Laudator Temporis Acti

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

Ἀπράγµων ἡσυχία τῆς ἐν πράγµασι περιφανείας τιµιωτέρα.

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.

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.

χοὶ μὲν ξεναγοὶ τῶν σατραπῶν, οἱ δὲ σατράπαι

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.

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.

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.

There is one other thing that I recall about Yiddish. Many languages have some sort of suffix, added at the end of a word, for a variety of purposes—smallness, affection, intimacy, etc. In English we use only two: -let and -kin (e.g., booklet, lambkin) and both sparingly. German makes much more extensive use of -lein and -chen (e.g., fraülein, mädchen). Italian has a wide range, notably -ino, -etto, -ello and, to magnify rather than reduce, -one. A similar effect is achieved in Arabic not by adding a suffix, but by a change of vowels—from Hassan to Husayn, from ‘Abd to ‘Ubayd, as in the names ‘Abdallah and ‘Ubaydallah. Yiddish has a wide range of such suffixes, but one in particular, -inyu, caught my attention. It is attached to three words and to no others. The three words are father (tatinyu), mother (maminyu) and God (Gottinyu). Clearly, these are not diminutives—the message is not diminution but intimacy. I thought this remarkable. The same theological attitude of intimacy is expressed in a familiar Jewish joke about the hard-up businessman who prays, “Oh God, you help complete strangers! Why can’t you help me?”

Then was I sore afraid, and fell into such a pickle that I savoured ill in the nostrils of those who stood by.

Tunc fui ita perterritus quod perminxi et permerdavi me, quod omnes nasum praetenebant.

Then I was so very afraid that I thoroughly pissed and shat myself, so that all were holding their noses.

• The Smell of Fear
• An Effect of Fear
• Thin Soup
• An Effect of Fear in Cellini's Autobiography

Labels: noctes scatologicae

The people's lack of judgment has often put the worst man in office.

πολλάκις γὰρ ἀκρισία δήµου τὸν χείριστον εἰς ἀρχὴν προεστήσατο.

This is wine—if the merest driblet falls in the Nile,
its scent makes the sober crocodile drunk without end.
If the deer on the plain drinks but a single drop,
he becomes a roaring lion, fearing no tiger.

• Some Effects of Wine
• Praise of Dionysus
• Wine
• The Power of Wine
• Effects of Wine
• Effects of Drinking Wine

You save yourself, and I'll save myself.

σῶζε σαυτόν, ἐγὼ δ' ἐμέ.

As vultures are attracted to foul-smelling things, flying over many meadows and many fair and sweet-smelling places, and as flies, passing over what is healthy, are drawn to a sore, so too malicious characters do not even glance at splendid achievements or great accomplishments in life but dedicate themselves to the rot and the decay.

Ὥσπερ δὲ οἱ γῦπες πρὸς τὰ δυσώδη φέρονται, πολλοὺς µὲν λειµῶνας, πολλοὺς δὲ ἡδεῖς καὶ εὐώδεις τόπους ὑπεριπτάµενoι, καὶ αἱ µυῖαι τὸ µὲν ὑγιαῖνον παρατρέχουσιν, πρὸς δὲ τὸ ἕλκος ἐπείγονται, οὕτως οἱ βάσκανοι τὰς µὲν τοῦ βίου λαµπρότητας καὶ τὰ µεγέθη τῶν κατορθουµένων οὐδὲ προσβλέπουσι, τοῖς δὲ σαθροῖς ἐπιτίθενται.

Get lost! You can do nothing—you can only talk.

φθείρου· τὸ γὰρ δρᾶν οὐκ ἔχων λόγους ἔχεις.

Tastier than old wine,
sweeter than the passing of winecups
is the play of swords and lances,
the clash of armies at my command.
To face death in battle is my life,
for life is what fulfils the soul.