Posts by Joshua

I should have replied to your other thread Don, but I'll put it here!

Regarding mens sana in corpore sano, there is a history there that DeWitt doesn't tease out for us. Your instincts are correct; Juvenal's famous line is Stoical;

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You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body.

Ask for a stout heart that has no fear of death,

and deems length of days the least of Nature's gifts

that can endure any kind of toil,

that knows neither wrath nor desire and thinks

the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than

the loves and banquets and downy cushions of Sardanapalus.

What I commend to you, you can give to yourself;

For assuredly, the only road to a life of peace is virtue.

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The Epicurean response was offered by Horace, which I'll paraphrase as I cannot find the source just now;

Let me ask Jupiter only for what is in his power to give—it would be absurd to ask for a contented mind, as I can provide that for myself.

You don't need to ask for a stout heart that has no fear of death; Epicurus suggested that that is what philosophy is for!

I find the sample rather charming myself, although I haven't compared it with another.

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Just saw your comment about approaching the library, Joshua. This is where I dearly wish we had some friends in England. I do know of one possibility; I will email him.

If it comes to drafting a formal letter, multiple signatories with credentials might strengthen our request. I won't say it on the public forum without permission, but a certain someone has connections with the Library system in Ohio. We are, after all, a dedicated international group of sensible professionals.

Here is a link to a 15th century Italian manuscript of the Latin text, held at the Library and included in its digital collection.

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So I'd really like to see even a sample of the text.

Now that is one thing I can help you with!

From the same book I cited above:

from Wikipedia:

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The library operates a strict policy on copying of material. Until fairly recently, personal photocopying of library material was not permitted, as there was concern that copying and excessive handling would result in damage. However individuals may now copy most material produced after 1900, and a staff-mediated service is provided for certain types of material dated between 1801 and 1900. Handheld scanners and digital cameras are also permitted for use on most post-1900 publications and digital cameras may also be used, with permission, with older material.[48] The Library will supply digital scans of most pre-1801 material.

We might find it necessary to draft a careful and serious Letter of Request to the curators, to see if they'll digitize it for us. You do, after all, operate several of the very best Epicurean resources to be found anywhere on the internet! They might be amenable if we volunteer to typeset the scan ourselves for the public record.

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Joshua I checked my files and don't seem to have much on this Rawlinson edition, nor can I find a PDF of the manuscript. Have you found an online version?

I've never found a copy of it either. The Bodleian Library holds the largest collection at Oxford, and the second largest in Britain. There are over 12 million documents to be digitized, and it's very possible that this edition hasn't ever been scanned or typeset. Every citation that I have found cites the manuscript itself.

Oh, have no fear on that point, Cassius. I am certain you've spent more time with Munro than I have! No, it was the very interesting word cavalier that distracted me, and that is where my reading may bear me out: we studied the cavalier poets when I was at the University; they were Royalists devoted wholeheartedly to the cause (and person) of Charles I, and to the eventual restoration of his heir Charles II after the Interregnum.

The great problem of the manuscript in the Bodleian library is that we know almost nothing whatever about it. Here is what little we do know about the text, known to scholars as Ms Rawlinson D. 314.

The concrete facts are coded in the title just mentioned; it is a hand-drafted fair copy manuscript (Ms), bequeathed to Oxford as part of the extensive collection—over 5,000 articles of every description—of Richard Rawlinson, being the 314th item under the heading D. for Miscellaneous.

And, what we do not know:

1.) The identity of the translator.

2.) The date of its composition.

3.) The early provenance of the text—which is to say, how it came to be in Rawlinson's collection to begin with.

Everything else that can be surmised is to be derived through textual criticism. It is believed to be a direct translation of a 1659 French revision of an earlier French edition of the Latin text, presented by Denis Lambin in 1563 (this being the same Lambinus mentioned above by Munro.)

And so from this, an earliest date of 1659 is suggested for the text.

On a slightly unrelated note, it was a copy of Lambin's edition that was found with Montaigne's extensive marginalia.

I say undoubtedly, because John Evelyn did not translate the poem in its entirety, and had little love for the cavaliers.

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[...] he had the fortune too to be entirely translated by one of the most accomplished cavalier gentlemen [...]

What a curious snippet...

This is undoubtedly a reference to the anonymous manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. I wonder if gentlemen is meant, or gentleman. Munro seems to have a hypothesis regarding it's authorship. The list I've seen offers up 25(!) names of proposed translators. (Source: Lucretius and the Early Modern, Norbrook et al.)

I was just reading an article called "Newton and Lucretius" by William B. Jensen of the University of Cincinnatti, and heard there a strange tale.

It seems that among ancient sources there are references to a proto-philosopher (of a still more ancient vintage) called Mochus the Phoenician. This Mochus, it has been proposed, was the genuine father of atomism. And there is a bizarre temptation in this, at least for those renaissance humanists who followed Gassendi in attempting to give atomism a Christian face. Mochus, claimed one Ralph Cudworth, was nothing more than an etymological branch of the name of the biblical Moses. Yes, you've got that right—Moses, they suggest, as the father of atomism.

"How much effort it takes to affirm the incredible!" —Christopher Hitchens

Fascinating project! And by the by, my family is in Iowa all week. Clears my schedule, and I'm hoping to return to the ring project this afternoon!

That's actually the very distinction I was trying to draw with the beer analogy!

Sensation (ie 'cold, hot, sweet, sour'): objective

Feeling (pleasure or pain): subjective

There's certainly nothing objective about pleasure. Even with my brain-scan thought experiment, the obvious objection to make is that the feeling of pleasure remains subjective. The visual sense that detects an image of a brain experiencing pleasure is objective.

This is a thread I've been following casually but haven't had time to thoroughly digest.

It seems to me that 'sensation' is meant to carry the meaning of something sensed objectively.

I don't like beer. For many, drinking beer stimulates a feeling of pleasure. For me, it's a kind of mild revulsion—a type of pain. But in both cases the objective sensation is the same; my friend and I both sense that the beer is cold, slightly bitter, tasting of hops and alcohol, and so forth.

But the thing is, with brain scans it is possible to notice objectively the experience of pleasure and pain. So I'm not certain where that leaves us.

There are a few different ways to go about this. Here's an effort at concision; Epicurean Philosophy is a practical philosophy whose end is pleasure, rooted in a theoretical philosophy whose ground is materialism. Epicurus believed that both aspects of his philosophy were discoverable through an epistemology of sensation, feeling, and anticipation—an epistemology that was therefore not strictly empirical.

The Epicurean system attained to the best synthesis of practical and theoretical philosophy in the classical world, with every part of his system reinforcing the structure of the whole. His system was the first 'world-philosophy', a philosophy that spoke to the condition of every human on Earth. Plato developed refined (even if absurd) metaphysical theories, and made a complete muddle of their practical relevance. Stoicism offered a rigid and attractively self-aggrandizing behavioral code, founded on an indistinct and indefinable metaphysic. Epicurus laid out a system that satisfied both.

And this, I think, is why DeWitt sees in Christian theology a pallid and shimmering reflection of Epicureanism. It was a world-philosophy, open to all; it answered, or tried to answer, to the philosophical needs of Man's total nature. Augustine's dream of a theology that was complete and unalterable, insofar as such a dream was ever realized, is still the most serious rival to our system.

What I'm really saying is that the important thing to understand about Epicurean philosophy is that it is a system. You will find other materialists, and you will find empiricists; Charles can put you on the trail of many notable and interesting hedonists, and many of them drew their inspiration from Epicurus and Lucretius.

But—if you dare!—go where the fighting is thickest. The intricate architecture of Christian theology is the best possible foil for the study of Epicurus, and important to study in it's own right.

Joshua

I seem to recall that Cicero mentions Memmius' ownership of an Epicurean property in Athens. Theory goes that Lucretius wanted it preserved for the school.

When I have more time I'd like to write a critique of Tennyson's Lucretius; a poetic exploration of St. Jerome's slander. Tennyson's poem bears in interesting ways on the questions you raise. What did Lucretius mean to convey by addressing Venus

In lays that will outlast thy deity?

Lucretius' Venus is a deeply complex figure. The personification of pleasure and sexual generation; the figurative mother of the city of Rome; the vital energy of endless and beginningless re-creation. The sometime lover and sometime rival of human strife, and the endower of human qualities.

Because the world of Epicurean philosophy is a world of human will amidst ceaseless and random Nature, we can infer that the power of Venus to calm the bloodlust of Mars is a token of the power of humans to choose Venus, and not Mars; to—and I'm quoting Tennyson again—keep themselves

from the lust of blood

That makes a steaming slaughter-house of Rome.

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Just checking in - any new progress?

Unfortunately, no. My sister came to town quite unexpectedly—which is nice!—but my free time has more or less evaporated.

I have done some polishing with plain cotton cheesecloth to smooth out the sandpaper scratches; tedious, but it's working.

Stallings' was the first version I read myself. I ordered it not long after reading Greenblatt. It's certainly a unique take; I find that with all of these old epics I prefer a prose translation, but it's always beneficial to look at it from another angle.

That must have been an interesting class, Don! It's increasingly looking like I'll have something worth casting here. I think I'll find a professional to help with that part.

Next steps:

1. Fine-finishing the wax: Every scratch will show in the casting, so I want to have it really smooth before I send it out. Apparently nylon stockings work well for this 🤷‍♂️.

2. Trace final portrait sketch and copy over to the ring surface.

3. Carve the figure. I haven't used the dremel tool yet, but it might be perfect for detail carving.

4. Finishing touches, 3D scan, and send it out for casting.

I have a long way to go on the portrait, but I'm at least confident that it will work on this scale. So tonight's project was to finish shaping the ring!

I needed to get the band substantially thinner, so I started with the wax carving tool. Here's what strikes me most about this project: I simply cannot believe how intuitive the shaping process has been the whole way through. Consider that I did not at any point sketch out the shape of the ring; I did not draw lines on the wax to tell me where to carve; I did not have a another ring on hand to compare with in three dimensions. Every step has been guided by one essential law, symmetry, and only the human eye to judge it by. I've been very pleased with the whole experience, and I can only dream that the portrait carving goes as smoothly!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After I scraped down far enough to make me nervous, I made the decision to put aside the tool and go slowly with the sandpaper.

The sandpaper makes quite a mess as you can see, but the ring is infinitely better for it. After sanding things down smooth and symmetrical, I used the mandrel and the sandpaper to widen the hole a bit more. After several days of sliding the ring on and off I decided to go for the middle finger instead of the ring finger, since this would look best with a proportionally large carving surface.

I know we're all more excited about the engraving itself when I get to that, but I'm very pleased just to have gotten this far. Thanks for following patiently--I hope to have more tomorrow.

I agree with Cassius that these portraits leave a lot to be desired, but that's a good find regardless. Thank you Charles!

The portrait of Horace is especially interesting. He is depicted not only as a boy, but as a free-born minor wearing the age-appropriate Toga Praetexta. Horace was free-born, which is a point worthy of note since his father endured some years of slavery.

He is also depicted with a bay leaf (or laurel, from bay laurel), which signifies poetry. In fact, Horace did not write poetry in his youth; he turned to it in later years after choosing the wrong side in the Roman Civil War and losing his father's estate in Venusia as part of Augustus' land seizures. Since Rome did boast a number of boy-poets--among them Lucan, died age 25, and Catullus, died age 30--it might seem an unusual choice for a portrait of Horace who lived to be nearly 60. Personally, my favorite portrait of Horace depicts him bald and squat, in middle age, with a glass of wine and a winning grin.