I would be foolish if I took care of my neighbours' business.In Greek, a busybody could be described as πολυπράγμων. A nation, as well as an individual, can be πολυπράγμων. Cf. ἀλλοτριοπράγμων and also ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοπος, which the Bible bids us not to be (1 Peter 4:15). See Jeannine K. Brown, "Just a Busybody? A Look at the Greco-Roman Topos of Meddling for Defining ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοπος in 1 Peter 4:15," Journal of Biblical Literature 125 (2006) 549-568.
ἄφρων ἂν εἴην εἰ τρέφοιν τὰ τῶν πέλας.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Friday, August 15, 2014
Foolish
Euripides, fragment 903 (tr. Christopher Collard and Martin Cropp):