Posts by Joshua

I've discovered that it's very easy to copy and paste whole sections of text into Excel to where it puts one word into each cell and still maintains the appropriate line break. So getting the Latin text into my tables will be really simple.

I'm betting there's also a way to "inter-leave" the rows from two different spreadsheets in a merger. If I can figure that out, then the only challenging part will be to type out the English in a word document. Then it will be a simple matter of merging the two in excel, exporting the combined table to Word (or a typesetting program like InDesign) and building out the rest of the annotations around the tables. I need to get more proficient with Excel (or the open-source knock-off I'm currently using!)

No no! That's why I'm suggesting an additional glossary or lexicon on the same (or perhaps facing) page, under the line as it were. I just want to get all that extra stuff out of the main body of the interlinear text. A year or so ago I memorized the Hymn to Venus in Latin and can still recite and translate it in my head. What I want is an efficient way to read and memorize more of the text with just a helpful hint as I go through it. I'm off work again tomorrow, I'll work up a page or two to show what I mean.

https://www.amazon.com/Revellers-Chor…s/dp/0526006145

Ok, this appears to be the McBride text mentioned above. It's not actually interlinear from what I can tell; it is a translation of the third book of Lucretius published alongside a translation of a selection from Euripides.

I can't find any evidence that there has ever been an interlinear Latin-English edition of the complete text of DRN.

Yes, Cassius and I briefly discussed that one. It only contains the first book, and even when pared down using the filters is far too cluttered for my liking.

I did find an obscure reference to an interlinear edition in an issue of Publisher's Weekly from 1921:

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"On the Nature of Things , Lucretius , interlinear . Revellers , McBride , Broadway Pub . Co."

I haven't been able to track it down.

Proposal:

To prepare an edition of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura with English gloss under Latin text.

Proposed Source Text:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?do…%3a1999.02.0130

Proposed License:

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

(Necessary if using the Perseus text)

Proposed Format:

Not yet determined.

Brill Publishing (a printer of scholarly works, who I mention for no other reason than that they have a webpage on this subject) recommends for its authors that interlinear glosses should be typeset in a table. The linework is to be made invisible upon completion.

The academic standard for linguistic glossing is the Leipzig System. My preference for this work, however, is for the simplest presentation, and the greatest possible focus on the Latin. To that end, I propose;

-A two line system for the main body of the text, Latin over literal English

-A separate glossary on each page beneath the main body of text for extraneous lexical information (word stem, part of speech, alternative meaning, etc.)

-Snippets of translation within said glossary for more difficult passages.

This table is a proposed gloss for Book I, line 1. Input and feedback welcome!

Proposed Software:

I haven't used Google Docs in quite a long time, but it does seem to be an option for ease of collaboration or even simply feedback. It might be best to use a spreadsheet for the table-work, for importing large quantities of Latin text into separate cells.

I've been combing the internet for the last few days in search of a more elegant solution, but all of the code-based options look frankly like trouble.

-Josh

Eikadistes

Just planting a seed

Diogenes of Oenoanda is excellent on this point;

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In addition to my fellow-citizens who are in this predicament, I desire to help future generations, for they too, though unborn, belong to us, as do any foreigners who may happen to come here.

And a little further down;

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This includes those who are called “foreigners,” though they are not really so, for the compass of the world gives all people a single country and home. But it does not include all people whatsoever, and I am not pressuring any of you to testify thoughtlessly and unreflectively. I do not wish you to say, “this is true,” if you do not agree with us. For I do not speak with certainty on any matter, not even on matters concerning the gods, without providing you evidence, and the proper reasoning to support what I say.

What humans (and some other mammals!) have in lieu of a moral imperative is an empathetic faculty. Even more than that, our evolutionary history has endowed us with a neurological reward circuit to reinforce this faculty. Altruism is then in itself another avenue for the pursuit of pleasure! Nor does this pleasure-reward by any means cheapen the experience of the fulfillment of empathy; indeed, quite the opposite. it means that the act of helping is beneficial both for the one who helps, and for the one who receives help--it brings good to everyone involved.

After all, Vatican Sayings no. 52 doesn't say that friendship dances around the block, or down to the social club and back; "Friendship dances around the world bidding us all to awaken to the recognition of happiness."

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-1057

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I have read Seven Volumes of De la Harpe in course, and the last Seven I have run through and searched but cannot find what I chiefly wanted, His Philosophy of the 18 Century from the Beginning to the End—that revival of the ineffable Nonsense of Epicurus as related by Lucretius not as explained by himself in his Letter in Diogenes Laertius.

I think I agree that DeWitt's reach exceeded his grasp on this point. It is far from settled, in my view, that "Peace and Safety" was a watchword among Epicureans. But it ought not be controversial that these were important, and they were often presented as a pair:

Peace and Safety

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But nothing brings more joy than to live well

in serene high sanctuaries fortified

by wise men’s learning—where you can look down

on other men, see them wandering around

in all directions, roaming here and there,

looking for a path in life, competing

in their natural gifts, striving for honours,

seeking with all their effort night and day

to rise to the top, to win great power.

O wretched minds of men, O blinded hearts!

In what living darkness, what great dangers,

you spend your lives, however long they last!

Do you not notice nature barking out

her one demand, that pain be kept away,

divorced from body, so that, free from care,

free from fear, she may derive enjoyment

in her mind from a sense of pleasure?

Hence, we see that for our body’s nature

only a few things are truly needed—

the ones which do away with any pain.

-Lucretius

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It is not the young man who should be thought happy, but the old man who has lived a good life. For the young man at the height of his powers is unstable and is carried this way and that by fortune, like a headlong stream. But the old man has come to anchor in old age as though in port, and the good things for which before he hardly hoped he has brought into safe harbor in his grateful recollections.

-VS 17

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There is no advantage to obtaining protection from other men so long as we are alarmed by events above or below the earth or in general by whatever happens in the boundless universe.

-VS 72

And yes, Lucian;

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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.

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For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid;

-Letter to Menoeceus

And in a similar vein:

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Know then, that the only aim of the knowledge of the heavenly phenomena, both those which are spoken of in contact with one another, and of those which have a spontaneous existence, is that freedom from anxiety, and that calmness which is derived from a firm belief; and this is the aim of every other science.

-Letter to Pythocles

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This is the first zoom presentation I have watched involving presentation of a paper. She's basically reading large sections of it, but this will hopefully be followed by question and answer. What's the best format using zoom? Is it ok to basically read a paper as the main presentation? (thinking out loud)

I didn't watch any of this, but this question strikes me as interesting. I went to several book readings in college, mostly of poetry and nonfiction/essays. I always enjoyed the author reading selections from their own work, but the key word is selections! With poetry this is easy, but one essayist in particular does stand out in mind as having been totally captivating; but of course he was writing about his life, his students, his dying father...

An academic work must be more taxing to listen to, as well as to present.

The very best reading I ever attended was one of my professors'. I've never seen a man so completely alive to the power of language. He was also a jazz musician, and he enlisted a few students from that category for accompaniment, so the thematic range of the evening was truly powerful.

So how might we take this concept and make it more approachable...

The oak wreath is also emblematic of a certain pope Julius II, who was a patron of the arts at this time.

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OK so he's the ONLY figure in the fresco with a laurel wreath. The suggestion that laurel wreaths are identified with poets would go a long way toward helping with the identity of this figure if we are confident of that association.

It might...except that its not a laurel wreath! Bay Laurel is indeed associated with poets. But this is an oak wreath.

[Part II]

Keys to Preservation

Preserving rare or antique papers, manuscripts and books requires care and discipline, but the fundamentals of the practice are rather simple; if we can identify the factors that cause problems, we can establish a practice that incorporates their solutions. This essay will use the example of one antique book, and the solution arrived at for its continuous display.

Why Physical Texts Decay

Professor Stephen Greenblatt has surveyed the problem through the lens of metaphor–he describes the factors involved in the degradation of physical texts as "The Teeth of Time".

We shall focus on those "teeth" that are within the compass of the amateur collector. The key factors, in brief and in no particular order, are these:

-Mold

-Insects

-Sunfading

-Acidic Corrosion

-Water Damage

-Dessication

-Stressed Bindings

-Rough Handling

-Neglect

How to Protect Your Books

To outline the solutions to these problems, this essay will borrow the nomenclature of Workplace Safety. In that field, life-saving solutions are categorized according to their implementation.

Engineering Controls involve making changes to the work environment, i.e. with guardrails, hazard signs, safety paint, and the like.

Personal Protective Equipment can be worn by the workers, to place a barrier between them and the materials in the workplace.

Best Practices are behavioral standards implemented to get the job done safely.

Engineering Controls

When it comes to protecting books and papers, the most important step to take is to protect them in storage. An antique book will spend a tiny fraction of its life in the hands of a reader or admirer. It will be left sitting silently for months and years; the condition that the book is in when the reader returns to it will depend considerably on how it was stored.

Our example specimen is a Latin Edition of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, printed in Cambridge, England in 1675.

The volume is beautifully preserved–we certainly want to keep it that way. But we also want to see and appreciate old texts; we want to let them speak to us. So while tucking it away in an archival box is an option, what we'll be looking for is a clear display case. An archival, museum quality display case should be specifically engineered to safeguard the specimen against the "teeth of time"–those decay factors in the list above. It should have;

-Museum glass or acrylic, designed to reduce glare and severely restrict the passage of UV light

-Active or Passive humidity control

-A combination hygrometer/thermometer

-Inert materials, to prevent off-gassing and corrosion

A book storage solution does not need to be airtight, and in fact should not be airtight unless it incorporates active humidity control. Putting paper in airtight storage without controls is like locking the door when the enemy is inside with you!

In addition to the above, the storage solution should protect against variable temperature swings. A modern climate-controlled house will likely be sufficient–but don't put the case by a window or a radiator, or under a hot lamp, or in a cold basement or hot attic, or next to an exterior wall.

In Part II, we'll find a display/storage solution for Lucretius, and also consider the use and theory of Personal Protective Equipment (i.e. inert cotton gloves) and the implementation of Best Practices in handling the book itself–to include a note on legacy, and how to pass the book on to others when our time is done.

Thank you Don and Godfrey!

Good stuff, Cassius! I think we've talked about the "original" motion of the atoms recently–perhaps last twentieth? I certainly find it incredibly puzzling.

I'm sure I've read it somewhere, but I can't even think what the Greek word for clinamen would be. Maybe Don can shed some light on Bailey's translation at some point.

Citation here (scroll for quote).

I'll have to dig up a citation later, but Lucretius does indicate that the swerve (clinamen) is foundational to cosmology. This is the troubling bit about the "original" motion of the atoms as falling like rain through the void. The swerve comes in because a uniform and parallel "falling" of atoms at a constant rate of motion would preclude these atoms ever commingling. An indeterminate swerve is essential in order to get them bouncing off each other.

I haven't listened yet, you might have covered that already!

Edit;

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Here's a note I am making while editing this week's podcast.

Well...I clearly cannot have listened yet!

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And there certainly have been "good" figures mixed in to the history of the catholic church (and the rest of organized religion), but I don't see that really changing its overall picture as machinery for manipulation and oppression of the "masses."

True, but what we would have to believe in this case is that for well over a thousand years–during many centuries of which humanist scholars (including men in holy orders) were rifling the libraries of Europe for pagan texts–a significant work by an important figure was hidden away in perfect secrecy. It's just that personally I find it more likely that the Church employed a more direct means of containment; by the classic expedient of feeding books to the fire.

As for surviving writings in the Vatican Library, I'm skeptical about that as well.

The Roman Pontiffs have been a strikingly varied lot. Some were pious, and many others have been corrupt. Some popes have been scholars of the highest learning (as in the case of Sylvester II), while at least four of the "Vicars of Christ" on earth have been illiterate! (Innocent VI is notable for his mistrust of the high literary ambitions of Petrarch, or so I have read.)

Nor was the Church uniformly hostile to all criticism. Our own Lorenzo Valla (later in life a contemporary and rival of Poggio Bracciolini at the Roman Curia) had made a name for himself early on when he proved using philology that the so-called "Donation of Constantine" was a forgery. The Church had for centuries buttressed its own authority partially with this document. His scholarship put his life in danger–and yet when the mitre changed heads with the inauguration of Nicholas V, Valla was invited to a high position in the papal court.

It would strike me as odd if during all these centuries a major work from antiquity had been hidden away in the Vatican Library, with generations of humanists and scholars never revealing it. But it's even more unusual when I consider that in 1888 a small collection of maxims did emerge. I hardly see the point in letting those sayings out, and hiding the rest away; I don't suppose there can really be anything shocking or subversive in Epicurus beyond what we have record of elsewhere. Oddly enough, Lucretius was spared inclusion onto the infamous Index of Prohibited Books, supposedly by the intervention of one Cardinal Marcello Cervini.

So there's that. I certainly appreciate the work that Elli has done in developing her thesis. It would be great to see something new come to light in all of this.