for where else could they ever come together? — Clearly intellects of the first order will never be academic specialists

Kommt nun noch, wie heut zu Tage immer häufiger wird, die Vernachlässigung der alten Sprachen, welche halb zu lernen nichts hilft, hinzu, wodurch die allgemeine Humanitätsbildung wegfällt; so werden wir Gelehrte sehn, die außerhalb ihres speciellen Faches wahre Ochsen sind. Ueberhaupt ist so ein exklusiver Fachgelehrter dem Fabrikarbeiter analog, der, sein Leben lang, nichts Anderes macht, als eine bestimmte Schraube, oder Haken, oder Handhabe, zu einem bestimmten Werkzeuge, oder Maschine, worin er dann freilich eine unglaubliche Virtuosität erlangt. Auch kann man den Fachgelehrten mit einem Manne vergleichen, der in seinem eigenen Hause wohnt, jedoch nie herauskommt. In dem Hause kennt er Alles genau, jedes Treppchen, jeden Winkel und jeden Balken; etwan wie Viktor Hugo's Quasimodo die Notredame-Kirche kennt: aber außerhalb desselben ist ihm alles fremd und unbekannt. Wahre Bildung zur Humanität hingegen erfordert durchaus Vielseitigkeit und Ueberblick, also, für einen Gelehrten im höhern Sinne, allerdings etwas Polyhistoria. Wer aber vollends ein Philosoph seyn will, muß in seinem Kopfe die entferntesten Enden des menschlichen Wissens zusammenbringen: denn wo anders könnten sie jemals zusammenkommen? —  Geister ersten Ranges nun gar werden niemals Fachgelehrte seyn.

Robert Burton (1577-1640), Anatomy of Melancholy ("Democritus Junior to the Reader," vol. 1, p. 25 of the Everyman edition):

As a Dutch host, if you come to an inn in Germany and dislike your fare, diet, lodging, etc., replies in a surly tone, Aliud tibi quaeras diversorium, if you like not this, get you to another inn: I resolve, if you like not my writing, go read something else.

John Cassian, Conferences 1.10.4 = Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. XIII, p. 17 (quoting Abba Moses; tr. Colm Luibheid):

As for those works of piety and charity of which you speak, these are necessary in this present life for as long as inequality prevails. Their workings here would not be required were it not for the superabundant numbers of the poor, the needy, and the sick. These are there because of the iniquity of men who have held for their own private use what the common Creator has made available to all.

haec etiam quae dicitis opera pietatis ac misericordiae necessaria sunt in hoc tempore, dum adhuc inaequalis diuersitas dominatur: quorum ne hic quidem expectaretur operatio, nisi inopum, indigentum infirmorumque pars maxima redundaret, quae iniquitate hominum facta est, eorum scilicet, qui ea quae omnibus a communi creatore concessa sunt in suos tantum occupata usus nec tamen utenda tenuerunt.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II, Chapter 21, § 254 (tr. Adrian Del Caro and Christopher Janaway):

How bad things would be for human knowledge if it weren't for writing and printing! Therefore the libraries alone are the certain and enduring memory of the human race, whose individual members all have only a very limited and imperfect memory.

Wie schlecht würde es also um das menschliche Wissen stehn, wenn Schrift und Druck nicht wären. Daher sind die Bibliotheken allein das sichere und bleibende Gedächtniß des menschlichen Geschlechts, dessen einzelne Mitglieder alle nur ein sehr beschränktes und unvollkommenes haben.

Robert Burton (1577-1640), Anatomy of Melancholy ("Democritus Junior to the Reader," vol. 1, pp. 18-19 of the Everyman edition):

I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, etc., daily musters and preparations, and such-like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies, and sea-fights; peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms. A vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances, are daily brought to our ears. New books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, etc. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villanies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of princes, new discoveries, expeditions, now comical, then tragical matters. To-day we hear of new lords and officers created, to-morrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned; one purchaseth, another breaketh: he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt: now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, etc.

From Eric Thomson:

Vercelli Book, Homily XV, f.85r:

And the holy Peter goes with [them] and bears the keys of hell in his hand. Oh, my brothers, what great sorrow and great lamentation and great sighing and weeping can be heard there, and furthermore, gnashing of teeth, and the loudest mournful cry, and the most sorrowful voice, and the most sorrowful lamentation and groaning! And then the devils drive the sinful and miserable souls into the torments of hell, and they themselves go in with them. And then Saint Peter turns away from the door of hell, and he locks the door of hell afterward. The wretched souls will then be in eternal hell and in everlasting torment, and the devils with them. And then Saint Peter turns away from the door of hell. And then he throws the key full of care over his back into hell. This he does because he cannot look upon the great pain, and upon the great lamentation, and the great weeping that the wretched souls suffer with the devils in the torments of hell. Alas, my brothers, how great and how loud will be the clang when that key falls into hell.

⁊ ꞅe halga petrus gæð mid ⁊ bereð hellecægan on handa: eala broðor mine hwæt ðær mæg gehyran micel sorh ⁊ mycel wanung ⁊ mycel ſworetung ⁊ mycel wóp ⁊ to ða gristbitung ⁊ þone hludestan sarigcerm ⁊ þone sarigestan stefn. ⁊ þone sarigestan wanunge. ⁊ granunge. ⁊ þonne drifað ða deofla þa ꞅynfullan ꞅawla ⁊ þa dreorigan in helle witu ⁊ hie sylfe gað mid in on þa helle. ⁊ þōn wendeð sc̄s petrus þanon fram þære helle dura ⁊ he be luceð þa helle duru syðþan. þa earman sawla bioð in ða ecan helle ⁊ in ða écan cwylmnesse. ⁊ ða deofla mid him. ⁊ þonne wendeð him sc̄s petrus þanon fram þære helle dura. ⁊ he ðonne weorpeð ða cearfullan cæge ofer bæc in on þa helle. ðis he deð forðam þe he ne mæg locian on ðæt mycle sár ⁊ onðam myclan wanunge ⁊ on ðam myclan wope. þe þa earman ꞅawla dreogað mid ðam deoflum in helle tintrego. Eala broðor mine, hu mycel ⁊ hu hlud bið se cnyll þonne seo cæge fealleð in ða helle.

Curiously enough, "how great and how loud will be the clang/ hu mycel ⁊ hu hlud bið se cnyll (> Mod. Eng. ‘knell’)" is accompanied in the vellum folio by what reminds me of nothing so much as a perforated eardrum.

Homer, Odyssey, tr. Daniel Mendelsohn (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2025), p. 58 (from "A Note on the Translation"):

On the other hand, there are times when I do relax the diction. I have no qualms about using contractions, for example, to soften a line, or to give a sense of intimacy between characters in dialogue....To Father Zeus, by contrast, I never give contractions.

Mendelsohn's translation of 13.140 (p. 271; Zeus speaking to Poseidon):

Come, come, Shaker of Earth, Mighty One—look what you've said!

What is "you've" if not a contraction of "you have"? By putting this contraction into the mouth of Zeus, Mendelsohn breaks his own rule.

Related posts:

• No Accounting for Taste
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• Stopper
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Cicero, On Old Age 19.67 (tr. William Armistead Falconer):

And yet is there anyone so foolish, even though he is young, as to feel absolutely sure that he will be alive when evening comes?

quamquam quis est tam stultus, quamvis sit adulescens, cui sit exploratum se ad vesperum esse victurum?

J.G.F. Powell ad loc.:

cui sit exploratum ... victurum Cf. Fin. 2.92 an id exploratum cuiquam potest esse, quomodo se hoc habiturum sit corpus, non dico ad annum, sed ad vesperum?, §74 and note; Simonides fr. 6.1 Diehl (16 Page); Eur. Alc. 783-4; Philodemus, De morte 37.23ff. (Gigante, Ricerche filodemee² 181, 193); Pap. Herc. 1251, col. 16.1 (W. Schmid, Studia Herculanensia fasc. 1, Leipzig 1939).

Philodemus, On Death 37.18-27 (tr. W. Benjamin Henry):

Now to be caught unawares when death comes, as something unexpected and incredible is happening, is foolish, but it occurs in the case of most people, as they do not know that every man, even if he should be stronger than the Giants, is transient in relation to life and death, and (that) it is uncertain not only what will happen tomorrow, but also what will happen in the immediate future...

                                          τὸ τοίνυν συν-
α[ρ]πάζεσθα[ι] θανάτου προσπίπτον-
τ[ο]ς, ὡς ἀπροσ[δ]οκήτου τινὸς καὶ παρα-
δόξου συνα[ν]τῶντο[ς], ἠλί[θιο]ν [μέ]ν
ἐ[σ]τ̣ι̣, γίνετα[ι δ]ὲ περὶ τοὺς πλείστ[ου]ς,
ἀγνοοῦντας ὅτι πᾶς ἄνθρωπος, κ[ἂ]ν
ἰσχυρότερος ἧ<ι> τῶν Γιγάντων, ἐφ[ήμ]ε-
ρός [ἐσ]τι πρὸς ζωὴν καὶ [τε]λευτὴν, καὶ
ἄδ[η]λόν ἐ[σ]τ̣ι̣ν οὐ τὸ αὔ[ρι]ον μόν[ο]ν,
ἀλλὰ καὶ [τ]ὸ [αὐ]τίκα δή...

Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus 1.9.20-21 (tr. W.A. Oldfather):

Why shall one man envy another? Why shall he admire those who have great possessions, or those who are stationed in places of power, especially if they be both strong and prone to anger? For what will they do to us? As for what they have power to do, we shall pay no heed thereto; as for the things we care about, over them they have no power. Who, then, will ever again be ruler over the man who is thus disposed?

διὰ τί ἄλλος ἄλλῳ φθονήσει; διὰ τί πολλὰ κεκτημένους θαυμάσει ἢ τοὺς ἐν δυνάμει τεταγμένους, μάλιστ᾿ ἂν καὶ ἰσχυροὶ ὦσιν καὶ ὀργίλοι; τί γὰρ ἡμῖν ποιήσουσιν; ἃ δύνανται ποιῆσαι, τούτων οὐκ ἐπιστρεψόμεθα· ὧν ἡμῖν μέλει, ταῦτα οὐ δύνανται. τίς οὖν ἔτι ἄρξει τοῦ οὕτως διακειμένου;