when was the last time someone wrote saturnian verse for YOU?

i'd like to thank dennis for the grand poetic tribue composed upon my return. it fills my sails with wind.

but thankfully not with hot air. i've got enough of that on my own.

by the way, i'm trying to get the dave going again, so if any of our loyal readers are interested, feel free not to think twice, it's alright--just go there.

i'm hoping that dennis will indulge some more of his metrical fantasy here soon.

until then...

Saturnine Fever

The Campvs was graced today by Eric's presence as he has finally returned from Italy, so in his honor I shall now compose a Saturnian verse ... in English.

Eric was sorely missed / by the folks at the Campvs.
And now that he's back once more, / we'll surely rejoice.

Okay ... that wasn't very good. And someone else might read it with different stress accents.

I'm going to rad a bunch of articles on Saturnian meter and I'll get back to you.

the fabrication of historical mystery

for an update on keith windschuttle (author of 'the killing of history') and the stirs being caused by his recent book called 'the fabrication of aboriginal history', go the above link and look for the post entitled 'australian 'menace''.

Housmania!

This is my new mantra:

"The prime requisite of a good emendation," said he, "is that it should start from the thought; it is only afterwards that other considerations, such as those of metre or possibilities, such as the interchange of letters, are taken into account."

Moritz Haupt, quoted by AE Housman in "The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism."

who is your daddy and what does he do?

my favorite quote today from t.j. cornell's 'the beginnings of rome', on the somewhat jasonic (to coin a word) king pyrrhus of epirus after his defeat at beneventum at the hands of the romans in 275 BC:

'Pyrrhus then sailed back to Greece where he continued to waste his talents and the lives of his followers in fruitless enterprises. His brilliant but ultimately worthless career came to an end a few years later when he was struck on the head and killed by a rooftile during a street battle in Argos.'

and my favorite quote from plutarch for the day, from his life of tiberius gracchus (tr. scott-kilvert):

'Thus, when they addressed the people, Tiberius always spoke in a decorous tone and remained standing in the same position, whereas Gaius was the first Roman to stride up and down the rostra and wrench his toga off his shoulder, in the same way that Cleon the Athenian is said to have been the first of the demagogues to tear open his cloak and slap his thigh.'

the Dusty Old Textbook Spotlight

I'll pretend this is a recurring feature, like the Housman quotes that never show up.

L.L. Forman's A First Greek Book, published 1899, offered a very novel approach to the Greek textbook: lessons were comprised of headings (e.g. "Conjunction of Sentences") followed by references to the relevant sections in the chief grammars of the day (Goodwin and Hadley/Allen), and finally by Greek examples with few notes and no attempt to explain grammar.

He cautioned that only a teacher who really knows Greek should attempt to use the book, and that his goal was simply to help and not to hinder "the workers," both teacher and student.

What follows is a footnote from the Preface, which hints not only at the state of Greek education at the turn of the last century, but also at the richness of academic prose and the spirit of at least one educator.

Yet if Greek be swept utterly out of our education, the blame will lie not so much with the youth of the country as with us teachers, who yield to their importunities. Because the babe in the cradle cries, we permit it first Option of Study (or of No-Study), then Option of Method. These two Options were, I suspect, the two serpents carelessly allowed to invade the cradle of little Hercules, but strangled by that sensible young hero. Can we hope, however, for this happy issue now?

A text of this type has much to commend it. (I've heard recently about a course in Greek prose composition based on Smyth. Eric?) But this text in particular has many valuable notes in the appendix, "Hints For Teachers."

My only objection so far is his suggestion to omit the dual. It's so easy once you learn it, and only then can you say you have a command of all forms.

How I spent my summer vacation

I finished the Alcestis last night, and will begin reading Aristotle's Poetics with Jason this week. Between all this reading, looking for a place to live, and catching up on sleep I haven't had much time for the Campus. But I do have some choice quotes waiting to be posted, though unfortunately they're not here with me.

In the meantime though, Words of wisdom from the inimitable A.M. Dale:

"The argumentum ex silentio is never weaker than when it tries to make psychological deductions from what Euripidean speeches leave unsaid" (Intro. to Alcestis, xxvi).

I thought I'd be able to get work done in the library but it seems to be overrun with children in the summer. They have sports and music camps, and they come here for the computers and turn it into a party.

Whatever happened to librarians laying down the law?

etruria for sure-ia

my favorite quote from june 22, 2004: 'One of my peculiar areas of expertise is what happened to the Etruscans in the Renaissance' (from a lecture by Dr. Ingrid D. Rowland).

also, on june 22 i learned to read etruscan. ok, so i learned what sounds all the letters make and 4 or 5 words. but that's like 1% of all known etruscan vocabulary, so i figure that's not too bad.

I threw the book at 'im.

I've finally found a practical use for the Tutti i Verbi Greci: crushing spiders.

I was at my carrell yesterday reading the Alcestis when a large spider dropped quickly just in front of my face. Normally I'd leave it be, as spiders do us a great service by eating bugs, but I'd just watched Arachnophobia with my nephew the day before, and this thing looked mean. Luckily a well-timed and perfectly thrown Tutti Fruity (as Dr. K used to say) did the job.

Aside from that the book is largely useless -- at best a crutch and at worst an immense waste of time.

has anyone seen my hippocampus?

i saw the campus martius from afar today.

and it made me think of the CAMPVS MAWRTIVS.

i also met a girl yesterday who went to school with dennis.

the spilling of mystery

i recently received my copy of 'the killing of history'. i don't know when i'm going to have a chance to read it, but i was happy to see that there is a quote from mary lefkowitz on the back cover. i only hope that windschuttle remembered to discuss the issue of the 1st person voice in pindar in his book.

dennis heard about windschuttle via david stove.

roger kimball heard about david stove via keith windschuttle.

i heard about both via...

JEROME, who is, after all, a SAINT.

Hogue's my Hero

I'd like to alert all of our loyal readers to the greatest book ever published on the Greek verb:

Addison Hogue's The Irregular Verbs of Attic Prose: their forms, prominent meanings, and important compounds; together with lists of related words and English derivatives.

Here is a photo of a dapper young Professor Hogue looking not unlike Val Kilmer's Doc Holiday:



In Part I Hogue leads the reader through the principal parts of regular verbs patiently and skilfully, explaining how to form them, what use to make of them, and offering novel insights along the way such as reminding you that ēporēsa must be the aorist of an epsilon contract, and not an alpha contract (remember the eri rule!).

In 15 pages Hogue reinforces everything you've ever learned about regular verbs, teaches you to think about them more clearly, and prepares you to dive into the real meat of the book: the irregular verbs.

He has limited himself to the most common verbs encountered in Attic prose and reassures that we don't need anything more extensive, and I think he's right. The rarer verbs are frankly too rare to memorize and the variants of dialect forms, as Hogue notes, will not prove troublesome once the Attic forms are mastered.

Part II begins with a brief set of preliminary remarks on the logic of the entries to follow which is packed with more good sense about how to think about verbs. Hogue then dives right in to the verbs, and each entry gives the headword, a brief definition, the principal parts and any other forms of interest. This is followed by a series of notes which include points on inflection, usage, and derivative words.

One of the most impressive features is the treatment of compounds. How many times have you been stumped by compounds of histēmi? Here they're all laid out with clear explanations of all uses and shades of meaning.

Addison Hogue, we here at the Campus salute you.

Unfortunately the book is out of print and I am unable to find a copy for purchase ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE. A company called AstroLogos does a print-on-demand copy for over $100, but heck -- I could photocopy this library copy for $14.00 even.

Tearing Down the Hous(e), Man

This is long overdue, but we finally have a new Housman quote. This one is drawn from memory (it preceded an article we'd read for some seminar, probably Vergil's Aeneid).

Housman was quoted as saying that whenever he read Vergil in translation he would say,

Out, hyperbolical fiend! how vexest thou this man!

This, of course, is a quote from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, act 4 scene 2.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

(John Keats)

what is a classicist?

today i read t.s. eliot's essay 'what is a classic?' (given as lecture to virgil society in 1944, published 1945). much to the chagrin and scorn, i suspect, of most modern commentators, he actually has the audacity to make unabashed value-judgments about literature, calling some better than others! he wears his eurocentrism on his sleeve (a bit excessively at times, to my mind). there are a number of aspects to the essay which i enjoy--for example, his attempt to formulate positive definitional criteria by which one may recognize greatness in literature. the one word he centers on to define the 'classic' is 'maturity'. unfortunately, instead of further defining this word in any rigorous fashion, he resorts to the pornography definition ('you know it when you see it'--this line of thinking has always been a little unsettling to me) with a little touch of high-handed dismissiveness:

'To define maturity without assuming that the hearer already knows what it means, is almost impossible: let us say then, that if we are properly mature, as well as educated persons, we can recognize maturity in a civilization and in a literature, as we do in the other human beings whom we encounter. To make the meaning of maturity really apprehensible--indeed, even to make it acceptable--to the immature is perhaps impossible. But if we are mature we either recognize maturity immediately, or come to know it on more intimate experience.'

This is, in the end, though, rather a small point, i think, and does not destroy the essay as a whole. he has some intriguing comments on the development of a 'common style' in the writing of a culture ('A common style is one which makes us exclaim, not "this is a man of genius using the language" but "this realizes the genius of the language") and makes some interesting comparisons of latin literature with english literature (alexander pope being the closest approximation of a 'classic' in the english language).

he crescendoes toward virgil as the epitome of what a 'classic' is, and points toward his universality, over and against the 'proviniciality' (read the essay for his definition) of writers in any modern language (this is not necessarily seen as a detriment). he writes, 'It is necessary to go the the two dead languages: it is important that they are dead, because through their death we have come into our inheritance...'. he claims that individual writers (shakespeare, pope, etc.) may have exhausted one aspect and mode of expression in the english language, but not the whole language itself, whereas virgil exhausted latin's entirety, making it impossible not to work in his shadow in the post-virgilian world. eliot gives a good impression herein of the *feeling* one gets when reading virgil, that feeling of the sheer comprehensiveness of it all.

at any rate, it is well worth reading, if for no other reason than that eliot himself writes with a masterful facility. i leave you with a final comment from him (included mostly for his use of the word 'ruffians', and also for his calling horace a 'plebeian'):

'I think that we are conscious, in Virgil more than in any other Latin poet--for Catullus and Propertius seem ruffians, and Horace somewhat plebeian, by comparison--of a refinement of manner, springing from a delicate sensibility, and particularly in that test of manners, private a public conduct between the sexes.'

nothing to do with dennis

dennis, have you secretly been reading john winkler again?

Historical Document Reveals All!

As I arrived with coffee and breakfast at ye old grad lounge this morning I was met by a bevy of ants on the dining table. I quickly picked up my things, shuffling over to the stiff sofa with its little wooden table that has become somehow a repository of ancient issues of WiReD. Instead of another bold prediction about kitchen robots or cellophane underwear framing a cutting edge design which invariably incorporates neon green and fake terminal fonts, I found the Alumnae Association Reunion Songbook.

I had no idea I'd landed in a gold mine.

This book will doubtless entertain us all through this blog for a long time to come, and I'll begin with a few short snippets.

The first is perhaps more disturbing than amusing. This is the closing verse of the Freshman Show Song of 1980, sung to the tune of If I Only Had a Brain from The Wizard of Oz. It's theme is attaining that elusive perfect GPA, the 4.0:

Oh, I would not just be a dummy

With kids to call me "Mummy"

No, I'd be something more (doo doo doo doo doo doo)

I don't want a 3 point 7

Oh, I'd really be in heaven

If I only had a four!

For the record, your mother is an idiot because she had you. She could have done more with her life, like a Bryn Mawr woman who chases meaningless numbers and disdains the lives of others. This is at once the cult of the academy and the indoctrination of radical feminism. But then again, what would you expect?

My favorite song so far is the Bryn Mawr Girls' Song which one day will posted in full. Here are some choice excerpts:

Oh, you young college from far and near--

When you want some lovin' come flocking here,

And we'll show we do it at Bryn Mawr.

They get bonus points for using the word 'lest' in the next verse, but you'll have to wait for that.

why billy joel has written some of the most important music of all time

guess what? the emperor vespasian instituted a toll on urinals in the city of rome.

Nothing to do with Dionysus

Nor with this blog, but just too funny to let go ...

Echoes of Horace?

Stolen from the Onion:

City Maoist Visits Country Maoist
WUHAN, CHINA—City Maoist Xing Zhen Shengde returned Monday from a visit to Dunyang, where his country Maoist cousin Ni Yuxian resides. "The great Chairman Mao said we would build a socialist society based on agriculture and peasant farming, and that the peasant had the strength of the mountain and the wind in the trees," the urbane Marxist-Leninist reported Tuesday. "Nevertheless, I did not enjoy eating the rotting pig heads that pass for food in that hell-on-earth. Also, all of the peasants wore sandals." Ni said he understands that sturdy shoes must indeed be needed for escaping the muggers and prostitutes on every street corner in Wuhan.