"Yes, but my nose is running." What have you hands for, then, slave? Is it not that you may wipe your nose? "Is it reasonable, then, that there should be running noses in the world? " — And how much better it would be for you to wipe your nose than to find fault!
"Ναί· ἀλλ ̓ αἱ μύξαι μου ῥέουσιν." τίνος οὖν ἕνεκα χεῖρας ἔχεις, ἀνδράποδον; οὐχ ἵνα καὶ ἀπομύσσῃς σεαυτόν; —Τοῦτο οὖν εὔλογον μύξας γίνεσθαι ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ; — Καὶ πόσῳ κρεῖττον ἀπομύξασθαί σε ἢ ἐγκαλεῖν;
"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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Tuesday, August 25, 2026
Nose Wiping
Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus 1.6.30-32 (tr. W.A. Oldfather):