“I certainly feel wonder at the lover of wisdom since, when he practices his art, he brings together and integrates many different things from different sources. For he takes from the children’s grammar the first two subjects—writing and reading—and then from the more mature education knowledge of poets and the learning of ancient history, from arithmetic and geometry precision in topics needing proportion and calculation, from music rhythm and meter, harmonic melodies, as well as chromatic, diatonic, concordant and discordant; from rhetoric, topic, diction, composition, efficiency, memory, and performance; and from philosophy however much has been left out from these other subjects and the rest of things which make a person’s life whole. The lover of wisdom fits all these into the most decorous work, combining great knowledge with the ability to learn even more.”
This text was discovered inside the hollow of a golden branch. On top was written, Pius Aeneas hoc scripsit (“Pious Aeneas wrote this”). On a separate document was a message written by one P.V.M. that said, carmen tam horribile est ut cum inhumata turba vagari malim.” (“This poem is so terrible that I prefer to wander with the unburied masses”). It is thought that after Aeneas encountered Marcellus in the underworld, he received poetry lessons from Vergil himself. From a close reading of this text, we can also infer that Aeneas met the disembodied soul of George R.R. Martin and saw a performance of Game of Thrones.
P. Aeneas (?), Maior Pietate Sum, Edited by Dani Bostick
Per campum magno gemitu fremit discordia vulgi. Corpora caesa inter fluit foedum sanguinis flumen Nunc Rex Noctis et Albi Euntes glomerantur ut aves, Nunc amita et coniunx, volat Daenerys vecta per auras Serpente expirante ignem. Nunc nubibus flammae Ex caelo volat Ioannes Nivis; eum vehit serpens. O lux Targaryum, spes o fidissima Arcti, Aenea maior armis pietateque claro es?
Fecerat ignipotens scutum deus? Nec tenes scutum! Dic mihi quid muros ascenderit hostis ab Orco Dic mihi quid Regem Noctis mortesque necarit Femina. Sed sine telis Aeneas viribus hostes Caedebat victorque viros supereminet omnes. At vero ipse ensem tumido in pulmone recondit
Vi magni scuti.
Over the battlefield with a great groan the disorganized crowd roars. A disgusting river of blood flows among the slaughtered bodies, Now the Night King and White Walkers gather like birds,
Now aunt and consort Daenerys flies through the air
On a fire-breathing dragon. Now from clouds of flame
Out of the sky flies John Snow; a dragon carries him.
Oh light of the Targaryans, Oh most faithful hope of the North, Are you are greater in piety and arms than famous Aeneas?
Did the all-fiery god make your shield? You do not have one! Tell me why an enemy of shades climbed the walls! Tell me why a woman killed the Night King and zombies! But Aeneas used to slaughter the enemy with his Own strength and as a victor he surpasses all men. And he himself indeed buries the sword into the inflated chest
With his big shield energy.
“Hera twisted by the beauty of Ganymede once spoke
As she suffered the heart-rending stab of jealousy in her heart:
“Troy ignited a male fire for Zeus—and so I will send
A fire at Troy, a pain bearing Paris.
No eagle will come to Troy again, but vultures
Will go to the feast when the Greeks get the spoils for their toils.”
Sometimes an Eagle Does show up in stories of Zeus and Ganymede.
Greek Anthology 12.211
“Go to bright heaven, go carrying the child,
Eagle, keep your twin wings spread wide.
Go holding gentle Ganymede and do not drop
Zeus’ wine-bearer of the sweetest cups.
But be careful not to bloody him with your clawed feet
So that Zeus, upset, won’t hurt you.”
“A woman is guaranteed to carry a pregnancy to term if she wears around her neck the white flesh from a hyena’s chest with seven of its hairs and a stag’s genitals tied up in leather made from a gazelle,
A hyena’s genitals, consumed with honey, increases desire for sex even if men typically despise sex with women. Really, the peace of the whole home relies upon keeping these genitals and a spine with the skin still on it at hand.”
mulieri candida a pectore hyaenae caro et pili septem et genitale cervi, si inligentur dorcadis pelle, e collo suspensa continere partus promittuntur; venerem stimulare genitalia ad sexus suos in melle sumpta, etiamsi viri mulierum coitus oderint; quin immo totius domus concordiam eodem genitali et articulo spinae cum adhaerente corio adservatis constare
“How tenderly Casaubon was attached to his wife is evident throughout his diary. Even the moments of impatience, consigned to the pages of that secret record, may be taken to prove affection and general harmony. He certainly complains bitterly on one occasion of her interrupting him. But over and above Casaubon’s constitutional fretfulness, we must make allowance for the irritability engendered by a life of hard reading against time. Casaubon thought every moment lost in which he was not acquiring knowledge. He resented intrusion as a cruel injury. To take up his time was to rob him of his only property. Casaubon’s imagination was impressed in a painful degree with the truth of the dictum ‘ars longa, vita brevis.’ As though with a presentiment that the end would come to him early, he struggles, all through a life of harass, to have his time for himself.”
“Pattison was coaching an undergraduate in the Ethics. The pupil, perplexed by Aristotle’s reasoning, embarrassed his teacher by his importunate desire to understand it. At last Pattison said tartly: ‘Never mind understanding it, only get it up.’ The pupil was naturally hurt by this unpleasant rebuke; which, however, probably meant that the time was short, and that, if the pupil insisted on discussing first principles, instead of merely learning the answers which would satisfy the examiners, he might be disappointed in his degree, as Pattison himself had been. Nevertheless, Pattison’s impatience may have been partly due to want of sympathy with , the subject. When I knew him, and when he wrote his Memoirs, he was an Aristotelian. But he was originally a Platonist, and it was only by slow degrees that the influence of Oxford wrought the change in him. Many years ago, when speaking of the late Dr. Jeune as a successful man of the world whom he disliked, he said, ‘I divide men into those who love Plato and those who do not; Jeune, I am certain, does not.'”
“Both habits, moreover, should be avoided. Don’t imitate bad people, because there are many of them, nor hate the many, because you aren’t like them. Take shelter in yourself, whenever you can. Spend time with people who will make you a better person. Embrace those whom you can make better. Such improvement is a partnership, for people learn while they teach.”
Utrumque autem devitandum est; neve similis malis fias, quia multi sunt, neve inimicus multis, quia dissimiles sunt. Recede in te ipsum, quantum potes. Cum his versare, qui te meliorem facturi sunt. Illos admitte, quos tu potes facere meliores. Mutuo ista fiunt, et homines, dum docent, discunt.
Seneca, De Beata Vita 17-18
“ ‘This is enough for me: to each day lose one of my vices and recognize my mistakes. I have not perfected my health, nor certainly will I. I hope to relieve my gout rather than cure it, happy if it comes less frequently and cause less pain. But when I compare myself to your feet, I am a sprinter even though crippled.’
I do not say these things for myself—since I am deep in every kind of vice—but for the person who has done something.
You say, “You talk one way but you live another.” This insult, most shameful and hateful friend, was thrown at Plato, tossed at Epicurus, and dropped on Zeno. For all these people were talking not about how they were living themselves but about how they should live. When it comes to virtue, I do not talk about myself, and my fight is with vices, but chiefly my own. When I can, I will live as I should.”
Hoc mihi satis est, cotidie aliquid ex vitiis meis demere et errores meos obiurgare. Non perveni ad sanitatem, ne perveniam quidem; delenimenta magis quam remedia podagrae meae compono, contentus, si rarius accedit et si minus verminatur; vestris quidem pedibus comparatus, debilis1 cursor sum.” Haec non pro me loquor—ego enim in alto vitiorum omnium sum—, sed pro illo, cui aliquid acti est.
“Aliter,” inquis, “loqueris, aliter vivis.” Hoc, malignissima capita et optimo cuique inimicissima, Platoni obiectum est, obiectum Epicuro, obiectum Zenoni; omnes enim isti dicebant non quemadmodum ipsi viverent, sed quemadmodum esset ipsis vivendum. De virtute, non de me loquor, et cum vitiis convicium facio, in primis meis facio. 2Cum potuero, vivam quomodo oportet.
“Paniskos [writes] to my spouse, Ploutogenia, mother of my daughter, many greetings.
Above all, I pray for your good fortune every day from the paternal gods. I want you to know, sister, that we have been staying in Koptos near your sister and her children, so do not feel any annoyance at coming to Koptos, since your relatives are here. And just as you wholly desire to embrace her much and you pray to the gods each day, so too does she long to embrace you with your mother.
As soon as you receive this letter, make ready so that you may come immediately if I send for you. And, when you come, bring with you: ten skins of wool, six jars of olives, four of honey, my shield—only the unused one—and my helmet. Oh, bring my lances too. Bring also all the parts for the tent. If you find the occasion, come here with good people. Have Nonnos come too. Bring all of our clothing when you come. Also bring your golden jewelry when you come, but don’t wear those things openly on the boat.
Greetings to my lady and my daughter Heliodôra. Hermias says hello.
On the other side: “Give this to my wife and my daughter. From their father Paniskos.”
Nietzsche tells us that philology is the art of slow reading. Philologists naturally like to quote this tag as a part of the broader program of fetishizing slow reading and meticulous textual scrutiny, but amidst all the fictive glamor, one might lose sight of the fact that it is a habit which is instilled by compulsion in the first stages of learning ancient languages. Many of our readers have at least made a foray into the exciting world of Latin and Greek, and many will also be old enough to remember a time when early attempts at reading authentic texts in these languages required substantial dictionary thumbing.
I cannot imagine how things must be now that students have untrammeled access to wonderful resources like Logeion. Anytime they tell me that they are consulting Whitaker’s Words, I urge them to cast that garbage aside. I then draw forth the weighty, august, and extremely expensive copy of Lewis & Short which I keep in the classroom and say, “All this and more is right there on a free app.”
At the age of 32, I have begun to adopt fully the posture of the cantankerous old man, so this advice to download that revolutionary application is always accompanied by a story which begins with “Back in my day…” and ends with everyone thinking that I am hopelessly out of touch. Of course, the natural response of students when I tell them how much time I spent flipping through pages in the dictionary is that it all seems like a tremendous waste of time. To this I can only say that it was the most profitable waste of time that I ever engaged in.
Invariably, in such situations, I recur to my favorite dictionary tale: When I was first reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses and trying to give it the straight cover-to-cover treatment (the first text with which I did this), I found at some point that I was looking up the word squama for what felt like the trillionth time. I was conscious of the fact that I had seen it several times before, and even seemed to have developed a muscle memory for flipping to the appropriate page, yet I could not remember the word. Those who have spent time learning the languages this way will remember the heartbreaking feeling of looking up a word, registering the meaning, and then – once your eyes have returned to the text – realizing that you have already forgotten what the word meant. And so, being conscious of the fact that I had spent so much time searching for squama, I made it a point this time to stare at the word, to read every part of the entry for it, to swish it about the palate, and to write it on the remembering tablets of my mind. I burned that word into my memory, and not only did I not have to look it up again, I strongly suspect that it is one of the most secure possessions of my mind – so well remembered that it serves as an anecdote employed at least once a year.
Dictionary work was tedious, sometimes frustrating, and even then felt like a waste of time. It is also the genesis of the Classicist’s fetishization of slow reading. Slow progress through a text because of lexical roadblocks can be illustrated in an exchange recorded by Lionel Tollemache, in which Mark Pattison grills him on the value of exclusively classical education in schools:
A trifling incident may show how strong was his antipathy to the narrow classical instruction which used to form the chief staple of our public school education. I had been talking about my own school-time at Harrow. He turned round and asked abruptly, “Did you learn anything there?” I hesitated. “Answer me, Yes or No. Can you recall a single thing worth remembering that you learnt during all the years that you spent there?” I replied that, owing to my extreme short sight and consequent slowness in looking out words in a dictionary, I was not a good sample of a Harrow boy, but that some of my schoolfellows certainly learnt much. “Yes,” he said, doubtfully, “perhaps you may be right.” [Tollemache, Recollections of Pattison]
Yet there is something to be said for the inefficiency of the method as its chief value. Dictionary work was unpleasant, so one tried to avoid it when possible. How could it be avoided? Through memorization. And so, the reluctance to open the dictionary yet again could bring about the salutary educational aim of ensuring that you tried when possible to commit new vocabulary to memory, though you had no quiz or exam on the horizon lighting the fire beneath your feet.
Today, I envy my students’ ability to answer any of their lexical queries immediately without having to carry around a massive (or even a still inconvenient pocket-sized) volume. Certainly it is more efficient than the young John Stuart Mill’s approach:
But my father, in all his teaching, demanded of me not only the utmost that I could do, but much that I could by no possibility have done. What he was himself willing to undergo for the sake of my instruction, may be judged from the fact, that I went through the whole process of preparing my Greek lessons in the same room and at the same table at which he was writing: and as in those days Greek and English lexicons were not, and I could make no more use of a Greek and Latin lexicon than could be made without having yet begun to learn Latin, I was forced to have recourse to him for the meaning of every word which I did not know. This incessant interruption, he, one of the most impatient of men, submitted to, and wrote under that interruption several volumes of his History and all else that he had to write during those years. [Mill, Autobiography]
Yet, at the same time, I am glad that I am part of the last generation to suffer through compulsory dictionary work, as I doubt very much that I would have achieved anything like my current proficiency in the languages if I had had access to something like Logeion. Perhaps one of the reasons I despise the Cambridge Latin Course the most is the fact that all new vocabulary is simply pre-translated in the book itself, so students simply look into the vocabulary box and transpose meaning onto unfamiliar words. Dictionary work required, at a minimum, recognizing the declined or conjugated form of a particular word, understanding its grammatical function, and then identifying the appropriate form to search for in the dictionary. Similarly, any students whom I have taught using texts like Phaar’s Aeneid (which provides not just a running commentary at the bottom, but even a full list of potentially difficult vocabulary) tend to be exceptionally weak readers, precisely because there is no premium placed upon the memorization – nay, the internalization – of vocabulary.
When I graduated college, my aunt wanted to get me a triple-decker of a graduation gift. I requested THE Oxford Latin Dictionary, which cost at the time something like $300. It was my first impressive dictionary (certainly better than the Cassell’s with which I bullshitted my way through college), but I can barely recall using it. It’s fun for flipping through on occasion, but I couldn’t say that I use it in any functional sense. Over the years, I have spent several hundred dollars more on other dictionaries: a full-sized LSJ that I found for $50; a 19th century edition of the LSJ; my full-sized Lewis and Short (I actually do use this one); a Lexicon Pindaricum; some smaller (and super functional) paperbacks like the Autenreith of Cunliffe Lexicons for Homer.
In terms of pure functionality, all of these have been supplanted, yet I love them nonetheless. They stand as a physical metonym for the study of Classics itself: something fetishized and quaintly outmoded, a focal point for a past seen only dimly through the roseate lens of retrospectacles. But, like Classics, they also serve as an anchor for so much in my life, and I cannot open their musty pages without a certain nostalgic warmth suffusing my heart.
“I confess indeed that I am obsessed with studying literature. Let this fact shame others who do not know how to make use of their books so that they can’t provide anything from their reading to common profit or to make their benefit clear in sight.
Why, moreover, should I be ashamed when I have lived so many years in such a way that my hobby never prevented me from being useful to anyone at any time and its pleasure or sleepiness never distracted me or slowed me down? In what way, then, can anyone criticize me or censure me if if I am discovered to have spent that very same amount of time in pursuing these studies as others do without blame in pursuing profit, or in celebrating festivals or games, in seeking the pleasure and rest of the body and mind, or dragging out hours in dining, gambling or ballgames?”
Ego vero fateor me his studiis esse deditum: ceteros pudeat, si qui se ita litteris abdiderunt, ut nihil possint ex his neque ad communem adferre fructum neque in aspectum lucemque proferre: me autem quid pudeat, qui tot annos ita vivo, iudices, ut a nullius umquam me tempore aut commodo aut otium meum abstraxerit aut voluptas avocarit aut denique somnus retardarit? Qua re quis tandem me reprehendat aut quis mihi iure suscenseat, si, quantum ceteris ad suas res obeundas, quantum ad festos dies ludorum celebrandos, quantum ad alias voluptates et ad ipsam requiem animi et corporis conceditur temporum, quantum alii tribuunt tempestivis conviviis, quantum denique alveolo, quantum pilae, tantum mihi egomet ad haec studia recolenda sumpsero?
Cicero, Pro Archia 16
“But if this clear profit [of studying literature] is not clear and if entertainment alone should be sought from these pursuits, I still believe that you would judge them the most humanizing and enlightening exercise of the mind.
For other activities do not partake in all times, all ages, and all places—reading literature sharpens us in youth and comforts us in old age. It brings adornment to our successes and solace to our failures. It delights when we are at home and creates no obstacle for us out in the world. It is our companion through long nights, long journeys, and months in rural retreats.”
Quod si non hic tantus fructus ostenderetur et si ex his studiis delectatio sola peteretur, tamen, ut opinor, hanc animi adversionem humanissimam ac liberalissimam iudicaretis. Nam ceterae neque temporum sunt neque aetatum omnium neque locorum: haec studia adolescentiam acuunt,1 senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solacium praebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.
