Posts by Joshua

Good stuff, Charles! That whole scene from the tenth canto is simply bizarre. Actually that reminds me of one of my favorite specimen of "famous last words";

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"All right, then, I'll say it: Dante makes me sick." — Lope Félix de Vega Carpio (1562—1635), Spanish dramatist and poet. On being informed he was about to die.

I am VERY sympathetic to the idea that our Greek friends should have 'naming rights'! It's just a difficult transition. Out of curiosity I thumbed through DeWitt while I wrote that post. He must use "Epicureanism" a hundred times in that book; since that's the academic text "of record" in our circle, the problem is unlikely to go away.

Note; If I have Cassius' permission, I wanted a place to simply list minor treatments of Epicurean characters, motifs, and themes in works by Non-Epicureans. The purpose is a simple reference; if you find something interesting, add it to the list. If something on the list merits attention and/or discussion, start a thread and we'll talk about it! Entries should include Author, Title, Year/Period, Brief Description of Relevance.

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Walter Pater; "Marius the Epicurean"; 1885; Victorian Historical Novel set in Imperial Rome

Alfred Tennyson; "Lucretius"; 1868; Victorian Poem treating the alleged madness of Lucretius

Sir Francis Hastings Doyle; "The Epicurean"; 1841; A Poem that actually takes Epicureanism seriously! Here

George Eliot; "Romola"; 1863; A Novel. By reputation, the character of Tito Melema is an unsympathetic portrayal of an Epicurean.

Pierre Jean de Beranger; "The Epicurean's Prayer"; ~1850; A difficult poem. I suspect it loses something in translation? Here

Piero di Cosimo; "The Forest Fire"; 1505; A painting, said to be inspired by De Rerum Natura.

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I hope this thread works out! Someone (I think Charles?) planted the seed in my head a few weeks ago. Once we've got something good going we could work on arranging by period and artistic movement.

Edit; To clarify, "Non-Epicurean" here just means a figure that we don't already know to be Epicurean. It's ok—and welcome!—if the figure is sympathetic to the school.

https://www.theonion.com/i-don-t-fit-in…-box-1824207087

Here's some satire that came to memory as I was writing, re: -isms and ideologies

I've yet to register an opinion on the -ism question; as Nate has put forth a comprehensive effort at surveying the field, I'll offer it here.

To put it simply—I suppose I mean by that, To put it frankly: I haven't found the objections to this usage persuasive, and I doubt whether I can be bothered to police myself in the matter! 😁

I will unhesitatingly grant to our Hellenic friends the etymological point. I share their concerns regarding affinities in language, and I think I can appreciate—at least in outline—their objection to the imported feel of what ought to taste (from their perspective) like a native vintage. It strikes the wrong note, so to speak. I get that. Like grafting Old World vines onto New World rootstock.

And yet for all that, I simply cannot warm to the alternative. A few reasons come to mind.

1. It's inelegant

This is possibly the most bothersome quality. "Epicureanism" to a native English ear sounds very natural. "Epicurean Philosophy" sounds like it was designed by committee. Worse, it sounds like even the committee got tired of saying it, and switched to "EP" before the meeting was adjourned. Worse still, they didn't know—couldn't know—that when they were overheard speaking of EP, it sounded to the casual observer as if they were discussing, with hushed tones, an embarassing medical condition.

2. It plays like a shell game

When the preachers of Creationism got tired of getting laughed out of every courtroom in America, they did what we're doing; they dropped the -ism. Intelligent Design was the new PR slogan, and that too was roundly panned. But with one important difference: "creationism" had an ancient and venerable, albeit wholly misguided, philosophical pedigree. They could claim among their number no less a scientist than Isaac Newton. By contrast, "Intelligent Design" is cheap and tawdry; a sleazy rules-lawyer trick. Richard Dawkins' proposal to replace "atheists" with "Brights" was comparably silly. Creationism, atheism, and Epicureanism are perfectly serviceable words. To agitate for their replacement, rightly or wrongly, is to immediately put one's motives under suspicion.

3. It's a colorless abstraction

Now, there's nothing wrong with abstraction. Under certain circumstances it actually makes sense to speak in those terms. "Epicurean Philosophy", like "concussion protocol" or "Jeffersonian democracy", is a fitting term to use in an academic sense. One could write a book about "Epicurean Philosophy". One could teach a course, or chair a panel on "Epicurean Philosophy" at a Classical Antiquities conference.

But that just isn't my relationship with the school of Epicurus! I do study Epicurean Philosophy, but that is secondary to my main interest; I am a follower of Epicureanism. We can talk about ideology and labels, but I don't see this as a weakness. I have vetted this school, approved it, found it worthy above every comparable human effort; like Lucretius—like Diogenes of Oenoanda—I have nailed my colors to the mast. On some deeper-than-intellectual level, it pleases me to think of some continuity between myself and the numberless ancient Epicureans whose dust lies scattered in forgotten tombs.

Well, that went on rather long! I am aware of holding the minority view on the question, and I don't mean to convey the impression that I am bothered by the group preference. I certainly have no intention of forcing the point! But the argument as compiled by Nate has persisted for at least five years, and it may be of service to have this response on hand. It might aid in understanding some of the resistance, at least.

I share Elayne's skepticism of certain absolutist diet trends. I guess I'm specifically responding to the anthropological and anatomic claims of Paleo/Primitive and Veganism. The truth is that diet has always been astonishingly varied. The Inuit might live on whale, the Ancient Chinese on rice and millet; a staple for various primitive tribes was inner tree bark which they pounded into paste. The early Mongols, it is reported, even nourished themselves during thin seasons by drinking not just mare's-milk, but the fresh blood of their living horses.

Thanks to a worldwide network of palatial refrigerated warehousing known as the Cold Chain¹, your choices are nearly endless. You just have to go with what your body and lifestyle agree with!

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¹Did you know, for instance, that there are vast artificial Cave networks of underground temperature-controlled warehouses in the limestone bluffs of Kansas City?

This thread turned out to be quite a lot of fun!

Two years ago I was working 12+ hours a day in two different restaurants. Now I spend 8-10 hours a day on the road, listen to books or podcasts, pay nothing in rent, and live well within my means (for the first time since college). So while I sometimes miss the little comforts of a settled life, I have a MUCH healthier mind-space day to day.

Today I listed to A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, for the 5th or sixth time. Elayne, you should look into it before your spring hiking!

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Wow no wonder it sounded so good if you did all that! I am still only learning myself

Ha! Yeah I saw it on a youtube video. I don't really understand any of it, but it does sound better afterwards.

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Audacity picks up on a ton of background noise.

Yep.

I used a desktop Yeti microphone, a pop filter, Bose over-ear headphones, and Audacity on a no-frills laptop. Recorded on the kitchen table in the narrow intervals when the furnace blower wasn't running.

I ran the audio through several filters; from memory, I think it was equalize, amplify, compress, amplify. I tried noise reduction as well—I think I did that at the end.

Today I have a cold, so unfortunately it may be some time before you see anything else from me! I think I still have the unfiltered, untampered audio file if you'd like to play around with that, Cassius. I've certainly gained a new appreciation for content creators!

Lot to digest there!

We've discussed many of these subjects, but the forum is broader than it is deep right now. It'll take some poking through the sub-forums to find them.

I was a vegetarian for a little over a year, until I started driving truck. Something I'd like to explore again.

Welcome to the forum!

Interesting find! This is another one that hasn't crossed my path.

As for the compulsion of sitting in church, it brings to mind this passage from Civil Disobedience, on the night they locked him in jail.

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In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous.

I suspect that you, likewise, are clever enough to use the time pleasantly and profitably

I am 31, and end up in churches occasionally with my family when I go to visit them. As Garden Dweller suggests, you'll have to decide for yourself one day whether you want them in your life. For my part, I can unhesitatingly answer 'yes' to that question. With time and distance come perspective.

And you have time!

Good morning, Kyle. And with apologies to Cassius—for I've never read Ayn Rand. (Life is full of these little blessings!)

But I do notice in a thousand unremarkable ways every day that the word reason is at once so universally lauded, and so vacuous, that it gives cover to every silly assumption and base instinct in the minds and hearts of men. Reason was with the French Catholics who erected a temple to God in the comely and well-proportioned Cathedral of Notre-Dame, and reason was on the lips of the Jacobins who drove the Catholics out of that esteemed pile and claimed it for atheism and themselves.

Reason was the English Parliament and King George III levying a tax on the American colonies to pay for their protection in the French and Indian War, and reason was the reason those same colonists colored their harbor with tea in reply.

Reason justifies the lifestyle of the wealthy businessman sitting in the church pew, whatever the words in red might say; and reason is why that man does not and cannot understand the inner heart of the gay kid sitting next to him.

Well I'll tell you what—if hypocrisy is what they mean by reason (and it very generally is), and the status quo what they mean by civilization (and what else could it be?), then it has no lack of defenders; they don't need me, and the man in the pew has his reward already. As for my heart, it belongs to the kid next to him; the youth whose trembling soul remains unstultified by the sourness of his elders—the boy whose only crime is heavier breathing and a quickened pulse at the sight of a handsome classmate.

May he follow forever the promptings of his heart! When it needs correction, may he correct it with wisdom and an eye to the good of pleasure; not with shame and the fear of hellfire. May he find good friends, and be one. May he find a guide and support in himself, when others fail. And may he learn the proper use of reason—a tool, equal among other tools, and limited by nature.

The school of Epicurus is open to all. Man or woman, gay or straight, slave or free, native or foreign-born. You don't have to be a producer™, an ubermensch, or one of the elect. The road is broad and pleasant, and every step a pleasure in itself. Not many are found to have the courage to walk it.

As always, I am happy to defer to Elli in all things Greek

A word for καλῶς that I see elsewhere is "commendably". It gets me close to what I'm looking for here; a word that straddles the meaning of the two words in the dominant translations. "Commendable" suggests something at once honorable and wholesomely beautiful.

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This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air/ Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself/ Unto our gentle senses.

-Macbeth

And it wasn't until Cassius posted the side by side translations that another problem occured to me; I remembered that in "quote images" across the internet of this passage, it is translated simply as "wisely and well and justly". Of course the translator is never cited, so I don't know which version it is. "Living well" does seem to carry aesthetic undertones.

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/90368 (<example)

Wilson (Catherine) - "The Pleasure Principle"

I'd guess it's the same table we've discussed here, right?

I used to get the Economist, but it tended to pile up unread. Excellent journalism, but too much copy every week! I'll be interested in seeing this as well if we can get it.

Ha! Delightful.

The Talmud holds that Epicureans will be denied a share in "the world to come".

Dante's Sado-Masochism takes a subdued turn with Epicurus (Canto X), and finds us with our teachers lying in unlidded tombs. On the day of judgment our souls will awaken to the lids of the tombs sliding shut, and our souls will be trapped with our bodies—we've chosen materialism, don't forget—for all eternity.

This last imagined punishment must be a disappointment to Tertullian, who believed in the 3rd century that gloating over the torture of the damned would be one of the keenest pleasures of paradise;

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What a panorama of spectacle on that day! Which sight shall excite my wonder? Which, my laughter? Where shall I rejoice, where exult [...] those wise philosophers blushing before their followers as they burn together, the followers whom they taught that the world is no concern of God's whom they assured that either they had no souls at all or that what souls they had would never return to their former bodies?

from On Spectacles.

That is a great find, Godfrey! I've tried many times to be the kind of person who keeps a journal, but just can't keep at it. Her illustrations are lovely!

Well my own leaning here, Cassius, is that the negative formulation ("will not marry [...] unless [...]) is more close tonally to what Epicurus probably did mean. Whether this applies to a 'sage' or to everyone is to me the more difficult question. It's true that Metrodorus married; but it's also true that neither Hermarchus nor Epicurus himself are known to have done so.

I'm on the outside looking in with this question, but it seems to me that child-rearing in particular may be a profound pleasure—but it can also be a doorway to the deepest and blackest grief imaginable. Well, it would be unpleasant to dwell on such a point...

If I were scanning my own heart, and found there love and a desire to marry, I would wade with all my senses into the restless erotic energy of the Hymn to Venus, and hear from far centuries the echo of my own trembling soul. Cor Cordium; heart of hearts—what could even the very wisest have to tell me about that? And if I stop to wait for that counsel—am I even worthy?

Upon her breast repose came dropping sweet—

Her heart's rumor, her breath in swelling waves—

Ah! And her eyes—brown, deeper than the peat

That numbs my tongue¹, and lies on poets' graves.

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¹(...yes. I used to drink Scotch and write bad love-poetry )

I laid out my interpretation of this passage at length in a previous thread, which I suppose I can summarize quickly;

1. The confusion stems from the system of Greek conjunctions.

2. Whichever translation you choose, the meaning doesn't really change; whether or not the wise should marry is contingent on circumstances.