The Extreme Oddness of Existence

The extreme oddness of existence is what reconciles me to it.

Logan Pearsall Smith, All Trivia (London: Constable & Company, 1933), p. 153.

What’s In a Name?

Alexander Vanautgaerden, Autoportraits d’Érasme. Zelfportretten van Erasmus. Selfportraits of Erasmus (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), p. 93:

Born in Rotterdam, Geert Geritzoon (Geert, son of Gerit), he would have to undergo a profound metamorphosis, if he was to impress the international scene. Rotterdam, at the end of the XVth century did not have the same renown as nowadays. For an Italian, a Rotterdammer was, at best, a provincial hick and, at worse, a barbarian. Geert Latinizes his name by using the antiquarian form of the trinomen. Geert means “to desire” in Dutch, thus “Desiderius”. The humanist then Hellenized his name; transforming “erasmios” (the beloved) to “Erasmus”, instead of “Erasmius” which would have been the correct way of spelling it: a beginner’s error that the humanist would regret throughout his life.

Latin Verse Composition

Gregory Griffin [pseudonym], ‘N° 28. On Translation’, The Microcosm, 2nd edn (Windsor: Published for C. Knight, 1788), pp. 320-28 (pp. 321-22 [Monday, 28 MAY 1787]):

   The composition of Latin verse has always been the characteristic of Eton; and though it has frequently been attacked as too superficial an accomplishment to be held up as the first object, it is certain, that without it, the elegances of the language are never to be attained; and the very pronunciation is often erroneous from ignorance of accent and quantity. The Archieves of our state are filled with the first efforts of expanding genius; and so profusely bountiful is this poetic mania, that there is not a cubic foot in father Thames, but is so ornamented with Naiads, as to force some of them up the neighbouring ditches, for the accommodation of the majority: nor a tree in our campus martius but has at least its brace of Dryads, though there is not a single oak among them. Nay, the learned compiler of the Musae Etonensis has, in his preface, purely for the amusement of passers by, crammed more poets of all sorts and sizes, into a bench, which a dozen starveling sonneteers might fill with ease, than any nine Muses in the world could take care of at once.

A Most Excellent Hobby

Harry C. Schnur, ‘Do-It-Yourself: How to Write Latin Verse’, The Classical Journal, 52.8 (1957), 353-57 (p. 353):

Writing Latin Verse demands compliance with certain fixed rules; it therefore challenges both intellect and imagination, very much like a chess problem, and provides a similar kind of satisfaction, with the added bonus of a modest feeling of creative achievement. This pursuit immensely increases our understanding of the Roman poets’ technique, difficulties and felicities: of meter, rhythm and sound. As a do-it-yourself hobby, moreover, it is both independent of the weather and much less costly than, say, collecting incunabula or Old Masters.

Sleep Song

'Deirín dé'

       Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Tá an bunnán donn ag laḃairt san ḃféiṫ;
        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Tá an túirnín lín amuiġ san ḃfraoċ.

        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Ġeoḃaiḋ ba siar le héirġe an lae;
        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Is raġaiḋ mo leanḃ dá ḃfeiġilt ar féar.

        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Éireoċaiḋ gealaċ is raġaiḋ grian fé;
        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Tiocfaiḋ ba aniar le deireaḋ an lae.

        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Leigfead mo leanḃ ag piocaḋ sméar,
        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Aċt codlaḋ go sáṁ go fáinne an lae!

 
'A Sleep Song'

        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
The brown bittern speaks in the bog;
        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
The nightjar is abroad on the heath.

        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Kine will go west at dawn of day;
        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
And my child will go to the pasture to mind them.

        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Moon will rise and sun will set;
        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Kine will come east at end of day.
        Deirín dé, deirín dé!
I will let my child go gathering blackberries,
        Deirín dé, deirín dé!

Pádraic H. Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse, 5 vols (Dublin: The Phoenix Publishing Co., 1924), II, pp. 108-11.

Pearse's notes on the poem:

The Sleep Song which I add as a pendant to the song of childhood and death [this refers to the previous poem in the anthology: Pádraig Ó hÉigeartaigh's ‘Ochón! A Dhonncha’] I have pieced together from my recollection of a song; that I heard in my own childhood from the woman to whom I owe all my enthusiasms. Where my memory has failed I; have filled in the; lacunae from a version of the; same lullaby taken down in West Cork by Mr. Amhlaoibh Lynch. The refrain “deirín dé” is the name given by children to the last spark at the end of a burning stick used in certain games. With the thought in stanzas 2 and 3 compare Sappho’s “Hesperus, thou bringest back all that daylight scattereth, thou bringest the lamb and the; goat to fold, thou bringest the infant to its mother.”

Japanese Premna

Japanese Premna (Premna microphylla, 豆腐柴).

They were in flower back from mid-March to late May on Yuelu Mountain. These trees as used in bonsai and the leaves can be used to back a edible jelly, similar in texture to tofu.

Sticky Mouse-ear Chickweed

Sticky Mouse-ear Chickweed (Cerastium glomeratum, 球序卷耳).

This picture was taken in mid-March. This chickweed flowerings all over southern China in March and April and fruits over May and June. The whole plant has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine to clear away heat and cool the blood; the leaves are regarded as nutritious, though it is a more common feed for livestock than people.

The End of Learning

 The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection. But because our understanding cannot in this body found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly conning over the visible and inferior creature, the same method is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching. And seeing every nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all kind of learning, therefore we are chiefly taught the languages of those people who have at any time been most industrious after wisdom; so that language is but the Instrument conveying to us things useful to be known. And though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not studied the solid things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only.

John Milton, ‘Of Education’ in John Milton: a critical edition of the major works, ed. by Stephen Orgel & Jonathan Goldberg (Oxford: OUP, 1991), pp. 226-36 (pp. 227-28).

Cerulean Flax-Lily

Cerulean Flax-Lily (Dianella ensifolia, 山菅兰).

Photographed on August 21, in a park in Xiamen. They grow in some remoter parts of Hunan as well (though I think less abundantly than further towards the southern coasts) but I have never found them near to Changsha.

Schoolmaster Latin

One thing at least is beyond controversy, that Latin was the schoolmaster of both the Romance and German tongues: and the scholar’s practice in a language immutable yet all but infinitely adaptable is invaluable to hobble-de-hoy languages not quite sure what to do with their feet.

Helen Waddell, The Wandering Scholars (London: Constable, 1938; 1927), p. 215.

Male Blue Marsh Hawk

Blue Marsh Hawk (Orthetrum glaucum, 黑尾灰蜻). Male.

An Asian orthetrum with a particularly beautiful frosty blue abdomen: especially on the older males. They are fairly common throughout southern China and much of subtropical and tropical Asia but, for whatever reason, I have never seen one in Changsha. This picture is from Fuzhou last August.

So Much To See

Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic (London: Corgi Books, 1985; 1983), p. 242:

   ‘Sometimes I think a man could wander across the disc all his life and not see everything there is to see,’ said Twoflower. ‘And now it seems there are lots of other worlds as well. When I think I might die without seeing a hundredth of all there is to see it makes me feel,’ he paused, then added, ‘well, humble, I suppose. And very angry, of course.’

Disclisioprocta

Disclisioprocta ssp.? (圆尺蛾属).

Probably an invasive carpet moth from Africa: these two were preparing the next generation in a park in Xiamen on August 21. The genus has been observed across the southern Chinese coast and Taiwan, but the exact species has not yet been determined.

Drinking and Reading

Giovanni Matteo Toscano
‘Petrus Alcionius XCVIII’

Quam vorax dapis heluo fuisti,
Quam meri bromii siticulosus,
Heluo Petre tam vorax librorum
Eras, Castaliae et sititor vndae:
Ut nunquam fueris satur bibendo,
Et nunquam fueris satur legendo:
Sic te Cynthius hinc et inde Bacchus
Suis annumerant, parumque certum est
Cui gratus fueris magis sacerdos.

Yes, you were a voracious glutton for a fine spread,
With quite a thirst, yes, for the riotous god’s own pure wine,
But, Peter, no less voracious a glutton were you
For books, and a thirster after Castalian water:
Just as you were never sated with imbibing,
You were also never sated with reading:
Thus Apollo on the one hand, and Bacchus on the other,
Count you amongst their own, and it is hardly clear
To which of the two you were the more gratifying priest.

Giovanni Matteo Toscano, Peplus italiae (Paris: ex officina Federic Morel, 1578), pp. 59-60. Cited and translated in George Hugo Tucker, Homo Viator: Itineraries of Exile, Displacement and Writing in Renaissance Europe (Geneva: Droz, 2003), p. 167.