Laudator Temporis Acti

What if the dead whom still you hate
    Were wrong? Are you so surely right?
    We know the issues of the fight —
The sword is but an advocate.

What most we censure, men as wise
   Have reverently practiced; nor
    Will future wisdom fail to war
On principles we dearly prize.

The wretch, whate'er his life and lot,
   Who does not love the harmless dead
   With all his heart and all his head —
May God forgive him, I shall not.

Few men have it in their nature to honour a friend who is enjoying good fortune, without being jealous of him.

παύροις γὰρ ἀνδρῶν ἐστι συγγενὲς τόδε,
φίλον τὸν εὐτυχοῦντ᾿ ἄνευ φθόνων σέβειν.

Where whining mendeth nothing, wherefore whine?

For various streams bearing
pleasures and pains come at various times upon men.

ῥοαὶ δ᾿ ἄλλοτ᾿ ἄλλαι
εὐθυμιᾶν τε μέτα καὶ πόνων ἐς ἄνδρας ἔβαν.

ῥοαὶ codd.: πνοαὶ Robert Parker

But when some deed has been done, right or wrong,
not even Time the father of all things can undo its outcome.

                             τῶν δὲ πεπραγμένων
ἐν δίκᾳ τε καὶ παρὰ δίκαν ἀποίητον οὐδ᾿ ἄν
Χρόνος ὁ πάντων πατὴρ
δύναιτο θέμεν ἔργων τέλος.

15. τῶν δὲ κτλ.: construe τέλος ἔργων τῶν ἐν δίκᾳ τε καὶ παρὰ δίκαν πεπραγμένων. This is periphrastic for τὰ ἐν δίκᾳ κτλ. πεπραγμένα.

16. ἐν δίκᾳ κτλ.: cf. Terence, Adelphi V 9:33 iusta, iniusta, prorsus omnia. — The emphasis is on παρὰ δίκαν as is shown by v. 18 λάθα δὲ πότμῳ, κτλ.

17. χρόνος: time produces all things (ὁ πάντων πατήρ) yet it can destroy nothing. The Greeks often refer to the immutability of the past. Hom. Ι 249 οὐδέ τι μῆχος | ῥεχθέντος κακοῦ ἔστ ̓ ἄκος ἔσσεται. Simonides fr. 69 τὸ γὰρ γεγενημένον οὐκέτ ̓ ἄρεκτον ἔσται. Agatho fr. 5 μόνου γὰρ αὐτοῦ καὶ θεὸς στερίσκεται, | ἀγένητα ποιεῖν ἅσσ ̓ ἂν ᾖ πεπραγμένα. Time is often personified. See on Ol. I 33; Pyth. I 46. So also in Shakespeare Two Gent. of Verona, III 1 Time is the nurse and breeder of all good. Soph. Εl. 179 χρόνος γὰρ εὐμαρὴς θεός.

• πεπραγμένων ... ἔργων (15 words intervening)
• ἀποίητον ... τέλος (9 words intervening)

METROPOLIS, n. A stronghold of provincialism.

As the greatest cities are most provincial, so the self-complacency of aristocracies is most frankly plebeian.

After Aeschylus it was imagined how Apollo himself had purified Orestes at Delphi with a pig sacrifice. Vase paintings give an idea of the procedure, similar to that used for the purification of the Proitides: the piglet is held over the head of the person to be purified and the blood must flow directly onto the head and hands.⁶⁰

60 Esp. the bell-krater Louvre K. 710, Harrison (1) 228, JHS 89 (1969) Pl.2.1. The purification of the Proitides: krater from Canicattini AK 13 (1970) Pl.30.2. That the purification in Delphi does not rest on local cult practice, but only on Aesch. Eum. 282 f. is emphasized by R.R. Dyer, JHS 89 (1969) 38–56.

The eternal gods invented—
great work of immortal minds—
the worst of all afflictions:
old age, in which desire is unfulfilled
and hope extinguished,
the fonts of pleasure withered,
pain ever greater, and with no more joy.

D'intelletti immortali
Degno trovato, estremo        45
Di tutti i mali, ritrovàr gli eterni
La vecchiezza, ove fosse
Incolume il desio, la speme estinta,
Secche le fonti del piacer, le pene
Maggiori sempre, e non più dato il bene.        50

The eternals Gods designed—
Of immortal intellect
A worthy find—the extremest of all woes,
Old age, that still unchecked
Desire might linger on, when hope had died,
The springs of joy be dried, sorrow not less
But more, and still no hint of happiness.

Among recent Italians to stare the worst of afflictions in the face is Norberto Bobbio, here in a speech he gave on receiving an honorary degree in 1994, when he was 83 (Old Age and Other Essays (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001) p. 8, endnotes omitted):

[O]ur literature has a long rhetorical tradition of treatises exalting the virtues and pleasures of old age, stretching from Cicero's De senectute, written in 44 BC when the author was 62, to Elogio della vecchiaia by Paolo Mantegazza, which appeared at the end of the nineteenth century when he was 64. These works are nothing less than a literary genre that provides both an apologia for old age and a belittlement of death. Cicero discusses the subject in accordance with the classical model of contempt for death. Youth itself is no stranger to death. Besides, what is there to worry about when my soul will survive my body? 'Nature has given us this dwelling-place in which to stop for shelter, not to live in forever. Magnificent will be the day when I will depart for that divine meeting-place and assembly of souls, leaving behind this disorderly throng.' The positivist and Darwinian Mantegazza dispensed with troubled thoughts of death more briskly and prosaically: 'There is simply no need to think about it.' Why torment yourself with thoughts of death? Besides, death is nothing more than a return to nature into which all things come together. It goes without saying that I find this eulogistic genre nauseating.

To do this, let us begin by translating it. It is in French, of course, magnificent French. Let us put it into words that are much less beautiful but more immediately accessible to our minds. An excellent practice, by the way; one should never omit availing oneself of it every time it is a matter of interpreting an old document whose message is hard to grasp.

Lit. 'bewailing the beacons concerning you that were ever neglected', i.e. lamenting that the beacons remained so long unlit. αγπτ ηρουχίας: 'holdings of lamps', probably abstract for concrete...

Labels: typographical and other errors

Scipio. Why are you here so early, Tubero? For these holidays would certainly have provided you with an excellent opportunity for pursuing your literary studies.

Tubero. My books are at home to me at any time, for they are never busy, but it is a very great privilege to find you at leisure, especially at this time of political unrest.

quid tu, inquit [sc. Scipio], tam mane, Tubero? dabant enim hae feriae tibi oportunam sane facultatem ad explicandas tuas litteras.

tum ille: mihi vero omne tempus est ad meos libros vacuum; numquam enim sunt illi occupati; te autem permagnum est nancisci otiosum, hoc praesertim motu rei publicae.

What's more, the Rabelaisian device of enumeration, that incredible numerical precision, comes from Maillard. For Maillard knew the number of drops of divine blood that fell on the ground—precisely 47,000. Maillard knew the number of wounds that covered the body of the Man-God—just about 5,475. Maillard knew that the Lord had taken 1,300 steps along the Via Dolorosa and that 190,000 persons went up to Calvary.⁴¹

41. Abbé Alexandre Samouillan, O. Maillard, $a prédication et son temps (Paris, 1891), pp. 156-157.

One sharp-eyed witness outranks ten keen-eared.
Hearers tell of what they hear, observers really know.

pluris est oculatus testis unus quam auriti decem;
qui audiunt audita dicunt, qui vident plane sciunt.        490

• Believe Your Own Eyes
• Unreliability of Eyewitnesses
• Trust Your Senses
• Believing One's Own Eyes

Good husband and huswife now chiefly be glad,
things handsome to have, as they ought to be had.
They both do provide, against Christmas do coom,
to welcome their neighbor, good chere to have soom.
Good bread and good drinke, a good fier in the hall,
brawne, pudding and souse, and good mustard withall.
Biefe, mutton, and porke, shred pies of the best,
pig, veale, goose and capon, and Turkey well drest:
Chese, apples and nuttes, iolly Caroles to here,
as then, in the countrey is counted good chere.

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre.

ἃ γὰρ δεῖ μαθόντας ποιεῖν, ταῦτα ποιοῦντες μανθάνομεν, οἷον οἰκοδομοῦντες οἰκοδόμοι γίνονται καὶ κιθαρίζοντες κιθαρισταί.

Hence it seems impossible that a man can be a builder if he has never built, or a harpist if he has never played a harp; because he who learns to play the harp learns by playing it, and similarly in all other cases.

διὸ καὶ δοκεῖ ἀδύνατον εἶναι οἰκοδόμον εἶναι μὴ οἰκοδομήσαντα μηδέν, ἢ κιθαριστὴν μηθὲν κιθαρίσαντα· ὁ γὰρ μανθάνων κιθαρίζειν κιθαρίζων μανθάνει κιθαρίζειν, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι.

The peculiar form of the Greek sacrificial ritual is of very great antiquity and post-Mycenaean at one and the same time, and not without connection to the East: the communal meat meal of men combined with a burnt offering to the gods, primarily of the inedible parts and the bones. For this reason the fire altar which stands open to the sky⁶² is the most essential part of the sanctuary. This is not an exchange of gifts celebrated by a hierarchical society of gods, king, priests, and commoners: together on the same level, men and women stand here about the altar, experience and bring death, honour the immortals, and in eating affirm life in its conditionality: it is the solidarity of mortals in the face of the immortals. This amounts to a negation of the Mycenaean organization: no king stands higher than all others, no priest can appropriate the sacral portions for himself. From the corporate beginning of the equality of men in contrast to the divine, the path could lead on through aristocracy to democracy and humanity. Nourished by numerous currents of tradition, the Greek experience here found its particular path into the future.

62 Sanctuaries for the sacrifice of oxen in the open air are found as early as Myrtou-Pighades and Ayia Irini on Cyprus (see nn. 7 and 21), and Ayia Triada on Crete (n. 17), then on Samos (n. 56) and on Lindos (E. Dyggve, Lindos III, 1960, 457–66); characteristic of these open-air altars are wheel-made terracotta votive bulls, cf. Nicholls, n. 22.

Our sad decay in church and state
    Surpasses my descriving...

The Church is in ruins, the State is in jars...

But Justice shines out
in smoky hovels,
and honours the righteous man:
gold-spangled abodes
where hands are not clean
she quits with eyes
averted, and goes to pious ones,
not revering with praise
the might of wealth if it is counterfeit.
She directs all things to their end.

Δίκα δὲ λάμπει μὲν ἐν
δυσκάπνοις δώμασιν,
τὸν δ᾿ ἐναίσιμον τίει·        775
τὰ χρυσόπαστα δ᾿ ἔδεθλα σὺν
πίνῳ χερῶν παλιντρόποις
ὄμμασι λιποῦσ᾿ ὄσια †προσέβα
τοῦ† δύναμιν οὐ σέβουσα πλού-        780
του παράσημον αἴνῳ·
πᾶν δ᾿ ἐπὶ τέρμα νωμᾷ.

775 τίει H.L. Ahrens: τίει βίον f
776 ἔδεθλα Auratus: ἐσθλὰ f
779-780 προσέβα τοῦ f: προσέβατο Verrall: προσέμολε Thiersch

Labels: typographical and other errors

There was an Old Person of Sestri,
Who sate himself down in the vestry;
When they said, 'You are wrong!' — he merely said 'Bong!'
That repulsive Old Person of Sestri.

But Facts are chiels that winna ding,
    And downa be disputed.

We must talk about these things on the basis of firm knowledge. Guesswork is one thing, firm knowledge is another.

σάφ᾿ εἰδότας χρὴ τῶνδε μυθεῖσθαι πέρι·
τὸ γὰρ τοπάζειν τοῦ σάφ᾿ εἰδέναι δίχα.

They feel the facts; but they wish to disguise them, because they know that they have been one great cause of the country being in its present impoverished and dilapidated state. They know that the people look at them with an accusing eye: and they wish to put as fair a face as they can upon the state of things.

Nor is this the only reference to Baal and excrement in ancient literature. Marvin Pope¹¹ has called attention to the rabbinic description of ceremonial defecation in the cult of Baal Peor (see b. ᶜAbod. Zar. 44b; b. Sanh. 60b; m. Sanh. 7:6 [cited by Pope], as well as Sipre 131; y. Sanh. 10:2,28d). Pope's caution on whether this detail stems "from direct knowledge of the pagan cult" or "from play on one of the meanings of the word pᶜr" is admirable. Now, however, recognition of the allusion to excrement in 1 Kgs 18:27 may tilt the scales in favor of Pope's former suggestion (notwithstanding the assumption that Baal worship took on different manifestations in different locales, that is to say, that the worship of Baal on Mt. Carmel need not a priori have been the same as the worship of Baal at Baal Peor in Transjordan). We may even reverse the thinking of Pope's latter suggestion and propose that 1he name Baal Peor is to be derived from (pᶜr) "excrete."<sup>12

11</sup> M.H. Pope, "A Divine Banquet at Ugarit," The Use of the Old Testament in the New and Other Essays. Studies in Honor of William Franklin Stinespring (ed. J.M. Efird; Durham, NC: Duke University, 1972) 196-97.

¹² For this meaning see F. Brown, S.R. Driver, and C.A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906) 822.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

The people seem to have been constantly well off. A pig in almost every cottage sty; and that is the infallible mark of a happy people.

Ah, if only some fate could swiftly come—not a painful one, nor one that left us long bedridden—that would bring us eternal, unending sleep...

φεῦ, τίς ἂν ἐν τάχει μὴ περιώδυνος
μηδὲ δεμνιοτήρης
μόλοι τὸν αἰεὶ φέρουσ᾿ ἂν ἡμῖν        1450
μοῖρ᾿ ἀτέλευτον ὕπνον...

Literally τίς is an interrogative adjective, modifying, as you say, μοῖρα, the whole thing being a question with a potential optative—"What fate might/ could come....?" But the upshot is that it is a wishful thought, and so the translators opt to translate τίς as indefinite, though it is accented and not enclitic, and they render the optative as one of wish. I see that Smyth cites this passage as an example of a potential optative used to express a wish at § 1832.

Great risk does not take hold of a cowardly man. But since men must die, why would anyone sit in darkness and coddle a nameless old age to no use, deprived of all noble deeds?

ὁ μέγας δὲ κίν-
δυνος ἄναλκιν οὐ φῶτα λαμβάνει·
θανεῖν δ᾽ οἷσιν ἀνάγκα, τί κέ τις ἀνώνυμον
γῆρας ἐν σκότῳ καθήμενος ἕψοι μάταν,
ἁπάντων καλῶν ἄμμορος;

...for Athene, the dread goddess, did not allow it...

                                          ... οὐ γὰρ Ἀθήνη
εἴα ἐυπλόκαμος, δεινὴ θεός...

.. for fair-tressed Athene, the dread goddess, would not suffer it...

Labels: typographical and other errors

When they first began such philosophy they were called boskoi [grazers] because they had no homes, ate neither bread nor meat and drank no wine, but dwelt constantly in the mountains, continually praising God with prayers and hymns according to the law of the Church. At the usual meal hours they would each take a sickle and wander in the mountains, feeding off wild plants as if they were grazing.

τούτους δὲ καὶ βοσκοὺς ἀπεκάλουν, ἔναγχος τῆς τοιαύτης φιλοσοφίας ἄρξαντας. ὀνομάζουσι δὲ ὧδε αὐτοὺς, καθότι οὔτε οἰκήματα ἔχουσιν, οὔτε ἄρτον οὔτε ὄψον ἐσθίουσιν, οὔτε οἶνον πίνουσιν· ἐν δὲ τοῖς ὄρεσι διατρίβοντες, ἀεὶ τὸν Θεὸν εὐλογοῦσιν ἐν εὐχαῖς καὶ ὕμνοις κατὰ θεσμὸν τῆς ἐκκλησίας. τροφῆς δὲ ἡνίκα γένηται καιρὸς, καθάπερ νεμόμενοι, ἅρπην ἔχων ἕκαστος, ἀνὰ τὸ ὄρος περιϊόντες, τὰς βοτάνας σιτίζονται.

Among the aims which Wilamowitz prescribed for the critic of Greek tragedy were these two: to learn as much Greek as Hermann and Elmsley, and to feel as much pleasure in eradicating a superfluous conjecture as in making a necessary one.¹ How many entrenched conjectures still await expulsion from our texts?<sup>2

1</sup>Einleitung 254.

² Cf. Shackleton Bailey, Philol. 108 (1964) 106.

was die philologie im ganzen in dem halben jahrhundert zugelernt hat. das erste und vornehmste ist also, dass wir wieder so viel griechisch lernen, wie Hermann und Elmsley konnten. aber wenn wir uns das können anzueignen versuchen, dürfen wir uns nicht damit begnügen, es als kunst zu üben, sondern müssen uns dessen was wir wissen und können selbst bewusst werden und es für andere zur darstellung bringen. wir müssen selber verstehen und anderen erklären. das erste erfordert, dass wir vorab das besser wissen wollen ablegen, unser urteil der überlieferung willig ergeben, und, wenn wir anstossen, zunächst nicht ihr sondern uns mistrauen. wir sollen das verständnis herausheben, nicht hineintragen. das gilt von dem einzelnen worte, das gilt in tausendfältiger variation von dem individuellen dichterischen gedanken und seinem ausdrucke im einzelnen verse, im einzelnen chorlied, im ganzen drama.

Labels: typographical and other errors

(a) δορίαλλος or δόριλλος in Ar. (quote) is used of the female genitals, to insult the tragedian Dorillus.⁹⁵

(b) δορύαλλος: the female genitals . . . referring to the tragedian Doryllus:

         the women fence off their pussy shelleys

⁹⁵ Or possibly Dorilaos; punning in any case on περίαλλος (loins).

(a) Etymologicum Genuinum AB

δορίαλλος· λέγεται καὶ δόριλλος. Ἀριστοφάνης· αἱ—φράγνυνται. ἔστι δὲ τὸ γυναικεῖον αἰδοῖον, ἐφ᾿ ὕβρει τραγῳδοποιοῦ Δορίλλου.

(b) Hesychius δ 2230

δορύαλλος· τὸ τῶν γυναικῶν μόριον . . . ἐφ᾿ ὕβρει τοῦ τραγῳδοποιοῦ Δορύλλου·

        αἱ <δὲ> γυναῖκες τὸν δορίαλλον φράγυνυνται

Many twenty-first century librarians are nothing but crypto-misobiblists, never happier than when they're maliciously culling their stock and stamping WITHDRAWN on whatever is of proven quality and worth, which is then quietly consigned to the dumpster or the charity shop. Well-stocked shelves are anathema to this race of poisonous elves.

For in you two the line of your sires is not lost, but you are of the race of men that are sceptered kings, fostered by Zeus; for no commoner could beget such sons as you.

... οὐ γὰρ σφῷν γε γένος ἀπόλωλε τοκήων,
ἀλλ᾿ ἀνδρῶν γένος ἐστὲ διοτρεφέων βασιλήων
σκηπτούχων, ἐπεὶ οὔ κε κακοὶ τοιούσδε τέκοιεν.

62–64 ath. Zenodotus, Aristophanes Byzantius, Aristarchus

As I declared when I first dealt with a god, one must believe in him in order to understand him; Frickenhaus on Greek soil felt much the same way, and with pleasure I quote his words: "One cannot be a historian of religion without reproducing the belief in the old gods in one's heart."

Wie ich, als ich zuerst von einem Gotte handelte, ausgesprochen habe, man müsse an ihn glauben, um ihn zu verstehen, hat ganz ähnlich Frickenhaus auf hellenischem Boden empfunden, und ich setze gern seine Worte her „man kann nicht Religionshistoriker sein, ohne den Glauben an die alten Götter in seinem Herzen nachzuschaffen“.

He whom they call Redeemer has put them in fetters: in fetters of false values and delusive words. Would that someone would yet redeem them from their Redeemer!

Der, welchen sie Erlöser nennen, schlug sie in Banden: — In Banden falscher Werthe und Wahn-Worte! Ach dass Einer sie noch von ihrem Erlöser erlöste!

For Revelations he was dependent on a single copy borrowed from Reuchlin, which lacked the last six verses...

Labels: typographical and other errors

But as for me, the gods themselves undid my bonds
full easily...

αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ δεσμὸν μὲν ἀνέγναμψαν θεοὶ αὐτοὶ
ῥηϊδίως...

We the philologists, dry as dust, who stick to the letter and analyse grammatical subtleties, we also happen to be perverse enough to love the ideals we serve with all our heart.

Wir Philologen, die trocknen Schleicher, die am Buchstaben haften und grammatischen Haarspaltereien nachhängen, haben nun einmal auch die Verkehrtheit, daß wir mit ganzem Herzen die Ideale lieben, denen wir dienen.

People do not want to know too much about us. That is their business, and for many of us the feeling is mutual. But they also do not want to know anything about the ideals we have devoted our life to because we believe in them. That cannot leave us indifferent. Not because of our ideals: they are divine and they have proved that earthly power does not prevail against them, let alone the wild shouting of the modern mob of educators.

Die Leute wollen von uns ja wenig wissen; das ist ihre Sache und beruht für viele auf Gegenseitigkeit. Aber sie wollen auch von den Idealen nichts wissen, denen wir doch deshalb unser Leben gewidmet haben, weil wir an sie glauben. Das kann uns nicht gleichgiltig sein. Keineswegs wegen unserer Ideale; die sind ja göttlich und haben bewiesen, daß irdische Macht ihnen nichts anhaben kann, geschweige das wüste Geschrei des modernen Bildungspöbels.

In Ar. (the head) is called a pot:

so that you don't get your pot cracked with a stick

(ἡ κεφαλὴ) καλεῖται . . . παρὰ δὲ Ἀριστοφάνει σκάφιον·

ἵνα μὴ καταγῇς τὸ σκάφιον πληγεὶς ξύλῳ

How did we come to these corrupted times?
Bitter fate, why give us life,
or else why not an earlier death,
when you see our country
enslaved by profane foreigners...?

Perchè venimmo a sì perversi tempi?
Perchè il nascer ne desti o perchè prima
Non ne desti il morire,
Acerbo fato? onde a stranieri ed empi
Nostra patria vedendo ancella e schiava...?

How came our times to be thus out of joint?
Why were we born or why, ere such a day,
Not deal us merciful death,
O bitter Fate, that dost our land appoint
To be the slave of impious foreigners...?

I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not.

Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go.

Ich beschwöre euch, meine Brüder, bleibt der Erde treu und glaubt denen nicht, welche euch von überirdischen Hoffnungen reden! Giftmischer sind es, ob sie es wissen oder nicht.

Verächter des Lebens sind es, Absterbende und selber Vergiftete, deren die Erde müde ist: so mögen sie dahinfahren!

Coartatio Erroris Principium Sapientiae

The restriction of error is the beginning of wisdom.

Classical education in the English public schools consists of casting sham pearls before real swine.
                                                                                     Author unidentified

The whole crowd shouts out and clatters arms in the way they do for someone whose speech they approve.

conclamat omnis multitudo et suo more armis concrepat, quod facere in eo consuerunt cuius orationem approbant.

                          The patriots haunt
Dark tavern corners talking politics,
Get up their projects, bet and curse and yawn,
And booze it up for the welfare of the country.

                           Die Patrioten liegen
In dunkeln Schenken und politisieren,
Und subskribieren, wetten, fluchen, gähnen,
Und saufen auf das Wohl des Vaterlands.

Soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered...

ἦμος δ᾽ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς...

'Rosy-fingered', as Eustathius explains, probably refers to the spreading crimson rays of the rising sun. The suggestion that being an Oriental lady she would have her finger-nails dyed red is too far-fetched.

• 2.1 The early Dawn was born; her fingers bloomed
• 3.404 When newborn Dawn appeared with rosy fingers
• 3.491 When rosy-fingered Dawn came bright and early
• 4.306 Soon Dawn was born, her fingers bright with roses
• 4.431 When Dawn appeared, her fingers bright with flowers
• 4.576 When early Dawn appeared and touched the sky with / blossom
• 5.228 When vernal Dawn first touched the sky with flowers
• 8.1 Soon Dawn appeared and touched the sky with roses
• 9.152 When early Dawn shone forth with rosy fingers
• 9.170 But when the rosy hands of Dawn appeared
• 9.307 Early the Dawn appeared, pink fingers blooming
• 9.437 When early Dawn revealed her rose-red hands
• 9.560 Then when rose-fingered Dawn came, bright and early
• 10.187 Then the roses of Dawn's fingers / appeared again
• 12.8 When Dawn came, / born early, with her fingertips like petals
• 12.316 When rosy-fingered Dawn / appeared
• 13.18 Then Dawn was born again; her fingers / bloomed
• 15.189 When rosy-fingered Dawn / the early-born appeared
• 17.1 When newborn Dawn appeared with hands of flowers
• 19.428 When early Dawn, / the newborn child with rosy hands appeared

When Dawn appeared, early risen and rosy-fingered

Hesiod, who is also a Bœotian, is admirable for the purity of his life and soundness of his precepts, but there is hardly a trace of poetry in his ploughed field.

I find in all his writings but one verse worth transcribing, and that only for the melody:

In a soft meadow and on vernal flowers.¹

¹ Hes., Theog., 279.

ἐν μαλακῷ λειμῶνι καὶ ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοῖσιν.

The master's mullet will be one sent from Corsica or the Tauromenian cliffs, since our own sea has been totally ransacked to the point of exhaustion, since gluttony rages, the delicatessens raking the nearest waters with nonstop nets—and we don't let the Tyrrhenian fish grow to size.

mullus erit domini quem misit Corsica vel quem
Tauromenitanae rupes, quando omne peractum est
et iam defecit nostrum mare, dum gula saevit,
retibus adsiduis penitus scrutante macello        95
proxima, nec patimur Tyrrhenum crescere piscem.

It is practice and experience that hold supremacy in the crafts, and there is no branch of learning in which one is not taught by his own mistakes.

usus et experientia dominantur in artibus, neque est ulla disciplina, in qua non peccando discatur.

I'm nothing but a skeleton-thing of bones;
My words are nothing but cold puffs of wind
That blow through dried-up ribs with rattling noises.
The wise little man that lives inside my head
Has gone away, and there within my skull
A spider spins its quiet web in peace.

Ich bin nur noch ein knöchrichtes Skelett;
Und was ich sprech', ist nur ein kalter Windstoß,
Der klappernd zieht durch meine trocknen Rippen.
Das kluge Männlein, das im Kopf mir wohnte,
Ist ausgezogen, und in meinem Schädel
Spinnt eine Spinn' ihr friedliches Gewebe.

It is evident by that time the limit for the Ming dynasty had already been reached. It no longer mattered whether the ruler was conscientious or irresponsible, whether his chief counsellor was enterprising or conformist, whether the generals were resourceful or incompetent, whether the civil officials were honest or corrupt, or whether the leading thinkers were radicals or conservatives—in the end they all failed to reach fulfillment.

I don't know what else will convince you, Menelaus, if you won't believe your own eyes.

οὐκ οἶδα, ὦ Μενέλαε, ᾥτινι ἂν ἄλλῳ πιστεύσειας τοῖς σεαυτοῦ ὀφθαλμοῖς ἀπιστῶν.

The things we learn of by sight and hearing, those do I prefer.

ὅσων ὄψις ἀκοὴ μάθησις, ταῦτα ἐγὼ προτιμέω.

Eyes are more exact witnesses than ears.

ὀφθαλμοὶ τῶν ὤτων ἀκριβέστεροι μάρτυρες.

Κτησίας ὁ Κτησιόχου ὁ Κνίδιος, ὃς3 συνέγραψεν περὶ τῆς Ἰνδῶν χώρας καὶ τῶν παρ᾿ αὐτοῖς ἃ μήτε αὐτὸς εἶδεν μήτε ἄλλου ἀληθεύοντος ἤκουσεν.

[…]

γράφω τοίνυν περὶ ὧν μήτε εἶδον μήτε ἔπαθον μήτε παρ᾿ ἄλλων ἐπυθόμην, ἔτι δὲ μήτε ὅλως ὄντων μήτε τὴν ἀρχὴν γενέσθαι δυναμένων. διὸ δεῖ τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας μηδαμῶς πιστεύειν αὐτοῖς.

One of them is Ctesias, son of Ctesiochus, of Cnidos, who wrote a great deal about India and its characteristics that he had never seen himself nor heard from anyone else with a reputation for truthfulness.

[…]

I am writing about things which I have neither seen nor had to do with nor learned from others—which, in fact, do not exist at all and, in the nature of things, cannot exist. Therefore my readers should on no account believe in them.

• Believing One's Own Eyes
• Trust Your Senses

I do not remember what books we read, except that we did Euripides' "Medea," and used Wordsworth's "Greek Grammar," which, by way of rendering obscurius per obscurum, was written in Latin. It remains to me to this day the ideal of all that is hideous and hateful in learning.

Middle and Junior Part were set to learn a most portentous amount of Wordsworth's Greek Grammar, all in Latin! Some 50 pages of this horrible book had to be learnt by heart, all by rote, without any attempt to apply the rules! I still shudder at the sight of page 75: "Multa sunt verba quae Futuro Activo carent,—sic ἄδω cano ἄσομαι" followed by 48 other verbs, which have only a Futurum Medium, none of which we had ever seen, or were likely to see. A more preposterous waste of effort, or one more calculated to disgust us with the Greek language, it is difficult to imagine.

The good old Yorkshire custom of sending a present at pig-killing time to neighbours is in full life in Holderness. Holderness, however, differs somewhat from other parts of the country. In the neighbourhood of the city of York, for instance, it is always "pig-fry" which is sent—that is, a taste of liver, "leets" (or lungs), heart, etc., the whole neatly covered with a bit of the diaphragm. This part of the business also obtains in Holderness, but here there is an additional present sent later on. This second present consists of cooked, or at any rate prepared, articles, and generally includes a mince pie, a link or two of sausage, a bit of black-pudding, a "standin' pie" (pork raised pie), with some times a bit of "chine." The whole stock of articles sent, prepared or unprepared, is spoken of as "pig-cheer." The liberality of the cottager on such occasions is very remarkable.

• Martinmas
• Nulla Dies Sine Suilla
• Ham
• Pork Products
• Culture and Civilization

How wonderful would it be to live together in these
Rough fields, in a homely cottage, hunting the deer with our bows,
Herding a flock of kids with green marsh-mallow switches!

o tantum libeat mecum tibi sordida rura
atque humiles habitare casas, et figere cervos,
haedorumque gregem viridi compellere hibisco!

This fellow's ignorant and barbaric!

ἅνθρωπος ἀμαθὴς οὑτοσὶ καὶ βάρβαρος.

A βάρβαρος is someone who does not know Greek, and thus by definition an idiot.

In most cities the majority is composed of the ignorant, the idle, and the profligate. In most cities, after a time, there are enough of bad citizens to subvert good laws.

I shall humour you and explain what you wish as best I can, not however as if I were the Pythian Apollo making statements to be regarded as certain and unalterable, but following out a train of probabilities as one poor mortal out of many. For further than likelihood as I see it I cannot get. Certainty will be for those who say such things can be known and who claim wisdom for themselves.

geram tibi morem et ea, quae vis, ut potero, explicabo, nec tamen quasi Pythius Apollo, certa ut sint et fixa quae dixero, sed ut homunculus unus e multis, probabilla coniectura sequens. ultra enim quo progrediar quam ut verisimilla videam non habeo. certa dicent ii, qui et percipi ea posse dicunt et se sapientes esse profitentur.

Zephyr returns, and with sweet accents
enchants the air and awakens the waves,
and murmuring his way through green leaves
he invites the meadow flowers to dance to his tune.

With garlanded hair, Phyllis and Cloris
sing joyful love songs so dear to them,
while from high hills and deep valleys
the echoing caves redouble their music.

Dawn rises more lovely in the sky, and the sun
pours down gold yet brighter, embellishing
the sky-blue mantle of Thetis with purer silver.

Alone I wander through lonely and deserted woods,
and, as my fortune demands, now weep, now sing
the brightness of two lovely eyes and my torment.

---

Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti
l'aer fa grato e'il pié discioglie a l'onde
e, mormoranda tra le verdi fronde,
fa danzar al bel suon su'l prato i fiori.

Inghirlandato il crin Fillide e Clori
note temprando lor care e gioconde
e da monti e da valli ime e profonde
raddoppian l'armonia gli antri canori.

Sorge più vaga in ciel l'aurora, e'l sole,
sparge più luci d'or; più puro argento
fregia di Teti il bel ceruleo manto.

Sol io, per selve abbandonate e sole,
l'ardor di due belli occhi e'l mio tormento,
come vuol mia ventura, hor piango hor canto.

Of the other duets from this period, 'Zefiro torna, e di soavi accenti' (in the 1632 Scherzi madrigali) is deservedly famous. The poem is not the usual one by Petrarch, which Monteverdi had set in Book VI. It is a sort of 'parody' in the sixteenth century sense, by Ottavio Rinuccini and, most important, keeps the same contrast between joyful nature and the lover abandoned to his doleful thoughts. Monteverdi sets this as a chaconne, using an ostinato bass pattern very popular about this time:

The form is a difficult one. The shortness of the bass pattern (compared with others such as the romanesca) means short phrase-lengths which can become tiresome,  and the harmonies are not easily varied enough for an extended piece. Monteverdi conquers these problems magnificently. His first paragraph lasts a dozen bars, as each voice replies with a variant of the initial theme; and then the sweetness of the breeze, slightly syncopated, is expressed by a succession of pure consonances. There are gentle roulades for the murmuring waves, pictorial motifs for the valleys and mountains (complete with the echo device), in fact all the imagery of 'Ecco mormorar l'onde' in the form of a duet. Then, as the lover speaks of his plight, a piece of recitative with dissonances is ushered in with a great chromatic change, brought to a peaceful end as the lover sings praise of his lady's eyes in an ornamental, sonorous passage with trills and scales in thirds. The technical mastery of the piece is astonishing. Out of conventional features — the ostinato bass, the by now customary division into speech-rhythm recitative and dance-rhythm aria, echo music and so on — Monteverdi builds up a vivid picture, and one which proves him to be a composer by no means semper dolens.

For pleasant it is at a feast and rich banquet
to tell delightful tales, when men have had enough of feasting...

ἡδὺ [μέν] ἐστ ̓ ἐν δαιτὶ καὶ εἰλαπίνῃ τεθαλυίῃ
τέρπεσθαι μύθοισιν, ἐπὴν δαιτὸς κορέσωνται,,,

For Nature is unfeeling: the sun shines on the evil and on the good, and the criminal as well as the best of men sees the brightness of the moon and the stars.

Denn unfühlend
Ist die Natur:
Es leuchtet die Sonne
Über Bös' und Gute,
Und dem Verbrecher
Glänzen, wie dem Besten
Der Mond und die Sterne.

For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

In 1937 I was in Paris and decided to call on Jean [sic] Marouzeau, Professor of course at the Sorbonne. He had very little time for me, because, as he told me proudly, he was off to Spitsbergen the next morning. He was not a very impressive-looking man, but he was a remarkable scholar (although I find some of his books a little dull), and above all he was a wonderful organizer. Where would we be without L'année philologique? But he put his organizing ability to even more practical use. He was in fact the head and organizer of the French Resistance in Paris. One day a pamphlet, through an error signed M., fell into the hands of the Germans. Being somewhat suspect already he was arrested. Fortunately a German officer, who was a classical scholar, succeeded in persuading the people in charge that as a classical scholar Marouzeau was obviously harmless and innocent; and so he was released.

But I consort with long-haired things
    In velvet collar-rolls,
Who talk about the Aims of Art,
    And “theories” and “goals,”
And moo and coo with women-folk
    About their blessed souls.

But that they call “psychology”
    Is lack of liver pill,
And all that blights their tender souls
    Is eating till they’re ill,
And their chief way of winning goals
    Consists of sitting still.

Of all those who dwell between the Euxine Sea and the Pillars of Atlas and look on the light of the sun, I honor those who reverence my power, but I lay low all those who think proud thoughts against me. For in the gods as well one finds this trait: they enjoy receiving honor from mortals.

ὅσοι τε Πόντου τερμόνων τ᾽ Ἀτλαντικῶν
ναίουσιν εἴσω, φῶς ὁρῶντες ἡλίου,
τοὺς μὲν σέβοντας τἀμὰ πρεσβεύω κράτη,        5
σφάλλω δ᾽ ὅσοι φρονοῦσιν εἰς ἡμᾶς μέγα.
ἔνεστι γὰρ δὴ κἀν θεῶν γένει τόδε·
τιμώμενοι χαίρουσιν ἀνθρώπων ὕπο.

if indeed the gods are pleased to receive from men respect and worship, and repay these with favours.

εἰ δὴ τιμώμενοι χαίρουσιν οἱ θεοὶ καί θαυμαζόμενοι ὑπ᾿ ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀντὶ τούτων χάριτας ἀποδιδόασιν.

Sextius had this habit, and when the day was over and he had retired to his nightly rest, he would put these questions to his soul: "What bad habit have you cured to-day? What fault have you resisted? In what respect are you better?" Anger will cease and become more controllable if it finds that it must appear before a judge every day. Can anything be more excellent than this practice of thoroughly sifting the whole day?

faciebat hoc Sextius, ut consummato die, cum se ad nocturnam quietem recepisset, interrogaret animum suum: "quod hodie malum tuum sanasti? cui vitio obstitisti? qua parte melior es?" desinet ira et moderatior erit, quae sciet sibi cotidie ad iudicem esse veniendum. quicquam ergo pulchrius hac consuetudine excutiendi totum diem?

Labels: typographical and other errors

I once heard him conversing in Russian with a visitor and said to him: "I didn't know, Arnaldo, that fluent Russian was one of your numerous accomplishments." "Languages were created for communication," he replied, "I refuse to let them be a barrier."

As a matter of fact, whenever any event of greater note or importance occurs, the Gauls shout it abroad through fields and districts and then others take it up in turn and pass it on to their next neighbours; as happened on this occasion. For deeds done at Cenabum at sunrise were heard of before the end of the first watch in the borders of the Arverni, a distance of about one hundred and sixty miles.

nam ubicumque maior atque illustrior incidit res, clamore per agros regionesque significant; hunc alii deinceps excipiunt et proximis tradunt, ut tum accidit. nam quae Cenabi oriente sole gesta essent, ante primam confectam vigiliam in finibus Arvernorum audita sunt, quod spatium est milium passuum circiter centum LX.

He was a wonderful chessplayer. I thought I was reasonably good myself, but every time we played he had me tied up in knots after half a dozen moves. It was many years later that I got rid of the feeling of inferiority which that gave me. It was when Prof. Penrose,⁶⁷ the father of the British chessmaster, told me that old players would sometimes wonder what had become of young Rose, who had drawn with Capablanca or whoever it was. And when they were told that he had become a Professor of Classics, they would say: "What a pity!"

⁶⁷ Not identified.

Your Skutsch anecdote reminded me that the great physicist Roger Penrose is the son of Lionel Penrose the psychiatrist, geneticist, and chess theorist. That must be the one Skutsch talked to about H J Rose. Roger's brother became a chess master.

[A]n enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful.

Telemachus inhaled

Τηλέμαχος πεπνυμένος

• 213 careful
• 230 moodily
• 306 brooding
• 345 sullen
• 388 his mind alert and focused
• 412 soberly

What I admired most in Lindsay was his noble and entirely unselfish attitude to scholarship. He was the only man I have known who was genuinely pleased when he was convincingly shown to have been wrong; because that meant an advance in scholarship.

While curling smokes from village-tops are seen,
And the fleet shades glide o'er the dusky green.

Even now the housetops yonder are smoking
and longer shadows fall from the mountain heights.

et iam summa procul villarum culmina fumant
maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae.

I also attended a seminar on Greek epigraphy with Hiller v. Gaertringen, a son-in-law of Wilamowitz. One day he said: "If you can't see anything on the stone, and if you can't feel anything with your fingers, you must use your finest instrument, your tongue." With that he handed us a piece of stone. It went round the table, and we, all the four of us, solemnly licked the stone.

Who then is free? The wise man, who is lord over himself, whom neither poverty nor death nor bonds affright, who bravely defies his passions, and scorns ambition, who in himself is a whole, smoothed and rounded, so that nothing from outside can rest on the polished surface, and against whom Fortune in her onset is ever maimed.

quisnam igitur liber? sapiens, sibi qui imperiosus,
quem neque pauperies neque mors neque vincula terrent,
responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores        85
fortis, et in se ipso totus, teres atque rotundus,
externi ne quid valeat per leve morari,
in quem manca ruit semper Fortuna.

His reading finished, Monsieur Bergeret replaced the pamphlet upon the table.

"These old books," he said, "amuse and divert our minds, they make us forget the present day."

"That is true," replied Monsieur Goubin.

---

M. Bergeret posa le feuillet sur sa table. Il avait terminé sa lecture.

Ces vieux livres, dit-il, amusent et divertissent l'esprit. Ils nous font oublier le temps présent.

En effet , dit M. Goubin.

You will have to be content with death,
so why make your life a misery?

Du sollst mit dem Tode zufrieden sein,
Warum machst du dir das Leben zur Pein?

Cast away complaint and be not troubled, for how brief is the time thou dwellest here compared with all the life that follows this! Ere thou breedest worms and art cast into the tomb torment not thy soul, as if it were damned while thou still livest.

Ῥίπτε γόους, μὴ κάμνε, πόσον χρόνον ἐνθάδε μίμνων,
    ὡς πρὸς ἐκεῖνον ὅλον τὸν μετὰ ταῦτα βίον.
πρὶν τοίνυν σκώληκα βαλεῖν τύμβοις τε ῥιφῆναι,
    μὴ δαμάσῃς ψυχὴν ζῶν ἔτι κρινομένην.

There has lately come to my mind (if so desired the word may be used with quotations) the recipe by which any aspiring young poet may become an ultramodern in his versifying as his ambition may require — may even attain to the "Dial" school. The thing is simple enough; take any thought of no importance, preferably one concerning one's own phases of nauseation, and state it as awkwardly and obscurely as possible. Voila! Cummings and Eliot!

Ah, but in the old days, Charon, you know what men they were that came, all of them brave, and most of them covered with blood and wounded; but now we get a few poisoned by a wife or a son, or with their legs and bellies all puffed out with rich living, a pale miserable lot, all of them, quite unlike the old ones.

πλὴν ἀλλ᾿ οἱ μὲν παλαιοί, ὦ Χάρων, οἶσθα οἷοι παρεγίγνοντο, ἀνδρεῖοι ἅπαντες, αἵματος ἀνάπλεῳ καὶ τραυματίαι οἱ πολλοί· νῦν δὲ ἢ φαρμάκῳ τις ὑπὸ τοῦ παιδὸς ἀποθανὼν ἢ ὑπὸ τῆς γυναικὸς ἢ ὑπὸ τρυφῆς ἐξῳδηκὼς τὴν γαστέρα καὶ τὰ σκέλη, ὠχροὶ ἅπαντες καὶ ἀγεννεῖς, οὐδὲν ὅμοιοι ἐκείνοις.

• Pale Women and Dark Men
• Perusta Solibus
• Pale Skin
• Pallor
• Umbrellas
• White Lead

If I caught him reading a newly published book, save by way of penance, it would go hard with him. Of our modern education he should have enough to read the ancients: Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and that lot—custodians of most of what is worth knowing.

But their lies weren’t without practical advantage to you, Alexander.

Ἀλλὰ τὸ ψεῦδος αὐτῶν οὐκ ἄχρηστόν σοι, ὦ Ἀλέξανδρε, πρὸς τὰ πράγματα ἐγένετο.

Your monster of the deep, my dear Nereids, the one of you sent against Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus, didn’t harm the girl, as you've been thinking it would, but is now dead itself.

Τὸ κῆτος ὑμῶν, ὦ Νηρεΐδες, ὃ ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ Κηφέως θυγατέρα τὴν Ἀνδρομέδαν ἐπέμψατε, οὔτε τὴν παῖδα ἠδίκησεν, ὡς οἴεσθε, καὶ αὐτὸ ἤδη τέθνηκεν.

Labels: typographical and other errors

God's earth, this great shining room,
they darken to a vale of misery,
thereby at once revealing
what miserable wretches they are themselves.

Der Gotteserde lichten Saal
Verdüstern sie zum Jammertal;
Daran entdecken wir geschwind,
Wie jämmerlich sie selber sind.

The soldier never becomes wholly familiar with the conception of his foes as men like himself; he cannot divest himself of the feeling that they are another order of beings, differently conditioned, in an environment not altogether of the earth.

Papist or Protestant, or both between,
Like good Erasmus in an honest mean,
In moderation placing all my glory,
While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.

Indeed, there is no danger, no danger whatsoever, that requires more anxious vigilance than allowing any man to become stronger than the people. Let no man be delivered, and let no man be destroyed, merely because this man or that so desires; let him who is delivered or destroyed by the evidence of facts be entitled to receive from this court the verdict that is his due. That is the democratic principle.

οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν, οὐκ ἔσθ' ὅ τι τῶν πάντων μᾶλλον εὐλαβεῖσθαι δεῖ ἢ τὸ μείζω τινὰ τῶν πολλῶν ἐᾶν γίγνεσθαι. μή μοι σῳζέσθω μηδ ἀπολλύσθω μηδείς, ἐὰν ὁ δεῖνα ἢ ὁ δεῖνα βούληται, ἀλλ' ὃν ἂν τὰ πεπραγμένα σῴζῃ καὶ τοὐναντίον, τούτῳ τῆς προσηκούσης ψήφου παρ' ὑμῶν ὑπαρχέτω τυγχάνειν· τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι δημοτικόν.

By Zeus the Savior...

νὴ τὸν Δία τὸν σωτῆρα...

22,
101, 106, 111, 134, 144, 165, 187,
202,
356, 359,
400, 410, 444,
551, 566,
613, 657,
704, 706, 712, 715,
848, 863, 870, 889, 890,
905, 920, 971,
1008, 1010, 1021, 1028,
1102, 1116,
1202

My future program will be calm disapproval of human institutions in general, including all forms of government, most laws and customs, and all contemporary literature; enthusiastic belief in the Darwinian theory, intolerance of intolerance, and war upon every man with a mission ... human suffering and human injustice in all their forms to be contemplated with a merely curious interest, as one looks into an anthill.³⁸

38. "Working for an Empress," Works, l350-351. Fatout, Devil's Lexicographer, 109.

IPHIGENIA. Can a foreign country become our homeland?
ARKAS. It is your homeland has grown foreign to you.
IPHIGENIA. Therefore my heart bleeds and cannot heal.

IPHIGENIE. Kann uns zum Vaterland die Fremde werden?
ARKAS. Und dir ist fremd das Vaterland geworden.
IPHIGENIE. Das ist’s, warum mein blutend Herz nicht heilt.

But even such prescriptions pale beside many of those receiving sanction from the distinguished chemist Robert Boyle in his Medicinal Experiments of 1692, one of the most popular family handbooks of the period. Among other recipes more palatable, one for sore throat, as common an ailment among children then as now, proposes "a drachm of white dog's turd" worked up with honey of roses into "a linctus, to be very slowly let down the throat." Another—"For Convulsions, especially in Children"—requires ground dried earthworms fortified with "a pretty number of grains of ambergrease" to moderate the stench. A third—"For the Cholic and diverse other Distempers"—features an infusion made of "four or five balls of fresh stone-horse dung" steeped in a pint of white wine, to be drunk "from a quarter to half a pint" at a dose. Easily the Mount Everest and Mona Lisa among these unappealing remedies is the following, used "To clear the Eyes, even of films": Take human fecal matter "of good Colour and consistence," dry it slowly "till it be pulverable," then reduce it "into an impalpable powder, which is to be blown once, twice, or thrice a day ... into the patient's Eyes."

Labels: noctes scatologicae

What applies to Christianity applies to the Stoics as well. To be a Christian or a Stoic is unfitting for a free human being.

Was vom Christentum gilt, gilt von den Stoikern: freien
    Menschen geziemet es nicht, Christ oder Stoiker sein.

From pride, joy, hate, greed, melancholy—
From any kind of vice, or folly,
Bias, propensity or passion
That is in prevalence and fashion,
Save one, the sufferer or lover
May, by the grace of God, recover:
Alone that spiritual tetter,
The zeal to make creation better,
Glows still immedicably warmer.
Who knows of a reformed reformer?

It is well known that Caelius, the orator, was very hot-tempered. A client of rare forbearance was, as the story goes, once dining with Caelius in his chamber, but it was difficult for him, having got into such close quarters, to avoid a quarrel with the companion at his side; so he decided that it was best to agree with whatever Caelius said and to play up to him. Caelius, however, could not endure his compliant attitude, and cried out, "Contradict me, that there may be two of us!"

Caelium oratorem fuisse iracundissimum constat. cum quo, ut aiunt, cenabat in cubiculo lectae patientiae cliens, sed difficile erat illi in copulam coniecto rixam eius cum quo cohaerebat effugere; optimum iudicavit quidquid dixisset sequi et secundas agere. non tulit Caelius adsentientem et exclamavit: "dic aliquid contra, ut duo simus!"

Don't walk the highway.

τάς λεωφόρους μὴ βαδίζειν.

For this city is no longer mine.

πόλις γὰρ οὐκέτ᾽ ἔστιν ἥδε μοι.

The civilian reader must not suppose when he reads accounts of military operations in which relative position of the forces are defined, as in the foregoing passages, that these were matters of general knowledge to those engaged. Such statements are commonly made, even by those high in command, in the light of later disclosures, such as the enemy's official reports. It is seldom, indeed, that a subordinate officer knows anything about the disposition of the enemy's forces—except that it is unamiable—or precisely whom he is fighting. As to the rank and file, they can know nothing more of the matter than the arms they carry. They hardly know what troops are upon their own right or left the length of a regiment away. If it is a cloudy day they are ignorant even of the points of the compass. It may be said, generally, that a soldier's knowledge of what is going on about him is coterminous with his official relation to it and his personal connection with it; what is going on in front of him he does not know at all until he learns it afterward.

Drink, may you live well always.

πίε, ζήσαις καλῶς ἀεί.