Posts by Joshua

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On a more prosaic note: is "dissolved" the most accurate English word? It's in most of the translations, but I keep associating it with dissolving something in water. Resolved into its elements, dispersed, dispersed into elements, broken down into atoms seem to work. Especially "dispersed into elements".

"Who ever saw his old clothes--his old coat, actually worn out, resolved into its primitive elements, so that it was not a deed of charity to bestow it on some poor boy, by him perchance to be bestowed on some poorer still, or shall we say richer, who could do with less?" -Thoreau, Walden

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What is X 77?

He's referring to the "paragraph" numbers in the (modern) text of Diogenes Laertius

That is a very good point, Godfrey!

The Hymn to Venus at the top of the 'cup' is full of sweetness, and the Plague in the bottom full of bitterness.

Leontion

Proposed Emblems: Lion and Stylus (or Reed Pen)

250px-Stylus.jpg

Leontion's writing was commemorated in the Greek anthology, Planudean appendix #324:

ANONYMOUS: I, THE pencil, was silver when I came from the fire, but in thy hands I have become golden likewise. So, charming Leontion, hath Athena well gifted thee with supremacy in art, and Cypris [Aphrodite] with supremacy in beauty.

Cicero complains that Leontion took to writing a scroll against Theophrastus, successor to Aristotle, but revealingly reports that "she wrote well and in good Attic style". Our word 'style' comes from the Latin stylus, an instrument for writing in reusable wax tablets.

Lucretius

Proposed Emblems: Wormwood and Honey

Lucretius' lines on honey and wormwood appear twice in De Rerum Natura, most memorably in the proem to Book IV:

For as physicians, when they seek to give

Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch

The brim around the cup with the sweet juice

And yellow of the honey, in order that

The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled

As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down

The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled,

Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus

Grow strong again with recreated health:

So now I too (since this my doctrine seems

In general somewhat woeful unto those

Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd

Starts back from it in horror) have desired

To expound our doctrine unto thee in song

Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,

To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-

In Matthew Arnold's dichotomy between Hellenism and Hebraism, the honeybee gives us the symbols of the best of Greek culture--"sweetness and light", honey and wax candles. Wormwood has a somewhat darker history; it is the central ingredient in absinthe, the green muse or green fairy, the infernal drink of poets.

In Lucretius these two emblems symbolize his entire project--the sweet golden honey of his beautiful verse, graced by the muse's touch, masking the bitter but healthful draught of true philosophy.

Feel free to share your suggestions! For Leontion I'm thinking the Lion and the Κάλαμος, or Reed Pen. I'll share my reasons for that tomorrow!

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What is blessed and imperishable that is not a god?

mellis dulci flavoque liquore..."the sweet yellow liquor of the honey"...

Well, it's imperishable anyway. Depends what we mean by blessed I suppose!

I really am impressed with Bailey here though! I like it more each time I read it.

I give Bailey the palm for clear and concise English, well written and very readable.

I like DeWitt's translation for sound philosophy; the gods are "incorruptible" as opposed to "immortal", blissful by their own lights rather than blessed by something else. I quibble only with that word "creature". What is it doing there? Since it literally means "created thing" it seems out of place in what is otherwise very careful diction.

I feel the same way about the word "divine" in Strodach.

Then there is this question of 'movements' vs 'feelings' vs 'emotions' vs something else.

I voted DeWitt. I would only change two things about his translation. Replace 'being' with 'nature', and replace 'a weak creature' with 'what is weak'.

Thank you Don for all of your work in bringing the information here!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubricati…script%20making.

Red lettering in manuscripts is called Rubrication, more at Wikipedia.

Florilegium seu gnomologium Epicureum

"Epicurean anthology or collection of sayings"

Fascinating that they translated ἀνθολογία (anthologia)--"Flower words"--directly into Latin as Florilegium--"Flower words" again. In both cases really meaning a collection of poems, epitaphs, maxims or sayings.

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Could it be for Dis (the name of Pluto?)?

That's very likely part of the equation!

Note the word potuit, used here as well as in Lucretius: Tantum potuit religio suadere malorum. "So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds."

So that the power or ability to know the causes of things--a power given by philosophy--is balanced against the power we give to superstition through fear and ignorance. The power of knowledge allows us to trample fear, fate, and the dread of death.

It is the gift of Epicurus to the world, as Lucian indicates:

"The fellow had no conception of the blessings conferred by that book upon its readers, of the peace, tranquillity, and independence of mind it produces, of the protection it gives against terrors, phantoms, and marvels, vain hopes and inordinate desires, of the judgement and candour that it fosters, or of its true purging of the spirit, not with torches and squills and such rubbish, but with right reason, truth, and frankness."

Thoreau saw the figure of Epicurus in Lucretius as a kind of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and giving it to man.

That's the whole significance of the Rosetta stone, being carved in two languages and in three scripts (going from memory).

Translated:

"Dis" is not part of his wife's name, but seems to relate to the word discedere, "to depart". He built the tomb after she died (departed), for both of them, as well as for their liberti, freed slaves.

Thank you, Cleveland Okie !

My only (tongue-in-cheek) point of reference for Chakras:

Last words of Brutus:

Note on the Last Words of Brutus – From Cassius Dio, Not Plutarch – NewEpicurean

And of course Lucretius, who starts his poem by asking Venus for the blessings of peace:

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Pour from those lips soft syllables to win

Peace for the Romans, glorious Lady, peace!

For in a season troublous to the state

Neither may I attend this task of mine

With thought untroubled, nor mid such events

The illustrious scion of the Memmian house

Neglect the civic cause.

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If Lucretius did die in 50 B.C. or just before that, then he narrowly escaped the seismic and bloody Roman Civil Wars of the 1st and 2nd triumvirates, 49-44 B.C.

In retrospect his plaintive call for peace on the eve of bitter war begins to assume dramatic and even tragic proportions.

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There remains a twofold question:

Are there (in the classical Epicurean corpus) any similar affirmative statements on: 1) where reasonably possible, to prevent or stop wrongful harm from being done to another (particularly someone outside our immediate friendship circle); and 2) to foster social conditions that are conducive to maximizing the possibility for enjoyment/pleasure by most people (including those that may be on the socioeconomic margins)?

Now these are somewhat more interesting questions at least to me. Per usual with Epicurus we are left with observations rather than commandments, as here;

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PD39: He who best knew how to meet fear of external foes made into one family all the creatures he could; and those he could not, he at any rate did not treat as aliens; and where he found even this impossible, he avoided all association, and, so far as was useful, kept them at a distance.

And here;

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Diogenes of Oenoanda: So (to reiterate what I was saying) observing that these people are in this predicament, I bewailed their behaviour and wept over the wasting of their lives, and I considered it the responsibility of a good man to give benevolent assistance, to the utmost of one's ability, to those of them who are well-constituted. This is the first reason for the inscription.

Dioges of Oenoanda is generally the most explicit when it comes to answering your questions, Pacatus.

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I wanted, before being overtaken by death, to compose a fine anthem to celebrate the fullness of pleasure and so to help now those who are well-constituted. Now, if only one person or two or three or four or five or six or any larger number you choose, sir, provided that it is not very large, were in a bad predicament, I should address them individually and do all in my power to give them the best advice. But, as I have said before, the majority of people suffer from a common disease, as in a plague, with their false notions about things, and their number is increasing (for in mutual emulation they catch the disease from one another, like sheep) moreover, it is right to help also generations to come (for they too belong to us, though they are still unborn) and, besides, love of humanity prompts us to aid also the foreigners who come here.