From ptrourke@mediaone.net Sun Aug 13 08:57:51 2000 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id IAA40318 for ; Sun, 13 Aug 2000 08:57:50 -0700 Received: from chmls05.mediaone.net (chmls05.mediaone.net [24.147.1.143]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id IAA08878 for ; Sun, 13 Aug 2000 08:57:49 -0700 Received: from patricktrourke (h00500480cb85.ne.mediaone.net [24.147.80.93]) by chmls05.mediaone.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA23980 for ; Sun, 13 Aug 2000 11:57:44 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <002701c0053f$363511a0$5d509318@ne.mediaone.net> From: "P. T. Rourke" To: References: <200008130706.AAA02584@lists5.u.washington.edu> Subject: Wery TAN: Cosmos (No, I don't know the answer) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2000 11:57:41 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 If you're that desperate to know, try writing to this guy, Ken Jenkins, who according to his resume (found with Raging Search) worked on the animations for the series. http://www.immediatefuture.com/resumes.html A search of the WGBH website included this amusing result: "Search results for '(cosmos or cosmoses)' " Obviously someone had the hoary old "define the Universe, give three examples" question on his Physics final. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: "Classical Greek and Latin Discussion Group" Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2000 3:06 AM Subject: CLASSICS digest 2252 > CLASSICS Digest 2252 > > Topics covered in this issue include: > > 1) Broch's Death of Virgil > by Fred Mench > 2) How to find texts? > by KeelyLakeUI@aol.com > 3) Re: Broch's Death of Virgil > by Diana Wright > 4) Re: Broch's Death of Virgil > by "Luis H. Aguilar Polo" > 5) Re: Bohn - Sulpicia (LONGER than ever) > by James Butrica > 6) Crocodiles > by Diana Wright > 7) Re: Crocodiles > by AllenAmet@aol.com > 8) Crocodiles and Star stuff [TAN] > by Ivan Van Laningham > 9) Re: Crocodiles > by Diana Wright > 10) Re: Crocodiles > by Atalanta16@aol.com > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 09:36:08 -0500 > From: Fred Mench > To: classics@u.washington.edu > Subject: Broch's Death of Virgil > Message-ID: <399560DA.64404509@earthlink.net> > > Hermann Broch's novel, The Death of Virgil, has received high praise > from some impressive people (including Thomas Mann). It has some > impressive passages and interesting concepts, but I find long stretches > of it not only boring but pretentious and striving for over-cute > effects. Do any list members have strong feelings, positive or negative > about the novel? > > Fred Mench > > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 10:02:07 EDT > From: KeelyLakeUI@aol.com > To: classics@u.washington.edu > Subject: How to find texts? > Message-ID: > > What is the best way to find in print texts and their prices? When working > up class ideas, I usually just go to amazon.com to see what is there, about > what it would cost, etc. I know that I could go to the web page of each > publisher and do a search, but I am looking for a universal data base. Is > there a better place? > > I am sorry if this is obvious, but this relatively is new to me. > > Thanks a lot. > > Keely Lake > Univ. of Iowa > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 09:56:45 -0400 > From: Diana Wright > To: classics@u.washington.edu > Subject: Re: Broch's Death of Virgil > Message-ID: <3995579A.2DE02CC@charm.net> > > Fred Mench wrote: > > > Hermann Broch's novel, The Death of Virgil, has received high praise > > from some impressive people (including Thomas Mann). It has some > > impressive passages and interesting concepts, but I find long stretches > > of it not only boring but pretentious and striving for over-cute > > effects. Do any list members have strong feelings, positive or negative > > about the novel? > > > > Fred Mench > > I disliked it, but a conversation on the list earlier this year brought > some thoughtful and useful comments. Can someone supply the direction to > the archives? > > DW > > > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 17:11:55 +0100 > From: "Luis H. Aguilar Polo" > To: classics@u.washington.edu > Subject: Re: Broch's Death of Virgil > Message-ID: <3995774A.45B6803B@teleline.es> > > Hola Diana: > > Diana Wright wrote: > > > Can someone supply the direction to > > the archives? > > I access it through this link: > > http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/hyper-lists/classics-l/ > > > -- > > Luis > > Molon lave > > > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 15:40:13 +0100 > From: James Butrica > To: classics@u.washington.edu > Subject: Re: Bohn - Sulpicia (LONGER than ever) > Message-ID: > > It has occurred to me that discussing the Conquestio Sulpiciae may not get > very far if Latin texts are hard to come by and English translations even > harder; is there even an English translation available outside the old > Bohn? I offer therefore the following English version of my own, keeping as > close as possible to the extremely conservative text of Speyer but > sometimes (as indicated) making my own choices regarding the text. I make > no claim that this is the product of long and mature study or that it is > anything but a very plain and literal version intended to convey some > impression of what the author said and how it was said. > I would be especially curious to know how this version differs from the one > in the Bohn book, which will of course have been based on a somewhat > different text, if only because one of the sources for the text (Vat. lat. > 2836) had not yet been discovered. > > Sulpicia's Complaint About the State of the Nation and the Age of Domitian > > "Muse, grant to me the weaving of a little tale of peace [1] > in the meter that you use for celebrating wars and heroes. > For it is for you that I have drawn aside, with you renewing > my intimate counsel; hence I'm not flowing along in Phalaecean song > or in iambic trimeter or in the meter that, with the same foot maimed, > 5 > learned [2] its bold anger under the guidance of the Clazomenaean. [3] > Yes, and the rest, the thousands of light verses I wrote [4] > and was the first woman to teach Romans [5] to vie with Greeks > and to vary with fresh wit, I pass over with equanimity > and approach you in the meter in which you are first 10 > and most eloquent: descend at your client's entreaty and hear. > > Tell me, Calliope: whatever does that father of the gods > have in mind? Is he changing the world and his father's chronology > and snatching away the skills he once gave for the dying [6] > and forcing us, speechless and bereft of reason now, 15 > just like when we arose at the beginning of time, > to sink again to acorns and unmixed water? > Or is he amicably keeping the rest of the world and its cities safe > while he drives out [7] the Ausonian race and Romulus' nurslings? > What's that? Let's consider: there are two things thanks to which 20 > Rome has raised huge its head, courage in war and wisdom in peace. > But courage, assailed at home [and] [8] in social wars, > has taken a jump to the straits of Sicily and the citadel of Carthage > and has taken away the other empires and the whole world alike. > Then, as does the victor who faints alone in the Greek stadium 25 > and collapses though his courage remains steadfast with itself [9], > so likewise the Roman gang [10], after it ceased > to struggle and had bridled peace with lengthy reins, > while renewing their laws at home and the Greek discoveries, > ruled with counsel and with soft reason 30 > all the prizes of war won on land and sea. > It stood stable on these, for it could not continue without them [11]: > or else Diespiter is shown to have told his wife [12] in vain > and falsely long ago, "I have given empire without end." > And so now the one who rules as king among the Romans, 35 > a degenerate not with his beam but with his back, and white in the throat [13], > has commanded both scholarship and the name and race of wise men > all to get out and take their leave of the City. > What are we doing? After all, we conquered the cities of the Greeks [14] > so that the Roman [15] could be educated rather with them as teachers. 40 > Now, just as the Gauls took flight when the Capitoline Camillus > routed them and they left the cash [16] and the weighing-scale, > so our old men are said to be on the move and to be themselves > carrying off their own books, a deadly burden. > So was Scipio of Numantia and of Africa [17] mistaken in this [18], 45 > who grew up molded by a teacher from Rhodes, > and the rest of that bunch eloquent in the Second War? > Among these the godlike pronouncement of old-fashioned Cato > would have valued greatly having the gods know [19] whether > the Roman stock would abide in prosperity or rather in adversity. 50 > In adversity of course: for, when armed defense > is what patriotism urges and the captive wife by the Penates, > it is appropriate, as for the wasps whose house is in Moneta's citadel [20], > . . . . . . . . . . . . . > . . . . . . . . . . > a crowd [21] stiff with weapons drawn all over their yellow bodies; > but when the bee returns carefree, forgetting the honeycomb, 55 > plebeians and patricians together die in their overfed sleep. > And so the Romulids' long and heavy peace is their destruction. > > In this way the little tale makes its end. In future, esteemed > Muse, I should like you, without whom it is no pleasure for me > To live, to tell me, as once #for the people of Smyrna# was perishing [22], > 60 > . . . . . . . . . . . . . > . . . . . . . . . > Now may you wish to move in the very same way [23]. Or finally > As a goddess seek anything else: only gladden [24] Rome's walls > for Calenus and equally fend off the Sabines." > > So I spoke. Then the goddess began to deem me worthy of brief discourse: > "Lay aside your rightful fears, my worshipper: behold [25], extreme hatred > 65 > looms over the tyrant, and he is going to die in our honour. > For we inhabit Numa's laurel-groves and the same springs, > and with Egeria at our side we mock his pointless efforts. [26] > Live, fare well: this pretty pain has a reputation of his own in store [27]. > The chorus of Muses pledges it, and Rome's Apollo." 70 > > > NOTES: > [1] Here I have abandoned paucis, transmitted as the last word of line 2, > for Heinsius' conjecture pacis; this gives a rhetorical balance with arma > and provides a sound reason for the poet to request Musal assistance-not to > mention that the effect of peace on Rome is indeed the poem's subject (cf. > line 57). If paucis is right, it will mean instead, "allow to me to weave a > little tale in few words." > [2] Here didicit, a conjecture of Vinetus, seems required in place of the > transmitted discit ("learns"). > [3] The author appeals to Calliope, Muse of epic poetry, for help in > writing in dactylic hexameters rather than the meters that she normally > used in her verse, hendecasyllabics (called "Phalaecean song" from the name > of a Greek poet Phalaecus), regular iambic trimeters, and scazons or > choliambics ("with the same foot maimed" because it regularly has a spondee > as its last unit; "the Clazomenaean" is Hipponax, a resident of Clazomenae > after being exiled from his native Ephesus, who invented this meter and > used it in poems of abuse). > [4] The text here is difficult, with an apparent lack of continuity in > grammar (though not in context) between 7 and 8, while uariare in 9 seems > to need a direct object; perhaps a line has been lost after 7. > [5] The early conjecture Romanas ("Roman women") is very probably right. > [6] Conjectures proposed for morientibus ("the dying") in line 14 include > mortalibus (Hoeven; = "mortals") and marcentibus (Teuffel, Peiper; = "the > weak" or "the ailing"). > [7] I have translated the transmitted exturbat, but extirpat > ("extirpates"), a conjecture of Sebis and Baehrens, is attractive and > probably correct. > [8] Baehrens deletes et ("and"), probably correctly. > [9] "With itself" translates secum, which many have thought corrupt, but no > plausible correction has been suggested; text and interpretation of this > and the previous line are again controversial. > [10] The author apparently likes the phrase Romana manus ("the Roman gang") > as a synonym for "Romans"; the only possible parallel I have noted is in > Petronius. > [11] There is an untranslatable pun in the Latin on stare ("stood stable") > and its compound constare ("continue"). > [12] Since Jupiter actually speaks these words to Venus at Aeneid 1.279, > Burmann conjectured "Veneri" for "uxori"; the alteration is > palaeographically plausible, but this is perhaps a case of correcting the > author. > [13] Somewhat obscure; the author may be suggesting in the first part of > the line that Domitian was the passive rather than active participant in > anal intercourse, and the meaning of the second part is even less certain. > [14] Lines 39-40 as transmitted offer difficulties of both grammar (the > imperfect subjunctive foret is incompatible with the present tense > relinquimus transmitted in 39) and sense ("we are leaving the Greeks and > the cities of men"). The text that I have translated replaces Graios > hominumque relinquimus with Graiorum namque reuicimus, a combination of > three conjectures, Fuchs' Graiorum, my own namque, and Munari's reuicimus. > [15] For the transmitted Romana to stand here we must understand urbs from > urbes above, giving the meaning "the Roman city," i.e. Rome (the other > possible interpretation, "the Roman woman," does not suit the context); on > the other hand, magis ("rather") makes little sense, and Burmann was > perhaps right to conjecture manus, modified by Romana, i.e., "the Roman > gang," a phrase also used in 27. > [16] Ensibus ("swords") is the transmitted reading, but I have translated > Withof's censibus ("cash"), which explains the presence of the scales, > while the swords are irrelevant. The poet alludes to the story that > Camillus defeated the Gauls and compelled them to return the loot with > which the Romans had bought them off. > [17] P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus; the text uses > "Libycus" rather than "Africanus." > [18] It is not clear to what "this" ("isto") refers. > [19] Text and meaning again uncertain. > [20] Neither the text nor the interpretation is secure here. Speyer prints > arce movente, the text of Vat. lat. 2836, but this is unintelligible; I > have accepted, faute de mieux, the reading of the printed editions P and A, > arce monetae. Presumably the temple of Juno Moneta on the Capitol is > intended, though these wasps are not mentioned elsewhere. Fuchs suggested > that a line has been lost before 53; it seems to me more likely to have > been lost after 53, and I have marked a lacuna accordingly. The text may > have suffered the loss of other lines as well. > [21] I have translated the transmitted turba, but turma ("squadron") would > better suit the weapons drawn and is often corrupted to the more familiar > turba. > [22] Once again the text is desperately corrupt; the lost manuscript at > Bobbio probably read zmyrnalibus (or smyrnalibus) peribat, while the -que > added to z/smyrnalibus in all witnesses except Avantius' edition (which > instead leaves a brief lacuna) is probably an interpolation to repair the > defective metre. Many have suspected that there is an allusion here to the > story told in Herodotus 1.94 about the migration of Lydians to Italy in > response to an extended famine. > [23] Text and interpretation continue to be difficult; perhaps a line has > been lost after 60 completing the comparison initiated by uti in 60; "may > you wish" translates Burmann's conjecture uelis, but whether one reads > uelis, the transmitted uelit, or the conjectures uelint and uelim, it is > difficult to see how the word is to be construed. > [24] The author apparently uses here an otherwise unattested active voice > of iucundare, a verb normally found (in Christian Latin at that) only in > the passive, with the meaning "be glad." > [25] I have translated Heinsius' conjecture ecce at the start of 66 instead > of the transmitted haec; haec makes no sense ("this extreme hatred"), while > ecce supplies an appropriate gesture for the divine utterance. > [26] Curiously, Martial 10.35.13-14 also connects Sulpicia with Numa and > Egeria, though in a rather different way; Martial says that Sulpicia's > poetry is probably like the *ioci* that Egeria cracked "within Numa's soggy > grotto." > [27] Kroll in PW apparently takes this to be a prediction of fame for > Sulpicia's poem; it seems to me rather a reference to Domitian's future > infamia that also mocks either his original youthful good looks or his > later, far less svelte appearance or perhaps the vanity evident in his > composing a work on the care of the hair (even while losing his own; cf. > Suet. Dom. 18). > > > James Lawrence Peter Butrica > Department of Classics > Memorial University > St. John's, Newfoundland A1C 5S7 > (709) 737-7914 > > > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 14:58:36 -0400 > From: Diana Wright > To: classics@u.washington.edu > Subject: Crocodiles > Message-ID: <39959E58.E945263C@charm.net> > > This has been asked here before, hasn't it -- where does "crocodile > tears" come from? > > DW > > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 15:43:06 EDT > From: AllenAmet@aol.com > To: classics@u.washington.edu > Subject: Re: Crocodiles > Message-ID: <77.828ec4e.26c702ca@aol.com> > > In a message dated 00-08-12 15:10:06 EDT, you write: > > << This has been asked here before, hasn't it -- where does "crocodile > tears" come from? >> > ************ > see Henry VI, pt 2, iii, 1. (Crocodiles have no "heart", hence hypocrisy) > > allen koenigsberg > > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 14:02:04 -0600 > From: Ivan Van Laningham > To: classics@u.washington.edu > Subject: Crocodiles and Star stuff [TAN] > Message-ID: <3995AD3C.F2F82095@home.com> > > Hi All-- > > AllenAmet@aol.com wrote: > > > > In a message dated 00-08-12 15:10:06 EDT, you write: > > > > << This has been asked here before, hasn't it -- where does "crocodile > > tears" come from? >> > > ************ > > see Henry VI, pt 2, iii, 1. (Crocodiles have no "heart", hence hypocrisy) > > > > This is probably only marginally related to the classics mandate, but I > know of no more likely group to ask. > > Sagan's Cosmos aired on PBS in 1980. I need to know what part of the > year. During January to April, or so, or during the fall season, > beginning in something like October? > > While the thousands and thousands of episode guides on the net list > original air dates for most of the shows listed, Cosmos seems to fall > between the cracks. 1980 is the best I can find out. > > Who remembers? > > -ly y'rs, > Ivan > ---------------------------------------------- > Ivan Van Laningham > Axent Technologies, Inc. > http://www.pauahtun.org/ > http://www.foretec.com/python/workshops/1998-11/proceedings.html > Army Signal Corps: Cu Chi, Class of '70 > Author: Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 16:51:47 -0400 > From: Diana Wright > To: classics@u.washington.edu > Subject: Re: Crocodiles > Message-ID: <3995B8E0.87DE22A5@charm.net> > > AllenAmet@aol.com wrote: > > > In a message dated 00-08-12 15:10:06 EDT, you write: > > > > << This has been asked here before, hasn't it -- where does "crocodile > > tears" come from? >> > > ************ > > see Henry VI, pt 2, iii, 1. (Crocodiles have no "heart", hence hypocrisy) > > > > allen koenigsberg > > Well, there's the same expression in contemporary Greek -- krokodeilia dakrua > -- which makes me hope there is another answer. ;-) > > DW > > > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 21:03:32 EDT > From: Atalanta16@aol.com > To: classics@u.washington.edu > Subject: Re: Crocodiles > Message-ID: <78.8d9d2e7.26c74de4@aol.com> > > In a message dated 12-Aug-00 12:10:06 PM Pacific Daylight Time, > nauplion@charm.net writes: > > << > This has been asked here before, hasn't it -- where does "crocodile > tears" come from? > > DW > > > >> > Found this:Pauly-Wissowa gives Photius as the earliest > attestation, and so do D. Kriger and L. Lo"fstedt, "Krokodils- > tra"nen", Eranos 42 (1994) 62. The latter list the earliest known > instances in several languages, backdating the French one from > the 13th to the 12th century and suggesting that it came into French > from Mediaeval Latin. > > However, the idea of a predatory reptile using tears as bait is not > unparalleled in Classical Latin. Apuleius (Met. 8.19-21) tells of a > tearful old man who stops the ass's party and asks for help getting > his grandson out of a well. When one of the travellers goes to help > and does not return, another searches for him and finds him being > devoured by an *immanis draco*. It appears that the *draco* has > shape-shifting abilities and has impersonated an old man to lure the > young man to his death. Of course, a *draco* is apparently a legless > snake rather than a crocodile or "dragon" in the modern quadrupedal > sense, but I still find the connection between weeping and reptilian > predation striking. (I believe that the Groningen commentary on > Apuleius has recently added Book IX, but I do not have access to it: > that would be a good place to look for parallels.) > > http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/hyper-lists/classics-l/listserve_archives /l > og96/9612b/9612b.6.html > > > ------------------------------ > > End of CLASSICS Digest 2252 > *************************** .