“Neither citizen nor city, Perikles, will delight in the feast
And find fault in the pain of our mourning
For the waves of the much-resounding sea consumed
Such great men, and we have lungs swollen
With pain. But the gods, dear friend, have set
Powerful endurance as our medicine for untreatable
Evils. Different people have this at different times.
Now it has fallen to us and we lament a blooded wound,
But it will go to others in turn. Now, bear up quickly
Once you have pushed away womanly grief.”
John Tzetzes, Chiliades 11.520-533
“Encyclical learnings, the lyrics put properly,
Are properly also the first lessons to have that title,
And it comes from that circle the lyric chorus stood in,
When it was composed of fifty men, to chant the melodies.
The encyclical learnings, the lyrics put properly.
The second reason the encyclical learnings are called
A cycle is [they are] the full circle of all learning:
Grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy itself
And then subordinate to this the four arts are placed:
Arithmetic, music, and geometry
And crossing heaven itself: astronomy.
This encyclical learning, all of these things, for a second reason
As Porphyry wrote in his Lives of the Philosophers
And thousands of other eloquent men [have written too].”
In his comments dismissing Tzetzes, Sir Sandys uses this passage to give an example of what his poetry his like (“The following lines are a very faovurable example of his style…” 408). (Also, why’d he have to drag poor Porphyry into this?)
Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship 1300-1850 (Chp. IX):
“He disliked the Italians, who were, as he thought, frivolous atheists, to whom the classics were only playthings; he felt the deepest aversion to papal Rome. Though brought up in the Catholic faith, Scaliger had come into close contact with the Calvinistic circles in his Paris years, and he apostasized either in 1562 before his Italian journey or afterwards in 1566. It is understandable that he should have detested the growing political struggle being waged under the pretext of religion and that some Calvinistic ideas should have appealed to him. He believed that he found in them a spiritual independence, an impetus to real criticism as an instrument of truth; but since ‘he did not dispute on the controversial points of faith’, as his greatest friend the Catholic historian de Thou said, it is almost impossible to come to a conclusion about his beliefs. One thing, however, is certain: he had a profoundly religious mind and embraced ‘Muse and religion’ with equal love. On the relation of grammatica and religio there is a very remarkable dictum in the Scaligeriana, of which only the first part is usually quoted, perhaps his most famous words: ‘Utinam essem bonus grammaticus.’ [‘Would that I were a good grammarian!’] But the meaning is unmistakably given by the passage that follows: ‘Non aliunde discoridae in religione pendent quam ab ignorantione grammaticae’, all controversies in religion arise from ignorance of grammatica. This is not ‘grammar’ in the trivial sense, but criticism in the Hellenistic sense of γραμματική as the κριτικὴ τέχνη. When we look back to Erasmus and his contemporaries and pupils, we can hardly deny that Scaliger touched one of the chief problems of his century. But he did not apply his scholarship in extenso to this problem itself.”
“He will have written ‘The Muses and Apollo’ at one stroke who writes your name, renowned Joseph.'”
“I also know specialized pearls beyond the pearls.
They shatter and release small pearls in their craft
As they roll out other pearls. These things are about pearls.
I now call books oysters full of words.
You note, I suspect, that words are the pearls that come from them.”
If for some, inexplicable, reason, you would like to read the whole poem, it is available online.
Are you studying, fishing, hunting, or everything at once? All of this can happen at the same time on the shores of Como. For, the lake has fish, the forests around the lake have beasts, and your most isolated retreat supplies constant opportunities for study. But whether you are doing it all at once or just one thing, I cannot say that “I hate you for it”, but I am still anguished that I can’t join in when I long for them the way a sick man desires wine, baths, and springs.
Ah! how shall I ever drop these tightest of bonds if there is no way to untie them? Never, I suspect. For new business grows on top of the old before what was there is handled. As many links as already exist are added anew each day as my chain extends ever on.
Goodbye.
Plinius Caninio Suo S.
1Studes an piscaris an venaris an simul omnia? Possunt enim omnia simul fieri ad Larium nostrum. Nam lacus piscem, feras silvae quibus lacus cingitur, studia altissimus iste secessus adfatim suggerunt. 2Sed sive omnia simul sive aliquid facis, non possum dicere “invideo”; angor tamen non et mihi licere, qui sic concupisco ut aegri vinum balinea fontes. Numquamne hos artissimos laqueos, si solvere negatur, abrumpam? Numquam, puto. Nam veteribus negotiis nova accrescunt, nec tamen priora peraguntur: tot nexibus, tot quasi catenis maius in dies occupationum agmen extenditur. Vale.
From N.G. Wilson Scribes and Scholars on John Tzetzes
“He is inferior to Eustathius in knowledge and intelligence and is quite unjustifiably conceited about his own attainments: it is not easy to respect a man who in the middle of a note on Aristophanes…states that he would not lengthen his explanation but for the fact that there is a good deal of space left on the present page of his book.”
Tzetzes, Introduction to the Scholia to Lykophron’s Alexandra
“I, Lykophron’s thick book, abounding in songs,
Was once obscure, possessing unseeable visions.
But now by means of Hermeian craft Isaac Tzetzes
Has set me free, once he loosed my well-woven restraints.”
John Edwin Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship vol. 1
“His inordinate self-esteem is only exceeded by his extraordinary carelessness…he is, for the most part, dull as a writer and untrustworthy as an authority.”
Ancient memory techniques go back to oratorical training in theory, but in practice probably much further back in human history. PPhilostratus records the reputation of Dionysius of Miletus and his “memory-men”. But one of the most easily abused and likely misunderstood method from the ancient world is the “memory palace” (or “method of loci“), made famous by Cicero, but credited to the lyric poet Simonides.
Cicero De Oratore 2.352–355
“But, so I may return to the matter”, he said, “I am not as smart as Themistocles was as to prefer the art of forgetting to the art of memory. And So I am thankful to that Simonides of Ceos who, as they say, first produced an art of memory. For they say that when Simonides was dining at the home of a wealthy aristocrat named Scopas in Thessaly and had performed that song which he wrote in his honor—in which there were many segments composed for Castor and Pollux elaborated in the way of poets. Then Scopas told him cruelly that he would pay him half as much as he had promised he would give for the song; if it seemed right to him, he could ask Tyndareus’ sons for the other half since he had praised them equally.
A little while later, as they tell the tale, it was announced that Simonides should go outside—there were two young men at the door who had been calling him insistently. He rose, exited, and so no one. Meanwhile, in the same space of time, the ceiling under which Scopas was having his feast collapsed: the man was crushed by the ruins a d died with his relatives. When people wanted to bury them they could not recognize who was where because they were crushed. Simonides is said to have shown the place in which each man died from his memory for their individual burials.
From this experience, Simonides is said to have learned that it is order most of all that brings light to memory. And thus those who wish to practice this aspect of the skill must select specific places and shape in their mind the matters they wish to hold in their memory and locate these facts in those places. It will so turn out that the order of the places will safeguard the order of the matters, the reflections of the facts will remind of the facts themselves, and we may use the places like wax and the ideas like letters written upon it.”
Sed, ut ad rem redeam, non sum tanto ego, inquit, ingenio quanto Themistocles fuit, ut oblivionis artem quam memoriae malim; gratiamque habeo Simonidi illi Cio quem primum ferunt artem memoriae protulisse. Dicunt enim cum cenaret Crannone in Thessalia Simonides apud Scopam fortunatum hominem et nobilem cecinissetque id carmen quod in eum scripsisset, in quo multa ornandi causa poetarum more in Castorem scripta et Pollucem fuissent, nimis illum sordide Simonidi dixisse se dimidium eius ei quod pactus esset pro illo carmine daturum: reliquum a suis Tyndaridis quos aeque laudasset peteret si ei videretur. Paulo post esse ferunt nuntiatum Simonidi ut prodiret: iuvenes stare ad ianuam duos quosdam qui eum magnopere evocarent; surrexisse illum, prodisse, vidisse neminem; hoc interim spatio conclave illud ubi epularetur Scopas concidisse; ea ruina ipsum cum cognatis oppressum suis interiisse; quos cum humare vellent sui neque possent obtritos internoscere ullo modo, Simonides dicitur ex eo quod meminisset quo eorum loco quisque cubuisset demonstrator uniuscuiusque sepeliendi fuisse; hac tum re admonitus invenisse fertur ordinem esse maxime qui memoriae lumen afferret. Itaque eis qui hanc partem ingeni exercerent locos esse capiendos et ea quae memoria tenere vellent effingenda animo atque in eis locis collocanda: sic fore ut ordinem rerum locorum ordo conservaret, res autem ipsas rerum effigies notaret, atque ut locis pro cera, simulacris pro litteris uteremur.
thanks to S. Raudnitz for reminding me of this passage too!
Soc. “For the sake of argument, imagine that there is a single chunk of wax in our minds, for some it is bigger, for some smaller, and for one the wax is clearer, while for another it is more contaminated and rather inflexible; for others, in turn, the wax more pliable and even.”
Th. Ok….
Soc. Let us say that this is the gift of the Muses’ mother, Mnemosunê, and when we wish to recall something we have seen or heard or thought ourselves, we show this wax to our perceptions or thoughts and find the imprint, just as we find meaning in seal rings. Whatever is printed can be remembered and understood as long as its image persists. Whenever it is softened or cannot be recorded is forgotten and not understood.”
And Quintilian trying to turn our ability to fantasize into something more ‘productive’:
Quintilian’s Inst. Orat. 6.2
“The fictions I have been talking about pursue us when our minds are at rest as empty hopes or certain daydreams so that we imagine we are on a journey, sailing, fighting, talking to new people, or distributing wealth we do not have—and we seem not to be considering but to be doing these things. Couldn’t we transfer this vice of the mind to something useful?”
quod quidem nobis volentibus facile continget; nisi vero inter otia animorum et spes inanes et velut somnia quaedam vigilantium ita nos hae de quibus loquor imagines prosecuntur ut peregrinari navigare proeliari, populos adloqui, divitiarum quas non habemus usum videamur disponere, nec cogitare sed facere, hoc animi vitium ad utilitatem non transferemus [ad hominem]
And Plutarch on the importance of memory for education
Plutarch, The Education of Children (Moralia 9)
It is especially important to train and practice children’s memory: for memory is the warehouse of learning. This is why we used to mythologize Memory as the mother of the Muses, making it clear through allegory that nothing creates and nourishes the way memory does. This should be trained in both cases, whether children have a good memory from the beginning or are naturally forgetful. For we may strengthen the inborn ability and supplement the deficiency. The first group will be better than others; but the second will be better than themselves. This is why the Hesiodic line rings true: “If you add a little by little, and you keep doing it, soon you can have something great.”
Parents should also not forget that a skill of memory contributes its great worth not only to education but to life’s actions in general. For the memory of past events becomes an example of good planning for future actions.”
Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship 1300-1850 (Chp. IX):
“Born in 1540 in the south of France, he [Joseph Justus Scaliger] went to school at Bordeaux, but only for a very short time; in practice his father Julius Caesar, the author of Poetices libri septem, was his principal teacher. He was made to write eighty to a hundred or even two hundred lines of Latin verse every day at his father’s dictation and to deliver daily declamation in Latin prose; this practice in speaking and writing gave him a firm grounding in the principles of versification and in the free use of the Latin language. But from his early youth he also had a feeling for the observation of nature, for natural sciences, mathematics, and astronomy, showing himself a true and worthy contemporary of Galileo, Kepler, Tycho de Brahe, and Bacon. His father, while making him a perfect Latin scholar, kept him strictly away from Greek language and literature; and it was only at the age of nineteen, after his father’s death, that he had the opportunity of going to Paris to learn Greek. At the Collège de France he attended the lectures of Turnebus; but for the most part he remained his own teacher in Greek, reading Homer in three months, all the other Greek poets in the next four months, and in two years the whole of the Greek literature accessible to him. At the same time, in order to practise the knowledge thus acquired, he translated difficult texts like Lycophron and the Orphic Hymns (1561) into Latin, making use for this purpose of his astonishing knowledge of early Latin vocabulary.”
“And then cloud-gathering Zeus addressed Apollo:
‘Come now, dear Phoebus, cleanse the dark blood
From the wounds, once you get to Sarpedon, and then
Bring him out and wash him much in the river’s flows
And anoint him with ambrosia and put ambrosial clothes around him.
Send him to be carried by those quick heralds,
The twins sleep and death, and have them swiftly
Place him in the rich land of wide Lykia.
There his relatives and friends will bury him
With a mound and a stele. This is the rightful possession of the dead.”
So he said and Apollo did not disobey his father.”
“The fact is that Zenodotus has at this place changed the line, writing instead “and then Zeus addressed his dear son from Ida” so that he addresses his son from Ida in the meadow. For it would be ridiculous if Zeus shouted from Ida. For he did not recognize that it was necessary to accept that these kinds of details happened without being mentioned, just as in those scenes about Hera below.”
“But [the Spartans] dealt with those who entrusted their safety to them so that they defended themselves best of all people against those charges which at certain times were brought against our city. The explanation for this is not their savagery nor any of those common things which one might easily say to fault them, but the basic failure of their nature to measure up to ours. While the Athenians, furthermore, were in control for more than 70 years, the Spartans could not even hold their empire for three Olympiads. And this would not have even been a true statement if they had not taken over while the first Olympiad period ongoing!
This is why I get annoyed at those who want to compare the two cities. I might in fact seem strange to some of you in criticizing them and then proceeding to do the same thing myself all while saying these things for the very same reasons that I claim they shouldn’t be said. But this illustrates clearly that whatever favor they believe they bestow on the city is not at all remarkable and that these sorts of arguments are not be made freely. So, if someone thinks that I should not have said these things, this is why I said them. In addition, these statements were made without personal attack and because of a pressing need—for there was no other way to show what I wanted to and I was compelled to say what I said for the very reasons I tried not to.
For the Spartans seem to me to have suffered in comparison to this city what Teucer did from Ajax at Homer’s hands. For Teucer retreats to Ajax when he risks his life in front of the rest and at the same time is famous and then sullied by this. In the same way, the Spartans, who stood in front and endangered themselves for the Greeks in a time of need, are still children when compared to our city.”
