Laudator Temporis Acti

And nothing else than this? Was it for this
That on an April day we stacked our arms
Obedient to a soldier's trust? To lie
Ground by heels of little men,
Forever maimed, defeated, lost, impugned?

If I had Your Plantation and your Labourers I should be tempted to follow your Example and get out of the Fumum et Opes Strepitumque Romae ["the smoke, the wealth, the din of Rome"] which I abominate.

If it lay in my Power, I would take a Vow, to retire to my little Turnip yard, and never again quit it.

I have lived long enough, and seen enough of the world, to check expectations, and to bring my mind to my circumstances, and retiring to our own little farm feeding my poultry and improveing my garden has more charms for my fancy, than residing at the court of Saint James's where I seldom meet with characters so innofensive as my Hens and chickings, or minds so well improved as my garden.

Sweet sleep fell upon his eyelids,
an unawakening sleep, most sweet, and most like to death.

καὶ τῷ νήδυμος ὕπνος ἐπὶ βλεφάροισιν ἔπιπτε,
νήγρετος, ἥδιστος, θανάτῳ ἄγχιστα ἐοικώς.

Should a man suffer what he did, right justice would be done.

εἴ κε πάθοι τά τ᾽ ἔρεξε, δίκη κ᾽ ἰθεῖα γένοιτο.

One could not but be awed and obedient when Dr. Sanborn strode vigorously to his desk, cloaked in all the Olympian majesty of Leipzig and Heidelberg, and, without a book or note before him, delivered a perfectly ordered lecture, freely sprinkled with quotations from the original Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, German, French, or Italian, which of course he would not insult us by translating.

Let any townsman who would put the public good
in fair weather seek out proud Peace's
shining light,
having plucked from his mind wrathful discord,
giver of poverty, hateful nurse of children.

τὸ κοινόν τις ἀστῶν ἐν εὐδίᾳ
τιθεὶς ἐρευνασάτω μεγαλάνορος Ἡσυχίας
τὸ φαιδρὸν φάος,
στάσιν ἀπὸ πραπίδος ἐπίκοντον ἀνελών,
πενίας δότειραν, ἐχθρὰν κουροτρόφον.

A riddle it is, whatever
Springs from the pure source. Even song
May hardly reveal it. For
As you began so you remain
And though compulsions leave their mark,
And upbringing, birth performs
The most, and the ray of light encountering
The newborn being.

Ein Rätsel ist Reinentsprungenes. Auch
Der Gesang kaum darf es enthüllen. Denn
Wie du anfingst, wirst du bleiben,
So viel auch wirket die Not,
Und die Zucht, das meiste nämlich        50
Vermag die Geburt,
Und der Lichtstrahl, der
Dem Neugebornen begegnet.

In at least one original poem (Der Rhein, 46 ff.) he uses not only the Pindaric tone but also one of the Pindaric beliefs.

Aeschines rose and spoke in support of him, using language for which he deserves, God knows, to die many deaths, saying that you must not remember your forefathers...

ἀναστὰς ἐδημηγόρει καὶ συνηγόρει ἐκείνῳ πολλῶν ἀξίους, ὦ Ζεῦ καὶ πάντες θεοί, θανάτων λόγους, ὡς οὔτε τῶν προγόνων ὑμᾶς μεμνῆσθαι δέοι...

Surely we are justified in saying of our time: If you seek the monument to our folly, look about you. We may well ask, in the words of Matthew, whether we are not faced with "great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world." We have for many years moved with a brash confidence that man had achieved a position of independence which rendered the ancient restraints needless. Now, in the first half of the twentieth century, at the height of modern progress, we behold unprecedented outbreaks of hatred and violence; we have seen whole nations desolated by war and turned into penal camps by their conquerors; we find half of mankind looking upon the other half as criminal. Everywhere occur symptoms of mass psychosis. Most portentous of all, there appear diverging bases of value, so that our single planetary globe is mocked by worlds of different understanding.

These old tales are like prayers. I only know
This is the secret refuge of our race
Told only from a father to his son,
A trust laid on your lips, as though a vow
To generations past and yet to come.

Begin, then, little boy, to know your mother
with a smile. Ten long months have left your mother tired.
Begin, little boy: he who has not smiled at his mother
is not worthy of a god's table or a goddess's bed.

Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem
(matri longa decem tulerunt fastidia menses)
incipe, parve puer: qui non risere parenti,
nec deus hunc mensa, dea nec dignata cubili est.

62 qui Quint. 9.3.8: cui PRω, Serv., Quintiliani codd. (corr. Politianus)
parenti Schrader: parentes codd.

62. qui non risere parenti: the MSS and Servius have 'cui non risere parentes', which gives the wrong sense; so far from being wonderful, it is natural for parents to smile at a new-born child. Quintilian 9.3.8 evidently read 'qui non risere parentes', but this again gives the wrong sense; rideo with the accusative can only mean 'laugh at' or 'mock', as in Hor. Epist. 1.14.39 'rident uicini glaebas et saxa mouentem'. J. Schrader saw that parenti was wanted; cf. Catull. 61.209-12 'Torquatus uolo paruulus / . . . / . . . / dulce rideat ad patrem' (ad patrem being equivalent to patri). The marvellous child is urged to greet his mother with a smile ('risu cognoscere matrem' )—a recognition of which a new-born child is incapable, except in the fond imagination of his mother—for no god invites to table those who have not smiled at their mother, no goddess to bed. The transition from a generalizing plural to the singular is Greek; P. Maas, Textkritik⁴ (Leipzig, 1960), 23, compares Eur. Herc. 195-7; for other examples see Fraenkel on Aesch. Ag. 1522 ff. (p. 717 n. 3). Schrader also conjectures hos for hunc, but the singular, as Maas remarks, will be intelligible to anyone who thinks of the goddess's bed. See Norden, Die Geburt des Kindes, 62 n. 2.

parenti: for the feminine see TLL s.v. 354.31 , Hofmann-Szantyr 7.

That new-born babies do not smile but have a fierce look for about three weeks, sleeping most of the time. But all the same at times in their sleep they often laugh and relax.

Ὅτι τὰ νεογενῆ παιδία ἀμειδῆ ἐστι καὶ ἄγριον βλέπει μέχρι τριῶν σχεδὸν ἑβδομάδων, ὑπνώττοντα τὸν πλείω χρόνον· ἀλλ᾿ ὅμως ποτὲ καθ᾿ ὕπνους καὶ πολλάκις γελᾷ καὶ διαχεῖται.

Whether many babies laugh in their sleep, though they do not yet do so when awake...

Εἰ πολλὰ παιδία ὑπνώττοντα γελᾷ, ὕπαρ δ᾿ οὔπω...

Later, I began to smile: first, while sleeping; then, while waking. This was told me about myself and I believed it, since we so observe other babies; of course, I do not remember those things about myself.

post et ridere coepi, dormiens primo, deinde vigilans. hoc enim de me mihi indicatum est et credidi, quoniam sic videmus alios infantes: nam ista mea non memini.

Modern medicine ascribes the apparent smile of a sleeping newborn to flatulence...

And may the gods grant you prosperity
of every sort, and may no evil come upon your people.

                               θεοὶ δ᾽ ἀρετὴν ὀπάσειαν
παντοίην, καὶ μή τι κακὸν μεταδήμιον εἴη.

The Smoke and Damp of this City is ominous to me. London boasts of its Trottoir, but there is a space between it and the Houses through which all the Air from Kitchens, Cellars, Stables and Servants Appartements ascends into the Street and pours directly on the Passenger on Foot. Such Whiffs and puffs assault you every few Steps as are enough to breed the Plague if they do not Suffocate you on the Spot.

This proves it: get comrades, not just blood kin!
An outsider whose character fuses with yours
is a better friend to have than countless blood relations!

τοῦτ᾽ ἐκεῖνο, κτᾶσθ᾽ ἑταίρους, μὴ τὸ συγγενὲς μόνον·
ὡς ἀνὴρ ὅστις τρόποισι συντακῇ, θυραῖος ὢν,        805
μυρίων κρείσσων ὁμαίμων ἀνδρὶ κεκτῆσθαι φίλος.

There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

Do not make a friend equal to a brother.

μὴ δὲ κασιγνήτῳ ἶσον ποιεῖσθαι ἑταῖρον.

Whilst I am writing the papers of this day are handed me. From the publick Advertiser I extract the following. "Yesterday morning a messenger was sent from Mr. Pitt to Mr. Adams the American plenipotentiary with notice to suspend for the present their intended interview" (absolutely false). From the same paper:

"An Ambassador from America! Good heavens what a sound! The Gazette surely never announced any thing so extraordinary before, nor once on a day so little expected. This will be such a phœnomenon in the Corps Diplomatique that tis hard to say which can excite indignation most, the insolence of those who appoint the Character, or the meanness of those who receive it. Such a thing could never have happened in any former Administration, not even that of Lord North. It was reserved like some other Humiliating circumstances to take place

Sub Jove, sed Jove nondum
Barbato—————" ²⁹

29. "Under Jove, but Jove not yet barbaric."

Labels: typographical and other errors

Calling us, or our bodies, "members of Christ" is really very unsatisfactory as a translation of membra, because in current English the word is confined to its secondary sense, signifying belonging to some club, society, or organization. But to find an alternative is difficult; "limbs" is too narrow, since it doesn't include most of our organs, like eyes and ears and so on; in fact we only have four limbs. "Organs" is too medical, "parts" too mechanical. So I think we are stuck with "members," but every now and again need to amplify it with one of these other words.