"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).
Sir Thomas Overbury (1581-1613), His Wife. With Additions of New Characters: And many other Witty Conceits never before Printed. The Seventeenth Impression (London: Printed for John Playfere, 1664), fols. G6-G7 (?): A Melancholly Man Is a strayer from the drove: one that Nature made a sociable, because she made him man, and a crazed disposition hath altered. Impleasing to all, as all to him;…
Erasmus, Complaint of Peace VI (tr. Betty Radice, with her notes): My hopes have been dashed so often; where then shall poor Peace go now? Well, princes are powerful rather than learned, and moved more by their desires than by true rational judgment. I shall seek refuge in the company of scholars, for good learning makes men, philosophy makes superior men, theology makes holy men. Surely I shall…
My favorite birthday songs are both by Henry Purcell (1659-1695). The first is Sound the Trumpet (performed here by Alison Balsom, Iestyn Davies, and company), and the second is Now the Night is Chased Away (performed here by Lea Desandre, with Thomas Dunford's Jupiter ensemble). Lyrics of Sound the Trumpet : Sound the trumpet, sound the trumpet, sound the trumpet! Sound, sound, sound the trumpet…
D.R. Shackleton Bailey (1917-2005), Propertiana (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1956), p. 16 (on Propertius 1.4.13 ingenuus color ; footnote omitted): Propertius only wants to say that Cynthia had the fair complexion associated with free birth (cf. 2.3.10 lilia non domina sint magis alba mea ). From Cic. Pis. 1 commendatione fumosarum imaginum quorum simile habes nihil praeter colorem it…
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Parerga and Paralipomena , Vol. II, Chapter 19, § 233 (tr. Adrian Del Caro and Christopher Janaway): Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to the dramatic arts, since what matters is to make as much as possible of every event. This is why all who write for newspapers are also alarmists, by virtue of their trade; it is their way of making…
Erasmus, Letters 103 (to Fausto Andrelini, 1499; tr. R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson): For, to touch on only one point among many, there are in England nymphs of divine appearance, both engaging and agreeable, whom you would certainly prefer to your Muses; and there is, besides, one custom which can never be commended too highly. When you arrive anywhere, you are received with kisses on all…
Propertius, Elegies I-IV. Edited, with Introduction and Commentary, by L. Richardson, Jr. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976), p. 156 (on 1.3.41-42): 41 purpureo . . . stamine : Probably she means spinning rather than weaving, since it is late in the evening and artificial light was poor in Rome (for spinning wool already dyed, cf. e.g. 4.3.33-4). The crimson thread reminds us of the…
Babrius 112 (tr. Laura Gibbs): A bull was bitten by a mouse. Smarting from the sting, the bull began to chase the mouse but the mouse was too quick for him and managed to hide in the depths of his mouse hole. The bull came to a halt and dug his horns into the walls until finally he sank down in exhaustion and went to sleep right there in front of the hole. The mouse peeped out from inside his…
Galen, On Avoiding Distress 14 (tr. Sophia Xenophontos): You should thus assume that I too have become the person I am because I am by nature similar to my ancestors, and also that because I received the same education as them, I have the same qualities of soul. I know that my father used to despise human affairs as of small importance, which holds especially for me too now in my old age. νόμιζε…
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Parerga and Paralipomena , Vol. II, Chapter 17, § 191 (tr. Adrian Del Caro and Christopher Janaway): No ancient German literature, Nibelungs and other such poets of the Middle Ages should be taught in gymnasia. These things are highly remarkable, to be sure, and also worth reading, but they do not contribute to the cultivation of taste and they rob time that…
Galen, On Avoiding Distress 1 (tr. Sophia Xenophontos): [You also said] that you learned that when his books were lost in the fire, Philides the grammarian wasted away from depression and grief and died, and that various others were going around in black clothing for a long time, thin and pale, resembling mourners. πεπύσθαι δὲ ὡς καὶ Φιλίδης μὲν ὁ γραμματικὸς ἀπολλυμένων αὐτῷ τῶν βιβλίων κατὰ…
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Parerga and Paralipomena , Vol. II, Chapter 16, § 183 (tr. Adrian Del Caro and Christopher Janaway): All this might stem from the fact that poetry by nature is untranslatable. For in it thoughts and words are so intimately and firmly intertwined, like the uterine and foetal parts of the placenta, that we cannot substitute foreign words without affecting the…
Meleager, in Greek Anthology 12.101 (tr. Margaret Hubbard): I was unwounded by Desires, but Myiscus shot me in the heart with his eyes, and cried, 'I have caught the braggart. That supercilious sneer that imperious philosophy gave, look, I am trampling on it.' Just breathing, I replied, 'Dear lad, why all this surprise? Zeus himself was hauled down from Olympus by Love.' τόν με Πόθοις ἄτρωτον ὑπὸ…
Patrick Kurp, " You Want to Be Immortal? Disappear ," Anecdotal Evidence (August 3, 2-26): What has disappeared? Ambrose Bierce, Weldon Kees, Jimmy Hoffa. Aristotle s second book of Politics , three-decker novels, rhupunts. Typewriters, payphones, civility. Perhaps he meant Poetics instead of Politics . Hat tip: Eric Thomson.
Bookshelves in Casa d'Areny-Plandolit Museum, Andorra: Thanks to Eric Thomson for the photographs.
Cicero, On Old Age 5.15 (tr. William Armistead Falconer): And, indeed, when I reflect on this subject I find four reasons why old age appears to be unhappy: first, that it withdraws us from active pursuits; second, that it makes the body weaker; third, that it deprives us of almost all physical pleasures; and, fourth, that it is not far removed from death. etenim, cum complector animo, quattuor…
Donald Lateiner, review of James H. Dee, Epitheta hominum apud Homerum = The epithetic phrases for the Homeric heroes: a repertory of descriptive expressions for the human characters of the Iliad and the Odyssey (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 2000), in Bryn Mawr Classical Revie w 2001.01.14 : To my mind, it is a miracle that in a world afflicted by Attention Deficit Disorder anyone would labor over,…
John Cowper Powys (1872-1963), Autobiography (London: The Bodley Head, 1934), pp. 85-86: A longing for a lair, for a cave, for a fortress, for any hidden domain, which cannot be disturbed, is still deep in my nature. It is doubtless for this reason that I have always wanted to live in narrow quarters, a little house in the country or in a single room in the city, and I have a positive detestation…
Homer, Odyssey 8.111-119 (tr. Daniel Mendelsohn): Up went Akróneôs Top-Ship, Okýalos Quick-Sea, the Paddler, Sea-Man Nauteús and Aft-Deck, Beach-Man, Eretmeús the Rower, Deep-Sea Ponteús and Fore-Deck, Full-Speed and All-Aboard, And Amphíalos Sea-Girt, the son of Many-Ships, child of Sea-Wright; Up stood Eurýalos Broad-Sea, the equal of Ares, that plague on mortals— The son of Naúbolos the…
Galway Kinnell (1927-2014), The Poems of François Villon. New Edition. Translated with an Introduction and Notes (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1977), pp. 36-37 ( Le Testament , lines 159-160) with note on p 227: Valere pour vray le baudit Qui fut nommé le Grant a Romme. This is vouched for by Valerian Who was called "The Great" in Rome. Valerian : Valerian Maximus. However, the story…
C.S. Lewis, letter to his father (March 31, 1928): In the mean time I spend all my mornings in the Bodleian: and the evenings in trying, for the hundredth time, to get a real working knowledge of the German language, since in my present occupation I find my ignorance of it up against me at every turn. For example, the only history of mediaeval Latin literature is in German. The authoritative…
William Hazlitt (1778-1830), "On the Pleasure of Hating": [T]here is a secret affinity, a hankering after, evil in the human mind, and that it takes a perverse, but a fortunate delight in mischief, since it is a never-failing source of satisfaction. Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit. Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to…
Augustine, Letters 137.1.3 ( Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum , vol. 44, pp. 99-100; to Volusianus; tr. Peter Brown): For such is the depth of the Christian Scriptures that, even if I were attempting to study them and nothing else, from boyhood to decrepit old age, with the utmost leisure, the most unwearied zeal, and with talents greater than I possess, I would still be making…
C.S. Lewis, letter to his father (November 22, 1923): I have got quite recently ONE pupil, tho’ not through Poynton. He is a youth of eighteen who is trying to get a Classical scholarship. I am to coach him in essay writing and English for the essay paper and general papers which these exams always include. I fear we shall win no laurels by him. I questioned him about his classical reading: our…
Frederic Van der Meer (1904-1994), Augustine the Bishop (London: Sheed and Ward, 1961), p. xv: Yet even the genius is somewhat forbidding, for Augustine the genius is hidden away in eleven great folios of strangely scintillating Latin, a fitting subject for the scholar and especially for those industrious human bees, the philologists.