οἴμοι, not Alas, but FML, WTF, or SMH?

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Euripides, Andromache 385-386

“Shit, what a bitter choice of lives
You have give me. If I win, I am tortured.
If I do not, I stand unlucky still.”

οἴμοι, πικρὰν κλήρωσιν αἵρεσίν τέ μοι
βίου καθίστης: καὶ λαχοῦσά γ᾽ ἀθλία
καὶ μὴ λαχοῦσα δυστυχὴς καθίσταμαι.

Sophocles, Trachinae 1230-1231

“Shit. It is bad to get angry with one who is sick
But it is hard to see someone thinking like this.”

οἴμοι. τὸ μὲν νοσοῦντι θυμοῦσθαι κακόν,
τὸ δ᾿ ὧδ᾿ ὁρᾶν φρονοῦντα τίς ποτ᾿ ἂν φέροι;

οἴμοι is often translated as “alas” but no one really says that anymore. Of course, there are other “untranslatable” particles that get alased: αἰαῖ, αἰαῖ, ὦ τάλας φεῦ, παπαῖ ( double it for fun φεῦ , παπαῖ φεῦ, “alas, oh, alas”); φεῦ is also “oh”, which seems pretty weak. We also find τάλας, οἴμοι μοι (trans. in the Loeb as “alas, alas”), ἰὼ ἰὼ (alas, alas in Loeb Aeschylus).

I tend to see all of these as something pitifully profane. When I spell out the profanities, some get upset. Recent comments on twitter reaffirm my belief that modern text-speak is a good substitution. But there is nuance here! The first example, in modern abbrevatory, would probably be FML while the second strikes me more as SMH.

Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica 5.465

“FML. Why do the gods hate me so much?”

“Ὤ μοι ἐγώ, τί νυ τόσσον ἀπέχθομαι ἀθανάτοισιν;

My proposed working Lexicon of compressed exasperation (here’s a glossary for the uncool):

αἰαῖ: FFS; sometimes, SMH

ἐέ: Ugh; also, K+FM

ἰὼ: SSSD; FML; WTF; cf.  ἰοὺ ἰοὺ, commonly “alas and alack”, ant. LOL and ROFL

οἴμοι: FML; SML; see φεῦ

παπαῖ: FFS; WTF; ant. LMFAO; cf. ἀπαπαῖ φεῦ, perhaps sense of GTFO+WTF

τάλας: FM; FML; cf. τάλας ἐγώ =WTF+FML vel. sim.

φεῦ: WTF; SMH; SML;  but κακῶς φεῦ=οἴμοι:

ὦ: OMG

Ὤ μοι ἐγώ: FML

ὢ πόποι: difficult, but IMHO+GF; also, WTF

taking suggestions to improve and expand

So, Euripides fr. 300

“WTF!?! But, really, FML? I have really suffered mortal fate.”

οἴμοι· τί δ᾿ οἴμοι; θνητά τοι πεπόνθαμεν.

Lucian, Gout 297

“WTF! FFS! This hurts! I am ruined!”

Οἴμοι, παπαῖ γε, τείρομαι, διόλλυμαι,

Aristophanes, Acharnians 1081

“FML. Shit luck! You’re laughing at me.”

οἴμοι κακοδαίμων, καταγελᾷς ἤδη σύ μου.

Epictetus, Encheiridion 26

“WTF! FML!”

“οἴμοι, τάλας ἐγώ!”

Euripides, Iphigenia 136-7

“FML, I lost my mind.
SMH, I have fallen into ruin”

οἴμοι, γνώμας ἐξέσταν
αἰαῖ, πίπτω δ᾿ εἰς ἄταν.

Lament for Icarus, Herbert Draper

 

There’s room for this in Latin too, but much less….

To be Cancelled or Not Cancelled?

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Aristotle, On Interpretation 19a

“What is exists whenever it does; what does not exist does not exist when it does not. Still, there’s no necessity to everything in existing or not existing. For it is not the same thing to say that everything that exists does exist and that everything exists by necessity when it occurs. Clearly, it is the same with things that do not exist.

The same argument obtains here as with contrary statements. Everything necessarily exists or does not exist and will be or will not be. But it it not possible for us to say which thing will necessarily happen. For example, I say that there will be a sea-battle tomorrow or maybe there won’t be. There’s certainly nothing to make it necessary that a sea-battle will happen tomorrow or not. But it is certainly necessary that it either happens or it doesn’t.”

Τὸ μὲν οὖν εἶναι τὸ ὂν ὅταν ᾖ, καὶ τὸ μὴ ὂν μὴ εἶναι ὅταν μὴ ᾖ, ἀνάγκη· οὐ μὴν οὔτε τὸ ὂν ἅπαν ἀνάγκη εἶναι οὔτε τὸ μὴ ὂν μὴ εἶναι. οὐ γὰρ ταὐτόν ἐστι τὸ ὂν ἅπαν εἶναι ἐξ ἀνάγκης ὅτε ἔστι, καὶ τὸ ἁπλῶς εἶναι ἐξ ἀνάγκης. ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος. καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς ἀντιφάσεως ὁ αὐτὸς λόγος. εἶναι μὲν ἢ μὴ εἶναι ἅπαν ἀνάγκη, καὶ ἔσεσθαί γε ἢ μή· οὐ μέντοι διελόντα γε εἰπεῖν θάτερον ἀναγκαῖον. λέγω δὲ οἷον ἀνάγκη μὲν ἔσεσθαι ναυμαχίαν αὔριον ἢ μὴ ἔσεσθαι, οὐ μέντοι ἔσεσθαί γε αὔριον ναυμαχίαν ἀναγκαῖον οὐδὲ μὴ γενέσθαι· γενέσθαι μέντοι ἢ μὴ γενέσθαι ἀναγκαῖον.

File:Gent, Justus van - Aristotle - c. 1476.jpg
Justus van Gent, Aristotle 1476

An Indulgent Smile for Those Scallywags

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Cyril Connolly, Illusions of Likeness:

“Such value is found in the translations of Milton, Dryden, Pope, Cowper, and Tennyson, in Byron when he takes the trouble, in Eliot when he recasts Dante or Laforgue into lines of The Waste Land and Prufrock. Yet poets can indulge in huge fallacies, like the fatal idea which deceived Lang and Butcher, and to a less extent Hallam Tennyson, and then Lang again, and Leaf and Myers — the idea that the language in which Homer could be made real to us was the archaic prose of the Bible, of Malory’s Morte de Arthur and the Scandinavian sagas. The result was that generations of schoolboys grew up to whom the racy Mediterranean world of Homer was visible only through a Pre-Raphaelite fog in which with archaic unreality moved the Wagnerian shapes of Nordic gods and goddesses. Helen’s beauty was easily confused with the Holy Grail; Penelope was a kind of sacred cow and Odysseus a very Christian gentleman. There was an indulgent smile for those scallywags, Samuel Butler and Lawrence of Arabia. Yet, as Higham reminds us, translators whose names are familiar beyond the scholastic world — Walter Pater, Samuel Butler, T. E. Lawrence — are all modernizers, and careful to regard the genius of the language into which they translate. One may group them roughly under the title of ‘men of letters’ as opposed to ‘ scholastics.’”

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Adventures in Preposterous Etymology

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Plato, Cratylus 397d:

“It seems to me that the earliest people in Greece had a notion of only those gods whom the majority of barbarians now recognize: the Sun, the Earth, the Stars, and the Sky. Now, because they noticed that these things were always moving in a circle and ‘running’ (theonta), they called them gods (theous) from the nature of that running (thein). Later, once they came to acknowledge the existence of other gods, they continued to use the same word, ‘gods’ for them as well.”

φαίνονταί μοι οἱ πρῶτοι τῶν ἀνθρώπων τῶν περὶ τὴν ῾Ελλάδα τούτους μόνους
[τοὺς θεοὺς] ἡγεῖσθαι οὕσπερ νῦν πολλοὶ τῶν βαρβάρων,
ἥλιον καὶ σελήνην καὶ γῆν καὶ ἄστρα καὶ οὐρανόν• ἅτε οὖν
αὐτὰ ὁρῶντες πάντα ἀεὶ ἰόντα δρόμῳ καὶ θέοντα, ἀπὸ ταύτης
τῆς φύσεως τῆς τοῦ θεῖν “θεοὺς” αὐτοὺς ἐπονομάσαι• ὕστε-
ρον δὲ κατανοοῦντες τοὺς ἄλλους πάντας ἤδη τούτῳ τῷ ὀνό-
ματι προσαγορεύειν.

A Hometown to Be Sick Over

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If you want to know more words for puking in Greek and Latin, we’ve got you covered.

Etymologicum Magnum [= Etymologicum Gudianum, 461.13]

“Emeia. This is a place near Mycenae. Emeia comes from emo [“to vomit”] just as Thaleia comes from thallô [“to bloom, flourish”]. It is so named either because Kerberos puked there after he came up from Hades or because Thyestes puked there after he ate his own children.”

῎Εμεια: Τόπος ἐστὶ πλησίον Μυκηνῶν· παρὰ τὸ ἐμῶ ῎Εμεια, ὡς θάλλω Θάλεια. Λέγεται δὲ, ἐπειδὴ ἐκεῖ ἤμεσεν ὁ Κέρβερος ἀνελθὼν ἐκ τοῦ ᾅδου· ἢ ἐπειδὴ ἐκεῖ ἔμεσεν ὁ Θυέστης φαγὼν τὰ τέκνα αὐτοῦ.

 

Eustathius, Comm. Ad Homeri Il. 1.282.24

“…after he tasted them he caused the city Emeia to be named for him because it is where he vomited up the things he ate.”

ὧν καὶ γευσάμενος ἐκεῖνος πόλιν ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἀφῆκε καλεῖσθαι τὴν ῎Εμειαν, ὅπου δηλαδὴ τὰ καταβρωθέντα ἐξήμεσε.

 

Interestingly, there is a bit of a slip the next time Eustathius tells the story.

Eustathius, Comm. Ad Homeri Il. 3.691.20

“[Note also] that the city Emeia comes from emein [to vomit] because it is where Aigisthos [sic] vomited after eating his own children thanks to the plan of Atreus, as the story goes.”

Οτι δὲ ἐκ τοῦ ἐμεῖν καὶ πόλις ῎Εμεια, περὶ ἣν Αἴγισθος ἤμεσε φαγὼν ἐξ ἐπιβουλῆς ᾿Ατρέως τὰ οἰκεῖα τέκνα, ἡ ἱστορία φησίν.

Picture found here

The Most Shameful Plague

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Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 609-612

“I will tell you everything clearly that you need to learn,
Without interweaving riddles, in a direct speech,
The right way to open one’s mouth to friends.
You see Prometheus, the one who gave mortals fire.”

λέξω τορῶς σοι πᾶν ὅπερ χρήζεις μαθεῖν,
οὐκ ἐμπλέκων αἰνίγματ᾿, ἀλλ᾿ ἁπλῷ λόγῳ,
ὥσπερ δίκαιον πρὸς φίλους οἴγειν στόμα.
πυρὸς βροτοῖς δοτῆρ᾿ ὁρᾷς Προμηθέα.

682-686

“You hear what has happened. If you can,
Tell me the rest of my toils and don’t distract me
With false tales because you pity me
I think that manufactured lies are the most shameful plague.”

κλύεις τὰ πραχθέντ᾿. εἰ δ᾿ ἔχεις εἰπεῖν ὅ τι
λοιπὸν πόνων, σήμαινε· μηδέ μ᾿ οἰκτίσας
ξύνθαλπε μύθοις ψευδέσιν· νόσημα γὰρ
αἴσχιστον εἶναί φημι συνθέτους λόγους.

Jacob Jordaens – Prometheus bound, 1648

Wandering Souls and Empty Bodies

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These tales are popular among the paradoxographers. Apollonios also tells of Epimenides and Aristeas, and Hermotimus.

 Pliny the Elder 7. 174-5 

“This is the mortal condition—we are born to face these chance occurrences and others like them so that we ought not even trust death when it comes to a human. We find, among other examples, so soul of Hermotimos the Clazomenian which was in the habit of wandering with his body left behind and after a long journey to announce what they could not know unless they were present. Meanwhile, the body remained half-alive until it was cremated by some enemies called the Cantharidae who, ultimately, stole from the returning body as if taking away a sheath.

We also know of Aristeas of Procennesus whose soul was seen alighting from his mouth in the image of a crow—along with the excessive fiction that accompanies this tale. I also approach the story of Epimenides of Knossos in a similar way: when he was a boy and tired out by heat and a journey he went to sleep in a cave and slumbered for 57 years. Upon waking, he wondering and the shape of things and the change as if it were just the next day. Even though old age overcame him in the same number of days as years slept, he still lived to 157 years old.

The gender of women seems to be especially susceptible to this ill because of the disruption of the womb—which, if corrected can restore proper breathing. That work famous among the Greeks of Heraclides pertains to this subject as well—he tells the story of a woman returned to life after being dead for seven days.”

haec est conditio mortalium: ad has et eiusmodi occasiones fortunae gignimur, ut de homine ne morti quidem debeat credi. reperimus inter exempla Hermotimi Clazomenii animam relicto corpore errare solitam vagamque e longinquo multa adnuntiare quae nisi a praesente nosci non possent, corpore interim semianimi, donec cremato eo inimici qui Cantharidae vocabantur remeanti animae veluti vaginam ademerint; Aristeae etiam visam evolantem ex ore in Proconneso corvi effigie, cum magna quae sequitur hanc fabulositate. quam equidem et in Gnosio Epimenide simili modo accipio, puerum aestu et itinere fessum in specu septem et quinquaginta dormisse annis, rerum faciem mutationemque mirantem velut postero die experrectum, hinc pari numero dierum senio ingruente, ut tamen in septimum et quinquagesimum atque centesimum vitae duraret annum. feminarum sexus huic malo videtur maxime opportunus conversione volvae, quae si corrigatur, spiritus restituitur. huc pertinet nobile illud apud Graecos volumen Hexaclidis septem diebus feminae exanimis ad vitam revocatae.

Image result for medieval manuscript epimenides
Yates_thompson_ms_14_f070v_detail

Even the Stoics Can’t Prove Their Own Doctrines

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Cicero, Paradoxa Stoicorum. §2-4

“Cato – in my opinion the perfect Stoic – believes those things which hardly receive popular approval, and is part of that school of thought which makes no effort to cultivate the flower of oratory and avoids drawing out an argument, but rather achieves its end by using little, pointed syllogisms. But there is nothing so hard to believe that it cannot be rendered probable by speaking; nothing so horrible, so tasteless, which would not shine and even be ennobled by a bit of oratory. Since this is my belief, I have acted even more boldly than Cato, of whom I speak. While Cato – in that peculiarly Stoic way – spurned oratorical ornamentation when speaking even of the greatness of the soul, on self-control, on death, on every praise of virtue, on the immortal gods, on the dearness of the fatherland, I have playfully rendered all of these doctrines into commonplaces, though the Stoics can barely prove them in their schools.

Because their doctrines are rather wondrous, and certainly contrary to universal belief (they are even called paradoxes by the Stoics themselves), I wanted to try to see whether they might be brought out into the light (that is, into the forum) and, so to speak, to see whether they might be proven, or whether school speech differs fundamentally from popular speech. I was all the more pleased in writing these out, because the beliefs which they call paradoxes seemed to me to be Socratic, and by far the most true.”

Related image
Johann Michael Rottmayr, The Suicide of Cato. (1692)

Cato autem, perfectus mea sententia Stoicus, et ea sentit, quae non sane probantur in volgus, et in ea est haeresi, quae nullum sequitur florem orationis neque dilatat argumentum, minutis interrogatiunculis quasi punctis, quod proposuit, efficit. Sed nihil est tam incredibile, quod non dicendo fiat probabile, nihil tam horridum, tam incultum, quod non splendescat oratione et tamquam excolatur. Quod cum ita putarem, feci etiam audacius quam ille ipse, de quo loquor. Cato enim dumtaxat de magnitudine animi, de continentia, de morte, de omni laude virtutis, de dis inmortalibus, de caritate patriae Stoice solet oratoriis ornamentis adhibitis dicere, ego tibi illa ipsa, quae vix in gymnasiis et in otio Stoici probant, ludens conieci in communes locos. Quae quia sunt admirabilia contraque opinionem omnium [ab ipsis etiam paradoxa appellantur], temptare volui possentne proferri in lucem [id est in forum], et ita dici, ut probarentur, an alia quaedam esset erudita, alia popularis oratio, eoque hos locos scripsi libentius, quod mihi ista paradoxa quae appellant maxime videntur esse Socratica longeque verissima.

Beware The Street-Corner Cynics!

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Dio Chrysostom, Discourse 32: To the People of Alexandria

“There is a great mob of those people called Cynics in this city and like any other thing there’s a seasonal crop of them too—people who believe nothing illegitimate or ignoble but need to earn a living. But these Cynics hang around at street-corners and in alleys and in front of temples performing and deceiving young people and sailors and that kind of crowd, whipping up jokes and rambling stories and all that kind of street-talk.

This is way they don’t do any good at all, but actually accomplish the worst harm: they get foolish people used to mocking philosophers. If someone taught kids to disregard their teachers, it would be right to knock some sense into their audiences, but these people make the problem worse!”

τῶν δὲ Κυνικῶν λεγομένων ἔστι μὲν ἐν τῇ πόλει πλῆθος οὐκ ὀλίγον, καὶ καθάπερ ἄλλου τινὸς πράγματος καὶ τούτου φορὰ γέγονε, νόθον μέντοι γε καὶ ἀγεννὲς ἀνθρώπων οὐθέν, ὡς εἰπεῖν, ἐπισταμένων, ἀλλὰ χρείων τροφῆς· οὗτοι δὲ ἔν τε τριόδοις καὶ στενωποῖς καὶ πυλῶσιν ἱερῶν ἀγείρουσι καὶ ἀπατῶσι παιδάρια καὶ ναύτας καὶ τοιοῦτον ὄχλον, σκώμματα καὶ πολλὴν σπερμολογίαν συνείροντες καὶ τὰς ἀγοραίους ταύτας ἀποκρίσεις. τοιγαροῦν ἀγαθὸν μὲν οὐδὲν ἐργάζονται, κακὸν δ᾿ ὡς οἷόν τε τὸ μέγιστον, καταγελᾶν ἐθίζοντες τοὺς ἀνοήτους τῶν φιλοσόφων, ὥσπερ ἂν εἰ παῖδάς τις ἐθίζοι διδασκάλων καταφρονεῖν, καὶ δέον ἐκκόπτειν τὴν ἀγερωχίαν αὐτῶν οἱ δ᾿ ἔτι αὔξουσιν.

Dog Statues, Stockton High Street.

After the Body, The Mind Fades Away

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Seneca, Moral Epistle 26.1-3

“I was recently explaining to you that I am in sight of my old age—but now I fear that I have put old age behind me! There is some different word better fit to these years, or at least to this body, since old age seems to be a tired time, not a broken one. Count me among the weary and those just touching the end.

Despite all this, I still am grateful to myself, with you to witness it. For I do not sense harm to my mind from age even though I feel it in my body. Only my weaknesses—and their tools—have become senile. My mind is vigorous and it rejoices that it depends upon the body for little. It has disposed of the greater portion of its burden. It celebrates and argues with me about old age. It says that this is its flowering. Let’s believe it, let it enjoy its own good.

My mind commands that I enter into contemplation and I think about what debt I owe to wisdom for this tranquility and modesty of ways and what portion is due to my age. It asks that I think about what I am incapable of doing in contrast to what I do not wish to do, whether I am happy because I don’t want something or I don’t want something because I lack the ability to pursue it.

For, what complaint is there or what problem is it if something which was supposed to end has ended? “But,” you interject, “it is the worst inconvenience to wear out, to be diminished, or, if I can say it properly, to dissolve. For we are not suddenly struck down and dead, we are picked away at! Each individual day subtracts something from our strength!”

But, look, is there a better way to end than to drift off to your proper exit as nature itself releases you? There is nothing too bad in a sudden strike which takes life away immediately, but this way is easy, to be led off slowly.”

Modo dicebam tibi, in conspectu esse me senectutis; iam vereor, ne senectutem post me reliquerim. Aliud iam his annis, certe huic corpori, vocabulum convenit, quoniam quidem senectus lassae aetatis, non fractae, nomen est; inter decrepitos me numera et extrema tangentis.

Gratias tamen mihi apud te ago; non sentio in animo aetatis iniuriam, cum sentiam in corpore. Tantum vitia et vitiorum ministeria senuerunt; viget animus et gaudet non multum sibi esse cum corpore. Magnam partem oneris sui posuit. Exultat et mihi facit controversiam de senectute. Hunc ait esse florem suum. Credamus illi; bono suo utatur. Ire in cogitationem iubet et dispicere, quid ex hac tranquillitate ac modestia morum sapientiae debeam, quid aetati, et diligenter excutere, quae non possim facere, quae nolim †prodesse habiturus ad qui si nolim quidquid non posse me gaudeo.† Quae enim querella est, quod incommodum, si quidquid debebat desinere, defecit? “Incommodum summum est,” inquis, “minui et deperire et, ut proprie dicam, liquescere. Non enim subito inpulsi ac prostrati sumus; carpimur. Singuli dies aliquid subtrahunt viribus.”

Ecquis exitus est melior quam in finem suum natura solvente dilabi? Non quia aliquid mali est ictus et e vita repentinus excessus, sed quia lenis haec est via, subduci.

seneca strength

 

Or we could do this kind of fading…