Farrago

More from Carl Sesar on Catullus

2011-11-11T17:22:00.002Z

Poems 37 and 39 - the Celtiberian pair - in addition to those mentioned in previous posts.

Reasons to Study Classics

2011-11-10T10:49:00.003Z

Charlotte Higgins discussed the topic in Varsity: "to inspire, to delight, to disgust, to frighten, to speak to our dreams and nightmares".

A quadrilingual funerary monument

2011-11-10T10:32:00.007Z

Richard Brett, rector of Quainton, Buckinghamshire, served the translators of the Authorised Version (the First Oxford Company: the Major and Minor Prophets) apparently as a linguist. The funerary monument for himself and his family starts with a Hebrew inscription, then a Greek one, then a Latin one, and finally one in English.

So far, I have only found the English text in full:
"Instead of weeping marble weepe for him
All ye his flock whom he did strive to winn
To Christ, to lyfe; so shall you duly sett
The most desired stone on Dr Brett."

The Latin apparently said that the best monumentfor a pastor is his congregation.

Bactrian horsemen and their imitators

2011-10-27T10:50:00.003+01:00

From The Economist.

Alexander in Afghanistan

2011-10-21T17:42:00.005+01:00

From P. M. Fraser, Cities of Alexander the Great (1996: 172):

"Who could guess from Arrian of the magnificient richness of th oasis of Herat, through which so many water ways ran, and made it so natural a site for Alexandria in Aria, or of the oasis of Kandahar where two great rivers converged? Nobody. It is as if, except for a few mountains and rivers that are but names in the text, Alexander marched over a college lawn."

Diminutives in LSJ

2011-09-15T16:29:00.003+01:00

Under χελύ̄νιον, there are two instances of an interesting explanation that I have not encountered in LSJ before: 'Dim. (in form only) of foreg.'. We are all too ready to use diminutive as a semantic/functional rather than a derivational/formal label.

Also in this entry, we are told which section of the 'foreg.' is involved.

Note too the mention of a f.l. for χελώνια II, Lxx De.34.7 cod.Alex. - perhaps a little too much precise or redundant information for the entry. Also curious is the citation from a (new) periodical or serial of 1932.

The entry is much shorter in LS4. These accretions might well speak volumes about the later work for LSJ, including its treatment of Septuagintal material.

Names

2011-09-09T16:44:00.005+01:00

Two from Philodemus :-

1) Switching between a female name and its (neuter) diminutive:

Ξανθὼ κηρόπλαστε, μυρόχροε, μουσοπρόσωπε,

εὔλαλε, διπτερύγων καλὸν ἄγαλμα Πόθων,

ψῆλόν μοι χερσὶ δροσιναῖς μύρον· „Ἐν μονοκλίνῳ

δεῖ με λιθοδμήτῳ δή ποτε πετριδίῳ

εὕδειν ἀθανάτως πουλὺν χρόνον.“ ᾆδε πάλιν μοι,

Ξανθάριον, ναὶ ναί, τὸ γλυκὺ τοῦτο μέλος.

οὐκ ἀίεις, ὤνθρωφ’, ὁ τοκογλύφος; ἐν μονοκλίνῳ

δεῖ σὲ βιοῦν αἰεί, δύσμορε, πετριδίῳ.

Anth.9.570 [= no. 341 in Jay's Penguin]

2) Word-play with names and name elements, perhaps as an indicator of the transparency of compounds or awareness of an echo, associating ἔραμαι and φιλέω:

Ἠράσθην Δημοῦς Παφίης γένος· οὐ μέγα θαῦμα·

καὶ Σαμίης Δημοῦς δεύτερον· οὐχὶ μέγα·

καὶ πάλιν Ὑσιακῆς Δημοῦς τρίτον· οὐκέτι ταῦτα

παίγνια· καὶ Δημοῦς τέτρατον Ἀργολίδος.

αὐταί που Μοῖραί με κατωνόμασαν Φιλόδημον,

ὡς αἰεὶ Δημοῦς θερμὸς ἔχοι με πόθος.

Anth. 5.115 [= no. 333 in Jay's Penguin]

11th September 2011

2011-09-09T15:34:00.003+01:00

A reflection from The Economist for the tenth anniversary:

"As September 11th fades into the history books, America has started to move on. The burning towers, the battle on the slopes of Tora Bora, the pyrotechnics over Baghdad, the sadistic pictures of hooded prisoners in Abu Ghraib: these have come to seem like photographs in an album, vividly remembered but no longer part of today’s reality." (this blogger's emphasis).

[ The 'Labels for this post' are obviously weak. ]

Trilingualism

2011-09-07T14:42:00.003+01:00

Meleager, Anth. 7.419 [= GP IV, 4000 ff., OCT IV, 4044 ff., Penguin no. 289 (Peter Whigham)]

Ἀτρέμας, ὦ ξένε, βαῖνε· παρ’ εὐσεβέσιν γὰρ ὁ πρέσβυς
εὕδει κοιμηθεὶς ὕπνον ὀφειλόμενον,
Εὐκράτεω Μελέαγρος, ὁ τὸν γλυκύδακρυν Ἔρωτα
καὶ Μούσας ἱλαραῖς συστολίσας Χάρισιν·
ὃν θεόπαις ἤνδρωσε Τύρος Γαδάρων θ’ ἱερὰ χθών·
Κῶς δ’ ἐρατὴ Μερόπων πρέσβυν ἐγηροτρόφει.
ἀλλ’ εἰ μὲν Σύρος ἐσσί, „Σαλάμ“, εἰ δ’ οὖν σύ γε Φοῖνιξ,
„Αὐδονίς“, εἰ δ’ Ἕλλην, „Χαῖρε“, τὸ δ’ αὐτὸ φράσον.

Arrian on kings and falsehood

2011-08-17T12:37:00.003+01:00

ἀλλ’ ἐμοὶ Πτολεμαῖός τε καὶ Ἀριστόβουλος πιστότεροι ἔδοξαν ἐς τὴν ἀφήγησιν, ὁ μὲν ὅτι συνεστράτευσε βασιλεῖ Ἀλεξάνδρῳ, Ἀριστόβουλος, Πτολεμαῖοςδὲ πρὸς τῷ ξυστρατεῦσαι ὅτι καὶ αὐτῷ βασιλεῖ ὄντι αἰσχρότερον ἤ τῳ ἄλλῳ ψεύσασθαι ἦν·

Instead, both Ptolemy and Aristoboulos seemed to me to more trustworthy for the narrative: the latter because he campaigned with king Alexander - Aristoboulos - and, the former, Ptolemy, because, in addition to having campaigned in that way, it was more shameful for him to lie than for any other, because he was a king himself.

Arrian, Alexandri Anabasis Prologue 2.

The Shibboleth and translation technique

2011-08-12T17:40:00.008+01:00

A dialectal difference in Hebrew between the Ephraimites and the other tribes gave rise to the English term 'a shibboleth' as a means of distinguishing an out-group from the in-group, whether by a mispronunciation specifically - as in the original instance - or, more generally, by a custom or fashion, by a catchphrase or password, or by a characteristic manner of speaking (and sometimes by a moral standard).

Until I can read Hebrew, here is the English Standard Version's rendering of the incident in Judges 12: 5-6:

"And the Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. And when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead said to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” When he said, “No,” (6) they said to him, “Then say Shibboleth,” and he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time 42,000 of the Ephraimites fell."

The Old Greek versions differ in their treatment of 'shibboleth', which apparently means "a flowing stream" or "an ear of corn". The codex Vaticanus (showing so-called καί γε Hebraising features) takes a verbum e verbo approach and employs στάχυς, "an ear of corn" (note the first aorist forms of εἰπεῖν).

καὶ προκατελάβετο Γαλααδ τὰς διαβάσεις τοῦ Ιορδάνου τοῦ Εφραιμ, καὶ εἶπαν αὐτοῖς οἱ διασῳζόμενοι Εφραιμ Διαβῶμεν, καὶ εἶπαν αὐτοῖς οἱ ἄνδρες Γαλααδ Μὴ Εφραθίτης εἶ; καὶ εἶπεν Οὔ. (6) καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῷ Εἰπὸν δὴ Στάχυς· καὶ οὐ κατεύθυνεν τοῦ λαλῆσαι οὕτως. καὶ ἐπελάβοντο αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔθυσαν αὐτὸν πρὸς τὰς διαβάσεις τοῦ Ιορδάνου, καὶ ἔπεσαν ἐν τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ ἀπὸ Εφραιμ τεσσαράκοντα δύο χιλιάδες.

However, the codex Alexandrinus (with Antiochene or Lucianic features) takes a sensus de sensu approach (note the pluralisation too):

καὶ προκατελάβοντο ἄνδρες Γαλααδ τὰς διαβάσεις τοῦ Ιορδάνου τοῦ Εφραιμ, καὶ ἐγενήθη ὅτι εἶπαν οἱ διασεσῳσμένοι τοῦ Εφραιμ Διαβῶμεν, καὶ εἶπαν αὐτοῖς οἱ ἄνδρες Γαλααδ Μὴ ὑμεῖς ἐκ τοῦ Εφραιμ; καὶ εἶπαν Οὔκ ἐσμεν. (6.) καὶ εἶπαν αὐτοῖς Εἴπατε δὴ Σύνθημα· καὶ οὐ κατηύθυναν τοῦ λαλῆσαι οὕτως. καὶ ἐπελάβοντο αὐτῶν καὶ ἔσφαξαν αὐτοὺς ἐπὶ τὰς διαβάσεις τοῦ Ιορδάνου, καὶ ἔπεσαν ἐξ Εφραιμ ἐν τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ δύο τεσσαράκοντα χιλιάδες.

That is, 'and they said to them, "Then say 'password'!"' (cf. 2 Maccabees 8.23, 13.15).

There was no attempt in either version to reflect the phonetics involved, altough ἄσταχυς existed (and was known in Hellenistic Jewish circles - at least, those of Philo and Josephus). Something along the lines of the <σι-> for <θε-> found in Laconian might have been possible.

The Vulgate gives a version with an attempt to reflect the word requested and the word spoken in answer.

occupaveruntque Galaaditae vada Iordanis per quae Ephraim reversurus erat cumque venisset ad ea de Ephraim numero fugiens atque dixisset obsecro ut me transire permittas dicebant ei Galaaditae numquid Ephrateus es quo dicente non sum. (6. ) interrogabant eum dic ergo sebboleth quod interpretatur spica qui respondebat tebboleth eadem littera spicam exprimere non valens statimque adprehensum iugulabant in ipso Iordanis transitu et ceciderunt in illo tempore de Ephraim quadraginta duo milia.

Note also the explanation of sebboleth, quod interpretatur spica, "an ear of corn". All this seems closer to Vaticanus. Jerome may have drawn on Symmachus' translation, which combined fidelity to the Hebrew with natural Greek idiom and constructions.

There is one further detail of interest. Field's Hexapla has a note on στάχυς: σεβελω * και ειπεν ταχυς z. The * is a hexaplaric asterisk (an 'x' with a dot in each wedge) indicating an addition to the LXX text from another version. The Larger Cambridge Septuagint notes from the margin of cod. 85 : καὶ εἶπεν τάχυς. Perhaps, someone somewhere wanted to reflect the difference of pronunciation with a minimal pair... but note that the accent on "swift" would be ταχύς.

Typography, identity, and the name

2011-08-12T16:01:00.010+01:00

There is a curious piece of typesetting in LSJ's entry for the personal name Ἰησοῦς.
This particular Jesus is distinguished from all others, by a simple typographic variation.

I do not know exactly when this device was first employed in the Liddell-Scott tradition. There is no entry for the name in LS4. It could have been included among those names that the Preface claims "present anything remarkable in their grammatical forms".

In LS6 the name is given in small caps with an explanation that it represents the Hebrew names Jesus and Joshua. We are told there too about the different dative forms.

Although LSJ notes the different forms of the dative, and so informs us about one morphological difference between these the LXX and NT as corpora of Koine Greek, the entry is misleading. Not every Ἰησοῦς in the NT with the dative -οῦ is Jesus or even the Joshua mentioned in Acts 7: 45 (and Hebrews 4: 8). BDAG mentions three others, at least one contemporary with Jesus of Nazareth: 2 Jesus the son of Eliezer Lk 3: 29; 4 Jesus (better known as) Barabbas Mt 27:16 f., and 5 Jesus also called Justus Col 4:11.

Others are named in the LXX too, as well as Josephus, Aristeas, inscriptions from the Augustan period, papyri, and ostraca.

Self-defence against lions

2011-08-11T17:47:00.005+01:00

The following relief from Persepolis in Iran teaches the correct technique for fighting a lion hand-to-paw. Note, in particular the lion's (unsuccessful) blocking technique.

For a reconstruction of the context, see below.

Carl Sesar

2011-07-22T12:26:00.002+01:00

Yet more on the Catullan translator (see the earlier posts: 1, 2, and 3). Search for "plenty of enthusiasm for classic texts" once you have followed the first link.

Carl Sandburg on Poetry

2011-07-22T12:14:00.002+01:00

Is Sandburg's assessment "poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits" fair in relation to Hellenistic poetry, tragedy, lyric or Homer?

A round up

2011-07-20T15:53:00.003+01:00

Alcibiades' lisp? (from Johnson at the Economist). Thence too, the suffixes -ikos and -ismos (the book rather than the example specifically).

Trivia about the lengths of Greek words inter alia. Please remember that the longest word in English is smiles, because there's a mile in the middle.

Latin and Greek vocab lists from a much respected former teacher.

Carl Sesar's Catullus 53 (on pp. 658-659) and 58 (at p. 11).

Lifestyles of Lexicographers, Part VII

2011-07-19T08:53:00.000+01:00

From the Preface to Souter's A Glossary of Later Latin to A.D. 600:

The preparation of a lexicon of this kind, though tedious, is not without its consolations. Lexicographers can claim to know some of the joys and excitements of explorers. We, too, have often to hack our way through tangled growths. These tangled growths are sometimes tralaticious blunders which have passed undetected, or at least unremoved, through a series of dictionaries. Texts rapidly produced for the press in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, often from late, poor, and interpolated, if readily accessible, manuscripts, have fallen under the eyes of a lexicographer who has duly recorded a word which is not what the author wrote; and this error has been copied by later lexicographers.

Coptic in Liddell-Scott-Jones

2011-07-18T16:36:00.004+01:00

Although most references to languages other than Greek appear in Roman script, some Coptic snuck its way into LSJ s.v. Χημία.

A picture speaks a thousand words

2011-07-18T16:19:00.005+01:00

To my knowledge, there is only one image in Liddell-Scott-Jones, s.v. ἄρβηλος II. The illustration clarifies the nature of a geometric figure.

The problem is, as the 1968 Supplement noted, that this illustration is upside down.
The notes from CR 56 pages 75[-76] (D'Arcy W. Thompson) and 116 (J. D. Beazley) reflect a gentler age in which a Classical scholar could consult both a bootmaker and a saddler on the same London street and in which shoemakers were named in notes about realia.

Finally, the Revised Supplement of 1996 is silent about the orientation of the diagram in II, leaving us to infer that Liddell-Scott-Jones had it right to begin with.

The Hippolytos Mosaic

2011-07-15T17:24:00.003+01:00

The character's of the Hippolytos mythos (lower half) are depicted on this mosaic located at Madaba in Jordan. Aphrodite and Adonis appear in the top right-hand corner.

The Franciscan Archaeological Institute has further discussion, and another view is available.

From The Greek Anthology: Perfume, Scholarship, Adynata

2011-07-13T16:57:00.008+01:00

"You are the perfume of your perfume."
(loosely) Adespoton, Anth. 5.91

**
Philip of Thessalonika:

Χαίροιθ’, οἱ περὶ κόσμον ἀεὶ πεπλανηκότες ὄμμα

οἵ τ’ ἀπ’ Ἀριστάρχου σῆτες ἀκανθολόγοι.

ποῖ γὰρ ἐμοὶ ζητεῖν, τίνας ἔδραμεν Ἥλιος οἴμους

καὶ τίνος ἦν Πρωτεὺς καὶ τίς ὁ Πυγμαλίων;

γινώσκοιμ’, ὅσα λευκὸν ἔχει στίχον· ἡ δὲ μέλαινα

ἱστορίη τήκοι τοὺς Περικαλλιμάχους.

A long farewell to your universe-swivelling optics,
and to all your Aristarchoid acanthologizing bookworms!
What do I care about aphelion or perihelion,
or the generations of Proteus or Pygmalion?
Clarity, clarity always! and may some tenebrous saga
wither the bones of the Hypercallimachoids!

Anth. 11.347 [Translated by Edwin Morgan as no. 474 in Peter Jay's Penguin]

Γραμματικοὶ Μώμου στυγίου τέκνα, σῆτες ἀκανθῶν,

τελχῖνες βίβλων, Ζηνοδότου σκύλακες,

Καλλιμάχου στρατιῶται, ὃν ὡς ὅπλον ἐκτανύσαντες,

οὐδ’ αὐτοῦ κείνου γλῶσσαν ἀποστρέφετε,

συνδέσμων λυγρῶν θηρήτορες, οἷς τὸ „μὶν“ ἢ „σφὶν“

εὔαδε καὶ ζητεῖν, εἰ κύνας εἶχε Κύκλωψ,

τρίβοισθ’ εἰς αἰῶνα κατατρύζοντες ἀλιτροὶ

ἄλλων· ἐς δ’ ἡμᾶς ἰὸν ἀποσβέσατε

Anth. 11.321.

Οὐρανὸς ἄστρα τάχιον ἀποσβέσει ἢ τάχα νυκτὸς

ἠέλιος φαιδρὴν ὄψιν ἀπεργάσεται

καὶ γλυκὺ νᾶμα θάλασσα βροτοῖς ἀρυτήσιμον ἕξει

καὶ νέκυς εἰς ζωῶν χῶρον ἀναδράμεται,

ἤ ποτε Μαιονίδαο βαθυκλεὲς οὔνομ’ Ὁμήρου

λήθη γηραλέων ἁρπάσεται σελίδων.

The sky will estinguish its stars, and the sun
will appear shining in the folds of night,
and the seawill be a well of fresh water for men,
and the dead will come back to the land of the living,
before forgetfulness of those ancient lines
can steal from us the far-famed name of Homer.

Anth. 9.575 [Translated by Edwin Morgan as no. 472 in Peter Jay's Penguin]

Incarceration

2011-07-13T13:20:00.003+01:00

Some quotations of note:
"Prisons are not to be warehouses for the incorrigible, but to be greenhouses to restore the redeemable."
-- Rt Rev James Jones

"We build jails for people we're afraid of and fill them with people we're mad at."
-- Pat Nolan
Read on.

A happier age:
felices proavorum atavos, felicia dicas
saecula, quae quondam sub regibus atque tribunis
viderunt uno contentam carcere Romam.
"... Rome content with just one prison."

Personal names across languages

2011-07-06T15:20:00.004+01:00

Leon, and other names relating to lions.
James, Jacob, Iago, etc.

Both are from Johnson.

More translations

2011-07-06T15:13:00.002+01:00

Following earlier references to Carl Sesar's renderings of Catullus, here is his 16 (in the Comments) and his 51.

Walking the job rather than chasing distractions

2011-07-06T15:10:00.002+01:00

From Euripides, fragment 187 (Antiope):

ἀνὴρ γὰρ ὅστις εὖ βίον κεκτημένος
τὰ μὲν κατ’ οἴκους ἀμελίᾳ παρεὶς ἐᾷ,
μολπαῖσι δ’ ἡσθεὶς τοῦτ’ ἀεὶ θηρεύεται,
ἀργὸς μὲν οἴκοις καὶ πόλει γενήσεται,
φίλοισι δ’ οὐδείς· ἡ φύσις γὰρ οἴχεται,
ὅταν γλυκείας ἡδονῆς ἥσσων τις ᾖ.

Lifestyles of Lexicographers VI

2011-06-17T10:11:00.003+01:00

From W. J. Slater's Lexicon to Pindar, p. VIII:

"A lexicon is the result of two opposing processes, compilation and compression. The first resembles the work of a magpie, the second demands ruthless self criticism. Therefore, even though I have often quoted Pindar at length at the price of doing justice to his commentators, on the principle Πίνδαρον ἐκ Πινδάρου σαφηνίζειν, I have nonetheless been painfully aware, brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. Any lexicon is a compromise between these two attitudes."

Less chat, more precision

2011-05-20T10:50:00.003+01:00

LSJ s.v. φόρτος

II 'Att., vulgar stuff, rubbish, balderdash...'
III 'mass of detail, 'stuff' in semi-colloquial sense,...'.

Tag questions, you know?

2011-04-07T10:49:00.001+01:00

From the contemporary poet, Tailor Malli.

Lifestyles of Lexicographers V

2011-04-07T10:31:00.003+01:00

Moulton and Milligan's Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament was published between 1908 and 1930 in various forms. As such, it is a product, in part, of the "roaring Twenties" and it shows.

γυναικάριον.
Sir W.M. Ramsay... suggests the analogy of Cicero's barbartuli juvenes... young swells with neatly and fashionably trimmed beards. The γυναικάρια of 2 Tim. 3^6 would then be society ladies, borne by capricies in various directions and full of ideal curiosity. The word is found in Epictetus iv.1 86 τῶν καλῶν γυναικαρίων...

Denominal word formation

2011-03-30T14:34:00.004+01:00

There is a (long-standing) fad for forming verbs from nouns in English. Read all about it at 'You've been verbed', in Intelligent Life.

Reasons to Study Classics

2011-02-22T19:02:00.001Z

From Woodrow WIlson's, Commemorative Address at Princeton, October 1896 (Entitled "Princeton in the Nation’s Service”):

This, it seems to me, is the real, the prevalent argument for holding every man we can to the intimate study of the ancient classics. Latin and Greek no doubt have a grammatical and syntactical habit which challenges the mind that would master it to a severer exercise of analytical power than the easy-going synthesis of any modern tongue demands; but substitutes in kind may be found for that drill. What you cannot find a substitute for is the classics as literature; and there can be no first-hand contact with that literature if you will not master the grammar and the syntax which convey its subtle power. Your enlightenment depends on the company you keep. You do not know the world until you know the men who have possessed it and tried its ways before ever you were given your brief run upon it. And there is no sanity comparable with that which is schooled in the thoughts that will keep. It is such a schooling that we get from the world's literature. The books have disappeared which were not genuine, -which spoke things which, if they were worth saying at all, were not worth hearing more than once, as well as the books which spoke permanent things clumsily and without the gift of interpretation. The kind air which blows from age to age has disposed of them like vagrant leaves. There was sap in them for a little, but now they are gone, we do not know where. All literature that has lasted has this claim upon us: that it is not dead; but we cannot be quite so sure of any as we are of the ancient literature that still lives, because none has lived so long. It holds a sort of leadership in the aristocracy of natural selection.

Read it, moreover, and you shall find another proof of vitality in it, more significant still. You shall recognize its thoughts, and even its fancies, as your long-time familiars, -shall recognize them as the thoughts that have begotten a vast deal of your own literature. We read the classics and exclaim in our vanity: "How modern! It might have been written yesterday." Would it not be more true, as well as more instructive, to exclaim concerning our own ideas: "How ancient! They have been true these thousand years"? It is the general air of the world a man gets when he reads the classics, the thinking which depends upon no time but only upon human nature, which seems full of the voices of the human spirit, quick with the power which moves ever upon the face of affairs. "What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand.” There is the spirit of a race in Greek literature, the spirit of quite another people in the books of Virgil and Horace and Tacitus, but in all a mirror of the world, the old passion of the soul, the old hope that keeps so new, the informing memory, the persistent forecast.

It has always seemed to me an odd thing, and a thing against nature, that the literary man, the man whose citizenship and freedom are of the world of thought, should ever have been deemed an unsafe man in affairs; and yet I suppose there is not always injustice in the judgment. It is a peculiarly pleasant and beguiling comradeship, the company of authors. Not many men when once they are deep in it will leave its engaging talk of things gone by to find their practical duties in the present. But you are not making an undergraduate a man of letters when you keep him four short years, at odd, or even at stated hours in the company of authors. You shall have done much if you make him feel free among them.

Quotations about the Septuagint

2011-02-09T10:35:00.002Z

As biblical scholar Adolf Deissmann once wrote, “A single hour lovingly devoted to the text of the Septuagint will further our exegetical knowledge of the Pauline epistles more than a whole day spent over a commentary.”

Peter Walters (né Katz) once wrote of the Greek of the translation by Aquila, "the language he writes is not Greek nor any other living thing at all" and noted Aquila's "pedanticism in reproducing the Hebrew original and consistency in clinging to fixed Greek equivalents (?) for Hebrew stems and derivations".

Prefaces, collaborations, and interdisciplinarity

2011-01-14T10:16:00.002Z

Essays on the Ancient Semitic World (1970):
'During these middle decades of the twentieth century, when each scholarly discipline has long since turned in upon itself and become highly specialised, the search is for some means of liaison among virtually isolated groups. More and more the need has been felt by the individual scholar to pool his resources with those of his colleagues. Otherwise, so runs the tacitly accepted reasoning, we must all wedge ourselves tighter and tighter into narrow passages where no forward movement is possible. The great advantage in a college of scholars in which free exchange of ideas is not only possible, but shrewdly encouraged, is that such impasses are never reached.
...
for the filed of scholarly endeavour is not segmented into watertight compartments, but resembles the broad expanse of the rainbow, where colours melt into one another, and sharp lines are never certain.
...
The traditional picture of the lone scholar, doing his work by himself in his garret, must be replaced by the image of the dialogue or seminar.'

A Grammar of Septuagint Greek (1905):
'The labour of many good men, such as the Rev. W. H. Seddon, now Vicar of Painswick, and the Rev. Osmond Archer, to name two who happen to fall under our knowledge, has thus been left without acknowledgement. They toiled silently for the advancement of learning, like the coral insects who play their part beneath the waters in rearing a fair island for the abode of man.'

'No Higher Critic is likely to trouble himself about disentangling the different strands of authorship [i.e. of the two authors]... if anyone should be tempted to exercise his wits in that direction... we will give him one clue: If anything should strike him as being not merely sound but brilliant, he may confidently set it down to this third source [i.e. Walter Scott].'

Which Greek letter accounts for the most words?

2010-11-26T10:03:00.005Z

Continuing this theme, we may consider this photograph from the office of A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint by Lust, Eynikel and Hauspie (aka LEH).

Note that although some letters are grouped into a single file, alpha and epsilon have their own box-files.

Reasons to Study Classics

2010-11-05T10:16:00.003Z

Robert Murray M'Cheyne, an early nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister who died in his 30s, once wrote:

"True, we ought to know them [the Greek and Roman classics]; but only as chemists handle poisons - to discover their qualities, not to infect their blood with them".

See page 29 of A. A. Bonar. 1966. Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M'Cheyne. London: Banner of Truth.

Professorial Advice

2010-10-14T18:58:00.003+01:00

As the Ferdinand Hitzig is said to have remarked to his students, 'Gentlemen, have you a Septuagint? If not, sell all you have, and buy a Septuagint.'"

Karen H. Jobes, Invitation to the Septuagint, Baker (Grand Rapids, April 2001), 26.

Jane Harrison's philological fieldwork on shovels

2010-09-08T17:16:00.005+01:00

The following is extracted from JHS 23 (1903), pp. 292-324 at 304, and deals with the identification of winnowing-fans, (3- and 5-pronged) forks and shovels (with slight adaptations).

In Fig. 9 we have a thrinax, and a glance at the illustration will show that it is neither fork nor shovel, but an ingenious blend of both. The specimen from which the drawing is made was bought by Mr. Bosanquet at Khandra, and is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. Mr. Bosanquet kindly tells me the name by which the instrument is now called was written down for him by his Greek foreman, who spells phonetically, as θυρνάκι. As pronounced by the Greek θυρνάκι is absolutely indistinguishable from θιρνάκι which is therefore probably the form that would be given by the educated. θιρνάκι is of course θιρνάκιον, the diminutive of θίρναξ = θρῖναξ. The fondness of modern Greek for diminutives is well known. The operation in which the θυρνάκι is used is known as λίχνισμα not λίκνισμα. I asked Mr. Bosanquet to ascertain whether the θυρνάκι was ever called a πτύον, and he writes 'It might be called πτύον very easily, that being the common word for a shovel. I induced the Cretan to explain the shape of θυρνάκι thus, 'είνε ὡς είδος φτυάρι' 'it is something like a shovel.'

A maxim from Dryden

2010-09-08T17:11:00.002+01:00

I trade both with the living and the dead for the enrichment of native language.

Reasons to Study Classics

2010-09-03T12:52:00.002+01:00

The study of Greek and Latin involves,

mastering the languages in which two of the greatest, and most influential, literatures the world has ever known are written, and by so doing to break free from the tyranny imposed by their own culture.

So wrote Peter Green. See Laudator Temporis Acti.

Isocrates on Blogging

2010-08-27T16:54:00.002+01:00

From 1 (Ad Demonicum) 42 (emphasis added):

'Consider that nothing in human life is stable; for then you will not exult overmuch in prosperity, nor grieve overmuch in adversity. Rejoice over the good things which come to you, but grieve in moderation over the evils which befall you, and in either case do not expose your heart to others; for it were strange to hide away one's treasure in the house, and yet walk about laying bare one's feelings to the world.'

Something interesting, but that would never be published

2010-08-27T10:30:00.004+01:00

Which letter of the Greek alphabet starts the most words?

Here is a survey based on the page numbers of the Revised Supplement to LSJ. Of course, it may reflect letters which needed more revision and correction for faulty treatment as well as expansion or the 'raw number' of lexemes. It may also reflect the publisher's concern about space and time.

The major players (emboldened, with more than 30 pages) are hardly surprising, but their relative coverage might be. Also, some likely second division letters might seem under- or disproportionally represented.

Alpha: 1-64
Beta: 65-73
Gamma: 74-80
Delta: 81-100
Epsilon: 101-141
Zeta: 142-143
Eta: 144-147
Theta: 148-154
Iota: 155-161
Kappa: 162-191
Lamda: 192-200
Mu: 201-214
Nu: 215-220
Xi: 221-222
Omicron: 223-234
Pi: 235-268
Rho: 269-272
Sigma: 272-289
Tau: 290-298
Upsilon: 299-304
Phi: 305-310
Chi: 311-316
Psi: 317-318
Omega: 319-320

Counts for the Supplement and for LSJ itself will follow, along with some analysis.

The Iliad and Odyssey for veterans

2010-08-26T16:43:00.004+01:00

Again, readers of the most recent Amphora may have encountered the passing reference to psychologist Jonathan Shay (p. 7) reading the Homeric epics with Vietnam veterans as a form of therapy. More about this intriguing and beneficially impactful application of Classical Studies may be read and heard in this article from The New York Times.

Terms of Endearment and Nursery Words

2010-08-26T10:06:00.004+01:00

W.B. Stanford writes in relation to ἄττα in Odyssey 16.31:

'Doubtless a vestige of baby-talk like πάππα... and μαῖα...; cp. μάμμη, τατᾶ, τατί, ἄππα, τίτθη in L-S-J. The doubling of a consonant or syllable... is typical of this kind of word: 'Mummy', 'Daddy', 'gee-gee', 'puff-puff', 'Nana'. If there were a masculine form of the last it would be the aptest translation here. 'Old fellow' in the friendly sense approximates to the tone, but not the form, of the word. Perhaps 'Gaffer' is the nearest English equivalent.'

'Gaffer' is thought to be a contraction of 'Godfather'.

Carl Sesar's translations from Catullus

2010-08-17T09:40:00.003+01:00

Readers of the most recent Amphora may be interested in a selection of Carl Sesar's translations from Catullus (including 65, one of my favourite pieces) in addition to the recording mentioned in that article. The poet's voice is rendered into a mode reminiscent of a blend of Woody Allen, Travis Bickle, and a young Jack Nicholson. Note 'Catullus' lady love Lesbia' and be warned that explicit turns of phrase are (appropriately) employed.

Endless Tasks

2010-08-13T13:55:00.002+01:00

The Cyclopes knew them only too well:

ἐν μὲν ἔσαν Κύκλωπες ἐπ᾿ ἀφθίτῳ ἥμενοι ἔργῳ,
The Cyclopes were on it (Jason's cloak), seated at their endless task (making a thunderbolt for Zeus).
Apollonios of Rhodes 1.730.

Reasons to study Latin and Greek

2010-08-13T13:48:00.002+01:00

Following the debate here about learning Greek to encourage precision in English, I was reminded of this piece [from the Sunday Times of late June 2010], in which it was explained that studying the classical languages 'teaches diligence and responsibility - because they have to be punctual and do their homework without help from the parents' (emphasis mine).

Then, as John Paul Getty observed, classicists 'sell more oil'.

Englishmen in chitons

2010-03-25T10:32:00.002Z

Denniston on Euripides, Electra 239 observes:

Here ξηρός is equivalent, I think, to αὐχμῶν..., which means, not
'squalid', 'unwashed' (L&S), but 'lacking unguents'. The northern European
does not realise the full horror of this, but unguents were indispensible to the
Greek.

A comment on αὐτολήκυθος follows.

Academic Reviews are not (just) for Librarians

2010-03-06T12:47:00.001Z

As Roger S. Fisher points out in BMCR.

Albert Schweitzer: pop theologian

2010-02-22T10:45:00.003Z

Albert Schweitzer (14 January 1875–4 September 1965) was something of an all-rounder: medical missionary, concert pianist, theolgian and historian, etc. He also gets a brief mention in Breakfast at Tiffany's as Holly Golightly's ideal man... or, one of them, at least. Schweizer was still alive when the film was made. Nero wasn't, unless it is a different man of the same name.

The script extrace follows. Holly is speaking:

JOSE'S MY FIRST
NONRAT ROMANCE.

NOT THAT HE'S MY IDEA
OF THE ABSOLUTE FINITO.

HE'S TOO PRIM
AND CAUTIOUS

TO BE MY ABSOLUTE IDEAL.

NOW, IF I COULD CHOOSE
FROM ANYBODY ALIVE,

I WOULDN'T PICK JOSE.

NERO, MAYBE,
OR ALBERT SCHWEITZER...

OR LEONARD BERNSTEIN.

BUT I AM MAD ABOUT JOSE.

"He wrote it all on envelopes!"

2010-02-12T16:07:00.002Z

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) used envelopes and the backs of letters as writing materials for his translations of Homer. The original 'manuscripts' are in the British Library as Additional MSS. 4807-4809, so T. C. Skeat informs us in 'Was papyrus regarded as "cheap" or "expensive" in the ancient world', pp. 75-93 in Aegyptus (1995) 75, at p. 85.

Curiosities in Lidell and Scott

2010-02-08T17:08:00.006Z

O. Szemerényi informs us (JHS 94 (1974), pp. 144-157, at 156) that:

The heart of every true Grecian will beat faster on learning of the following instance. The word κανδύτᾱνες, formerly known from lexicographers who also utilised Diphilus and Menander, has now reappeared in the fragments of Menander's Σικυώνιος: τοὺς Κανδύτᾱνας. But the word is not a clothes-press (LSJ), rather is it a clothes-bag or basket which could be carried [Cf. Handley, BICS 12, 1965, 57]. The first part of this long word has been known from Xenophon and others: κάνδυς was the Median double or upper garment with sleeves. But the second part, that is to say the whole word, was also Iranian as was guessed by Pollux (10, 137). It is the well-known term da:na 'receptacle', kandu-da:na- was a 'holder for kandus'.

Also, note περιλεσχήνευτος glossed in LSJ as 'talked of in every club' for Hdt.2.135 of a "courtesan". Powell settles for 'notorious'.

Finally, in this selection: ὑπηνόβιος 'living by one's beard i.e. by bullying'.

Lifestyles of Lexicographers, Part IIII

2010-02-04T17:42:00.004Z

John Chadwick, OLD 1946-1952, member of the Committee for the Revised Supplement to Liddell-Scott-Jones.

His mentor on the OLD, James McLeod Wyllie; OED.

A scathing review

2010-01-08T16:46:00.002Z

Among notorious reviews there is that of E. Lobel's about Edmonds' first volume of his Loeb edition of the Greek Lyric Poets. It is entitled 'Dyra Graeca' and features such turns of phrase as 'so many hundreds of novelties', 'its most enlivening characteristics', and 'powers of divination not ordinarily vouchsafed to humanity'.

See CR 1922, p. 120.

It's in the B(D)AG

2010-01-07T17:16:00.003Z

I found this gem of colloquial glossing a few months ago in BDAG under ἀνθρωπαρεσκέω and ἀνθρωπάρεσκος:

be a people-pleaser, court/curry the favor of people (connoting sacrifice of principle; cp. our colloq. 'play up to' or 'be an apple-polisher')

one who tries to make an impression on others, fawner, timeserver

One might alter the latter 'to make a{n} impression on others'.

Classics for All?

2010-01-07T12:57:00.005Z

In his commentary on Demosthenes 19, D. M. MacDowell writes on section 314:

θοἰμάτιον καθεὶς ἄχρι τῶν σφυρῶν: letting the cloak slip down at the back in affected nonchalance. Cf. Cicero, Pro Cluentio 111 'illam usque ad talos dismissam purpuram'. Readers familiar with universities in which gowns are regularly worn will recognize the picture.

Hmm.

Review or soapbox?

2009-12-11T14:50:00.000Z

There may be a fine line distinguishing these two categories.
<http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-10-03.html>

Lifestyles of Lexicographers, Part 3: Liddell's Lost Love

2009-12-11T13:01:00.004Z

Lest the lexicographer be deemed to lack passion:

An Elegy, October, 1844.

Ah me! They tell me thou art doomed
To be another's bride!
Ah me! and I must throw all hopes,
All dreams of bliss aside!

Seven years are flown since first I seemed
To know thee as thou art;
Since first the flame arose that soon
Burnt hot within my heart.

It was not only that thy Soul
Was filled with Sympathy,
And Love for all things beautiful
On earth, in air, and sea;

Not only that a lively Wit
Had made thy mind its home;
And shot with arrowy flight o'er ways
Where others slowly comb;

Not only that a love for Art
And poesy was there;
And all thy heart's chords seemed to thrill
In harmony with mine;

It was not these alone that filled
My soul with love for thee;
For then, perchance, the flame had died
And left me fancy-free.

But when by its first storm of grief
My bark of Life was tost;
When all my fond hopes, wishes, dreams
In one blank void were lost;

When one-the fairest, sweetest, best,
That e'er bore Sister's name,
Was ta'en away and left me in
This world of sin and shame;

Oh, then to see thee weep, when I
Had no tears left to flow;
To feel thy hand's kind pressure, and
Thy sympathy to know,

'Twas this that bowed my heart to thee,
And made me feel indeed,
That Love is not an empty name,
No youthful dream, no lambent flame,
But a true freind in need.

And then, within my heart of hearts
I build a Temple fair
And pure, as mortal fane may be,
And set thy image there.

And there each morning when I rose
My orisons I made;
And there each night when I lay down
My vows I duly paid.

Ah, say not 'twas too fondly done-
They err who deem that Love
Is all of earthly mould, and draws
The soul from God above.

True love lifts up the heart to heaven,
Sets free from selfish care,
Lends purity to every thought,
Reality to prayer.

'Tis this that on the student's desk
Still sheds its cheering ray;
And lends a beacon-light of hope
To guide his lonely way.

Yes - when I've sat till midnight hour
Mid books on books high piled;
Oftimes, methought, thy image fair
Stood by in bodily presence there,
And on my labours smiled.

And if, at times, the praise of men
Came flattering on mine ear,
'Twas for thy sake that flattery pleased,
For thee that praise was dear.

For oh! methought, could I have e'er
Won honour fortune fame,
To lay them at thy feet, and dare
My hidden Love proclaim,

Couldst thou have known my Truth, and felt
To me as I to thee,
That had been worth a world of pain,
A world of toil to me!

And yet so frail the hope, so long
The time, that oft I strove
To quell those thoughts; and sometimes deemed
That I could cease to love.

But now the veil is torn; and now
Too well I know the power;
The soft unconscious influence
That reigned in every hour.

Ah me! and now - those thoughts, those hopes
I must throw all aside;
For thou art doomed (oh misery!)
To be another's bride.

Well - God be with thee! Only thus,
Thus only may I dare
To breathe thy still-loved name, and thus
Remember thee in prayer;

So - God be with thee; send thee peace,
And length of days to see;
And make thee happier than I
Can ever think to be.

H.G.L.

From Gordon, C. Beyond the Looking Glass: Reflections of Alice and her Family. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1982: pp. 58-61.

Loebsprache

2009-10-30T12:16:00.001Z

It has been a slow period for blogging funnies, but this 'one' was squirreled away some time ago.

In the Loeb translation of Demosthenes 18.15, we read the allegation, "he makes a hotchpotch of imputation and banter and scurrility".

Quite.

Classical Corporations

2009-10-02T22:00:00.004+01:00

Amphora 7.2 (Fall 2008) noted The Achilles Corporation, a company of tent makers founded in Tokyo in 1947.

There is also Lucian Global, insurance brokers. Their blurb reads:

Lucian of Samosata (A.D. 120-180) was the ancient world's most noted satirist and thinker. He subjected the institutions of his day to a scrutiny they deserved, but rarely survived. Lucian felt most actions and conduct fell short of promises, and gave no quarter to shams, follies or ineptitude among those who held themselves as expert. He believed that true investment always resulted in permanent value for everyday people. Most of all, Lucian held truth and intergrity in high esteem, and saw value in those who perform and produce as they say. Supporting the notion of social responsibility and consciousness,
Lucian believed that investments should bring permanent value for all involved. At Lucian Global, we believe that growth and preservation strategies which improve the lives of people need not bear greater risk, yet will often result in greater returns than those that are self-serving. We also believe that asset protection is a most essential component of any suitable business plan. In a financial world of self-proclaimed experts, prophets and pundits, we choose to challenge conventional financial theories and philosophies, and demand that the proof always be in our performance.

Now to find evidence in Lucian's works to substantiate all these claims...

The Supplement of 1968

2009-09-25T09:59:00.005+01:00

The 1968 Supplement to Liddell-Scott-Jones does not get much of a look in. Reviews are hard to come by aside from John Lee's exposé of the weaknesses in its treatment of the Septuagint, which can be found and enjoyed in "A Note on Septuagint Material in the Supplement to Liddell and Scott", Glotta 47 (1969) 234–42.

Gordon Messing reviewed this work and wrote a companion poem for Thomas Hardy's (Classical Philology 64.4 (1969): 238-239).

Otherwise, it is intriguing that the name of Roderick McKenzie was omitted from the title page, although he was mentioned on the title page of Liddell-Scott-Jones.

The Supplement began with the addenda and corrigenda which accrued during the publication of the fascicles of Liddell-Scott-Jones and appropriate changes were made for consistency's sake. Note the reference to Suppl. in the image below.

Academic Writing

2009-09-24T11:06:00.002+01:00

Polybius comments in passing:

The fact, as it seems to me, is that those who write narratives of
particular events, when they have to deal with a subject which is circumscribed
and narrow, are compelled for lack of facts to make small things great and to
devote much space to matters really not worthy of record.

Histories, 7.7.6

Reception Studies: Now you know

2009-09-23T11:11:00.003+01:00

Simon Goldhill informs us (from BMCR)

There are at least three types of reception study in classics.
The first takes a work of the ancient world -- the Aeneid, say or the
Antigone -- and sees how it has been adapted by later artists. It derives its
logic and its focus through a linear genealogy -- a sequence of works descended
from an original text, interrelating with each other.
The second type takes a post-Classical author and sees how this particular
artist works with a classical paradigm -- Dante's antiquity, Wagner's Greeks. It
derives its logic and focus in the vision of a single artist, reading
antiquity.
The third type takes a more general cultural model and explores how classical
antiquity has provided models and inspiration in a time in history or in a genre
or an artistic movement: the Victorians and ancient Greece; modernism and the
classical body. In this case, there is potentially a more diffuse focus and
potentially a wider set of cultural questions.
The specific problem for contemporary reception studies is how these three
models fit together. When looking at the reception of the Antigone (say), how
much can the broader vision of any one artist find a place in the analysis? When
looking at an individual artist, how much can cultural context or the reception
history of a particular text play a part?

Vegetables in classical literature

2009-09-14T21:23:00.003+01:00

Some forms of scholarship, facilitated by electronic research tools, are not to be encouraged:

Silanus, Versio Latina Magonis frag. 41.1-3: parandi sunt boues nouelli, quadrati, grandibus membris, CORNibus proceris ac nigrantibus et robustis
Cato, De Agri Cultura 133.3: eo modo quoduis genus arborum facere poteris, uti radices bene haBEANt.
Cicero, Philippicae 10.12: Quod si ipsa res publica iudicaret aut si omne ius decretis eius statueretur, AntONIONe an Bruto legiones populi Romani adiudicaret?
Horace, Epistulae 1.18.74-5: ne dominus pueri pulchri caraeve puellae / munere te parvo BEET aut incommodus angat.
Horace, Ars Poetica 379-80: campestribus abstinet armis / indoctusque pilae discive troCHIVE quiescit
Vitruvius 9.8.4: aquarum expressiones auTOMATOpoetasque machinas multaque deliciarum genera
Juvenal, Saturae 6.87: inmemor illa domus et coniugis atque sororis / nil patriae indulsit, plorantisque improba natos / utque magis stuPEAS ludos Paridemque reliquit.
Silius Italicus 16.476: Theron, POTATOr aquae

"You and I's house"

2009-09-14T12:43:00.002+01:00

One does occasionally encounter such oddities as this. I can only conclude that the cause is having the partial truth "It is 'you and I' not 'you and me"' beaten into us.

See further: http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article6822414.ece.

Herein lies a further puzzle: why is this regular column from The Times on pedantry in English filed under 'Home... Life & Style... Women... The Way We Live...' ?

Where the cows come home

2009-09-11T10:07:00.005+01:00

Lines 399-400 of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes:

ἀγροὺς δ᾿ ἐξίκοντο καὶ αὔλιον ὑψιμέλαθρον
ἡχοῦ δὴ τὰ χρήματ᾿ ἀτάλλετο νυκτὸς ἐν ὥρῃ

"They came to the fields and the high-walled aulion, where those cattle were cherished at night-time."

How should αὔλιον be translated? Some give 'byre', others 'steading'. Feyerabend glosses with 'hurdle', 'farm yard', and 'grotto'. More intriguely, LSJ gives 'country-house' and 'cottage'. Presumably, their former gloss is not to be understood in the sense of the 1930s "the country-house set" !

For when the cows come home, consider this intriguing sign:

So, 5.30 pm, then.

Grammar monkeys shock!

2009-09-09T09:36:00.002+01:00

Monkeys know a thing or two about suffixation: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8139322.stm.

Lifestyles of Lexicographers, Part 2: Samuel Johnson

2009-09-07T14:41:00.005+01:00

This year is Johnson's tercentenary. Read something about it at <http://www.johnson2009.org/johnson.html>.

New blog

2009-09-07T09:53:00.003+01:00

Two ladies of 'leisure' (in the proper sense, as in scholarship, you understand), known as Kallista and Bella, have launched their own blog: Classicae et Fashionistae
<http://classicaeetfashionistae.blogspot.com/>.

To mark this occasion, it seems appropriate to share what may be the earliest reference in European literature to the problem of 'split ends'. Euripides, Orestes 128-9:

εἴδετε, παρ' ἄκρας ὡς ἀπέθρισεν τρίχας
σῴζουσα κάλλος; ἔστι δ' ἡ πάλαι γυνή.

"Do you see how she cuts off her hair at its tips to keep its beauty? She is [still] the woman she was in the past."

Also, let us not forgot just how long-standing the fad for handbag dogs (and monkeys) is. See Theophrastus, Characters 5 and Plutarch, Pericles 1.2.

Bizarre printer errors

2009-09-01T12:29:00.003+01:00

This has just emerged on a sheet of A4 from a printer being configured:

Unsupported Personality: UNKNOWN

Quite.

Useful resource: Commentaries of specific Odes of Pindar

2009-08-27T11:56:00.003+01:00

This table of which Odes are included in which commentaries will surely prove to be a helpful guide.

Philological soundbites

2009-08-26T17:24:00.003+01:00

"The" sentence from Sir William Jones, at the Asiatic Society of Bengal on 2nd February 1786:

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.

Voltaire:

Etymology is a science in which vowels signify nothing at all and
consonants very little.

Σχολή

2009-08-25T15:10:00.005+01:00

Olson writes in his preface to the Oxford Thesmophoriazousae commentary, which he edited with Colin Austin:

I arrived at the train station in Cambridge deeply ill at ease, expecting hard questions, difficult negotiations, and perhaps an abrupt and unhappy end to my trip. But the next day after lunch, after Colin had spent the morning reading through what I had given him and we were sitting together in his upstairs study, he turned to me and said simply, 'Well, how shall we go about doing this?' Our partnership has been easy and cordial ever since.

... But I recall with great fondness Colin and Mishtu's hospitality to me in their wonderful home full of books, children and grandchildren, students, fine wine, and Mishtu's beautiful batiks and the smell of her extraordinary cooking.

Ghost-words

2009-08-21T11:08:00.007+01:00

Some words do live only in the dictionary and not in the mind (of any native speaker).

These are misreadings, in papyri and inscriptions especially, variants in manuscripts, and conjectures long rejected, but preserved in dictionaries compiled when older editions were current. The following is W. W. Skeat's description of such words from The Transactions of the Philological Society (1885-7) II. 350-1

"Report upon ‘Ghost-words’, or Words which have no real Existence... We should jealously guard against all chances of giving any undeserved record of words which had never any real existence, being mere coinages due to the blunders of printers or scribes, or to the perfervid imaginations of ignorant or blundering editors."

Ouch!

For a readily accessible list of such specimens, see the corrigenda at the end of the Revised Supplement to LSJ (as in the integrated edition, not the separate 1996 vol.).

Translations: Martial, Sappho, Ovid

2009-08-20T15:03:00.007+01:00

Some translations of one of my favourite pieces of Latin poetry have been blogged and then blogged further.

While we are on the subject of translations, there is Martin West's rendition of the "new" Sappho, The Times Stephen Spender Prize winner for 2008 for Ovid's Amores 1.1, and Christopher Marlowe's version of Ovid's Amores 1.5.

Spare time?

2009-08-19T09:39:00.003+01:00

A recent article in The Times concerned the final of a Spelling Bee associated with that newspaper.

When asked what he would do when he grows up, one of the winning twelve-year-old contestants is reported to have said, "I will be a lexicographer... No wait! A lawyer. I will do lexicography in my spare time".

Reading Peek's GVI

2009-08-10T12:56:00.005+01:00

I have owned a copy of Peek's Griechische Vers-Inschriften: Grab-epigramme for more than a year now and, from time to time, I dip into it. Such a collection may not seem to be the most uplifting volume to read cover-to-cover, but the following might provide some food for thought or an appetite for reading epitaphs.

Ecclesiastes 7: 2-4

2 It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of every man;
the living should take this to heart.

3 Sorrow is better than laughter,
because a sad face is good for the heart.

4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

On a slightly different note: for a funerary monument anticipating the Hollywood Walk of Fame, see <http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/image_archive/tombs/t8.html>.

"Words do not live in dictionaries. They live in the mind."

2009-07-22T10:35:00.005+01:00

The only surviving recording of the frightfully well-spoken Virginia Woolf features her discussion of the life of words and her reproach for dictionaries:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7684225.stm>. A tricolon of asyndetic privative adjectives makes a guest appearance too.

Live unnoticed

2009-07-04T10:29:00.002+01:00

"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."

Alexander Pope, Epilogue to the Satires, 1738.

The Oxford lexicographic tradition

2009-07-03T16:27:00.004+01:00

We are all influenced by our surroundings and the prevailing assumptions of our (sub)culture.

For ὑποπί̄νω, LSJ mentions an additional meaning "drink at dessert" and cites "Ar.Av.494, Pherecr.153.5, X.Cyr.8.4.9, etc.". A consultation of these passages and the absence of evidence to support the "etc." shows that this meaning is the result of eisegesis, and, perhaps, the Sitz im Leben of the lexicographer. In particular, see N. Dunbar's Aristophanes: Birds ad loc. for the lack of evidence for this meaning.

Position and Type face

2009-07-03T16:13:00.008+01:00

Linguists talk about "standard" languages and "Standard Modern Greek" (in distinction to its dialects). With this in view, the following cover design is noteworthy.

The spine, as pictured above, suggests that "standard" qualifies the kind or size of dictionary of the given language. Indeed, the same company publishes a "Pocket Dictionary". However, the placing and text colour on the cover imply something different.
This, then, is a dictionary not of Greek or of 'Standard (Modern) Greek', but of "Dictionary Greek" in its "Standard" form. The vocabulary listed and glossed within is that of Greek as normally presented by the lexicographic tradition and quite apart from the language as she is spoken.

Bucolicon Americanon

2009-06-25T19:23:00.003+01:00

I have still to collect the parallels between the ol' standard Sleepy Time Down South and the Bucolici Graeci.

Pale moon shining on the fields below,
Folks are crooning songs soft and low,
Needn't tell me so, because I know,
It's sleepy time down south.

Soft winds blowing through the pinewood trees,
Folks down there live a life of ease,
When the twilight brings the evening breeze,
It's sleepy time down south.

Steamboats on the river a-comin' and a-goin',
Splashing the night away,
Hear those banjos ringin', the folks are all a-singin',
They dance till break of day.

Dear old southland, with its dreamy songs
Takes me back there where I belong.
How I'd love to be in mother's arms
When it's sleepy time down south.

Adynata in 70s music

2009-06-25T19:08:00.002+01:00

Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle was covered by Glenn Campbell and, apparently, the muppets and features several instances of the trope of the adynaton: an impossibility (used to quantify the extent or the exceptional nature of something).

If I could save time in a bottle,
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day
Till eternity passes away -
Just to spend them with you.

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true,
I'd save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you.

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them.
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with.

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true,
The box would be empty -
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you.

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That youre the one I want to go
Through time with.

The lexicon as an inventory of rare or exceptional words

2009-06-23T10:49:00.004+01:00

A few curiosities:

ὑπομίαρος used 'of a word' (i.e. πασσυρεί) by Pollux 9.143 to mean 'unclassical', according to LSJ. Hostility, ancient and modern, towards items of vocabulary from later periods are manifest in that μιαρός is elsewhere glossed 'stained, polluted; wicked'. The prefix would, presumably, add the notion 'somewhat'. Pollux 9.143 is apparently the only place in which either of these words occurs, but both have to be mentioned for the Lexicon to be a complete inventory of words (even those spurned and used in spurning).

Next, a Roman-period epitaph cited from "Srpska Kraljevska Akademija, Spomenik 71.312 (Poarevatz)" [published in 1931] provides the only known attestation of ὑπολησμοσύνη 'forgetfulness'. This is perhaps not a text that is regularly encountered, although it is more accessible in Peek's GVI as 249 [= I.Mésie 2.210].

ζῶν ἔτι Ἀπολλώνις τὸ μνῆμ ᾿ ἐπόησα ἑαυτῷ
κληρονόμων <ε>ἱδὼς τὴν ὑπολησμοσύνην

Apart from its interest as evidence for filial responsibilities (as well as the negligence of legacy-hunters), the inclusion of this hapax in LSJ (in Part X, published in 1940) demonstrates that material was collected throughout the process of publishing the ten parts of this ninth edition (i.e. beyond 1925, as is implied in the Preface).

Funnies from Liddell-Scott

2009-06-03T09:40:00.003+01:00

The Lexicon of Liddell-Scott is known for its archaic and opaque translations, but readers may be surprised to find some translations with a 'low' or even contemporary (ahead of Liddell's time) feel to them. For now, I submit:

ὑποκάπηλος - 'petty huckster'
ἑταῖραι οἰκόριαι - 'female house-mates' in Pi.P.9.19 (s.v. οἰκούριος ; I suspect 'gal pals' would be more suitable here).

Acting out Aristotle on Freedom

2009-05-08T15:21:00.004+01:00

Acting out philosophical texts seems to be in the air on Farrago, so I thought I would add the experimental philosopher on mixed cases of the 'voluntary' and 'involuntary'.

Have a look at the comments posted on the youtube channel as well.

http://experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com/experimental_philosophy/2009/04/the-next-xphi-video-freedom.html

Range of meanings

2009-04-30T09:48:00.002+01:00

Peter Glare, editor of the Revised Supplement to LSJ, wrote on συγχωρέω:

The opening definition is come together, meet; the second is get out of the way, make way, which would appear to be the exact opposite of the first. Although there is an old joke which says that in Arabic ever word means itself, its opposite, a name of God, and a part of a camel, this is a ludicrous exaggeration, and is no more true of Greek than it is of Arabic.
P. G. W. Glare. "Liddell-Scott-Jones: Then and now." Hyperboreus 3 (1997): 211.

Be that as it may, it is alarming that so many Greek words additionally refer to types of flower and kinds of bandage.

2009-04-28T19:19:00.001+01:00

Who's this new celebrity academic?

~Typhoeus

Socrates and Soxibiades

2009-04-28T19:13:00.003+01:00

Here is a reconstruction of a conversation between Alcibiades and Socrates. The accents are based on the best available evidence. The production values are not high.

~Typhoeus

The Seriousness of Slander

2009-04-27T09:42:00.003+01:00

Titus 2: 3 reads in the English Standard Version:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or
slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good,

The word translated by "slanderers" is διάβολοι, literally "devils" - as in "diabolical".

Do we consider slander to be such as serious offence or characteristic?

Harmless drudge

2009-04-24T18:09:00.002+01:00

Aside from Johnson's 'lexicographer', the OED contains s.v. 'bureaucrat':

An official who endeavours to concentrate administrative power in his bureau;

Ouch!

Lifestyles of Lexicographers, Part 1: E. A. Sophocles

2009-04-23T19:39:00.003+01:00

From A. C. Zeno, The Classical Review 4 (1890): 41.

His life at Cambridge [Mass., USA] was singular and striking to eccentricity. He never married, and lived a secluded life, using two rooms for all purposes, and often acting as his own cook and house-keeper. He partook of his simple meals on the very table which served him as a desk for the writing of this monumental Lexicon. His behaviour towards strangers, especially his own countrymen, was not always attractive and he came to have the reputation among them of being crabbed and cynical, but those who had the privilege of a more intimate acquaintance with him found him cordial and tender-hearted.

Gasp! Only one table! Two rooms! He cooked his own meals!

Lessons from Liddell, Part 3: Time-keeping

2009-04-23T19:34:00.002+01:00

The White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland repeatedly exclaims, "I'm late! I'm late!"

Kenneth F. Kitchell, Jr. in The Classical Journal 84.1 (1988): 52 informs us of Liddell's holiday time-keeping habits:

He brooked no nonsense in his academic life, but was mercilessly teased by
his family when his work on the lexicon at Penmorfa was punctuated each day
exactly at noon with a thunderous sneeze.

Lessons from Liddell, Part 2

2009-04-23T19:29:00.002+01:00

Liddell's work ethic:

In the interval between one Lecture and another he would
be found standing at his desk over his interleaved
copy of the first edition, correcting and amending
it. And that standing desk recalls his advice which
I have ever since treasured both in reading and
in writing: " Keep your books open, ready to be
returned to when you come back to work." '

From H. L. Lewis, Henry George Liddell, Dean of Christchurch: A Memoir. 1899: p. 48.

Poem on Emendation

2009-04-23T11:08:00.003+01:00

Anonymous poem about emendation (The University College London Union Magazine 1.5 (March 1906) 177):

'I have found it: heureka! heureka!'
  I cried. 'Now the riddle is solved.
When before has so neat, so unique a
  Solution as this been evolved?'
With a hand that still shook with elation,
  The words in the margin I wrote,
Then I gazed at my great emendation,
  My marvellous critical note.

Though it flashed on my mind in a minute,
  No force would suffice to express
All the wealth of Greek learning that's in it—
  I've got the Greek spirit, I guess.
The Greek spirit—Professor G. Murray,
  At least as he seeks to imply,
Thinks he has it; he'll just have to hurry
  To get it as badly as I.

Where were Scaliger, Porson and Bentley?
  And Housman—ah! where wandered he?
(Yet with him I should wish to deal gently,
  That he may deal gently with me.)
Has he e'er in his books or his lectures
  Once chanced on a comment so fine?
(But I'm ready to praise his conjectures,
  If he will do justice to mine.)

When the study of classics is ended
  (And many to end it now seek),
And the line I so grandly emended,
  Has gone the long road of all Greek;
Yet my fame shall abide even then, and
  These words on my tomb you shall see:—
'He inserted a comma at μέν and
  Deleted the colon at δὲ.'

~Typhlos

Fermor on the verbal music of Greece

2009-04-19T22:31:00.002+01:00

This recent posting by Laudator Temporis Acti deserves to be echoed here.

Patrick Leigh Fermor, Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece (London: John Murray, 1966), Chapter VI (Sounds of the Greek World):

The seas of Greece are the Odyssey whose music we can never know: the limitless sweep and throb of prosody, the flux and reflux of hexameters scanned by winds and currents and accompanied, for its escort of accents,

for the fall of its dactyls
the calm of spondees
the run of tribrachs
the ambiguity of trochees
and the lash of anapests;
for the flexibility of accidence,
the congruence of syntax
and the confluence of its crasis;
for the fluctuating of enclitic and proclitic,
for the halt of caesurae and the flight of the digamma,
for the ruffle of hard and soft breathings,
for its liquid syllables and the collusion of diphthongs,
for the receding tide of proparoxytones,
and the hollowness of perispomena stalactitic with subscripts,
for the inconsequence of anacolouthon,
the economy of synecdoche,
the compression of hendiadys
and the extrvagance of its epithets,
for the embrace of zeugma,
for the abruptness of asyndeton
for the swell of hyperbole
and the challenge of apostrophe,
for the splash and the boom and the clamour and
the echo and the murmur of onomatopoeia

by the

islands and harbours and causeways and soundings and crescents of shingle, whirlpools and bays and lagoons and narrows and chasms and roadsteads, seismic upheavals of crags in the haze of dying volcanoes; islets lying in pale archipelagos, gulfs, reefs and headlands, warrened with cavities, that end in a litter of rocks and spikes where the limestone goes dark at sunset; thunderbolt sea-marks scattered on the water, light in the reign of the Pleiades, slowly spinning the sea-sounds that sigh in the caves of solitary islands.

~Typoios

Lessons from Lexicographers

2009-04-09T16:28:00.003+01:00

From the end of the preface to Sullivan's Lexicon to Achilles Tatius:

"I dedicate this book to the memory of my father, who taught me long ago by trout-streams in Ireland the optimism without which it would never have been begun and the perseverance without which it would never have been finished."

What's in a title?

2009-04-04T17:47:00.002+01:00

Over the last few months it has dawned on me that "doctor" and "professor" are titles which relate to teaching, even though we tend to associate them with distinction in research.

Greek-Latin Hybrid Compounds

2009-04-04T17:43:00.005+01:00

Someone once said that nothing good would come from television because it had a mixed Greek-Latin compound for its name. He might have said the same about the automobile. What makes me smile is that "hypercorrection" (or, as the Germans say, "making things worse by making them better") is another such hybrid from which no good comes - except helpful clarification of how people think they should speak.

Glosses and translation equivalents

2009-03-20T10:30:00.003Z

Sometimes, a single word equivalent will not convey what a word means. Consider Pindar Nemean 7.65 and the note thereon in Bury's commentary:

Mr Holmes (The Nemean Odes of Pindar with special reference to
Nem. VII.) has this note on ὑπέρ: 'if ὑπέρ be really to περί what the
highest vertical point of a curve would be to the curve itself, what
preposition could more exactly describe the position of Kichyros, the city
of Thesprotia, here supposed to be mentioned?

'What preposition...?' indeed!

Scaliger on indexing

2009-03-07T14:34:00.002Z

index est anima corporis

Scaliger worked in an age before Google and the TLG, yet his maxim still holds water. A nice pun on corpus to boot.