September 2012
170 posts
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Let us go now to the place—a pressing summons from the god forces me—and delay no more. My children, follow me—so. In a strange way I have become your guide; you were once mine. Come on, but touch me not. Suffer me to find my sacred grave where it is fated that I shall be hidden in this country’s earth.
Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus (translated by Robert...
August 2012
105 posts
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Aesop: The Dog and the Wolf
A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to meet a House-dog who was passing by. “Ah, Cousin,” said the Dog. “I knew how it would be; your irregular life will soon be the ruin of you. Why do you not work steadily as I do, and get your food regularly given to you?” “I would have no objection,” said the Wolf, “if I could only get a...
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For Mitt
While being received in the house of a man who had devoted considerable care to his many possessions, while leaving himself in utter neglect, Diogenes [of Sinope] cleared his throat and looked around him, but instead of choosing any nearby spot, spat directly at the master of the house. And when the man grew angry and asked why he had done that, he said that he could see nothing in the house...
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When asked who is rich among men, Diogenes replied, ‘He who is self-sufficient.’
Gnomologium Vaticanum
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Schools of philosophia
Beneath this apparent diversity [of the different Greco-Roman schools of philosophy]… there is a profound unity, both in the means and in the ends pursued. The means employed are the rhetorical and dialectical techniques of persuasion, the attempts at mastering one’s inner dialogue, and mental concentration. In all philosophical schools, the goal pursued in these exercises is...
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The Stoic aim of ‘apathy’ was not a lack of feeling, but freedom from passion (pathos); Seneca stresses that the Greed word apatheia cannot be translated by a single word. (Cicero had translated it as ‘imperturbability’). Language indicates that passion is something suffered, something in which man is passive, despite his restlessness, but love is active, not bound and...
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Reason will have accomplished enough if only she removes from grief whatever is excessive and superfluous; it is not for anyone to hope or to desire that she should suffer us to feel no sorrow at all. Rather let her maintain a mean which will copy neither indifference nor madness, and will keep us in the state that is the mark of an affectionate, and not unbalanced, mind. Let your tears flow,...
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If you ever want to find out what a thing really is, entrust it to time; you can see nothing clearly in the midst of the billows.
Seneca, De Ira, Book III
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Banish joy, Banish fear, Away with hope, And no more sorrow. Clouded is the mind, Bound by error Where these rule.
Boethius, Philosophiae Consolationis, Book I
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Thinking
The Athenians told [Socrates] that thinking was subversive, that the wind of thought was a hurricane sweeping away all the established signs by which men orient themselves, bringing disorder into the cities and confusing the citizens. And though Socrates denies that thinking corrupts, he does not pretend that it improves anybody either. It rouses you from sleep, and this seems to him a great...
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Non-thinking
[N]on-thinking, which seems so recommendable a state for political and moral affairs, also has its perils. By shielding people from the dangers of examination, it teaches them to hold fast to whatever the prescribed rules of conduct may be given at a given time in a given society. What people then get used to is the content of the rules, a close examination of which would always lead them into...
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λόγος II
For Socrates… language is the authentic expression of thought and, if rightfully and truthfully used, it is the most genuine manifestation of the soul. Its adulterated and incorrect use reveals a misguided soul and augments the obfuscation in which such a soul lives. Its abuse, moreover, constitutes a formidable obstacle for the attainment of wisdom and, hence, of virtue. It is for this...
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λόγος I
Through language, the soul learns to understand itself, and by the use of speech, its thinking faculties gain in clarity and precision. It is also in and through language that the soul discerns the reality of other souls because the true person manifests himself through language. “Speak,” said Socrates once to a youth, “so that I can see you,” for whatwe see with our...
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The hidden harmony is better than the obvious one.
Heraclitus, Fragment LXXX
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The sage wears coarse clothing but carries a jewel in his heart.
Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, chapter 70
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Anger and injustice
[I]f you have sustained an injustice, the idea of injustice is not wrong. Nor will Seneca deny that injustice occurs; he only argues that it is not wise to feel wronged. There is so much enjoyment concerned with feeling wronged that the feeling must be suppressed before it grows too strong—the Romans, as far as can be judged, were quick to feel their dignity, dignitas, insulted, to feel...
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There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
Seneca, Epistulae, XIII
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sortoflikehim:
“Ακόμα και ένας θεός βρίσκει δύσκολο να συμβαδίζει ο έρωτας με την λογική.”
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A lovely saying that translates as “Even a god finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time” or “Even a god finds it difficult to keep up with the logic of love”.
Unfortunately I have had no luck in discovering the source of the quote and if it had been originally in...
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Exile
These hills are sandy. Trees are dwarfed here. Crows Caw dismally in skies of an arid brilliance, Complain in dusty pine-trees. Yellow daybreak Lights on the long brown slopes a frost-like dew, Dew as heavy as rain; the rabbit tracks Show sharply in it, as they might in snow. But its soon gone in the sun what good does it do? The houses, on the slope, or among brown trees, Are grey and shrivelled....
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“A frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean.”
– Chuang Tzu (via ludimagister)
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Pulvis et umbra sumus. Dust and shadow we are.
Horace, Ode 7, Book IV
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I know I am mortal and last only a day. Yet when I accompany the dense ranks of stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the earth. Beside Zeus himself, I drink my fill of ambrosia, like a god.
Claudius Ptolemy (attributed)
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Mary Oliver's "The River"
pseudobollocks:
Just because I was born precisely here or there, in some cold city or other, don’t think I don’t remember how I came along like a grain carried by the flood on one of the weedy threads that pour toward a muddy lightning, surging east, past monkeys and parrots, past trees with their branches in the clouds, until I was spilled forth and slept under the blue lung of the Caribbean....
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Humanitas and virtus
Compared with Caesar, Cicero was certainly the little man, the ‘new’ man, and his delight at the death of Caesar is almost embarrassing. Yet Caesar was great enough to know better than his 20th century admirers that, ‘It is better to have extended the boundaries of the Roman spirit than of the Roman empire.’ He was referring to Cicero. The Romans had extended their empire...
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Therefore I pray you, my dearest Lucilius, do the one thing that can render you really happy: cast aside and trample under foot all those things that glitter outwardly and are held out to you by another or as obtainable from another; look toward the true good, and rejoice only in that which comes from your own store. And what do I mean by ‘from your own store’? I mean from your very self, that...
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The Classical Calendar: August 25
fuckyeahancientclassics:
79 CE
The Elder Pliny dies during the eruption of Vesuvius
Pliny the Elder selfishly died without leaving any contemporary portraits of himself, so we have to depend on this 19th century piece of guess work.
His death, however was quite unselfish. His nephew, the younger Pliny, documented his demise, describing how he died while making an attempt to rescue a friend...
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The Stonecutter and the Mountain Spirit
Once upon a time there lived a stonecutter, who went every day to a great rock in the side of a big mountain and cut out slabs for gravestones or for houses. He understood very well the kinds of stones wanted for the different purposes, and as he was a careful workman he had plenty of customers. For a long time he was quite happy and contented, and asked for nothing better than what he had. Now in...
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ludimagister:
Truth cannot be talked about, it can only be lived.
But, we talk. With each word, prejudices and misunderstandings lurk in. So, we talk even more to correct them — making assertions to negate assertions.
We attempt to say nothing through words. But words cannot grant us their absence. There’s only the approach.
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'Socratic existentialism'
For Socrates, knowledge was not an ensemble of propositions and formulas which could be written, communicated, or sold ready-made. This is apparent at the beginning of the Symposium. Socrates arrives late because he has been outside meditating, standing motionless and “applying his mind to itself.” When he enters the room, Agathon, who is the host, asks him to come sit next to...
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Each moment is all being, each moment is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment.
Dogen, “Time-Being,” Shobogenzo
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ludimagister:
Existence necessarily transcends notions such as meaning and purpose.
Meaning and purpose are “all too human” notions.
Isn’t it naive, then, to think that existence has no value (knowing that “value” is not the right word) because it is meaningless?
Life has no meaning/purpose, you say? So, what of it?
D.I.Y.!
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But you, divine poet, you who sang on till the end as the swarm of rejected maenads attacked you, shrieking, you overpowered their noise with harmony, and from pure destruction arose your transfigured song. Their hatred could not destroy your head or your lyre, however they wrestled and raged; and each one of the sharp stones that they hurled, vengeance-crazed, at your heart softened while it was...
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Aesop: Hercules and the Waggoner
A Waggoner was once driving a heavy load along a very muddy way. At last he came to a part of the road where the wheels sank half-way into the mire, and the more the horses pulled, the deeper sank the wheels. So the Waggoner threw down his whip, and knelt down and prayed to Hercules the Strong. “O Hercules, help me in this my hour of distress,” quoth he. But Hercules appeared to...
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Who enters on the path to wisdom? Who thinks it worthy except in so far as he has a passing acquaintance with it? Who pays any attention to a philosopher or to any liberal study except when the games are suspended or there is a rainy day which can be wasted? And so many schools of philosophy have come to an end without a new leader. Both the Old and New Academies have left us without a...
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Fear of a Black President by Ta-Nehisi Coates →
“An equality that requires blacks to be twice as good is not equality—it’s a double standard. That double standard haunts and constrains the Obama presidency, warning him away from candor about America’s sordid birthmark.”
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Plotinus, Porphyry tells us, had the gift of reading men’s souls. One day, without any warning, he told his astounded disciple not to try killing himself but rather to take a journey. Porphyry left for Sicily: there he was cured of his melancholy but, he adds regretfully, he thereby missed being present at his master’s death, which occurred during his absence.
It has been a long time since...
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ludimagister:
“According to Epictetus, the primary concern of philosophy should be the art of living: Just as wood is the medium of the carpenter and bronze is the medium of the sculptor, your life is the medium on which you practice the art of living. Furthermore, much as a master carpenter teaches an apprentice by showing him techniques that can be used to build things out of wood, Epictetus...
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The Classical Calendar: August 24
fuckyeahancientclassics:
79 CE
Vesuvius Erupts
There is only one eyewitness account of the eruption left to us, and that is in the writings of Pliny the Younger. His account of the eruptions in his correspondence with the historian Tacitus held such detail that volcanologists now refer to eruptions of this type as “Plinian”.
Pliny described the morning of the twenty-fourth as being a normal...
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Mons Vesuvius
‘By then day had broken everywhere, but here it was still night—no, more than night.’ ~ Pliny the Younger
24 August, 79 CE: 1,933 years ago Mount Vesuvius erupted, covering the nearby cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum with ash, preserving the remains not only of its buildings, but also its human and animal population. It is strange to think too, that some 33 years...
