The rationale of the OCT series

From the dust jacket of Platonis Opera... Tomus IV (reprinted 1962):

'... In undertaking the series the Delegates were greatly influenced by the consideration of the educational advantages of a long series of Classical Texts upon a uniform plan. As the Oxford Classical Texts are used by the Examiners for the Certificate of the Universities Joint Board and at the Universities themselves, volumes bought at school should serve as the beginning of a small library which will be used by its possessor throughout school and undergraduate life; and be a better stimulus to literary interest than annotated editions of the parts of an author's works which are set for the next examination.'

Ouch!

Kynonym: Σκύλαξ

The common noun or appelative σκύλαξ - 'puppy' - also serves as a proper name for several Imperial Roman dogs: Petronius, Satyricon 64 and Columella, de re rustica 7.12.13 (referred to as Graecum and commended for its length).

A modern example is known from Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia.

The noun is sometimes  associated implicitly with Σκύλλα (Od.12.86).

Speaking Attic Greek makes you Athenian (with the right customs)

Thucydides, History 7.57.2:
Ἀθηναῖοι μὲν αὐτοὶ Ἴωνες ἐπὶ Δωριᾶς Συρακοσίους ἑκόντες ἦλθον, καὶ αὐτοῖς τῇ αὐτῇ φωνῇ καὶ νομίμοις ἔτι χρώμενοι Λήμνιοι καὶ Ἴμβριοι καὶ Αἰγινῆται, οἳ τότε Αἴγινανεἶχον, καὶ ἔτι Ἑστιαιῆς οἱ ἐν Εὐβοίᾳ Ἑστίαιαν οἰκοῦντες ἄποικοι ὄντες ξυνεστράτευσαν.

The Athenians themselves, as Ionians, came over against Dorian Syracuse of their own free will. They were joined in the expedition by the Lemnians, the Imbrians, the Aeginetans occupying Aegina at the time, and also the Hestiaeans settled at Hestiaea in Euboea: all these were Athenian colonists speaking the same dialect as the Athenians and retaining the same institutions.

Thucydides, History 7.63.3-4:
τοῖς δὲ ναύταις παραινῶ καὶ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ τῷδε καὶ δέομαι μὴ ἐκπεπλῆχθαί τι ταῖς ξυμφοραῖς ἄγαν, τήν τε παρασκευὴν ἀπὸ τῶν καταστρωμάτων βελτίω νῦν ἔχοντας καὶ τὰς ναῦς πλείους, ἐκείνην τε τὴν ἡδονὴν ἐνθυμεῖσθαι ὡς ἀξία ἐστὶ διασώσασθαι, οἳ τέως Ἀθηναῖοι νομιζόμενοι καὶ μὴ ὄντες ἡμῶν τῆς τε φωνῆς τῇ ἐπιστήμῃ καὶ τῶν τρόπων τῇ μιμήσει ἐθαυμάζεσθε κατὰ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, καὶ τῆς ἀρχῆς τῆς ἡμετέρας οὐκ ἔλασσον κατὰ τὸ ὠφελεῖσθαι ἔς τε τὸ φοβερὸν τοῖς ὑπηκόοις καὶ τὸ  μὴ ἀδικεῖσθαι πολὺ πλέον μετείχετε.  
[4] ὥστε κοινωνοὶ μόνοι ἐλευθέρως ἡμῖν τῆς ἀρχῆς ὄντες δικαίως [ἂν] αὐτὴν νῦν μὴ καταπροδίδοτε, καταφρονήσαντες δὲ Κορινθίων τε, οὓς πολλάκις νενικήκατε, καὶ Σικελιωτῶν, ὧν οὐδ’ ἀντιστῆναι οὐδεὶς ἕως ἤκμαζε τὸ ναυτικὸν ἡμῖν ἠξίωσεν, ἀμύνασθε αὐτούς, καὶ δείξατε ὅτι καὶ μετ’ ἀσθενείας καὶ ξυμφορῶν ἡ ὑμετέρα ἐπιστήμη κρείσσων ἐστὶν ἑτέρας εὐτυχούσης ῥώμης.

As for the sailors, I urge you, and not only urge but beg you not to take your previous reverses too much to heart: you have better resources on deck now, and a greater number of ships. Some of you are not citizens, but so far have been regarded as honourary Athenians and admired for that throughout the Greek world, because you speak our language and have assimilated our culture. Remember what a joy that privilege is, too precious to lose. You have shared with us the benefits of our empire, and your share extends yet further to the fear inspired in our subjects and your own security under the law. 
[4] You alone have had the freedom to be our partners in this empire, and owe it now the duty not to let it down. So show your contempt for these Corinthians--you have beaten them many times before--and for these Sicilian Greeks, none of whom was prepared even to attempt resistance when our fleet was at its prime. See them off, and make it clear that even when weakened by set backs you have the expertise to overcome any combination of strength and good fortune in the opposition.

Dio Chrysostom, The Corinthian Oration, [37.]25-27:

εἰ δέ τις οὐ Λευκανὸς ὤν, ἀλλὰ Ῥωμαῖος, οὐδὲ τοῦ πλήθους, ἀλλὰ τῶν ἱπποτρόφων, οὐδὲ τὴν φωνὴν μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν γνώμην καὶ τὴν δίαιταν καὶ τὸ σχῆμα τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐζηλωκώς, καὶ ταῦθ’ οὕτως ἐγκρατῶς καὶ περιφανῶς, ὡς οὔτε τῶν πρὸ αὑτοῦ Ῥωμαίων οὔτε τῶν καθ’ αὑτὸν Ἑλλήνων (εἰρήσεται γάρ) οὐδὲ εἷς· τῶν μὲν γὰρ Ἑλλήνων τοὺς ἀρίστους ἔστιν ἰδεῖν ἐκεῖσε πρὸς τὰ τῶν Ῥωμαίων πράγματα ἀποκλίνοντας, τὸν δὲ [προστάτην] πρὸς τὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων καὶ τούτων ἕνεκα καὶ τὴν οὐσίαν καὶ τὸ πολιτικὸν ἀξίωμα καὶ πάνθ’ ἁπλῶς προϊέμενον, ἵν’ αὐτῷ περιῇ ἓν ἀντὶ πάντων Ἕλληνι δοκεῖν τε καὶ εἶναι—εἶτα τοῦτον  οὐκ ἐχρῆν παρ’ ὑμῖν ἑστάναι χαλκοῦν;  

[26] καὶ κατὰ πόλιν γε· παρ’ ὑμῖν μέν, ὅτι Ῥωμαῖος ὢν ἀφηλληνίσθη, ὥσπερ ἡ πατρὶς ἡ ὑμετέρα, παρὰ Ἀθηναίοις δέ, ὅτι ἀττικίζει τῇ φωνῇ, παρὰ Λακεδαιμονίοις δέ, ὅτι φιλογυμναστεῖ, παρὰ πᾶσι δέ, ὅτι φιλοσοφεῖ καὶ πολλοὺς μὲν ἤδη τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐπῆρε συμφιλοσοφῆσαι αὐτῷ, οὐκ  ὀλίγους δὲ καὶ τῶν βαρβάρων ἐπεσπάσατο.  
[27] ἐπ’ αὐτὸ γὰρ τοῦτο καὶ ἐδόκει ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν οἷον ἐξεπίτηδες κατεσκευάσθαι, Ἕλλησι μέν, ἵνα ἔχωσιν οἱ ἐπιχώριοι τῆς Ἑλλάδος παράδειγμα ὡς οὐδὲν τὸ παιδευθῆναι τοῦ φῦναι πρὸς τὸ δοκεῖν διαφέρει· Ῥωμαίοις δέ, ἵνα μηδ’ οἱ τὸ ἴδιον ἀξίωμα περιβεβλημένοι τὸ παιδεύεσθαι πρὸς τὸ ἀξίωμα παρορῶσι· Κελτοῖς δέ, ἵνα μηδὲ τῶν βαρβάρων μηδεὶς ἀπογιγνώσκῃ τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς παιδείας, βλέπων εἰς τοῦτον.

Well, if some one who is not a Lucanian but a Roman, not one of the masses but of the equestrian order, one who has affected, not merely the language, but also the thought and manners and dress of the Greeks, and that too with such mastery and manifest success as no one among either the Romans of the earlier days or the Greeks of his own time, I must say, has achieved--for while the best of the Greeks over there [in Rome] may be seen inclining to Roman ways, he inclines towards the Greek and to that end is sacrificing both his property and his political standing and absolutely everything, aiming to achieve one thing at the cost of all else, namely, not only to seem Greek but to be Greek too--taking all this into consideration, ought he not to have a bronze statue here in Corinth? 
[26] Yes, and in every city--in yours because, though Roman, he has become thoroughly hellenized, even as your own city has; in Athens because he is Athenian in his speech; in Sparta because he is devoted to athletics; in all cities everywhere because he pursues the study of wisdom and already has not only roused many of the Greeks to follow that pursuit with him but also attracted many of the barbarians. 
[27] Indeed it seesm that he has been equipped by the gods for this express purpose--for the Greeks, so that the natives of that land may have an example before them to show that culture is no whit inferior to birth with respect to reknown; for Romans, so that not even those who are wrapped up in their own self-esteem may disregard culture with respect to real esteem; for Celts, so that no one even of the barbarians may despair of attaining the culture of Greece when he looks upon this man.

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.

Lifestyles of Lexicographers, Part 2: Samuel Johnson

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

Philological soundbites

"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.

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

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.

Range of meanings

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.

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

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

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

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.

Scaliger on indexing

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.

Why study poetry? More on Mycenae

An anecdote and a quotation:

From C. Stray, "Gilbert Murray: Idealism and Scholarship", pp. 10-11 in CA News 36 (June 2007) -

"Literary texts come to be seen as collections of linguistic examples - as in the case of the schoolmaster around 1900 who told his pupils, 'This term we are to study the Oedipus Tyrannus' a splendid repository of grammatical curiosities."

From A.C. Price, Homer: Iliad, Book XXI, with introduction, notes and vocabulary, Cambridge University Press, 1921: p. xlix "s. 27 ARCHAEOLOGY" -

"The Poems however ought to be read not only as literature or as a key to the many problems of classical grammar, but also as our chief evidence with regard to the condition of the Greek world a thousand years or so before the Christian era."

Johnson to Boswell: 8th December 1763

Advice for students (in the broadest sense), almost on its 245th anniversary.

"To tell you that I am or am not well, that I have or have not been in the country, that I drank your health in the room in which we sat last together, and that your acquaintance continue to speak of you with their former kindness, topicks with which those letters are commonly filled which are written only for the sake of writing, I seldom shall think worth communicating; but if I can have it in my power to calm any harassing disquiet, to excite any virtuous - desire, to rectify any important opinion, or fortify any generous resolution, you need not doubt but I shall at least wish to prefer the pleasure of gratifying a friend much less esteemed than yourself, before the gloomy calm of idle vacancy. Whether I shall easily arrive at an exact punctuality of correspondence, I cannot tell. I shall, at present, expect that you will receive this in return for two which I have had from you. The first, indeed, gave me an account so hopeless of the state of your mind, that it hardly admitted or deserved an answer ; by the second I was much better pleased: and the pleasure will still be increased by such a narrative of the progress of your studies, as may evince the continuance of an equal and rational application of your mind to some useful enquiry.

You will, perhaps, wish to ask, what study I would recommend. I shall not speak of theology, because it ought not to be considered as a question whether you shall endeavour to know the will of GOD.

I shall, therefore, consider only such studies as we are at liberty to pursue or to neglect ; and of these I know not how you will make a better choice, than by studying the civil law, as your father advises, and the ancient languages, as you had determined for yourself; at least resolve, while you remain in any settled re sidence, to spend a certain number of hours every day pamongst your books. The dissipation of thought, of which you complain, is nothing more than the vacillation of a mind suspended between different motives, and changing its direction as any motive gains or loses strength. If you can but kindle in your mind any strong desire, if you can but keep predominant any wish for some particular excellence or attainment, the gusts of imagination will break away, without any effect upon your conduct, and commonly without any traces left upon the memory.

There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that Nature has given him some thing peculiar to himself. This vanity makes one mind nurse aversion, and another actuate desires, till they rise by art much above their original state of power ; and as affectation, in time, improves to habit, they at last tyrannise over him who at first encouraged them only for show. Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who, while he was chill, was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison. You know a gentleman, who, when first he set his foot in the gay world, as he prepared himself to whirl in the vortex of pleasure, imagined a total indifference and universal negligence to be the most agreeable concomitants of youth, and the strongest indication of an airy temper and a quick apprehension. Vacant to every object, and sensible of every impulse, he thought that all appearance of diligence would deduct something from the reputation of genius; and hoped that he should appear to attain, amidst all the ease of carelessness, and all the tumult of diversion, that knowledge and those accomplishments which mortals of the common fabrick obtain only by mute abstraction and solitary drudgery. He tried this scheme of life awhile, was made weary of it by his sense and his virtue ; he then wished to return to his studies ; and finding long habits of idleness and pleasure harder to be cured than he expected, still willing to retain his claim to some extraordinary prerogatives, resolved the common consequences of irregularity into an unalterable decree of destiny, and concluded that Nature had originally formed him incapable of rational employment.

Let all such fancies, illusive and destructive, be banished henceforward from your thoughts for ever. Resolve, and keep your resolution ; choose, and pursue your choice. If you spend this day in study, you will find yourself still more able to study to-morrow ; not that you are to expect that you shall at once obtain a complete victory. Depravity is not very easily overcome. Resolution will sometimes relax, and diligence will sometimes be interrupted ; but let no accidental surprize or deviation, whether short or long, dispose you to despondency.; Consider these failings as incident to all mankind. Begin again where you left off, and endeavour to avoid the seducements that prevailed over you before.

This, my dear Boswell, is advice which, perhaps, has been often given you, and given you without effect. But this advice, if you will not take from others, you must take from your own reflections, if you purpose to do the duties of the station to which the bounty of Providence has called you.

Let me have a long letter from you as soon as you can. I hope you continue your journal, and enrich it with many observations upon the country in which you reside. It will be a favour if you can get me any books in the Frisick language, and can enquire how the poor are maintained in the Seven Provinces. I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate servant,

London, Dec. 8, 1763. SAM. JOHNSON."

At the top of everyone's to do list: read Iliad 23

Schiller said:

If only a man has lived to read the 23rd book of the Iliad, he cannot complain of his lot.
Wenn man auch nur gelebt hätte, um den 23. Gesang der Ilias zu lesen, so könnte man sich über sein Dasein nicht beschweren.

Familiar facial expressions

I have been reminded of a passage from Brideshead Revisited on several occasions recently and thought it would be a good idea to track it down.

Towards the end of that summer term I received the last visit and
Grand Remonstrance of my cousin Jasper. I was just free of the schools, having taken the last paper of History Previous on the afternoon before; Jasper's subfusc suit and white tie proclaimed him still in the thick of it; he had,too, the exhausted but resentful air of one who fears he has failed to do himself full justice on the subject of Pindar's Orphism. Duty alone had brought him to my rooms that afternoon, at great inconvenience to himself and, as it happened, to me, who, when he caught me in the door, was on my way to make final arrangements about a dinner I was giving that evening.

It is assumed that we are all familiar with this particular facial expression.

On a related note: in IGL's entry for the word θυμβροφάγος (cf. Aristophanes, Acharnians 254), we read "to look as if one had eaten savory, make a savory or (as we might say) a verjuice face".

H.G. Liddell might have described such an expression in this way, but I doubt that such a description would be clear nowadays.

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)...

A Rival Cake Seminar?

Until yesterday afternoon I thought that the Cake Seminar was an invention of some Cambridge graduate students in the spring of 2005. Then I read in the acknowledgements in the praefatio (p. XXXVII) to M.L. West's edition of the Iliad:

Revellus Coles qua est humanitate phototypa papyrorum Oxyrhynchicarum, quotiens mihi opus erat, adire permisit, alioquin consilio adiuvit, laborantem potibus caffeinis, panibus zingiberatis sublevavit.

zingiberi -is n. is an Indic loanword - via Greek - referring to ginger.

Just a small fish in a large pond?

It is not unusual for students who were the best in their year group at school to feel out of their depth when they start at university. Even Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf - at the age of eighteen - wrote to his mother on 4 December 1867:

There is such a colossal difference, while here [Bonn] one is a drop in the sea, there [Pforte] one was the foam that rides on the wave.

By then, he had already 'read critically' all extant Greek tragedies, including Rhesus.

[See W. M. Calder III, 'Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, an Unpublished Autobiography' pp. 561-577 in GRBS 12 1971 at p. 562.]

~pj