Gerunds and Gerundives in the Wild

Aside from the state motto of New Mexico, crescit eundo, there is the motto of Millfield School in Somerset: molire molendo '(Loosely translated as "to succeed by grinding")'. 'Loosely', of course, because since molior is a deponent verb, molire is a second-person singular indicative or, better for this context, an imperative. The infinitive, as implied by the loose translation, is moliri.

As for the gerundive, and real Latin, there is the formula found in Pompeian electoral dipinti:

aed(ilem/iles) [or duovirum] v(iis) a(edibus) sacr(is) p(ublicis) procurandis oro vos faciatis.
See, for examples, I 1. nos. 11 and 18 in R. Wallace's An Introduction to Wall Inscriptions from Pompeii and Herculaneum (Wauconda, Illinois: Bolchazy-Carducci, 2005).

A *stray* gerundive in the wild

The ancients had fill-in-the-blanks forms much as we do. An inscription from Algeria (AE 1931: no. 112) seems to reflect misuse of a manual for writing epitaphs:

hic corpus iacet pueri nominandi
'here lies the body of {boy to be named here}

It is also a reminder of that Eagles' song:
'Well, the towns lay out across the dusty plains
Like graveyards filled with tombstones, waitin' for the names'.

More calendar poetry

Goodbye, No use leading with our chins,
This is where our story ends,
Never lovers, ever friends.

Goodbye, Let our hearts call it a day,
But before you walk away,
I sincerely want to say:

I wish you bluebirds in the Spring,
To give your heart a song to sing;
And then a kiss, but more than this I wish you love.

And in July, a lemonade,
To cool you in some leafy glade;
I wish you health and more than wealth, I wish you love.
My breaking heart and I agree
That you and I could never be,
So with my best, my very best, I set you free.

I wish you shelter from the storm,
A cozy fire to keep you warm;
But most of all, when snowflakes fall,
I wish you love.

Frank Sinatra, "I wish you love".

More from Carl Sesar on Catullus

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

Carl Sesar

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.

The Iliad and Odyssey for veterans

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.

Carl Sesar's translations from Catullus

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.

Albert Schweitzer: pop theologian

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.

Classics for All?

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.

Classical Corporations

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...

Reception Studies: Now you know

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?

Bucolicon Americanon

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.

Ancient Calender Poetry and Motown

Poems which derive their subject matter and structure from the calender, such as Ovid's Fasti, find a modern counterpart in Stevie Wonder's I Just Called to Say I Love You. Direct references to days and months are mixed with allusions to festivals and seasonal changes all in calendrical sequence. There is even some astrological content.

No New Year's Day to celebrate
No chocolate covered candy hearts to give away
No first of spring
No song to sing
In fact here's just another ordinary day

No April rain
No flowers bloom
No wedding Saturday within the month of June
But what it is, is something true
Made up of these three words that I must say to you

I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart

No summer's high
No warm July
No harvest moon to light one tender August night
No autumn breeze
No falling leaves
Not even time for birds to fly to southern skies

No Libra sun
No Halloween
No giving thanks to all the Christmas joy you bring
But what it is, though old so new
To fill your heart like no three words could ever do...

Some men just want to watch the world burn

I saw Batman the other evening. Truly, it is horrible, but also one of the best films I have seen in a few years. The title of this post refers to Alfred's summary of the Joker's motivation. It reminded me of Nero.

The film sat uneasily with a more realistic view of human good and evil than the dichotomy of "goodies" and "baddies" followed by a nice happy ending. The mobsters were not all Italian for once, but refreshingly poly-ethnic. There is, of course, no prominent white mobster, but, at least, both the troubled and disturbing vigilante and the principal villain(s) are white. The "us" and "them" opposition is further broken down by a nail-biting scene, which I will not spoil, and by the story of Harvey Dent himself. Evil is not a matter of skin-pigmentation or of one's upbringing or environment. Radical evil is no respecter of persons and can surface anywhere.

Heath Ledger's performance makes its point very well and leaves Jack Nicholson's in the dust.

Someone told me that while Mr Ledger was preparing for the role, he kept a list of things the Joker would find funny. AIDS was one of them. It is truly monstrous to regard a spiral of human tragedy as hilarious. I could not help remembering a Classics Professor who once said, either in print or in some materials for circulation to students within the department, "Most classicists have Foucault as their idol." Now, it is said that when Foucault knew that he had contracted AIDS he sought to inflect as many people as possible. I do not know whether that is true or not, but such a monster would never be this classicist's role model.

Back to the film though, there are number of spectacular sequences. None of these seemed like ways of showing off advances in special effects or like trailers for a computer game. Some were breath-takingly simple. There are some sharp one-liners, including one that made me laugh out loud (no one joined me, mind). Oh, and two moments of pure horror - one from the Joker, one from Batman, underlining the point about good and evil being far from clear cut.

[On a more jaunty note, Michael Caine provides a good role model for anyone wanting to imitate a cockney accent. Also, I was pleased to recognise that some filming had been done in Chicago near where we stayed for the APA this year.]

Rhetorical and poetic figures in popular music

Months ago, I began collecting examples of poetic and rhetorical figures in popular music, spurred on by Bill Bailey's thesis that cockney music influenced the great classical composers. Although it may not be surprising to find such figures in the corpus of the great lyricist Cole Porter, a hysteron proteron, say, would not be expected in the works of Robbie Williams. A few topoi and grammatical features began to creep in.

A further noteworthy discovery is that the tradition of catalogue poetry - so popular among the ancients - has been continued by the likes of the Beach Boys and Madonna.

ADYNATON
Until the trees and seas just up and fly away,
Until the day that 8 times 8 times 8 is 4…
Until the day the earth starts turning right to left
Stevie Wonder, As

I'll love you… until the twelfth of never
and that's a long, long time.
Johnny Mathis

ALLITERATION
It's just another manic Monday

Baubles, Bangles and Beads: hear how they jing, jing-a-ling-a
Cole Porter

AMOEBEAN STRUCTURE
Fa, Fa, Fa, Fa, Fa, Fa, (your turn), etc.
Otis Reading
[Often to be heard in the Sidgwick Buttery]

ANADIPLOSIS
When you're not, you're with
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
– the wife of a close friend.
Carly Simon, You're So Vain

APOSIOPESIS
But each time that I do, just the thought of you makes me stop - - - just before I begin
Cole Porter, I've Got You Under My Skin

APOSTROPHE
Roll over, Beethoven. Tell Tchaikovsky the news.
Chuck Berry

ASSONANCE
On the ground your glove I found
With a note addressed to me.
It read dear love I've done you wrong,
Now I must set you free.
Moody River

CHIASMUS
Momma said, 'There'd be days like this, there'd be days like this,' my momma said.

ECPHRASIS
Looking through some photographs
I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you.
There were one or two
I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn't show your spirit quite as true.

You were turning 'round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes.
Jackson Browne, Fountain of Sorrow

Just a little deuce coupe with a flat head mill
But she'll walk a thunderbird like she's standin' still
She's ported and relieved and she's stroked and bored.
She'll do a hundred and forty with the top end floored
She's my little deuce coupe
You don't know what I got.
She's got a competition clutch with the four on the floor
And she purrs like a kitten till the lake pipes roar
And if that ain't enough to make you flip your lid
There's one more thing – I got the pink slip, daddy.
The Beach Boys, Little Deuce Coup

EMPHASIS
? Don't you know, little fool, you never can win?
Cole Porter, I've Got You Under My Skin

EPIDIORTHOSIS
You're my first, my last, my everything.
Barry White

EPITHALAMIUM
Girl, I heard you're getting married,
Heard you're getting married, this time you're really sure.
And this is the end. They say you really mean it.
This guy's the one that makes you feel so safe, so sane and so secure.
And, baby, if he loves you more than me,
Maybe it's the best thing,
Maybe it's the best thing for you.
But it's the worst that could happen to me.
Jim Webb, The Worst that Could Happen

LIST POETRY / EPIC CATALOGUE
You'd catch 'em surfin' at Del Mar
Ventura county line
Santa Cruz and Trestle
Australia's Narabine
All over Manhattan
And down Doheny way
…
The Beach Boys, Surfin' USA

Greta Garbo, and Monroe,
Dietrich and DiMaggio,
Marlon Brando,
Jimmy Dean
On the cover of a magazine.
Grace Kelly; Harlow, Jean, Picture of a beauty queen.
Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire
Ginger Rogers, dance on air.
They had style, they had grace,
Rita Hayworth gave good face.
Lauren, Katharine, Lana too
Bette Davis, we love you.
Ladies with an attitude,
Fellows that were in the mood -
Don't just stand there, let's get to it:
Strike a pose, there's nothing to it.
Madonna, Vogue
cf. ps‑Hesiod, Eoiae [Thanks to Sarah Drummond]

But here are some of music's pioneers
That time will not allow us to forget.
For there's Basie, Miller, Satchmo
And the king of all, Sir Duke.
And with a voice like Ella's ringing out
There's no way the band can lose.
Stevie Wonder, Sir Duke

HYPERBOLE
? A trip to the moon on gossamer wings, just one of those things
Cole Porter, Just one of those things

HYSTERON PROTERON
Special agent for the man,
Through Watergate and Vietnam
Robbie Williams, Advertising Space

LOCUS AMOENUS
Beside the garden wall,
when stars are bright,
You are in my arms.
The nightingale tells his fairy tale
Of paradise where roses grew.
Though I dream in vain, in my heart you will remain,
My stardust melody,
The memory of love's refrain.
Star dust

In a mountain greenery,
Where God paints the scenery,
Just two crazy people together.
While you love your lover,
Let blue skies be your coverlet.
When it rains we'll laugh at the weather.
And if you're good, I'll search for wood,
So you can cook... while I stand looking.
Beans could get no keener reception in a beanery.
Bless our mountain greenery home!
Mel Torme, Mountain Greenery

METAPHOR
Burn, baby, burn – disco inferno.

METATEXTUAL REFERENCE

It's automatic when I
Talk with old friends
The conversation turns to
Girls we knew when their
Hair was soft and long and the
Beach was the place to go.

Suntanned bodies and
Waves of sunshine, the
California girls and a
Beautiful coastline,
Warmed up weather -
Let's get together and
Do it again.
Beach Boys, Do it again

METRICAL LENGTHENING
Ra, Ra, Rasputīn,
Lover of the Russian queen
Boney M.

NEGATIVES
Greek: I can't get no satisfaction
The Rolling Stones

OXYMORON
Definitely maybe
Oasis

Bittersweet symphony
The Verve

Tonight with words unspoken
you say that I'm the only one
Will you still love me tomorrow?
The Shirelles

PARAPROSDOKIAN
If saying your prayers you like,
If green pears you like,
If old chairs you like,
If back stairs you like,
If love affairs you like
With young bears you like,
Why, nobody will oppose!
Cole Porter, Anything Goes

I've been a pauper, a pirate, a puppet, a poet, - a pawn, and a king
I've been up and down and over and out and I know one thing:
Frank Sinatra, That's Life

PARONOMASIA (figura etymologica)
I guess it would be nice,
If I could touch your body,
Because not everybody
Has got a body like you.
Wham, Faith

PATHETIC FALLACY
When the Winter weds the Northern Wind,
The child they bear is snow,
And the branches bow like worried bridesmaids
But the leaves will grow.
Sun and Earth in time will come together
God will give us back our summer weather,
But the mem'ries of that first sweet taste
of love pass away so slow.
Frank Sinatra, Dream Away, Child

PERSONIFICATION
Old Man River

'Cause L.A. is my lady
She's always there for me
L.A. is my lady
She knows how to care for me
No lady's sweeter - you know it the moment you meet her

I've been in love more times, than I care to remember
And love's kept me cool in July and warm in December
It may not have lasted, but each time I thought it was heaven
You name it, I've been there and back
Lookin' for someone who - I'd be faithful to.
Frank Sinatra, L.A. is my Lady

POLYPTOTON
Girls (nom.) who are boys (nom.), who like boys (acc.) to be girls (acc.), who do boys (acc.) like they're girls (acc.), who do girls (acc.) like they're boys (acc.)
Blur

You (nom.) must have been a beautiful baby (nom.)
'cause, baby (voc.), won't you (nom.) look at you (acc.) now?
Bobby Darin

PRIAMEL
I get no kick from champagne,…
Some like the bop-time refrain,…
Some they may go for cocaine,…
But I get a kick out of you.
[Cf. Pindar, Olympian 1 and Sappho fr. 16 LP]
Cole Porter

PROLEPSIS
Look at the stars, Look how they shine for you
Coldplay, Yellow

RECUSATIO
There could never be a portrait of my love,
For nobody could paint a dream.
It would take, I know, a Michelangelo
And he would need the glow of dawn
That paints the sky above
To try to paint a portrait of my love.
Matt Munro, Portrait of my Love

REPRAESENTATIO
When they get to the part,
Where he’s breakin’ her heart,
It can really make me cry,
Just like before.
It’s yesterday once more
…
All my best memories
Come back clearly to me.
Some can even make me cry,
Just like before.
It’s yesterday once more.
The Carpenters, It’s Yesterday Once More

RING COMPOSITION
There's talk on the street. It's there to remind you.
in The Eagles, New Kid in Town
(Opening and before the guitar solo)

Cole Porter, In the Still of the Night (see below)

SIMILE
Short (… ὥς,)
Like a fool, I went a stayed too long
Stevie Wonder, Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Extended
Or, will this dream of mine fade out of sight
Like the moon
Growing dim
On the rim
Of the hill
In the chill,
Still of the night?
Cole Porter, In the Still of the Night

SYNECDOCHE
Blue Spanish eyes (voc.), prettiest eyes in all of Mexico,
Blue Spanish Eyes, please smile for me once more before I go.
Soon I'll return, bringing you all the love your heart can hold.
Al Martino

TRICOLON
Signed, sealed, delivered.
Stevie Wonder

VARIATIO
All the honeys who makin' money,…
All the mommas who profit dollars
Destiny's Child, Independent Women
[N.B. Hebraic parallelism too]

ZEUGMA
You held your breath and the door for me.
Alanis Morisette, Head over Feet

I hope these illustrations will prove useful. Please send in further examples, especially of the ever elusive praeteritio.

A Song for Monday Morning

In Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate, the mobsters sing:

The girls today in society
Go for classical poetry.
So to win their hearts one must quote (with ease)
Aeschylus and Euripides.

One must know Homer and, b'lieve me, Bo,
Sophocles... also Sappho-ho!
Unless you know Shelley and Keats and Pope,
Dainty debbies will call you a dope.

But the poet of them all
Who will start 'em simply ravin'
Is the poet people call
The bard of Stratford-on-Avon!

[Refrain]
Brush up your Shakespeare!
Start quoting him now!
Brush up your Shakespeare!
And the women you will wow.

καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

Pet name/theory

At the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade we learn that Dr Jones (Jr) was named Henry after his father and that 'Indiana' was the name of their pet dog ("I've got a lot of fond memories of that dog..." etc.).

It occurred to me recently that there was a classicist named Henry Jones - Sir Henry Stuart Jones, to be precise (d. 1939) - Greek archaeologist and historian, editor of Thucydides (the inaugural OCT), and the 'J.' in LSJ. An in-joke, perhaps? Probably not.

Nothing is ever wasted

The point of the following passage from Tom Stoppard's Arcadia was impressed upon us last term.

We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms,
and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very
long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside
the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn
up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for
diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and
lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if
all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would
be at a loss for a corkscrew?

We increasingly have more of Archimedes (and Hypereides)...

Skunkha

Skunkha was prominent among the pointy-hatted Scythians (ὀρθοκορυβάντιοι, cf. Hdt. 3.92.1) in the late sixth century BCE. His single appearance on the stage of history - his defeat by Darius the Great, King of Persia - is commemorated on the Behistun inscription (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_translation_of_the_Behistun_Inscription):

King Darius says: Afterwards with an army I went off to Scythia, after the
Scythians who wear
the pointed cap. These Scythians went from me. When I
arrived at the river,
I crossed beyond it then with all my army. Afterwards,
I smote the Scythians exceedingly; [one
of their leaders] I took captive; he
was led bound to me, and I killed him.
[Another] chief of them, by name
Skunkha, they seized and led to me. Then I made
another their chief, as was
my desire. Then the province became mine.

It would seem that this new chief was none other than Papa Smurf - a natural choice for the jaunty and happy-go-lucky safe-pair-of-hands needed in a client king.