This world's happiness is short, this world's glory is scanty, secular power is fleeting and temporary. Tell me, where are the kings? Where (are) the princes? Where (are) the emperors? Where (are) the rich in possessions? Where (are) the powerful of this world? They passed away as if they were a shadow, they vanished like a dream.
Brevis est hujus mundi felicitas, modica est hujus saeculi gloria, caduca est et fragilis temporalis potentia. Dic ubi sunt reges? ubi principes? ubi imperatores? ubi locupletes rerum? ubi potentes saeculi? ubi divites mundi? quasi umbra transierunt, velut somnium evanuerunt.
"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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Monday, December 14, 2015
A Shadow and a Dream
Isidore of Seville, Synonyma de Lamentatione Animae Peccatricis 2.91 (Patrologia Latina 83.865 C; tr. Claudia Di Sciacca):