(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Peri Suntheseōs Onomatōn 16.97-98)
Now when Homer, the poet with the most voices of all, wishes to portray the freshness of a comely countenance and a beauty that brings delight, you will find him using the finest of the vowels and the softest of the semivowels, and not crowding his syllables with voiceless letters, nor destroying the flow of sound by juxtaposing words which are hard to pronounce. He will make the arrangement of the letters sound gentle, and make it flow through the ear without offending it, as in the following lines:
Penelope, queen of wisdom from her chamber forth had gone,
Like Artemis or golden Aphrodite’s form divine.
’Twas once at Delos that I saw hard by Apollo’s shrine,
A sapling palm whose youthful straightness matched such comely grace as thine.
And saw I Chloris passing fair, whom Neleus wed of yore,
Bestowing wedding gifts unnumbered, for her beauty’s sake.
Monstrorum princeps elephans proboscide saevus
horret mole nigra, dente micat niveo.
sed vario fugienda malo cum belua gliscat,
est tamen excepti mors pretiosa feri.
nam quae conspicimus montani roboris ossa
humanis veniunt usibus apta satis.
consulibus sceptrum, mensis decus, arma tablistis,
discolor et tabulae cauculus inde datur.
haec est humanae semper mutatio sortis:
fit moriens ludus, qui fuit ante pavor.
(Anth. Lat. 187 S-B)
Prince of great animals, the elephant, savage with its trunk, terrifies with its black bulk and flashes with its white tusks. But though the beast which so bristles with danger of various kinds should be fled from, the death of a trapped animal is nevertheless worth a great deal. For those bones of mountainous strength on which we gaze come in useful for man’s purposes. From them comes the sceptre for consuls, ornament for tables, their paraphernalia for tabula players, and the differently coloured pieces for tabula. This is the eternal changeability of the human condition: in death he becomes a plaything, who was before a terror. (tr. Nigel M. Kay)
Iunge, puer, teretes Veneris Martisque catenas:
gestet amans Mavors titulos et vincula portet
captivus, quem bella timent! utque ipse veharis,
iam roseis fera colla iugis submittat amator.
post vulnus, post bella potens Gradivus anhelat
in castris modo tiro tuis, semperque timendus
te timet et sequitur qua ducunt vincla marita.
ite, precor, Musae: dum Mars, dum blanda Cythere
imis ducta trahunt suspiria crebra medullis,
dumque intermixti captatur spiritus oris,
carmine doctiloquo Vulcani vincla parate,
quae Martem nectant Veneris nec bracchia laedant
inter delicias roseo prope livida serto.
(Reposianus, De Concubitu Martis et Veneris 10-22)
Draw tight, boy, the well-woven chains of Venus and of Mars: Let Mavors* in love wear the label of a slave, let him whom wars do dread be a prisoner bearing bonds! To let you ride triumphant, let the lover yield his savage neck to a rosy yoke. After wounds dealt and battles fought, powerful Gradivus pants as a new-enlisted recruit in your camp; he that should ever be feared fears you, following where wedlock’s bonds do lead. Pray, come, ye Muses: while Mars, while alluring Cythere** draw fast-following sighs from the depth of their being, and while they woo the breath of intermingled kisses, do ye with dulcet strain make ready Vulcan’s bonds to twine round Mars and yet do no hurt to Venus’ arms that mid their dalliance are half-discoloured with the pressure of even a garland of roses***.
* An ancient form of Mars: his surname Gradivus (14) marks him as god of the march (gradus).
** Cythere, a late Latin collateral form of Cytherea, refers to the birth of Venus from the sea at the island of Cythera.
*** i.e. arms so delicate that rose-leaves might almost make them black and blue.
(tr. Arnold M. Duff, with his notes; slightly adapted)
And this food is called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, This do in remembrance of Me, [Luke 22:19] this is My body; and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, This is My blood; and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn. (tr. Marcus Dods & George Reith)
Rettulit mihi quidam frater e Gallia se habere sororem uirginem matremque viduam, quae in eadem urbe divisis habitarent cellulis et vel ob hospitii solitudinem vel custodiendas facultatulas praesules sibi quosdam clericos adsumpsissent, ut maiori dedecore iungerentur alienis, quam a se fuerant separatae. cumque ego ingemescerem et multo plura tacendo quam loquendo significarem: “quaeso te,” inquit, “corripias eas litteris tuis et ad concordiam revoces, ut mater filiam, filia matrem agnoscat.” cui ego: “optimam” inquam “mihi iniungis provinciam, ut alienus conciliem, quas filius fraterque non potuit, quasi vero episcopalem cathedram teneam et non clausus cellula ac procul a turbis remotus vel praeterita plangam vitia vel vitare nitar praesentia. sed et incongruum est latere corpore et lingua per orbem vagari.” et ille: “nimium” ait “formidolosus; ubi illa quondam constantia, in qua multo sale urbem defricans Lucilianum quippiam rettulisti?” “hoc est” aio “quod me fugat et labra dividere non sinit. postquam ergo arguendo crimina factus sum criminosus et iuxta tritum vulgi sermone proverbium iurantibus et negantibus cunctis me aures nec credo habere nec tango ipsique parietes in me maledicta resonarunt “et psallebant contra me, qui bibebant vinum,” coactus malo tacere didici rectius esse arbitrans ponere custodiam ori meo et ostium munitum labiis meis, quam declinare cor in verba malitiae et, dum carpo vitia, in vitium detractionis incurrere.”
(Jerome, Ep. 117.1-3)
A certain brother from Gaul told me the other day that he had a virgin sister and a widowed mother who, though living in the same city, had separate apartments, and had taken to themselves clerical directors, either to prevent their feeling lonely, or else to manage their small properties ; and that by this union with strangers they had caused more scandal even than by living apart. I groaned to hear his tale, and by silence expressed far more than I could by words. “Pray,” he continued, “rebuke them in a letter and recall them to harmony, so that the mother may recognize her daughter, and the daughter her mother.” “This is a fine commission,” I replied, “that you lay upon me, that I a stranger should reconcile those with whom a son and brother has failed. You talk as though I held a bishop’s chair instead of being confined, far from men’s turmoil, in a tiny cell, where I lament past sins and try to avoid present temptations. It is inconsistent surely to hide one’s body, and to allow one’s tongue to roam the world.” Thereupon he answered: “You are too fearful; where now is the hardihood wherewith, like Lucilius of old,* you scoured the city with abundant salt?” “It is just that,” said I, “which deters me and forbids me now to open my lips. Because I tried to convict crime I have myself been made out a criminal. It is like the popular proverb:** as all the world declares on oath that I have no ears, I believe it too and do not touch them. The very walls resounded with curses against me and “I was the song of drunkards.”*** I have been taught by painful experience to hold my tongue, and now I think it better to set a guard to my mouth, and keep the door of my lips close fastened, rather than to incline my heart to malicious words, and while censuring the faults of others myself to fall into that of detraction.”
* Horace, satires, I.x.3: sale multo urbem defricuit. Lucilius was a satirist.
** This proverb has not been identified nor has any satisfactory explanation of its nature been given.
J.A.D. Ingres, Les ambassadeurs d’Agamemnon et des principaux de l’armée grecque, précédés des hérauts, arrivent dans la tente d’Achille pour le prier de combattre (1801)
And I made you what you are – strong as the gods, Achilles –
I loved you from the heart. You’d never go with another
to banquet on the town or feast in your own halls.
Never, until I’d sat you down on my knees
and cut you the first bits of meat, remember?
You’d eat your fill, I’d hold the cup to your lips
and all too often you soaked the shirt on my chest,
spitting up some wine, a baby’s way… a misery.
Oh I had my share of troubles for you, Achilles,
did my share of labor. Brooding, never forgetting
the gods would bring no son of mine to birth,
not from my own loins. So you, Achilles –
great godlike Achilles – I made you my son, I tried,
so someday you might fight disaster off my back.
But now, Achilles, beat down your mounting fury!
It’s wrong to have such an iron, ruthless heart.
Even the gods themselves can bend and change,
and theirs is the greater power, honor, strength. (tr. Robert Fagles)
Flucticolae cum festa nurus Pagasaea per antra
rupe sub Emathia Pelion explicuit,
angustabat humum superum satis ampla supellex;
certabant gazis hinc polus hinc pelagus;
ducebatque choros viridi prope tectus amictu
caeruleae pallae concolor ipse socer;
nympha quoque in thalamos veniens de gurgite nuda
vestiti coepit membra timere viri.
tum divum quicumque aderat terrore remoto
quo quis pollebat lusit in officio.
Iuppiter emisit tepidum sine pondere fulmen
et dixit: “melius nunc Cytherea calet.”
Pollux tum caestu laudatus, Castor habenis,
Pallas tum cristis, Delia tum pharetris;
Alcides clava, Mavors tum lusit in hasta,
Arcas tum virga, nebride tum Bromius.
hic et Pipliadas induxerat optimus Orpheus
chordis, voce, manu, carminibus, calamis.
ambitiosus Hymen totas ibi contulit artes;
qui non ingenio, fors placuit genio.
Fescennina tamen non sunt admissa priusquam
intonuit solita noster Apollo lyra.
(Sidonius Apollinaris, Praefatio epithalamii dicti Ruricio et Hiberiae)
When Pelion displayed the marriage-feast of the sea-maiden in a Pagasaean cave beneath an Emathian crag, the stately pageantry of the gods taxed the ground to hold it; on this side the sky, on that the sea vied one with the other in their treasures, and the song and dance were led by the bride’s father almost hidden in his green robe and himself of the same hue as his sea-coloured mantle. The nymph also, coming naked from the waves to her marriage, was seized with fear of the bridegroom’s draped form. Then every god that was present laid aside his dreadfulness and exhibited a playful version of his special power. Jupiter hurled a thunderbolt that had heither heat nor force, and said, “At this time it is more fitting for our lady of Cythera to show warmth.” Pollux then won praise with the boxing-glove, Castor with reins, Pallas with her plumed helm, the Delian goddess with her arrows; Hercules frolicked with his club, Mars with his spear, the Arcadian god with his wand, Bromius with the fawn-skin. At this moment the Muses also had been introduced by the incomparable Orpheus with strings, voice, hand, songs, and reeds. Hymen, eager to show off, mustered there all arts, and he who did not give pleasure by his merit gave pleasure belike by his spirit. But Fescennine jests were not admitted until our Apollo had made his song ring forth on the familiar lyre. (tr. William Blair Anderson)
Does the house-cat, after eating my partridge, expect to live in my halls? No! dear partridge, I will not leave thee unhonoured in death, but on thy body I will slay thy foe. For thy spirit grows ever more perturbed until I perform the rites that Pyrrhus executed on the tomb of Achilles*.
Poor partridge, fugitive from the cliffs! No longer, I suppose, does your woven home hold you in its slender withes, nor do you flutter your wing-tips under the gleam of warm-eyed Dawn the early-riser to keep them warm. A cat cut off your head—but I snatched away all the rest; it did not glut its greedy jaws. Now may the dust not hide you lightly, but heavily, lest she drag off what’s left of you. (tr. Michael A. Tueller)
Quisquis volet perennem
cautus ponere sedem
stabilisque, nec sonori
sterni flatibus Euri,
et fluctibus minantem
curat spernere pontem:
montis cacumen alti,
bibulas vitet harenas.
illud protervus Auster
totis viribus urget,
hae pendulum solutae
pondus ferre recusant.
fugiens periculosam
sortem sedis amoenae
humili domum memento
certus figere saxo.
quamvis tonet ruinis
miscens aequore ventus,
tu conditus quieti
felix robore valli,
duces serenus aevum,
ridens aetheris iras.
(Boëthius, De Consolatione Philosophiae 2.4 metrum)
Who wants to build in prudence
Everlasting foundations,
Sure-footed, not to be leveled
By the loud-moaning East Wind;
Who longs to scorn the deep sea,
Waves that threaten disaster –
He must reject the summits
And the parched sands of the seashore.
The one the brawling South Wind
Smashes with all its forces;
The other, noncohesive,
Won’t bear settling structures.
Run away from all these dangers,
Fatal, pleasant locations;
On humble rock, remember,
Build your home in complete trust.
Though winds may roil the oceans,
Thunder, rain down destruction –
Still you, concealed in silence,
Blessed with powerful ramparts,
Will pass a tranquil lifetime,
Will deride the air’s anger. (tr. Joel C. Relihan)
Crambe Repetita 