Latin vs. Philology, Part XV:

July 12, 2019 ~ Erik ~ Leave a comment

Francesco Filelfo, Letter to Lorenzo Medici (Part 15)

As it was, among the Athenians, one thing to speak Attic and another to speak grammatically, so too the same difference may be observed among the Romans, that there is one mode for Latinity, and another for literature, but it is nevertheless a small distinction. This is obvious from the nouns which are found in both the fourth and second declensions.

For, words like ornatus, tumultus, senatus, victus, and many others of this sort have genitives, grammatically speaking, which end in –us, as huius ornatus, huius tumultus, huius senatus, huius victus, though they are declined in Latin as ornatus ornati, tumultus tumulti, senatus senati, and victus victi.

In the same way, nouns of the fifth declension will for the most part take, according to the grammarians, nominatives in –es and genitives in –ei, as for example barbaries barbariei, segnities segnitiei, duricies duriciei, mollicies molliciei, but in actual Latin use, the nominative ends in –a and the genitive in the diphthong –ae, as barbaria barbariae, segnitia segnitiae, duricia duriciae, mollicia molliciae.

Bearing on this, one may observe in actual Latin the use of the word nex in the nominative, which the rules of the grammarians prohibit.

The grammarians would also argue that the word sponte is in the ablative and lacking all of the other cases. But Cornelius Celsus shows that actual Latin uses the word differently, when he writes in the first book of his Art of Medicine, ‘A healthy person, who is in good health and in possession of their own will, should bind himself to no set rules.’

So, I say, Latin speech is common and known to all, but literary speech is not so. But while it is primarily restricted to the educated and the learned, yet it is such that it can correct and nourish Latin speech which has become degraded.”

Et ut apud Athenienses aliud erat attice loqui, aliud grammatice, eadem quoque differentia fuit apud Romanos, ut alia esset latinitatis ratio, et litteraturae alia, sed ea tamen admodum parva: quod patet in iis nominibus quae et in quarta reperiuntur et in secunda declinatione.

Nam ornatus, tumultus, senatus, victus multaque huiusmodi emittunt grammatice genitivos in – us, ut huius ornatus, huius tumultus, huius senatus, huius victus, cum latine declinentur ornatus -ti, tumultus -ti, senatus -ti et victus victi.

Et eodem modo quintae declinationis nomina secundum grammaticos emittunt, maiore ex parte, rectos in -es et genitivos in -ei, ut barbaries barbariei, segnities segnitiei, duricies duriciei, mollicies molliciei, quae in recto, secundum latinitatem, desinunt in -a et in genitivo in -ae diphtongon, ut barbaria barbariae, segnitia segnitiae, duricia duriciae, mollicia molliciae.

Ad haec latine reperitur nex in casu nominativo, quod grammaticorum praecepta prohibent.

Et sponte grammatice ablativum habere volunt, caeteris autem casibus carere. At latinitatem aliter eo uti ostendit Cornelius Celsus, qui libro primo suae artis medicae ita ait: “Sanus homo, qui et bene valet et suae spontis est, nullis obligare se legibus debet”.
Latinus, inquam, sermo et vulgaris erat et omnibus cognitus, litteralis vero non ita prorsus, sed viris peritis ac doctis duntaxat, caeterum talis qui depravatam latinitatem et emendaret et aleret.

Telling Teacher about Groin Pain

July 12, 2019May 9, 2019 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Marcus Aurelius to Fronto, 148–149 a.d.

“I have learned that you have pain in your groin, my teacher. Because I remember how much trouble this pain usually gives you, I myself am suffering the worst worry. But my hope that in the time it took for this news to come to me that pain has potentially given in to applications and treatments lessons my worry. We are at this point enduring the summer heat, but our little girls—may it be permitted to say—are growing well. We suspect we are enduring healthy weather and spring temperatures. Goodbye, best of teachers.”

Magistro meo salutem.

Doluisse te inguina cognosco, mi magister, et quom recordor quantam vexationem tibi iste dolor adferre soleat, gravissimam sollicitudinem patior. Sed me levat quod spero illo spatio, quo perferebatur huc¹ nuntius, potuisse cedere fomentis et remediis illam vim doloris. Nos aestivos calores adhuc experimur, sed quom parvolae nostrae, dixisse liceat, commode valeant, mera salubritate et verna temperie frui existimamus. Vale mi optime magister.

For the second part we have the better translation from Marius Ivașcu “We are still experiencing the scorching heat of summer, but as long as our little ones – if we may say so – are feeling comfortable – we reckon we are enjoying pure health and springly mildness.”

Image result for marcus aurelius

Persius Addresses a Petulant Man-Baby

July 11, 2019 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Persius, Satires 3.15-19

“Fool, more foolish with each passing day,
Is this what we’ve come to? Ah, why not just be like
A little pigeon or a baby prince and insist on eating chopped up food
Or stop your mom from singing to you because you’re so angry?”

“o miser inque dies ultra miser, hucine rerum
venimus? a, cur non potius teneroque columbo
et similis regum pueris pappare minutum
poscis et iratus mammae lallare recusas?”

*Livre d’astrologie*, France, XIVe siècle
Paris, BnF, département des Manuscrits, Latin 7344, fol. 7v.

Give Me The Books! Legacy Hunter, Bibliophile Edition

July 11, 2019 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 1 Comment

Cicero to Atticus, 1.20 12 May 60

“Now, so I might return to my own affair, Lucius Papirius Paetus, a good man and my fan, has set aside as a gift for me the books which Servius Claudius left. Because your friend Cincius informed me that it is permitted thanks to the Lex Cincias for me to take them, I told him happily that I would accept the books if he brought them to me. Now, if you care for me and you know that I care for you too, please endeavor through your friends, clients, guests even your freedmen and slaves if necessary, to ensure that not even a page is lost.

For I seriously need both the Greek books—which I have an idea about—and the Latin ones—which I know that he left. Day-by-day I find rest for myself in these books in whatever time is left for me from my political work. I will be really, really thankful if you would be as diligent in this as you are usually in the affairs which you understand concern me deeply. I also entrust to you Paetus’ personal business, concerning which he owes you the greatest thanks. And I not only ask but I even implore you to visit us soon.”

7 Nunc ut ad rem meam redeam, L. Papirius Paetus, vir bonus amatorque noster, mihi libros eos quos Ser. Claudius reliquit donavit. cum mihi per legem Cinciam licere capere Cincius amicus tuus diceret, libenter dixi me accepturum si attulisset. nunc si me amas, si te a me amari scis, enitere per amicos, clientis, hospites, libertos denique ac servos tuos, ut scida ne qua depereat. nam et Graecis iis libris quos suspicor et Latinis quos scio illum reliquisse mihi vehementer opus est. ego autem cottidie magis quod mihi de forensi labore temporis datur in iis studiis conquiesco. per mihi, per, inquam, gratum feceris si in hoc tam diligens fueris quam soles in iis rebus quas me valde velle arbitraris, ipsiusque Paeti tibi negotia commendo, de quibus tibi ille agit maximas gratias, et ut iam invisas nos non solum rogo sed etiam suadeo.

15th century Bologna, University Library. Cod. Bonon. 963, f. 4

Cicero might be a bit of a bibliomaniac. We have posted earlier about his letter to his brother, asking for books. He describes returning home as a reunion with his books. (Vergerio riffs on this ) Petrarch seems to have contracted a similar disease. (Really, he was incurable.)

Antiquity had an apocryphal moral argument about Cicero earning his life in exchange for burning his books.

And although Mark Tully is all about giving books, he’s not much into lending them:

Letters to Atticus, 8

“Beware of lending your books to anyone; save them for me, as you write that you will. The greatest excitement for them has gripped me, along with a contempt for everything else.”

libros vero tuos cave cuiquam tradas; nobis eos, quem ad modum scribis, conserva. summum me eorum studium tenet, sicut odium iam ceterarum rerum.

Weather and Nation Building

July 11, 2019 ~ Erik ~ Leave a comment

Paulus Diaconus, Historia Langobardorum 1.1:

“The Northern region, the farther removed it is from the heat of the sun, and the more frigid it is with a snowy chill, so much the more salutary it is for the bodies of humans, and so much more fit for begetting children. In just the opposite way, every southern region abounds more with disease and is less suited to supporting human life the closer it is to the heat of the sun. And so it happens that such great masses of people are born under the northern pole as far east as the Tanais all the way to the west, and though each of those places may be called by their own particular local names, the whole may be called in one general word Germany, although the Romans, when they occupied the two provinces beyond the Rhine, referred to an upper and a lower Germany.

From this well-peopled Germany, therefore, innumerable bands of captives were abducted by the southern peoples and sold. Further, because that region gives birth to more people than it is able to feed, many tribes set out from their homes and afflicted indeed the countries of Asia, but chiefly Europe, which shared a border with them. All of the uprooted cities throughout all of Illyricum and Gaul are witnesses to this, but the greatest testament are the wretched cities of Italy, which experienced the savagery of nearly all of those tribes. The Goths, the Vandals, the Rugi, the Heruli and the Turcilingi, and various other fierce and barbaric nations sprang forth from Europe. In the same way, the tribe of the Winili – that is, the Lombards – which afterward ruled happily in Italy, drew its origin from the peoples of Germany, and although other causes are assigned for their migration, they arrived from the island which is called Scandinavia.”

Septemtrionalis plaga quanto magis ab aestu solis remota est et nivali frigore gelida, tanto salubrior corporibus hominum et propagandis est gentibus coaptata; sicut econtra omnis meridiana regio, quo solis est fervori vicinior, eo semper morbis habundat et educandis minus est apta mortalibus. Unde fit, ut tantae populorum multitudines arctoo sub axe oriantur, ut non inmerito universa illa regio Tanai tenus usque ad occiduum, licet et propriis loca in ea singula nuncupentur nominibus, generali tamen vocabulo Germania vocitetur; quamvis et duas ultra Rhenum provincias Romani, cum ea loca occupassent, superiorem inferioremque Germaniam dixerint.

Ab hac ergo populosa Germania saepe innumerabiles captivorum turmae abductae meridianis populis pretio distrahuntur. Multae quoque ex ea, pro eo quod tantos mortalium germinat, quantos alere vix sufficit, saepe gentes egressae sunt, quae nihilominus et partes Asiae, sed maxime sibi contiguam Europam afflixerunt. Testantur hoc ubique urbes erutae per totam Illyricum Galliamque, sed maxime miserae Italiae, quae paene omnium illarum est gentium experta saevitiam. Gothi siquidem Wandalique, Rugi, Heruli atque Turcilingi, necnon etiam et aliae feroces et barbarae nationes e Germania prodierunt. Pari etiam modo et Winilorum, hoc est Langobardorum, gens, quae postea in Italia feliciter regnavit, a Germanorum populis originem ducens, licet et aliae causae egressionis eorum asseverentur, ab insula quae Scadinavia dicitur adventavit.

That Old Greek and Latin Grammar Fetish

July 10, 2019July 10, 2019 ~ Erik ~ 3 Comments

Noah Porter, The American Colleges and the American Public:

“The student of Corneille and Goethe is also mainly conversant with modern ideas and modern civilization. However exquisite the diction or masterly the genius of his writer, the sentiments and passions are all modern. But the student of Virgil and of Homer cannot painfully translate a few books of the Aeneid or the Odyssey, without entering into the thoughts, sympathizing with the feelings, and living somewhat of the life, of human beings greatly unlike those whom he has ever known or imagined, whose thoughts and feelings do not repel him by their strangeness, so much as they attract him by their dignity and truth, and open to him a new world of sentiment and emotion.

The people, into whose life he very imperfectly learns to enter, though in many respects so unlike the men of present times, are yet closely connected with them by the civilization, the arts, the literature, the institutions, the manners, and the laws which the ancients perfected and transmitted. We do not say that to receive such impressions as an imperfect scholarship may impart, is worth all the painstaking which the study of Greek and Latin involves, but we do assert that if these impressions can be superadded to the advantages which come from the discipline which the grammatical study of two languages requires, then this is a sufficient reason why Greek and Latin should be preferred to French and German.”

Latin vs. Philology, Part XIV

July 10, 2019 ~ Erik ~ Leave a comment

Francesco Filelfo, Letter to Lorenzo Medici (Part 14)

“Just as you can find those among us who employ Latin very poorly, or more curiously than is proper, we hear that the same thing happened frequently among the Greeks, as for example that old Attic woman, when she had noted in Theophrastus, that most learned philosopher, a particular propensity for one word, she called him a guest: when Theophrastus asked her whether she had found anything to fault in him, she responded that she found nothing to fault except that he spoke too Attic.

But king Demetrius, when he had received those Athenians who had defected, bestowed grain upon the Athenians after calling a council in the middle of a grain shortage, and held a speech in that council in which he said something barbarously, one of the bunch interrupted him and explained how the word was to be said. ‘For the sake of this correction,’ said Demetrius, ‘I will grant you another five thousand measures of grain.”

Et quemadmodum apud nostros inventi sunt qui male utantur latina locutione, aut curiosius quam oportet, idem etiam apud Graecos quandoque usu venisse audimus, ut attica anus illa, cum annotasset in Theophrasto, philosopho disertissimo, unius verbi affectionem, hospitem eum dixit: quae a Theophrasto interrogata aliudne depraehendisset, aliud, respondit, nihil quam quod nimium attice loqueretur.

At Demetrius rex, cum Athenas quae defecerant recepisset, in summa rei frumentariae inopia convocata concione, frumentum Atheniensibus est largitus, cumque ea in concione haberet orationem, ac barbare quiddam pronunciasset, ex eo consensu unus, ut verbum dicendum esset, interclamavit: “Proinde” inquit Demetrius “huius quoque emendationis gratia, alia vobis praeterea quinque millia medimnum elargior”.

A Rather Elite Writing Group: Pliny and Tacitus

July 9, 2019 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 1 Comment

Pliny to Cornelius Tacitus, 20

“I have read your book and I have noted the passages which should be changed or removed as carefully as I was able. For I am also in the habit of speaking the truth and you hear it freely. No people are criticized as patiently as those who especially deserve praise.

Now I am expecting my book from you with your notes—what a joy, what a fine exchange! How it makes me happy to think that if posterity cares about us at all, the story will be about how we lived with harmony, directness and trust. It will seem rare and notable that two men nearly equal in age and dignity and of some fame for writing—for I am compelled to speak sparingly of you when I am talking about myself too—to have encouraged each other’s efforts.

I was a young man when you were already growing in fame and glory and I was longing to be nearest to you but “by a long distance”. There were then many really famous geniuses—but you, perhaps because our nature was similar, seemed one I could imitate, someone I should imitate. I am for this reason happy if, when there is any conversation about scholarship, we are named together or at the fact that one some speak of you my name is mentioned.

There is no lack of authors who may be preferred to us. But, it makes no difference to me which place I have if we are joined together. For my first position is the one which is nearest to you.”

Librum tuum legi et, quam diligentissime potui, adnotavi quae commutanda, quae eximenda arbitrarer. Nam et ego verum dicere adsuevi, et tu libenter audire. Neque enim ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur. Nunc a te librum meum cum adnotationibus tuis exspecto. O iucundas, o pulchras vices! Quam me delectat quod, si qua posteris cura nostri, usquequaqua narrabitur, qua concordia simplicitate fide vixerimus! Erit rarum et insigne, duos homines aetate dignitate propemodum aequales, non nullius in litteris nominis (cogor enim de te quoque parcius dicere, quia de me simul dico), alterum alterius studia fovisse.

Equidem adulescentulus, cum iam tu fama gloriaque floreres, te sequi, tibi “longo sed proximus intervallo” et esse et haberi concupiscebam. Et erant multa clarissima ingenia; sed tu mihi (ita similitudo naturae ferebat) maxime imitabilis, maxime imitandus videbaris. Quo magis gaudeo, quod si quis de studiis sermo, una nominamur, quod de te loquentibus statim occurro. Nec desunt qui utrique nostrum praeferantur. Sed nos, nihil interest mea quo loco, iungimur; nam mihi primus, qui a te proximus.

Latin vs. Philology: Part XIII

July 9, 2019 ~ Erik ~ Leave a comment

Francesco Filelfo, Letter to Lorenzo Medici (Part 13)

“Should we think then that the Romans had a habit in the theater differing from what we find among the Athenians? One time, they were putting on that play of Aeschylus, in which these verses were composed about Amphiaraus: ‘For he wishes to be noble, not merely to seem so, and harvesting the fertile field of his deep mind wisely sows the surest counsels.’ When they heard this, the whole population turned its eyes to Aristides, as being the wisest and most just man among them.

That tragedy was written in Attic Greek, a language which was equally well-known to the Athenians, both educated and not, just as Latin was to the Romans.

The Attic Greek which the poets used in writing is the same which you will find not just among the orators who were held in high esteem, but even among those philosophers who came after Socrates, especially Plato and Aristotle. If their books seem to us inept or composed with a certain harshness, that should be imputed to their translators: for they both wrote elegantly and with perfect clearness.”

Putemusne aliam Romanis fuisse consuetudinem in theatro quam Atheniensibus reperimus? Agebatur ea Aeschyli tragoedia, ubi hi sunt versus in Amphiaraum: “Nam vult vir esse, non videri hic optimus. Qui mentis altae fertilem sulcans segetem Consulta callens germinat gravissima”. Quibus auditis populus universus in unum Aristiden, ut in virum sapientissimum ac iustissimum, oculos coniecit.

At ea tragoedia attice scripta est: quae lingua Atheniensibus omnibus aeque indoctis erat doctisque communis, ut Romanis latina.

Et qua ii poetae in scribendo sunt usi, hoc est attica, eandem invenias non apud oratores modo qui habentur in pretio, sed etiam apud eos omnis philosophos qui fluxerunt a Socrate, praecipueque apud Platonem et Aristotelen, quorum libri si qui apud nostros reperiantur aut inepta aut duriore scripti oratione, id quicquid fuerit vitii dandum est interpretibus: nam ii eleganter dilucideque scripserunt.

Forgetting Your Schooling

July 8, 2019 ~ Erik ~ Leave a comment

John Evelyn, Diary (May 18th 1661)

“I heard and saw such exercises at the election of scholars at Westminster school to be sent to the university in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, in themes and extemporary verses, as wonderfully astonished me in such youths, with such readiness and wit, some of them not above twelve, or thirteen years of age. Pity it is, that what they attain here so ripely, they either do not retain, or do not improve more considerably when they come to be men, though many of them do; and no less is to be blamed their odd pronouncing of Latin, so that out of England none were able to understand, or endure it.”