Horace/ plants in epodes

November 3, 2014

Cypress (cupressus): (Ep.5.17).Fig tree, wild (caprificus): (Ep.5.18).Fig (ficus): (Ep.16.46).Garlic (allium): (Ep.3.3).Grape-berry (uva): (Ep.2.20).Grape-vine (vitis): (Ep.2.9).Grass (gramen): (Ep.2.17).Hemlock (cicuta): (Ep.3.3).Ivy (hedera): (Ep.15.5).Mallow (malva): “that eases an overloaded body” (Ep.2.68).Oak (ilex): (Ep.2.23); (Ep.10.8); (Ep.15.5), (Ep.16.47).Olive (oliva): (Ep.2.56); (Ep.16.45).Pear (pirum): (Ep.2.19).Poplar (populeus): vine married to(Ep.2.10).Sorrel (lapathum): “that loves the meadow” (Ep.2.57). “Tree” (arbor): (Ep.2.56); tree on hillside (Ep.12.20), (Ep.16.46).

General References: slip, shoot (propago) (Ep.2.9); branches (ramos) (Ep.2.13); fruit tree (pomus) (Ep.2.17), woods (silva) (Ep.2.17), fire wood (lignis) (Ep.2.43), branches of trees (ramis arborum)(Ep.2.56), “blades, leaves” (herba)(Ep.2.57); “salad” (herbis) (Ep.3.7); herba (Ep.5.21), herba and root (radix) (Ep.5.67-68); woods (nemus) (Ep.6.9); woods (silva) (Ep.11.6); woods (silva) (Ep.13.2), “nard” (nardus) (Ep.13.2); Ceres, floreo (Ep.16.43-44), vine-garden (vinea) (Ep.16.44), branch (termes) (Ep.16.45), seed (semen) (Ep.16.55).

Horace/ plants in odes book 4

November 3, 2014

Citron (citreus): citron roof (4.1.20). Cypress (cupressus): Achilles compared to (4.6.10). Grape-vine (vitis): (4.5.30). Grass (gramen): ((4.7.1), (4.12.9). Grassy (herbosus): herba (4.2.55). Ivy (hedera): (4.11.4). Laurel (laurus): of Apollo (4.2.9). Oak (quercus): (4.13.10). Oak (ilex): roman people are like (4.4.57). Palm (palma): (4.2.18). Parsley/ celery (apium): (4.11.3). Pine (pinus): Achilles compared to (4.6.10). Pine / Pitch-pine (taeda): (4.4.43). Rose (rosa): (4.10.4). “Spikenard” (costum) *: (4.12.16), (4.12.17). Thyme (thymum): (4.2.29). Tragopogon (come): (4.7.2). “Tree” (arbor): “unmarried” (4.5.30); ((4.7.2).

General References: flos (4.1.32); nemus (4.2.30); leaves (frons) (4.2.36); folium (4.3.7), nemus (4.3.11); frons (4.4.58); Ceres (4.5.18); “crops” (frux) (4.6.39); pomifer, frux (4.7.11); vine-leaf (pampinus)(4.8.33); “blossom, flower” (flos) (4.10.4); garden (hortus) (4.11.2) leafy twig (verbena)(4.11.7).

October 27, 2014

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Horace / plants in odes book 3

October 27, 2014

Ash (ornus): (3.27.58). Ash (fraxinus): (3.25.16). Balsam (balanus): (3.29.4). Grape-vine (vitis): Falernian (3.1.44); (3.23.6). Grass (gramen): (3.7.26). Grassy (herbosus): (3.18.9). Laurel (laurus): (3.4.19); (3.14.2); (3.30.16). Myrrh (myrrha): myrrh scented (murreus) (3.14.2). Myrtle (myrtum): (3.4.19); (3.23.16). Oaken (robustus): (3.16.2). Oak (quercus): (3.23.10). Oak (aesculus): (3.10.17). Oak (ilex): (3.13.14), (3.23.10). Palm (palma): (3.20.12). Pine (pinus): to Diana (3.22.5). Rose (rosa): (3.15.15); (3.19.22); (3.29.3). Rosemary (ros marinus): (3.23.15-16). Seaweed (alga): (3.17.10). “Spikenard” (costum) *: (3.1.44). “Tree” (arbor): (3.1.30); (3.4.27); “almost sent to my grave by a–“(3.8.8).

General References: arbustum (3.1.10); vineyard (vinea) (3.1.29); grove (lucus)(3.4.7); leaves (frons) (3.4.12); “glade” (saltus) (3.4.15); “trunks” (truncus)(3.4.55) [see entry for “tree” in book ii]; thicket (dumetum) (3.4.63), woods (silva) (3.4.63); Flower (flos) (3.8.2); turf (caespes) (3.8.4); cork (cortex) (3.8.10); cork (cortex) (3.9.22); nemus, satum (3.10.5-6); woods (sylva) (3.11.13; thicket (fruticetum) (3.12.12); Flower (flos) (3.13.2); “garland” (corona and vitta) (3.14.8,17); flos (3.15.15); silva (3.16.29); woodland (nemus) (3.17.9), leaf (folium) (3.17.9), firwood (lignum) (3.17.14); woods, leaves (sylva, fronds) (3.18.14); “Rosy” (Rhode) (3.19.27); woodland (nemus) (3.22.1); fruit (frux) (3.23.4), fruit bearing (pomifer) (3.23.8), crop (seges) (3.23.6), herbage (herba) (3.23.11), “a sort of grain” (far) (3.23.20); fruit (frux) (3.24.13), Ceres (3.24.13); woodland (nemus) (3.25.2); vine-leaf (pampinus) (3.25.20); Flower (flos)/ garland (corona) (3.27.29-30), pluck (carpere) flowers (flos), (3.27.44), sap (sucus) (3.27.54); flos (3.29.3), Sylvanus, thickets (dumetum) (3.29.23), stock, stem (stirps) (3.29.37).

Horace/ plants in the odes book 2

October 20, 2014

Ash (ornus): (2.9.8). Cypress (cupressus): (2.14.22). Elm (ulmus): (2.15.5). Grape-berry (uva): “immitis” (2.5.6); (2.6.16). Grass (gramen): (2.3.6). Laurel (laurus): (2.1.15); (2.2.22); (2.7.19); (2.15.9). Myrtle (myrtum): (2.7.25); (2.15.6). Oak (quercus): quercetum of Garganus (2.9.7). Olive (oliva): oliveta (2.15.7). Parsley/ celery (apium): (2.7.24). Pine (pinus): (2.3.9); (2.10.10); (2.11.14). Plane Tree (platanus): (2.11.13); “bachelor“(2.15.4). Poplar (populeus): (2.3.9). Rose (rosa): (2.3.14); (2.11.14). “Tree” (arbor): tree (arbos) almost killing Horace (2.13.3) same tree referred to as “truncus” in (2.17.27); [truncus again (2.19.11)]; (2.14.22). Violet (viola): violarium (2.15.5). Willow (grove) (salictum): (2.5.6).

General References: branches (ramus) (2.3.11); “blooms” (flos)(2.3.14); “woodland” (saltus)(2.3.17); “green meadows” (virentis compos) (2.5.6); “berry, round fruit” (baca) (2.6.16); garland/ garlanded (2.7.7/24); leaves (folium)(2.9.8); flowers (flos) (2.11.9); lumber (lignum) (2.13.3); branches (ramus) (2.15.9); thyrsus (2.19.11).

Tax Havens

October 17, 2014

“The most plausible reason why tax havens defend bank secrecy is that it allows their clients to evade their fiscal obligations, thereby allowing the tax havens to share in the gains. Obviously this has nothing whatsoever to do with the principles of the market economy. No one has the right to set his own tax rates. It is not right for individuals to grow wealthy from free trade and economic integration only to rake off the profits at the expense of their neighbors. That is outright theft.” Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, pp.521-522. (Trans. Arthur Goldhammer)

*
To the extent that Capital offered an actionable, politically plausible way forward, I thought this was it: to abolish or comprehensively regulate tax havens, or at least bank secrecy (in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, etc.), which would first of all help to ensure that everyone was paying their fair share of taxes, and, secondly, give us a better idea of the size and disposition of global wealth.

I can imagine a number of good or at least lawful reasons for people to want to keep their financial information a secret — however, in the main, these accounts can hardly be thought to serve a legitimate function.

October 13, 2014

I believe the main purport of these States is to found a supreme friendship, exalté, previously unknown
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.
……………… Song of Myself

*

[Kafka] sought “the right thing” elsewhere [than in zionism]; the right thing was direct, authentic, genuine expression, in writing, onstage, and in life; even the wrong thing could emerge as “the right thing” in the proper context.Kafka The Decisive Years, Reiner Stach.

*

Their pilos cap identifies the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, in sculptures, bas-reliefs and vase-paintings; their caps were already explained in Antiquity as the remnants of the egg from which they hatched… pilos

October 6, 2014

sorrentino1

HORACE / plants in the odes book 1

September 30, 2014

Arbutus (arbutus, *): “viridis” (1.1.21); (1.17.5). Ash (ornus): (1.9.12). Blackberry bush (rubus): (1.23.6). Cornfield (seges): (1.31.4). Cypress (cupressus): (1.9.11). Elm (ulmus): fish in the tops of (1.2.9). Endive (chickory) (cichorium): (1.31.16). Grape-berry (uva): (1.20.10). Grape-vine (vitis): (1.18.1); (1.20.11); (1.31.10); (1.38.8). Grass (gramen): deer’s food (1.15.30). Ivy (hedera): (1.1.29); (1.25.17); (1.36.20). Lily (lilium): “short lived” (contrasted with apium) (1.36.16). Linden tree (philyra): (1.38.2). Mallow (malva): (1.31.16). Myrtle (myrtum): “viridis“(1.4.9); (1.25.18); (1.38.5), (1.38.7). Oak (robur): (1.1.3). Oak (quercus): (1.12.12). Oak Forest (aesculetum): (1.22.14). Olive (oliva): (1.7.7), olive oil (1.8.8); (1.31.15). Palm (palma): (1.1.5). Parsley/ celery (apium): “long-lived” (1.36.16). Pine (pinus): Pontic pine (1.14.11). Poplar (populeus): (1.7.23). “Sacred Bough” (verbena): (1.19.14). Rose (rosa): (1.5.1); (1.36.15); (1.38.3). Thyme (thymum): (1.17.6). Tragopogon (come): (1.21.5). “Tree” (arbor): “glory grows like” (1.12.45); (1.18.1); (1.22.18); “lyre once heeded by trees” (1.24.14).

General References: Flower (flos) (1.4.10); grove (lucus) (1.4.11); grove (lucus) (1.7.13); orchard (pomarius)(1.7.14); garland (corona) (1.7.23); woods (sylvae) (1.9.3), logs (lignum) (1.9.5); “carpe diem” (carpe has sense of ‘cull’, ‘pluck’) (1.11.8); woods (sylvae) (1.12.8), grove (lucus) (1.12.60); “rosy” (1.13.2); sylvae (1.14.11); woodland (nemus) (1.17.5), “garland” (1.17.27), leaves (frons) (1.18.12); turf, cut sod (caespes) (1.19.14); woodland (nemus) (1.21.5), silva & viridis (1.21.8); Sabine wood (sylva) (1.22.9); sylva (1.23.4), leaf (folium) (1.23.6); leafy branch (frons) (1.25.19); flower (flos) (1.26.7), garland (1.26.8); “woods of Venusia” (1.28.27); garland (1.38.2)

Observed about the interiors of Sentimental Education’s Book 1

September 23, 2014

–The foyer to the Dambreuse residence has a red carpet (tapis rouge), Arnoux’s boutique has a green carpet (tapis vert).

–The foyer to the Dambreuse residence has a double stairway (escalier double), Arnoux’s boutique a “small stairway” (petit escalier).

–Both these spaces include porcelain objects, unspecified at Anroux’s boutique, at the Dambreuse residence “two porcelain globes”.

–The idea of “two” is frequently repeated in Sentimental Education. In the description of the Dambreuse foyer, it’s mentioned three times: the stairs, the globes, the strong boxes.

–The two strong boxes Frederic encounters in the “small room” of the Ambreuse house will make an important reappearance at the novel’s close.

–The idea of thin walls (first found in Frederic’s dorm room) will also make a reappearance.

–Description of Frederic’s room on the quai Napoleon has again the idea of two, [1.3.31].

–Like the Dambreuse residence, Arnoux’s “office” (an un-named room above the shop) has two candelabra… (The word two is repeated twice in this paragraph.) We also saw bronze objects at the Dambreuse’s (here a statue of Venus) and in the boutique downstairs. [1.4.39];

–Arnoux’s office, like the shop below it, has a curtained door (actually –two).

worth fifteen dollars of let me get a hold of

September 12, 2014

Surprised, though I don’t know that I should be, to find these Gaddis-like stylings of Faulkner here (The Hamlet, pp.288), the Texan detailing the fine points of a wild pony he is trying at the same time to hold down:

“Look him over boys,” the Texan panted, turning his own suffused face and the protuberant glare of his eyes toward the fence. “Look him over quick. Them shoulders and–” He had relaxed for an instant apparently. The animal exploded again; again for an instant the Texan was free of the earth, though he was still talking “–and legs you whoa I’ll tear your face right look him over quick boys worth fifteen dollars of let me get a holt of who’ll make me a bid whoa you blare-eyed jackrabbit, whoa!”

Portable Climate

September 2, 2014

Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may well call it black diamonds. Every basket is power and civilization. For coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta; and with its comfort brings its industrial power.

(Emmerson, Wealth). The unintended irony of coal as a “portable climate” and the unintended sense of it carrying the heat of the tropics to the poles of the world and of making “Canada as warm as Calcutta” was what caught my eye here.

It somewhat reminded of the Moby Dick chapter (105) where Ishmael says that fears of the whales’ extinction by human hunting are overblown (they can just hide beneath the ice caps, he says).

Anyway, no lesson to be drawn from this but that perhaps prominent nineteenth century American intellectuals had yet to guess at the capacity of humankind to negatively impact the environment.

August 26, 2014

…………..THE ANGLER
…..
….. Below lies the lake hushed and tranquil,
…..….. And I sit here with idle hands,
….. And gaze at the frolicking fishes
…..….. Which glide to and fro o’er the sands.
….. They come, and they go, and they tarry;
…..….. But if I now venture a cast,
….. Of a sudden the playground is empty,
…..….. As my basket remains to the last.
….. Mayhap if I stirred up the water,
…..….. My angling might lure the shy prey.
….. But then I must also give over
…..….. The sight of the fishes at play.


FRANZ GRILLPARZER (here) translator, William Guild Howard.

August 16, 2014

…………
…………
…….,,…..,……“Thus Spirit is at war with itself; it has to over-
……………….come itself as its most formidable obstacle. That
…………….development which in the sphere of Nature is a
……………peaceful growth, is in that of spirit, a severe, a
…………..mighty conflict with itself. What Spirit really strives
………… for is the realization of its Ideal being; but in doing
………..so, it hides that goal from its own vision, and is
……… proud and well satisfied in this alienation from it.”
…………
……………………… Philosophy of History (Hegel.).

…………

August 7, 2014

The See’r

modernist platonic dialogues

July 29, 2014

modernist platonic dialogues… to some extent modernism in writing is about abbreviating what needs to be written while increasing what needs to be read (according to whom) with respect both to the size of modernist works and to the amount of secondary material required to properly read those works (according to whom)

What the modernist would abbreviate/ do away with in Plato’s works is the whole conceit that his dialogues are sorts of drama, that philosophy is a conversation between people (the representation in writing of such a conversation): philosophy, the modernist would say, is truly a conversation between parts of one person’s own mind. (which modernists) (is philosophy –not written philosophy but philosophizing– the same if it doesn’t occur between people? if it occurs between ‘person’?) Even if Plato had been trying to recreate an actual dialogue that he had heard his written representation of it would nevertheless actually involve the different parts of his own mind, would say the modernist [What do you make of the fact that his dialogues are sometimes conversations about conversations? The Phaedo. Does that seem to you ‘modern’?]

The writer of the modernist platonic dialogue therefore would do away with the idea of characters but keep their statements, and keep intact that certain sorts of statements come from specific moods of the author or “places” within him. (explain if you are equating statements made by different sorts of “moods” –of the author– with characters? with different sorts of “assumptions” do you mean? What do you mean ‘places’, identities?) (Are Fielding’s Thwackum and Square examples of characters made from differing “assumptions” within him, within Fielding? Do you mean ‘categories’?]

* * *

If the Meno (for example) were written in the modernist style [do you mean modern?] there would be no Meno, no Socrates, and no slave, (no character of meno no character of Socrates no character of the slave) but only Plato, or, more likely, a character who was basically Plato but called something slightly different, something like Ploto, and the statements made by Meno, Socrates, the slave, would each appear in a different font face maybe, so as to call attention to the distinctions that occur within the thinking of “Ploto” which wouldn’t otherwise have any marker. (Finnegans Wake?)

The modernist version of a platonic dialogue would be more realistic than the originals because they would strive directly to express Plato’s thought rather than to express them through the mannequins of characters [how would that be different from Kant?][does it matter how well Plato has drawn his characters?] [Do pseudonyms like Kierkegaard’s figure into this?] [Is realism necessary to philosophy itself or just to “modernist expressions” of philosophy?]

The next question for the modernist [which modernist] would be the realistic portrayal of the thoughts as they occur to one in one’s consciousness. Do thoughts appear there fully formed, as they do in Plato’s works, or do they rather appear as fragments of language which the consciousness intuits the whole of instinctively, or does it vary from consciousness to consciousness and from time to time …

A related question: how would we describe how one of Plato’s characters arrived at formulating his expressed thought? What occurs in the mind of such a character between two expressions of thought? What occurs in the minds of the characters as, for instance, they listen to one of Socrates arguments or questions? Why didn’t Plato portray this?

I want to live

July 15, 2014

Coincidences. Three instances of having heard the phrase I want to live with reference to movies within a week, spoken by women in each case. ( I say nothing about quite how coincidental this is but do feel moved to delineate further the pattern of coincidence.)

1. In Rocco And His Brothers — the final third of it watched last Tuesday morning, as the Prostitute is killed by the weak, brutal brother Simone, rather a long stabbing scene hard for me to watch, so that I actually had the movie on fast forward when I saw the translated dialogue flash up of the prostitute saying “I want to live” as she was stabbed.

2. That afternoon, or the afternoon after, a friend told me he had watched a good movie the past night — I Want to Live with Susan Hayward. Had I seen it?

(Some days later the same friend brought in two LPs of the soundtrack to I Want to Live –by Gerry Mulligan– with reference to the conversation we’d had about the movie) (*).

3.And just now, and what has caused me to remember these other recent instances of this phrase spoken by women in the movies, which would have otherwise been forgotten– at least I believe Susan Hayward does in fact actually say “I want to live” in “I Want to Live” though I haven’t seen it in a while– was Casanova’s Big Night, in which Bob Hope tells a love interest, a widowed vegetable seller played by Joan Fontaine, he “can’t think of anyone he’d rather have his throat cut with” than her (something like that) (he’s afraid of what might result from their immanent encounter with the Doge of Venice, played by Arnold Moss) and she tells him to try not to be his “normal idiotic itself — I want to live.” (The line, intended as lightly comedic, caused me to sit bolt upright.)

*

The actresses were Annie Girardot, Susan Hayward, and Joan Fontaine. The different settings in which the phrase was spoken would be of interest to explore (well… the issue with coincidences is…. are they statistical, psychological or mystical). The movies were made in 1960, 1958, and 1954. I had thought to watch Casanova’s Big Night because in an interview with Woody Allen I came across, Allen, when asked what was a movie he liked that most people didn’t, (or something like that) answered “Casanova’s Big Night.”

July 5, 2014

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Lear’s Cornet/ Darnel

July 4, 2014

King Lear, [4.4.1-8]. Cord.

……….“Why, he was met even now
……….As mad as the vex’d sea, singing aloud,
……….Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
……….With hardocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flow’rs,
……….Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
……….In our sustaining corn. A century send forth!
……….Search every acre in the high-grown field,
……….And bring him to our eye.”

1) Furrow-weed and Hardock appear only in King Lear and only in this speech;

2) Mention of Darnel occurs only in 1 Henry 6 (a satirical remark by Pucelle) and in Henry 5 (the “un-pruned garden” speech of Burgundy);

3) Cuckoo flowers appear elsewhere only in the “spring song” of Love’s Labor’s Lost;

4) Nettle appears semi-frequently in Shakespeare and corn is among his most frequently named plants;

5) fumiter appears elsewhere only in the Burgundy speech of Henry 5;

6) hemlock appears only in the Burgundy speech, and as part of the witch’s potion in Macbeth.

7) if this dating is accurate a good 8 or nine years occurred between Shakespeare’s first mention of darnel and his second, and another seven or eight years between his second and his third.

8) the only point of similarity, in respect of plants, between Lear’s cornet and Ophelia’s garland is the nettle.(Ophelia’s garland–below– has fewer plants)

9) In the 1 Henry 6 mention of darnel, Pucelle enters Rouen disguised as a poor farmer trading corn and, after achieving her aims, scoffs that her corn was ‘full of darnel’. The man she makes this remark to is named Burgundy. Burgundy swears he’ll make her curse “the harvest of that corn.”

10) In King Lear there is also a character named Burgundy; he has come to England as a suitor to Cordelia but declines the match when she loses her dowry.

11) There is a character named Burgundy in only three plays: 1 Henry 6; Henry 5; and King Lear.

12) In each play with a character named Burgundy, there is also a mention of the plant darnel.

***
Ophelia’s garland
(Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 7, 166-173)

There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds 170
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook.