“There are two kinds of weasels: one is wild and the two differ in size. The Greeks call this one ictis. The gall of both is useful against asps, but poisonous to others. The other weasel, however, wanders in our homes and, as Cicero explains, moves its young on a daily basis and changes its nest, chasing snakes. Its meat, preserved in salt is given in a weight of one denarius and mixed in three cyathi of liquid to those who have been bitten. Otherwise, its stomach is stuffed with coriander and, once dried, drunk with wine. A weasel kitten is even better for this than the weasel itself.”
XVI. Mustelarum duo genera, alterum silvestre; distant magnitudine, Graeci vocant ictidas. harum fel contra aspidas dicitur efficax, cetero venenum. haec autem quae in domibus nostris oberrat et catulos suos, ut auctor est Cicero, cottidie transfert mutatque sedem, serpentes persequitur. ex ea inveterata sale denarii pondus in cyathis tribus datur percussis aut ventriculus coriandro fartus inveteratusque et in vino potus, et catulus mustelae etiam efficacius.
“Simylos the lyre player murdered his neighbors
Playing all night long. But not Origines:
Nature made him deaf and thus
Gave him a longer life instead of hearing.”
“Then we will talk about the style of a letter which also needs to be simple. Artemôn who edited the letters of Aristotle, says that we ought to write letters the same way as dialogues since a letter is similar to one side of a dialogue.
Perhaps he speaks the truth in this, but not all of it. For a letter ought to be a little more formalized than a dialogue. For a dialogue imitates speaking extemporaneously while a letter is written and sent as a gift in some way.”
“To condense the Squire’s meditation, it was somewhat as follows: ‘I won’t tell him to read his Bible, and love and serve God; if he don’t do that for his mother’s sake and teaching, he won’t for mine. Shall I go into the sort of temptations he’ll meet with? No, I can’t do that. Never do for an old fellow to go into such things with a boy. He won’t understand me. Do him more harm than good, ten to one. Shall I tell him to mind his work, and say he’s sent to school to make himself a good scholar? Well, but he isn’t sent to school for that—at any rate, not for that mainly. I don’t care a straw for Greek particles, or the digamma; no more does his mother. What is he sent to school for? Well, partly because he wanted so to go. If he’ll only turn out a brave, helpful, truth-telling Englishman, and a gentleman, and a Christian, that’s all I want,’ thought the Squire; and upon this view of the case he framed his last words of advice to Tom, which were well enough suited to his purpose.”
“How does magic work? It works by sympathy and by the innate harmony of things that are similar and the disharmony of things that are opposite. It also works through the richness of the many powers which contribute to a living thing.
Many things are attracted and enchanted without anyone casting a spell. The real magic is the Love and the Strife which is in the Totality. This is the first wizard and that is the first potion-master—it is by observing this that people come to use his potions and spells on each other.
Because loving is innate and whatever inspires love compels people towards one another, a force of magical erotic art has developed. Some people apply different magical potions to others which pull them together and possess an erotic force. They join different spirits together, as if they were interweaving plants rooted some distance apart.”
This made me think more than a little of Empedocles:
Empedocles, fr. 17.23-33
“Come, listen to my stories: for learning will certainly improve your thoughts.
As I said before when I declared the outline of my speeches,
I will speak a two-fold tale. Once, first, the one alone grew
Out of many and then in turn it grew apart into many from one.
Fire, and Water, and Earth and the invincible peak of Air,
Ruinous strife as well, separate from these, equal to every one,
And Love was among them, equal as well in length and breadth.
Keep Love central in your mind, don’t sit with eyes in a stupor.
She is known to be innate to mortal bodies,
She causes them to think of love and complete acts of peace,
Whether we call her Happiness or Aphrodite as a nickname….”
“And this is also not unworthy of consideration: what will be the way of rebirth when everything has been destroyed by fire? For, when substance is completely burned up, then it is necessary that the fire burns out because it no longer has anything to feed it.
If the fire remains, then the essential logic of an orderly creation is preserved; but if fire is removed, then that disappears too. This is a double sacrifice and sacrilege—not only to ask for the destruction of the world but also to eradicate rebirth as if god took joy in disorder, lethargy, and all kinds of error.”
“When he was caught talking to himself one time and was asked why he was doing it, [Pyrrho] said that he was practicing being good. He was dismissed by no one when it came to debating since he could easily speak at length and in response to questioning.
This is why he caught the attention of Nausiphanes when he was a young man. For he used to say, at least, that we should be like Pyrrho in debate, but himself in beliefs. And he was in the habit of saying often that even Epicurus used to ask him all the time for information about Pyrrho since he was so amazed by him.
He also said that he was so honored by his home cited that they made him the chief of the priests and voted that all philosophers should be free of taxes.”
“[Epicurus] used to call Nausiphanes an illiterate jellyfish, a cheat and a whore. He used to refer to Plato’s followers as the Dionysius-flatterer and Plato himself ‘golden boy’; he called Aristotle a waste who, after he spent his inheritance, fought as a mercenary and sold drugs. He maligned Protagoras as a bellboy, and called Protagoras Democritus’ secretary and a teacher from the sticks. He called Heraclitus mudman, Democritus Lerocritus [nonsense lord].
Antidorus he called Sannidôros [servile-gifter]. He named the Cynics “Greece’s enemies”; he called the dialecticians Destructionists and, according to him, Pyrrho was unlearned and unteachable.”
“We had already made it a certain distance when the sun rose and everything was in the light. I was examining my friend’s neck with a intense curiosity in the place where I had seen the sword end up. And I thought to myself, ‘You are mad, ‘You were covered in your cups and wine and dreamed the worst. Look, Socrates is whole, healthy, and untouched. Where is the wound, or the sponge? Where is a scar so new and recent?’
And then I said to him, ‘It is not without reason that trustworthy doctors say that people overstuffed with food and drink have evil, savage dreams. In my case, because I was excessive in my drinking last night, the evening brought me terrible and torturous visions, that I even believed I was covered and polluted with human blood!”
But he was smirking at me when he said, ‘You are not covered in blood, but piss! Indeed, I myself dreamed that my throat was cut. I imagined pain on this neck and I even believed that my heart was ripped out. Even now I remain out of breath: my knees are trembling and I am stumbling. I need some food for strengthening my breath.”
“Aliquantum processeramus et iam iubaris exortu cuncta collustrantur. Et ego curiose sedulo arbitrabar iugulum comitis, qua parte gladium delapsum videram; et mecum ‘Vesane,’ aio ‘qui poculis et vino sepultus extrema somniasti. Ecce Socrates integer, sanus, incolumis. Ubi vulnus, spongia? Ubi postremum cicatrix tam alta, tam recens?’ Et ad illum ‘Non’ inquam ‘immerito medici fidi cibo et crapula distentos saeva et gravia somniare autumant. Mihi denique, quod poculis vesperi minus temperavi, nox acerba diras et truces imagines obtulit, ut adhuc me credam cruore humano aspersum atque impiatum.’
“Ad haec ille surridens ‘At tu’ inquit ‘non sanguine sed lotio perfusus es. Verum tamen et ipse per somnium iugulari visus sum mihi. Nam et iugulum istum dolui et cor ipsum mihi avelli putavi; et nunc etiam spiritu deficior et genua quatior et gradu titubo et aliquid cibatus refovendo spiritu desidero.’
“I acquired a bitter detestation of war, less for its horrors than for its boredom and futility, and a contempt for its panache. To speak of glory seemed a horrid impiety. That was perhaps why I could not open Homer. I found that I could read very little, and that many things which used to charm me seemed meaningless, since they belonged to a dead world. My reading was chiefly in the Latin and Greek classics, which were beyond the caprice of time. I read and re-read Thucydides, for he also had lived among crumbling institutions; Virgil, for he had known both the cruelty and the mercy of life; Plato, above all, for he was seraphically free from the pettinesses which were at the root of our sorrows.”
