Laudator Temporis Acti

They are the poems of a single moment, intensely realized. But Horace's Odes are more like the lyrics of Gerard Manley Hopkins or Dylan Thomas. The British scholar A.Y. Campbell tells a good story about this. He went through a copy of the Odes which had belonged to Walter Savage Landor, himself a fine lyric poet; and he was astonished to find that Landor had repeatedly struck out the concluding stanzas of Horace's poems, writing in the margin "What trash" or "Stuff" or "Better without." This puzzled Campbell. But in time he realized that it was the natural reaction of a simple and direct poet criticising a complex and indirect poet.

[1] For they said to themselves, reasoning in their faulted way: our life is short and full of trouble; there is no remedy at man's end, and no one has been known to have returned from the grave.

[2] By mere chance did we come to be, and thereafter we shall be as though we had never been, for the breath in our nostrils is but a puff of smoke; our reason is a mere spark within our throbbing heart,

[3] and when that is extinguished, our body will turn to ashes, and our life breath will be scattered like thin air.

[4] Our name will be forgotten with the passage of time, and none will recall our deeds; our life will be gone like the traces of a cloud and dispersed as mist, pursued by the sun's rays and overborne by its heat.

[5] For our time is the passing of a shadow, and there is no reversal of our end; it has been sealed, and none overturns it.

[6] Come then, let us enjoy the good things at hand, and make use of creation with youthful zest.

[7] Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no spring blossom pass us by.

[8] Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.

[9] Let no meadow fail to share in our revelry, let us everywhere leave tokens of our merriment, for this is our portion and our birthright.

My heart is always warmed whenever I hear the pipes sounding a lovely voice. I delight in drinking well and singing to the piper's accompaniment, and I delight in holding in my hands the tuneful lyre.

αἰεί μοι φίλον ἦτορ ἰαίνεται, ὁππότ᾿ ἀκούσω
    αὐλῶν φθεγγομένων ἱμερόεσσαν ὄπα·
χαίρω δ᾿ εὖ πίνων καὶ ὑπ᾿ αὐλητῆρος ἀείδων,
    χαίρω δ᾿ εὔφθογγον χερσὶ λύρην ὀχέων.

531 ἀκούσω codd.: ἀκούω Emperius
533 ἀείδων Pierson: ἀκούων codd.

By some inexplicable charm our native land attracts us all and doesn't allow us to forget her.

nescioqua natale solum dulcedine cunctos
    ducit et inmemores non sinit esse sui.

These laws, not drawn up by man but enacted by Nature herself, always have existed, do exist, and will exist so long as the race of mortals endures.

ταῦτα γὰρ οὕτως οὐχ ὑπ' ἀνθρώπων ταχθέντα ἀλλ' ὑπ' αὐτῆς τῆς φύσεως νομοθετηθέντα καὶ ἦν ἀεὶ καὶ ἔστι, καὶ ἔσται μέχριπερ ἂν καὶ τὸ θνητὸν γένος συνεστήκῃ.

Besides, I do not know how one who lives in a large city, however warm-hearted and imaginative he may be, can receive any tender or generous feeling or any sublime or gracious image from the beauties of nature or literature unless, like yourself, one spends most of his time in solitude. For few things are so contrary to the state of mind that makes us able to enjoy such pleasures as conversations with those people, the clamor of those streets, or the spectacle of the empty magnificence, of the mental frivolity, of the perpetual falsehood, of the miserable occupations, and still more miserable idleness, which reign there. As to men of letters, I venture to say that those living in large cities are less suited to judge books than those living in small cities because in the large ones literature is false, empty, and superficial, just as the other things are mostly false and empty.

Chiunque poi vive in città grande, per molto che egli sia da natura caldo e svegliato di cuore e d'immaginativa, io non so (eccetto se, ad esempio tuo, non trapassa in solitudine il più del tempo) come possa mai ricevere dalle bellezze o della natura o delle lettere, alcun sentimento tenero o generoso, alcun' immagine sublime o leggiadra. Perciocché poche cose sono tanto contrarie a quello stato dell'animo che ci fa capaci di tali diletti, quanto la conversazione di questi uomini, lo strepito di questi luoghi, lo spettacolo della magnificenza vana, della leggerezza delle menti, della falsità perpetua, delle cure misere, e dell'ozio più misero, che vi regnano. Quanto al volgo dei letterati, sto per dire che quello delle città grandi sappia meno far giudizio dei libri, che non sa quello delle città piccole: perchè nelle grandi, come le altre cose sono per lo più false e vane, così la letteratura comunemente è falsa e vana, o superficiale.

Those who write poor verses are a jest; yet
they rejoice in the writing and revere themselves; and,
should you say nothing, they themselves praise whatever they have produced—happy souls!

ridentur mala qui componunt carmina; verum
gaudent scribentes et se venerantur et ultro,
si taceas, laudant quidquid scripsere beati.

Yellow Dawn shone in her rosy car.

Aurora in roseis fulgebat lutea bigis.

lutea] 'saffron-coloured'; Hom. Il. 8.1 Ἠὼς κροκόπεπλος. Bentley, who had apparently never watched the sun rise, thought the epithet inconsistent with roseis, for which he substituted croceis, and Ribbeck variis.

• merdanzio (or -cio)
• merdifer
• merdo, -are
• merdositas
• merdosus
• merdula
• merdum

Labels: noctes scatologicae

And I am already close to the bitter and gloomy time of old age, a true and manifest evil, in fact an accumulation of the most oppressive evils and miseries, an evil which is not accidental but destined by your laws to all kinds of living creatures, foreknown by each of us from childhood, and continuously apparent in us from our twenty-fifth birthday on, with a sad and unfortunate process of unmerited decay.

E già mi veggo vicino il tempo amaro e lugubre della vecchiezza; vero e manifesto male, anzi cumulo di mali e di miserie gravissime; e questo tuttavia non accidentale, ma destinato da te per legge a tutti i generi de' viventi, preveduto da ciascuno di noi fino nella fanciullezza, e preparato in lui di continuo, dal quinto suo lustro in là, con un tristissimo declinare e perdere senza sua colpa.

Did she dry her wet eyes by pressing wool into them?

...umidaque impressa siccabat lumina lana...

Damp wooly handkerchiefs were stuffed into her undryable eyes...

Can you kindly not annoy me?

potin ut molestus ne sies?

The same phrase (with the addition of mihi after ut when the verse is trochaic) occurs in Cist. 465, Men. 627, Merc. 779, Pers. 287, Truc. 897. The command molestus ne sis is even more common in Plautus; cf. Lodge (Lexicon) under molestus.

First of all, now, I see you are in excellent physical health and strength, which is surely man’s chief natural blessing; and, next, that you have the necessities of life in sufficiency so as not to hunger or thirst or suffer cold or endure any other hardship through lack of means—which may appropriately be set down as the second natural blessing for man. For when one’s physical condition is good and one can live without anxiety, all the factors essential to happiness are enjoyed.

ἐγὼ τοίνυν πρῶτον μὲν ἁπάντων ὁρῶ σε ὑγιαίνοντα τῷ σώματι καὶ εὖ μάλα ἐρρωμένον, ὅπερ που πρῶτον κατὰ φύσιν ἀγαθόν ἐστιν ἀνθρώποις, ἔπειτα δὲ τὰ ἐπιτήδεια αὐτάρκη κεκτημένον, ὥστε μήτε πεινῆν μήτε διψῆν ἢ ῥιγοῦν ἢ καὶ ἄλλο τι ἄτοπον ὑπ᾽ ἀπορίας ὑπομένειν, ὃ δὴ καὶ δεύτερον εἰκότως ἄν τις ἀγαθὸν ἀνθρώπῳ φύσει τιθείη. ὅταν γάρ τινι ἥ τε τοῦ σώματος σύστασις εὖ ἔχῃ καὶ διαρκεῖν ἀφροντιστῶν δύνηται, πάντα τὰ πρὸς εὐδαιμονίαν ἐπιβάλλοντα καρποῦται.

A young æsthete had his room wrecked. His furniture and his china, his peacock feathers and his other tomfooleries had been reduced to ruin. It is urged on the other hand that he had so far forgotten himself as to speak disrespectfully of the college boat, and that his punishment was justly deserved. "The controversy," says a writer of the day, "is a very pretty one and up to this moment it is being most acrimoniously carried on, and on the whole the oarsmen, blunt and soldier-like as is their diction, are getting the best of the dispute. The Æsthetes abuse them as Bœotians, and call them brutal, stupid, and ill-educated. To this the Athletes reply, with some promptitude, that there are more boating men to be found in the First class than any furnished by the æsthetic contingent, and one of their number goes so far as to make a very uncomplimentary remark of another kind. The sarcasm is one upon which we need not dwell, but it seems that the Æsthetes have gone rather out of their way to provoke it. Amidst all the coarseness and roughness of Oxford there runs a wholesome and manly dislike of everything that is sickly, mean, and effeminate, and there is also a tendency to associate effeminacy with other failings. The suspicion is on the whole not unfounded, and young men who are fond of feathers, fans, and crockery had perhaps better seek some other place than an Oxford college for the gratification of their peculiar tastes."

[2] He was also devoted by nature to all kinds of learning and was a lover of books. He regarded the Iliad as a handbook on the art of war and took with him on his campaigns a text annotated by Aristotle, which became known as ‘the casket copy’, and which he always kept under his pillow together with his dagger. [3] When his campaigns had taken him far into the interior of Asia and he could find no other books, he ordered his treasurer, Harpalus, to send him some. Harpalus sent him the histories of Philistus, many of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the dithyrambic poems of Telestes and Philoxenus.

[2] ἦν δὲ καὶ φύσει φιλόλογος καὶ φιλαναγνώστης.  καὶ τὴν μὲν Ἰλιάδα τῆς πολεμικῆς ἀρετῆς ἐφόδιον καὶ νομίζων καὶ ὀνομάζων, ἔλαβε μὲν Ἀριστοτέλους διορθώσαντος ἣν ἐκ τοῦ νάρθηκος καλοῦσιν, εἶχε δὲ ἀεὶ μετὰ τοῦ ἐγχειριδίου κειμένην ὑπὸ τὸ προσκεφάλαιον, ὡς Ὀνησίκριτος ἱστόρηκε· [3] τῶν δὲ ἀλλων βιβλίων οὐκ εὐπορῶν ἐν τοῖς ἄνω τόποις Ἅρπαλον ἐκέλευσε πέμψαι. κἀκεῖνος ἔπεμψεν αὐτῷ τάς τε Φιλίστου βίβλους καὶ τῶν Εὐριπίδου καὶ Σοφοκλέους καὶ Αἰσχύλου τραγῳδιῶν συχνάς, καὶ Τελέστου καὶ Φιλοξένου διθυράμβους.

Live a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little.

For the people were well-disposed toward him because of kinship and because of his being hereditary monarch; and they likewise hated the Romans because these were foreigners and because they had been ill-treated by those set over them. Consequently they sided with Mithridates and later conquered Marcus Fabius, who was leader of the Romans there.

οἱ γὰρ ἄνθρωποι ἐκείνου τε εὔνοιαν ἔκ τε τοῦ ὁμοφύλου καὶ ἐκ τῆς πατρίου βασιλείας καὶ τῶν Ῥωμαίων μῖσος διά τε τὸ ὀθνεῖον καὶ διὰ τὸ ὑπὸ τῶν ἐφεστηκότων σφίσι κακουχεῖσθαι ἔχοντες, προσεχώρησάν τε αὐτῷ, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο τὸν ἄρχοντα τῶν ἐκεῖ Ῥωμαίων Μᾶρκον Φάβιον ἐνίκησαν.

Steering his ship, a quick-witted captain is asked, 'What kind of wind do we have today?' 'Beans and onions, I'd say,' comes the response.

Εὐτράπελος κυβερνήτης ἐρωτηθεὶς τί φυσᾷ· εἶπε Φάβα καὶ κρόμμυα.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

Let me tell you that since my early youth and after a little experience, I became aware and convinced of the vanity of life and of the stupidity of men, who fight one another continually for pleasures that don't please and for goods that don't help; they endure and inflict on one another innumerable worries and innumerable troubles, which actually harass and injure; and thus the more they seek happiness, the farther away they get from it.

Tu dei sapere che io fino nella prima gioventù, a poche esperienze, fui persuaso e chiaro della vanità della vita, e della stoltezza degli uomini; i quali combattendo continuamente gli uni cogli altri per l'acquisto di piaceri che non dilettano, e di beni che non giovano; sopportando e cagionandosi scambievolmente infinite sollecitudini, e infiniti mali, che affannano e nocciono in effetto; tanto più si allontanano dalla felicità, quanto più la cercano.

Here where a desolate glance blows on the stones and the deathless agavae
Here where the footsteps of time are heard profoundly
Where the enormous clouds unfold sixwinged and golden
Above the metope of heaven....

Let ... the language of your naughtiness lack all restraint ...

... sint nequitiae libera verba tuae ...

It is this period that is tossed about by the most frequent and severe storms of temptation, this that is battered and overwhelmed most often by the tidal waves of the world and this age. Youth is over-confident about its strength, boastful about its handsome appearance, either aims at making a show with the glitter and gloss of temporal possessions, or is delighted at actually doing so. And thus for bad young people, whatever truth has commanded is poison, whatever the devil has suggested is food. But in fact the bitter taste of justice is the right medicine for the ulcer of youth, while the sweet taste of injustice is the bait in the mousetrap to catch its headstrong rashness.

Haec pluribus atque maioribus tentationum tempestatibus quatitur, haec fluctuum crebriore impetu saeculi exundantis operitur. Praesumit viribus, formae dignitate iactatur, pompa rerum temporalium praefulgere aut exoptat aut gaudet. Itaque iuventuti malorum venenum est quidquid veritas praecepit, esca est quidquid diabolus suggesserit: sed amaritudo iustitiae medicamentum est ulceris aetatis; dulcedo autem iniustitiae muscipula est temeritatis.

Now I am obliged to report the statements made by the Greeks, though I am not obliged to believe them all.

ἐμοὶ μὲν οὖν λέγειν μὲν τὰ ὑπὸ Ἑλλήνων λεγόμενα ἀνάγκη, πείθεσθαι δὲ πᾶσιν οὐκέτι ἀνάγκη.

Son of Laertes and seed of Zeus, resourceful Odysseus,
where are you running, turning your back in battle like a coward?
Do not let them strike the spear in your back as you run for it.

διογενὲς Λαερτιάδη πολυμήχαν᾽ Ὀδυσσεῦ
πῇ φεύγεις μετὰ νῶτα βαλὼν κακὸς ὣς ἐν ὁμίλῳ;
μή τίς τοι φεύγοντι μεταφρένῳ ἐν δόρυ πήξῃ.        95

• Boast of L. Aemilius Paulus
• Wound Placement
• Wounds in Front versus Wounds in Back
• Location of Wounds
• Cowardice and Bravery
• Wounds, Honorable and Dishonorable
• Preserving One's Honor in Retreat
• Wounds In Front and In Back
• Facing Death

[1] Now that the Greeks had decided against following the Persian fleet any further or sailing to the Hellespont to dismantle the causeway, they proceeded to besiege the town of Andros with the intention of taking it. [2] For Themistocles had asked the Aegean islanders to provide financial support, and had started with the Andrians, but they refused. The argument Themistocles put forward to the Andrians was that the Athenians had come with two great gods in their train called Persuasion and Compulsion, and so they had really better give them some money. The Andrians replied to this by saying: ‘Of course Athens is so important and prosperous, seeing that she is so well endowed with useful gods. [3] However, there is no one on earth who is worse off for land than we are on Andros, and we have two cruel gods here, who never leave our island but are our constant and loyal companions. These gods are Poverty and Insufficiency, and since they are the gods we possess, we will not give you any money. However strong the might of Athens, it will never be stronger than Andrian impotence.’

[1] οἱ δὲ Ἓλληνες, ἐπείτε σφι ἀπέδοξε μήτ᾽ ἐπιδιώκειν ἔτι προσωτέρω τῶν βαρβάρων τὰς νέας μήτε πλέειν ἐς τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον λύσοντας τὸν πόρον, τὴν Ἄνδρον περικατέατο ἐξελεῖν ἐθέλοντες. [2] πρῶτοι γὰρ Ἄνδριοι νησιωτέων αἰτηθέντες πρὸς Θεμιστοκλέος χρήματα οὐκ ἔδοσαν, ἀλλὰ προϊσχομένου Θεμιστοκλέος λόγον τόνδε, ὡς ἥκοιεν Ἀθηναῖοι περὶ ἑωυτοὺς ἔχοντες δύο θεοὺς μεγάλους, Πειθώ τε καὶ Ἀναγκαίην, οὕτω τέ σφι κάρτα δοτέα εἶναι χρήματα, ὑπεκρίναντο πρὸς ταῦτα λέγοντες ὡς κατὰ λόγον ἦσαν ἄρα αἱ Ἀθῆναι μεγάλαι τε καὶ εὐδαίμονες, αἳ καὶ θεῶν χρηστῶν ἥκοιεν εὖ, [3] ἐπεὶ Ἀνδρίους γε εἶναι γεωπείνας ἐς τὰ μέγιστα ἀνήκοντας, καὶ θεοὺς δύο ἀχρήστους οὐκ ἐκλείπειν σφέων τὴν νῆσον ἀλλ᾽ αἰεὶ φιλοχωρέειν, Πενίην τε καὶ Ἀμηχανίην, καὶ τούτων τῶν θεῶν ἐπηβόλους ἐόντας Ἀνδρίους οὐ δώσειν χρήματα· οὐδέκοτε γὰρ τῆς ἑωυτῶν ἀδυναμίης τὴν Ἀθηναίων δύναμιν εἶναι κρέσσω.

Gaiety irks the gloomy, gloom the cheerful,
speed the slow, and laziness the busy.

oderunt hilarem tristes tristemque iocosi,
sedatum celeres, agilem navumque remissi.

I firmly believe that even lizards and gnats think that the whole world was especially made for their species. So let everyone stick to his own opinion, for nobody could drive it out of his head.

[I]o tengo per fermo che anche le lucertole e i moscherini si credano che tutto il mondo sia fatto a posta per uso della loro specie. E però ciascuno si rimanga col suo parere, che niuno glielo caverebbe di capo.

For it does no harm if we should understand the same thing in two or three ways.

non enim nocet, si eandem rem duobus et tribus modis intellegamus.

Whatever is assigned to us by the terms of our birth and the blend in our constitutions, will stick with us, no matter how hard or how long the soul may have tried to master itself.

quaecumque adtribuit condicio nascendi et corporis temperatura, cum multum se diuque animus conposuerit, haerebunt.

Well, anyhow I haven't made a graven image.
                                               Country squire, after Mattins

For it is cowardly to lose the greater and to win the less.

ἀνανδρία γάρ, τὸ πλέον ὅστις ἀπολέσας
τοὔλασσον ἔλαβε.

Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.

GNOME. But how did those rascals come to an end?

SPRITE. Some by making war against each other; some by sailing and drowning; some by eating one another; some, and quite a few, by killing themselves; some by rotting in idleness; some by racking their brains over books; some by debauchery and by reveling in a thousand excesses; and, finally, some by finding all kinds of ways to act against their own nature and go to their own destruction.

GNOMO. Ma come sono andati a mancare quei monelli?

FOLLETTO. Parte guerreggiando tra loro, parte navigando, parte mangiandosi l'un l'altro, parte ammazzandosi non pochi di propria mano, parte infracidando nell'ozio, parte stillandosi il cervello sui libri, parte gozzovigliando, e disordinando in mille cose; in fine studiando tutte le vie di far contro la propria natura e di capitar male.

Winston Churchill had always been obstinately unenlightened. He was English and aristocratic, and had the bad taste not to be ashamed of his origins. His theology (though by no means elaborate) was coarse and Christian enough to allow for sin and the devil, and sufficiently Pelagian (in the English manner) to admit the possibility of salvation by works. He had always stubbornly affirmed that some things were worse than war. He thought the Empire a good thing, and said so; as good as—perhaps even better than—other people’s empires, to which, for some reason, Enlightened Opinion had never seen fit to object. He believed in History—even English history. He affronted the highbrows with vulgar outmoded virtues, such as patriotism, courage, honour, loyalty, cheerfulness and high spirits; he defied the plain, practical lowbrows by using the sort of language which a Raleigh would not have thought unbecoming. He not only was, in a symbolic and spiritual manner, a bulldog; by one of those extravagant pieces of luck so frequently showered upon the undeserving English, he looked like a bulldog—the cartoonist’s delight, an endearing mascot. He contrived to present the war, not as a cold, passionless, punitive measure to be meted out sad-eyed, to the refrain of “this hurts me more than it hurts you” (which at the time it only too obviously did), but as an adventure combining the exaltation of martyrdom with the thrill of a gorilla-hunt. He lived in the present, according to the Gospel of St. Matthew, instead of in the next era but two, according to the Gospel of St. Marx. He was unregenerate; he was unenlightened; he was England. And he never scolded. He did not tell us that we were as good as gold; he assumed it.

II. metaph., any round, breast-shaped object: 1. round hill, knoll, Pi.P.4.8, X.An.4.2.6, Call.Del.48.

In fact, though, they were not occupying the peak; there was a hill above them and the narrow road where the guards had been posted ran alongside this hill.

οἱ δ᾽ οὐ κατεῖχον, ἀλλὰ μαστὸς ἦν ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν παρ᾽ ὃν ἦν ἡ στενὴ αὕτη ὁδὸς ἐφ᾽ ᾗ ἐκάθηντο οἱ φύλακες. ἔφοδος μέντοι αὐτόθεν ἐπὶ τοὺς πολεμίους ἦν οἳ ἐπὶ τῇ φανερᾷ ὁδῷ ἐκάθηντο.

• Mountain Mammonomastics
• Grand Teton
• Mammary Toponymy
• Place Names and Body Parts
• Tetas de Pinedo
• Mamucium
• The Breasts of Helen

Reflect, Gentlemen, how many disputes you must have listened to, which were interminable, because neither party understood either his opponent or himself.

No mortal is prosperous or happy to the last, for no one was ever born to a painless life.

θνητῶν δ᾽ ὄλβιος ἐς τέλος οὐδεὶς
οὐδ᾽ εὐδαίμων·
οὔπω γὰρ ἔφυ τις ἄλυπος.

For if each were to take and expend all the good within his power, contributing it to the common good of his country, our states would experience fewer troubles and would prosper for the future.

εἰ γὰρ λαβὼν ἕκαστος ὅ τι δύναιτό τις
χρηστὸν διέλθοι τοῦτο κἀς κοινὸν φέροι
πατρίδι, κακῶν ἂν αἱ πόλεις ἐλασσόνων
πειρώμεναι τὸ λοιπὸν εὐτυχοῖεν ἄν.

1013-1018 del. Scheurleer

But if not even the infancy of mortal humanity is free of temptations, because of this chain of corruption, what am I to say about the other stages of life? Or perhaps old age is the exception, is it, when in flesh already close to turning into a corpse the blood and instruments of unlawful lust have grown cold, and the material for temptation has dwindled away from a body that is tired out and as good as dead? On the contrary, however, such in bad old people is the whirlpool of greed, very often, and the insatiable maw of the belly and the palate, that however serene good old people may be in their wisdom, these others simply drown themselves in drunkenness. It's as though the only reason they grow gnarled and withered and sapless, is in order to be restored to their pristine vigor by being watered with a flood of intoxicants. What about avarice, which is the root of all evils (1 Tm 6:10)? Aren't frigid old people on fire with it, all the more fiercely set on acquiring things, the nearer they are to leaving behind what they are hoarding? A most extraordinary folly, undoubtedly. They are in a hurry, I mean, to burden themselves with more baggage than ever, now that they are already, as near as makes no difference, at journey's end.

Quod si nec infantia mortalis hominis propter corruptionis vinculum a tentationibus vacat, quid de ceteris aetatibus dicam? An forte senilis excepta est, et in carne iam vicina cadaveri sanguis ac membra illicitae concupiscentiae friguerunt, et a fesso ac prope mortuo iam corpore materies tentationis emarcuit? Immo vero tantus est in malis senibus plerumque gurges aviditatis et insatiabilis vorago ventris et gutturis, ut quanta boni senes prudentia serenantur, tanta isti vinolentia sepeliantur: quasi ad hoc in eis arida viscera et succo exhausta curventur, ut ad vigorem pristinum reparandum ebrietatis inundatione riganda sint. Quid avaritia, quae radix est omnium malorum, nonne in frigidis senibus tanto ad acquirendum ferventius inardescit, quanto citius relictura est quod acquirit? mirabili sane dementia. Gravioribus enim sumptibus se onerare festinat, cum iam pervenerit quo tendebat.

Someone with bad breath runs into a man who's deaf. 'Hello,' he calls, and the deaf man yells, 'Yaack!' 'Why, what did I say?,' asks the first man. 'You didn't speak; you farted!,' comes the answer.

Ὀζόστομος κωφῷ ὑπαντήσας ἔλεγε· Χαῖρε, κἀκεῖνος εἶπε· Φῦ. τοῦ δὲ εἰρηκότος· Τί γὰρ εἶπον; ἔφη· ῎Εβδεσας.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

Jocasta
What is it, to be deprived of one's country? Is it a great evil?
Polyneices
The greatest; harder to bear than tell.
Jocasta
What is it like? What annoys the exile?
Polyneices
One thing most of all; he cannot speak his mind.
Jocasta
This is a slave's lot you speak of, not to say what one thinks.
Polyneices
The follies of the rulers must be borne.

Ἰοκάστη
τί τὸ στέρεσθαι πατρίδος; ἦ κακὸν μέγα;
Πολυνείκης
μέγιστον· ἔργῳ δ᾽ ἐστὶ μεῖζον ἢ λόγῳ.
Ἰοκάστη
τίς ὁ τρόπος αὐτοῦ; τί φυγάσιν τὸ δυσχερές;        390
Πολυνείκης
ἓν μὲν μέγιστον, οὐκ ἔχει παρρησίαν.
Ἰοκάστη
δούλου τόδ᾽ εἶπας, μὴ λέγειν ἅ τις φρονεῖ.
Πολυνείκης
τὰς τῶν κρατούντων ἀμαθίας φέρειν χρεών.

But it is impossible in prosperity to escape envy.

ἀμήχανον δ᾿ ἐν εὐπραγίαις φθόνον διαφυγεῖν.

What the gods send we have to bear.

δεῖ φέρειν τὰ τῶν θεῶν.

I mean, what the doctors call health or well-being, brothers and sisters, is not the real, true kind; it is just a sort of alleviation for us, because life in this fragile flesh is a continuous sickness. You imagine, do you, that people are sick when they have a fever, and in good health when they are hungry? "He's well," they say. Do you want to set how bad it is to be hungry? Leave him without medicine for a week, he's dead; but because you set before him the appropriate medicine every day, he stays alive.

The medicine for hunger, of course, is food; the medicine for thirst, drink; the medicine for weariness, sleep. The medicine for sitting down is walking about; the medicine for walking about is sitting down; the medicine for fatigue is slumber; the medicine for slumber is being awake. And notice how feeble the human body is; the very aids I mentioned, if you take them and persist in them, your health suffers. When you were hungry, you looked for the aid of food; here's the aid of food; you eat it, you satisfy your hunger. If you do more than satisfy your hunger, your health suffers. You look for a drink to aid you in your thirst; if you drink too much, you choke, where just now you were being driven by thirst. You've got tired through walking, you want to sit down; sit down perpetually, and see if you don't get tired of that. So whatever remedy you take to eliminate some inconvenience, if you persist in it, your health suffers.

Non enim vera salus est, fratres, quam dicunt medici. Paregorizamur quodammodo: nam aegritudo perpetua est in ista fragilitate carnis. Putatis enim tunc hominem aegrotare quando febrit, et sanum esse quando esurit? Sanus est, dicitur. Vis videre, quantum malum est esurire? Dimitte illum sine medicamento septem diebus, occiditur; sed quia apponis cotidie medicamentum vivit.

Medicamentum autem famis, cibus est; medicamentum sitis, potus est; medicamentum lassitudinis, somnus est; medicamentum sessionis, deambulatio est; medicamentum deambulationis, sessio est; medicamentum fatigationis, dormitio est; medicamentum dormitionis, vigilatio est. Et vide quam imbecille sit corpus humanum: hoc ipsum adiutorium, quod dixi, qui adsumit, si in eo perseveraverit, deficit. Esuriendo cibi quaerebas adiutorium: ecce adiutorium cibi: manducas, reficeris; si plus refeceris, plus deficis. Adiutorium sitis quaerebas potum: multum bibendo offocaris, qui sitiendo urgebaris. Lassasti ambulando, sedere vis: sede perpetuo, vide si non lassabis. Quicquid ergo adsumpserit ut aliud pellat, in eo ipso si perseveraverit, deficit.

For sweet is liberty in all things!

ἡδὺ γὰρ ἐν πᾶσι τὸ ἐλεύθερον.

[3] And the less intelligent were the ones who most often came out on top. They were afraid that because of their own shortcomings and their opponents’ cleverness they might be defeated in any battle of words and be caught unawares by plots devised by their quick-witted opponents. They therefore committed themselves boldly to action. [4] Those, on the other hand, who disdainfully assumed that they would foresee things well in advance and that there was no need to secure by action what would come to them by power of intellect — they were instead taken off-guard and perished.

[3] καὶ οἱ φαυλότεροι γνώμην ὡς τὰ πλείω περιεγίγνοντο· τῷ γὰρ δεδιέναι τό τε αὑτῶν ἐνδεὲς καὶ τὸ τῶν ἐναντίων ξυνετόν, μὴ λόγοις τε ἥσσους ὦσι καὶ ἐκ τοῦ πολυτρόπου αὐτῶν τῆς γνώμης φθάσωσι προεπιβουλευόμενοι, τολμηρῶς πρὸς τὰ ἔργα ἐχώρουν. [4] οἱ δὲ καταφρονοῦντες κἂν προαισθέσθαι καὶ ἔργῳ οὐδὲν σφᾶς δεῖν λαμβάνειν ἃ γνώμῃ ἔξεστιν, ἄφαρκτοι μᾶλλον διεφθείροντο.