For I am come hither a stranger sore-tried
from afar, from a distant country; wherefore I know no one
of the people who possess this city and land.
καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ ξεῖνος ταλαπείριος ἐνθάδ᾽ ἱκάνω
τηλόθεν ἐξ ἀπίης γαίης· τῷ οὔ τινα οἶδα 25
ἀνθρώπων, οἳ τήνδε πόλιν καὶ γαῖαν ἔχουσιν.
"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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Saturday, January 20, 2024
A Stranger in a Strange Land
Homer, Odyssey 7.24-26 (tr. A.T. Murray):