Historia de Grecia y Roma

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  • The great nothing can without the small: Think global, Act local

    Pausanias is a Greek author of second century AD, probably from Lydia in Asia Minor, who traveled in various parts of the ancient world and has left us a precious book , the first tour guide about we have news, his Description of Greece.

    They drew attention, like to so many others, the walls of Tiryns, built with huge stones, which they considered works of the Cyclops (see https://www.antiquitatem.com/en/cyclopean-colossal-herculean-gigantic

    He tells us, among in other places, in Description of Greece, II, 25.8

    (Tyrinht) The wall, which is the only part of the ruins still remaining, is a work of the Cyclopes made of unwrought stones, each stone being so big that a pair of mules could not move the smallest from its place to the slightest degree. Long ago small stones were so inserted that each of them binds the large blocks firmly together.  (English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1918).

    Interestingly this custom or this expression of "putting small stones between large stones" corresponds to a proverb from world of building, whereby the large stones  can not form a strong wall without the small stones. This proverb has become a sentence with general sense, useful for the social life of man, which perfectly expressed, for example, the great tragedian author Sophocles in his Ajax: the small stone needs the strength of the large, but hardly the big straightens without  small; ie, small men need of big men, but they must to be ensured with small.

    Sophocles says in his tragedy Ajax v. 155 ff:

    Point your shaft at a noble spirit,  and you could not miss; but if a man were to speak such things against me, he would win no belief. It is on the powerful that envy creeps. Yet the small without the great are a teetering tower of defence. [160] For the lowly stand most upright and prosperous when allied with the great, and the great when served by less.

    But foolish men cannot learn good precepts in these matters beforehand. It is men of this sort that subject you to tumult, and [we lack the power to repel these charges without you, O King. (Sophocles. The Ajax of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1893.)

    Plato himself, in his dialogue Laws, is also served from the proverb in a debate over whether the gods care of everything as a whole or also of the particular details:

    Plato, Laws, 902b et seq.
    ….
    Athenian: That being so, it matters not whether a man says that these things are small or great in the eyes of the gods; for in neither case would it behove those who are our owners to be neglectful, seeing that they are most careful and most good. For let us notice this further fact—

    Clinias: What is it?

    Athenian: In regard to perception and power,—are not these two naturally opposed in respect of ease and difficulty?

    Clinias:

    How do you mean?
    Athenian: It is more difficult to see and hear small things than great; but everyone finds it more easy to move, control and care for things small and few than their opposites.

    Clinias: Much more.

    Athenian: When a physician is charged with the curing of a whole body, if, while he is willing and able to care for the large parts, he neglects the small parts and members, will he ever find the whole in good condition?

    Clinias: Certainly not.

    Athenian: No more will pilots or generals or house-managers, nor yet statesmen or any other such persons, find that the many and great thrive apart from the few  and small; for even masons say that big stones are not well laid without little stones.

    Clinias: They cannot be.

    Athenian: Let us never suppose that God is inferior to mortal craftsmen who, the better they are, the more accurately and perfectly do they execute their proper tasks, small and great, by one single art,—or that God, who is most wise, and both willing and able to care,  cares not at all for the small things which are the easier to care for—like one who shirks the labor because he is idle and cowardly,—but only for the great.

    Clinias: By no means let us accept such an opinion of the gods, Stranger: that would be to adopt a view that is neither pious nor true at all.

    Athenian: And now, as I think, we have argued quite sufficiently with him who loves to censure the gods for neglect.

    Clinias: Yes.

    Athenian: And it was by forcing him by our arguments to acknowledge  that what he says is wrong. But still he needs also, as it seems to me, some words of counsel to act as a charm upon him

    Clinias: What kind of words, my good sir?

    Athenian: Let us persuade the young man by our discourse that all things are ordered systematically by Him who cares for the World—all with a view to the preservation and excellence of the Whole, whereof also each part, so far as it can, does and suffers what is proper to it. To each of these parts, down to the smallest fraction, rulers of their action and passion are appointed to bring about fulfillment even to the uttermost [903c] fraction; whereof thy portion also, O perverse man, is one, and tends therefore always in its striving towards the All, tiny though it be. But thou failest to perceive that all partial generation is for the sake of the Whole, in order that for the life of the World-all blissful existence may be secured,—it not being generated for thy sake, but thou for its sake. For every physician and every trained craftsman works always for the sake of a Whole, and strives after what is best in general, and he produces a part for the sake of a whole, and not a whole for the sake of a part; …
    (Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 10 & 11 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967 & 1968.)

    Extrapolating the concept we could express this very old idea in this one so modern, "Think Global, Local Act" which has emerged in the field of environment, but it is already used in any political and social context.

    Even if we refer to political action, we could refer the content of the sentence to the contrast between macroeconomics or macropolitics and micro-economics or  micro economics. It is possible a macroeconomic action without considering the need of  microeconomic action? They are justified political measures of macroeconomics that are not reflected, or better, departing from the impact on real people ?. Perhaps the thought of ancient can help us to improve our reflection.

  • The gods do not send young kings to people whom want to harm

    Phrases, sentences, proverbs, maxims Apophthegmata , were in antiquity an effective instrument for moral and civic education of citizens. So they are thousands of Latin and Greek sentences to be found in collections or never complete dictionaries. Besides the ancient world offers tons of material to build and permanently create attractive judgments at all times or to paraphrase or adapt the old they self.

    See: https://www.antiquitatem.com/en/dicta-aurea-apophthegma-aphorism-axiom

    There is also the possibility, often exploited, to award determined proverb to determined   ancient  author with prestige and authority in the knowledge that such "wise" never said  such sentence. But this is a practice denoting culture and knowledge of the classical world. Another thing is when someone, with cultural pretensions, cites a nonexistent sentence assuming that it existed, that is, knowing that it is apocryphal.

    Note: The word “apocryphal” comes from ἀπόκρυφος apocryphos, and this from  ἀποκρύπτω ("apokrypto" , to put in a safe place, to go hide); ἀπό  Greek ( apo = away from, deprivation) and κρυπτός (kryptos, hidden ). Therefore it means concealed, hidden, secret. It also applies to a document of not known author or wrongly attributed to one author.

    Among mortals, they are put into use, sometimes abuse, classic quotation teachers, especially those of Latin, Greek, Philosophy, History, Literature; in the past they were the priests in their sermons, rather than to strengthen and illustrate the doctrine to "amaze" the believer; ad terrendos paisanos (to frighten countrymen), said Fray Gerund of Campazas, on "macaronic Latin".

    Also in the past time they profusely used sentences the "lay speakers" whose relay has been taken, although enormous distance, by now called the politicians, with uncertain results.

    A few days ago, a political woman, president of a government of an important region of Spain and with major national responsibilities would strengthen an invective against the opposing parties, which have recently emerged on the Spanish political scene, with a classic quote from the nonexistent.

    María Dolores de Cospedal dixit with aplomb: "There is a well-known Greek sentence saying that when the gods want to punish the people, they send them young kings".

    She says it is a well-known Greek saying. To my knowledge, it does not appear in any Greek text. I do not know from where she has been able to take it. Now, if she  had paraphrased or imitated any existing sentence and would have removed the sharp affirmation of his Greek accuracy, she had become as an creative and  knowledgeable of the ancient world  political personality; o she seems rather ridiculous.

    At most, the phrase of Cospedal can certainly remember some other existing, that I comment.

    1. When the gods wish to punish us, they listen to our prayers

    The phrase is not Greek but English.  Sir Robert Chiltern says the prhase; Chiltern is the star of "An Ideal Husband", the play that the great Irish writer Oscar Wilde premiered in 1899.

    It seems that the sentence is pronounced also at some point in the film "Out of Africa", based on the autobiographical book “Out of Africa” of  Danish writer Isak Dinesen. So this phrase has become very famous widespread among film lovers.

    Perhaps this phrase can been connected with ancient mythology, but I have it not founded out.
    So some say that legend tells that  Apollo had promised the Sibyl of Delphi the gift to fulfill his greatest desire: to never die; so he suffered the horrors of an endless old age, until converted into a sort of mummified cricket, she ended as children's toy.

    It can also enlighten the danger of asking the gods crazy  or exaggerated and out of  human reach things, the known episode of Midas, although it is true that in this case the gods do not want to punish the man, but thank them for their good behavior, but the mortal desire was excessive.

    Midas, king of Phrygia, driven by an irrepressible desire for wealth, asks the gods in their greed, that he can turn into gold everything he touches. The wish is granted by Dionysus and he converts in bullion everything he touches, even with his mouth when he seeks food. He  had to ask again to the gods to release him from the gift given.

    Ovid, among other, tells it in his Metamorphoses XI, 85-193; Higinius in his fables, 191; Philostratus the Elder: Pictures; I, 21: Midas (Μίδας).

    So the phrase is not Greek or classical, but it results from a moralizing ancient myth with which it is intended to curb, among other evils, the greed.

    2. He whom the gods love dies young

    Some see the origin of this proverb in the premature death of Trophonius and Agamedes, the two mythological founders of the temple of Apollo at Delphi.

    In Latin there is the phrase "Quem dii diligunt, adolescens moritur (He whom the gods love, dies young); it is a verse of Plautus, from his comedy  Bacchides (The Twins). V. 816-817, which in turn is taken from the Greek author of comedies  Menander (he died in 292 BC), The Double Deceiver.

    Plautus, Bacchides, 816 y ss.

    Chrysalus: 

    He whom the Gods favour  dies in youth, while
    he is in his health, has his senses and judgment sound. This
    person (pointing to Nicobulus), if any God had favoured
    him, ought to have been dead more than ten years — aye,
    more than twenty years ago. 'Tis for long, he has walked', a
    nuisance, on the earth ; so devoid is he of either judgment or
    sense. He is of as much value as a rotten mushroom is.
    (Traducción Henry Thomas Riley, B.A. London, 1852)

    Actus Quartus
    Scaena septima. Nicobulus-Chrysalus
    ….
    CHRYSALUS:
    … Quem di diligunt
    adulescens moritur, dum valet sentit sapit.
    hunc si ullus deus amaret, plus annis decem,
    plus iam viginti mortuom esse oportuit:
    terrai odium ambulat, iam nil sapit
    nec sentit, tantist quantist fungus putidus.

    The conclusion which Chrisalus transmits to Nicobulus is that he clearly is not a favorite of the gods, because he is not dead yet …

    The work on Latin could be a mere translation or variant of the Greek  work, derived from Menander, judging by the wording of these verses, which appear in Estobeus, in his Anthology, 120, 8.

    Menander, (115 K.-Th):

    He whom the gods love dies young

    ὂν θεοὶ φιλοῦσιν ἀποθνῄσκει νέος
    (on Theoi filusin anothnesskei neos)

    There are some variant of type "They whom the gods love are lead young"  and any more coarse  like "the gods prefer them young" from  which other irrelevant are formed like "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and vulgarities of this style, etc.

    3.: Whom gods wish to destroy, they first send mad

    This is the more similar sentence of classic taste, no one can say that it appears so in any Greek author.
    In Homer in Iliad IX, 492-93 I find any reference that may have some resemblance

      No—let the stupid prince, whom Jove deprives
      Of sense and justice, run where frenzy drives;
    (translation by Pope, 1909)

    It is often attributed to Euripides, but erroneously, then.

    In the tragedy Antigone, of Sophocles, in verses 620-623,  it is said something similar:

    For cunningly of old was the celebrated saying revealed: evil sometimes seems good
    to a man whose mind a god leads to destruction.

    An ancient Scholiast of these verses says:

    When a god plans harm against a man, he first damages the mind of the man he is plotting against.

    όταν  ό δαίμων άνδρΐ πορσύνῃ κακά,
    τον νουν εβλαφε πρώτον ώ βουλεύεται.

    August Nauck collects this couplet as one of the fragments of his Fragmenta Tragicorum Graecorum (Leipzig.Teubner 1889), namely exactly the number 455 of Adespota or anonymous and therefore without author:

    The couplet is in the scholia to Sophocles, Antigone 620 and omitting the last two Greek words in Athenagoras, Supplicatio pro Christianis, Cap. 26, para .. 129.

    Lycurgus of Athens (396 a. C.-323. C) attributes in his Oratio in Leocratem, section 92, the following sentence to "some of the ancient poets." The type of verse suggests that it is a tragedy.

    [92] For the first step taken by the gods in the case of wicked men is to unhinge their reason; and personally I value as the utterance of an oracle these lines, composed by ancient poets and handed down to posterity1:

    “When gods in anger seek a mortal's harm,
    First they deprive him of his sanity,
    And fashion of his mind a baser instrument,
    That he may have no knowledge when he errs.
    (English translation by J. O. Burtt, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1962.)

    In connection with the award of the phrase to Euripides, we can trace the source of the error.

    Athenagoras of Athens, the second century Christian philosopher, says without referring at all to the poet, in his pro Supplicatio Christianis, Cap. 26, para .. 129:

    The devil when he purports any evil against man, first perverts his mind.

    "!Όταν ὁ δαίμων ἀνδρὶ πορσύνῃ κακά,
    τὸν νοῦν ἔβλαψε πρῶτον",

    That is, Athenagoras has collected the couplet from the Scholiast of Sophocles excluding the last two words.

    From Athenagoras they took the English classical philologists James Duport, born in Cambridge in 1606, and Joshua Barnes, who in 1694 prepared an edition of the works of Euripides for the University of Cambridge. In the index of this edition he includes and attributes as fragment of Euripides the phrase of Athenagoras, which he created as "Deus, quos  vult perdere, dementat prius",  summarizing the think of Euripides, who was saying:

    "When the gods wish to cause harm to a man, first take away the will and the ability to reason or deliberation ".

    But back to the Latin of ancient times, we can see that this sentence and its variant very similar with the same meaning  in Latin

    Quem deus vult perdere,  prius dementat.

    seem to be based on a judgment of Publius Syrus (85 BC – 43 to C..), Sententiae, 612, which says:

    Whom Fortune wishes to destroy she first makes mad.

    Stultum facit Fortuna quem vult perdere

    Note: By Publius (85 BC-43 BC), only four fragments, three of one verse and one with 16, and a collection of their sentences, Sententiae, are preserved in alphabetical order. Only 700 “sententiae” are considered authentic.

    The proverb turned out the classical world and it appears  on  the V century author Sanskrit Bhartṛhari or Denavagari

    Nor do the gods appear in warrior's armour clad
    to strike them down with sword and spear.
    Those whom they would destroy
    they first make mad.

    A Sanskrit aphorism also expresses this idea:

    "When a man is to be destroyed, his intelligence becomes self-destructive."

    Vinash kale viparit buddhi

    In modern and contemporary era there are numerous applications and variants of similar sentences. To quote an example:

    Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Book IV, Chapter XVII, although with a slight change:

    "Quos vult perdere Jupiter dementat prius”

    Or Benjamin Franklin, in a letter of 1768 to his printer in London of his "On Civil War". He concludes the letter with:

    "And is there not one wise and good man to be found in Britain, who can propose some conciliating measure that may prevent this terrible mischief? – I fear not one. For Quos Deus vult perdere, dementat prius!

    In short, the authentic classic quotations, used in the right proportion, give prestige and authority; the consciously false quotations are not recommended but they may be a diversion; the false dating by ignorance only serves to highlight the "idem", best, the  "eadem”

  • The episode of Ajax of The Iliad inspired Cervantes

    Cervantes tells us on Chapter VIII of the first part of Don Quixote , among other things, the story of the sheep, attacked by D. Quixote, who saw them in his madness as two powerful armies of enemies. The dust raised by the meek quadrupeds was the trigger for his madness.

    Homer describe us how armies in their movements raise clouds of dust clearly visible in the distance, on Iliad III 8-17:

    But the Achaeans came on in silence, breathing fury, eager at heart to bear aid each man to his fellow.

    Even as when the South Wind sheddeth a mist over the peaks of a mountain, a mist that the shepherd loveth not, but that to the robber is better than night, and a man can see only so far as he casteth a stone; even in such wise rose the dense dust-cloud from beneath their feet as they went; and full swiftly did they speed across the plain.

    Now  when they were come near, as they advanced one host against the other, among the Trojans there stood forth as champion godlike Alexander, bearing upon his shoulders a panther skin and his curved bow, and his sword; and brandishing two spears tipped with bronze he challenged all the best of Argives to fight with him face to face in dread combat.
    (Translated by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. London: William Heinemannn LTD. New York: G.P.Putnam’s sons. 1928)

    Already Seneca in a letter to his friend Lucilius (they are preserved 124) notes this possible  cause of confusion. Perhaps the source for the transformation of the dust of the sheep in dust of hosts is here.

    Seneca, Epistle to Lucilius, 13.8:

    “This certain, Lucilius, we lie open to impression, without duly, weighing the things that strike us with sudden fear; we will not give ourselves time to examine them; we tremble; and then turn our backs, like those soldiers, whom the dust raised by a flock of sheep have drove from the camp; or whom some false story, without knowledge of the author, hath terrified and put to flight. (Translation by Thomas Morrell, 1786)

    Ita est,mihi Lucili, cito accedimus opinioni; non coarguimus illa quae nos in metum adducunt, nec excutimus, sed trepidamus et sic vertimus terga,quemadmodum illi quos pulvis motus fuga pecorum exuit castris aut quos aliqua fabula sine auctore sparsa conterruit.

    Many years earlier, around 447 BC, the great Greek tragedian Sophocles wrote a tragedy (the first of only seven conserved; tradition ascribes him some 123 pieces, including tragedies and satirical dramas) that he named  “Ajax” in which he dramatizes the madness and death of the leader Ajax, notable for his courage, his strength and his stubbornness and persistence.

    On the death of Achilles, he thinks the weapons of Achilles are his reward for services rendered in the fight against the Trojans; Heritage also seeks but the wily Odysseus or Ulysses aims also the heritage; Odysseus is who finally gets  them. Ajax angry as only a great heroes and with uncontrollable rage, launches decided to end the life of the Achaean or Greeks chiefs themselves, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Menelaus … The goddess Athena, ever vigilant, channeled the anger of Ajax  toward the flocks of sheep and other animals taken as booty from  the Trojans, which in the eyes and mind of Ajax are presented as the Greeks themselves who have taken away the spoils; Ajax, in his madness, takes them and makes an enormous carnage and chains many others to be beaten. But his madness is temporary.

    When they told what really happened, his anger is appeased, as if the death of the animals was a ritual sacrifice, but he feels a great shame because his military fellows,   have not recognized their collaboration in the cause and he must return to their homeland without trophies. He takes a last tragic decision: he will use precisely the sword snatched from the Trojan Hector to end his life. Like a ritual sacrifice is involved, the death of the sheep had appeased the wrath of Ajax.

    Sophocles tells us in Ajax, 228 et seq.

    Chorus
    In what way did the plague first swoop down on him? Tell us who share your pain how it happened.

    Tecmessa

    You will hear all that took place, since you are involved.  In the dead of night when the evening lamps were no longer aflame, he seized a two-edged sword and wanted to leave on an aimless foray. Then I admonished him and said, “What are you doing, Ajax? Why do you set out unsummoned on this expedition,  neither called by messenger, nor warned by trumpet? In fact the whole army is sleeping now.” But he answered me curtly with that trite jingle: “Woman, silence graces woman.” And I, taking his meaning, desisted, but he rushed out alone.

    What happened out there, I cannot tell. But he came in with his captives hobbled together—bulls, herding dogs, and his fleecy quarry. Some he beheaded; of some he cut the twisted throat or broke the spine; others  he abused in their bonds as though they were men, though falling only upon cattle. At last he darted out through the door, and dragged up words to speak to some shadow—now against the Atreidae, now about Odysseus—with many a mocking boast of all the abuse that in vengeance he had fully repaid them during his raid.  After that he rushed back again into the house, and somehow by slow, painful steps he regained his reason. And as he scanned the room full of his disastrous madness, he struck his head and howled; he fell down, a wreck amid the wrecked corpses of the slaughtered sheep, and there he sat  with clenched nails tightly clutching his hair. At first, and for a long while, he sat without a sound. But then he threatened me with those dreadful threats, if I did not declare all that had happened, and he demanded to know what on earth was the business he found himself in.  And in my fear, friends, I told him all that had been done, as far as I knew it for certain. But he immediately groaned mournful groans, such as I had never heard from him before. For he had always taught that such wailing  was for cowardly and low-hearted men. He used to grieve quietly without the sound of loud weeping, but instead moaned low like a bull.
    And now, prostrate in such miserable fortune, tasting no food, no drink,  the man sits idly where he has fallen in the middle of the iron-slain cattle. And plainly he plans to do something terrible. Somehow his words and his laments say as much. Ah, my friends—for it was my errand to ask you this—come in and help him, if in any way you can.  Men of his kind can be won over by the words of friends.      (Sophocles. The Ajax of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1893.)

    The episode of Don Quixote which Cervantes tells us on chapter XVIII of the first part may not have to do with Ajax anything beyond the basic fact of both accounts: two angry soldiers in their  madness confuse  meek lamb and animals with fierce contending armies, with the important difference that the madness of Ajax, produced by the gods, is fleeting but with  fatal consequences; that one of Don Quixote seems persistent and confirmed, because when  the episode is finished,  Quixote insists they are charmers  who have changed his soldiers in sheep to deprive him of victory:

    “and this malignant being who persecutes me, envious of the glory he knew I was to win in this battle, has turned the squadrons of the enemy into droves of sheep”.

    So Cervantes and Don Quixote with collaboration of  evil spirits, make a fantasy from reality and  reality from fantasy. Don Quixote, crazy at times, places, where it is possible, the vision of "knight", according to his readings, to the vision of his physical senses. The truth, which is in the alternative dynamic between fantasy and reality, serves to Cervantes repeatedly to place us in what unknown place, real or imagined,  because in their view the two are equally plausible.

    That is, Don Quixote, and incidentally all of us, were locked in a vicious circle end: are the herds of sheep armies or are the armies herds of sheep by Art enchantments? What is real?

    Note: Cervantes, Don Quixote, makes a numerous  list of the "alleged" contenders. What Don Quixote makes is an imitation of the enumerations which traditionally is done in battles from the Iliad itself, and as Francisco Rico, accurate commentator of Don Quixote of Cervantes, it is a piece for the literary brilliance from Homer.

    Cervantes says on I, XVI:

    Thus talking, Don Quixote and his squire were going along, when, on the road they were following, Don Quixote perceived approaching them a large and thick cloud of dust, on seeing which he turned to Sancho and said:

    "This is the day, Sancho, on which will be seen the boon my fortune is reserving for me; this, I say, is the day on which as much as on any other shall be displayed the might of my arm, and on which I shall do deeds that shall remain written in the book of fame for all ages to come. Seest thou that cloud of dust which rises yonder? Well, then, all that is churned up by a vast army composed of various and countless nations that comes marching there."

    "According to that there must be two," said Sancho, "for on this opposite side also there rises just such another cloud of dust."

    Don Quixote turned to look and found that it was true, and rejoicing exceedingly, he concluded that they were two armies about to engage and encounter in the midst of that broad plain; for at all times and seasons his fancy was full of the battles, enchantments, adventures, crazy feats, loves, and defiances that are recorded in the books of chivalry, and everything he said, thought, or did had reference to such things. Now the cloud of dust he had seen was raised by two great droves of sheep coming along the same road in opposite directions, which, because of the dust, did not become visible until they drew near, but Don Quixote asserted so positively that they were armies that Sancho was led to believe it and say, "Well, and what are we to do, senor?"

    "What?" said Don Quixote: "give aid and assistance to the weak and those who need it; and thou must know, Sancho, that this which comes opposite to us is conducted and led by the mighty emperor Alifanfaron, lord of the great isle of Trapobana; this other that marches behind me is that of his enemy the king of the Garamantas, Pentapolin of the Bare Arm, for he always goes into battle with his right arm bare."

    "But why are these two lords such enemies?"

    "They are at enmity," replied Don Quixote, "because this Alifanfaron is a furious pagan and is in love with the daughter of Pentapolin, who is a very beautiful and moreover gracious lady, and a Christian, and her father is unwilling to bestow her upon the pagan king unless he first abandons the religion of his false prophet Mahomet, and adopts his own."

    "By my beard," said Sancho, "but Pentapolin does quite right, and I will help him as much as I can."
    "In that thou wilt do what is thy duty, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "for to engage in battles of this sort it is not requisite to be a dubbed knight."

    "That I can well understand," answered Sancho; "but where shall we put this ass where we may be sure to find him after the fray is over? for I believe it has not been the custom so far to go into battle on a beast of this kind."

    "That is true," said Don Quixote, "and what you had best do with him is to leave him to take his chance whether he be lost or not, for the horses we shall have when we come out victors will be so many that even Rocinante will run a risk of being changed for another. But attend to me and observe, for I wish to give thee some account of the chief knights who accompany these two armies; and that thou mayest the better see and mark, let us withdraw to that hillock which rises yonder, whence both armies may be seen."

    They did so, and placed themselves on a rising ground from which the two droves that Don Quixote made armies of might have been plainly seen if the clouds of dust they raised had not obscured them and blinded the sight; nevertheless, seeing in his imagination what he did not see and what did not exist, he began thus in a loud voice:

    "That knight whom thou seest yonder in yellow armour, who bears upon his shield a lion crowned crouching at the feet of a damsel, is the valiant Laurcalco, lord of the Silver Bridge; that one in armour with flowers of gold, who bears on his shield three crowns argent on an azure field, is the dreaded Micocolembo, grand duke of Quirocia; that other of gigantic frame, on his right hand, is the ever dauntless Brandabarbaran de Boliche, lord of the three Arabias, who for armour wears that serpent skin, and has for shield a gate which, according to tradition, is one of those of the temple that Samson brought to the ground when by his death he revenged himself upon his enemies. But turn thine eyes to the other side, and thou shalt see in front and in the van of this other army the ever victorious and never vanquished Timonel of Carcajona, prince of New Biscay, who comes in armour with arms quartered azure, vert, white, and yellow, and bears on his shield a cat or on a field tawny with a motto which says Miau, which is the beginning of the name of his lady, who according to report is the peerless Miaulina, daughter of the duke Alfeniquen of the Algarve; the other, who burdens and presses the loins of that powerful charger and bears arms white as snow and a shield blank and without any device, is a novice knight, a Frenchman by birth, Pierres Papin by name, lord of the baronies of Utrique; that other, who with iron-shod heels strikes the flanks of that nimble parti-coloured zebra, and for arms bears azure vair, is the mighty duke of Nerbia, Espartafilardo del Bosque, who bears for device on his shield an asparagus plant with a motto in Castilian that says, Rastrea mi suerte." And so he went on naming a number of knights of one squadron or the other out of his imagination, and to all he assigned off-hand their arms, colours, devices, and mottoes, carried away by the illusions of his unheard-of craze; and without a pause, he continued, "People of divers nations compose this squadron in front; here are those that drink of the sweet waters of the famous Xanthus, those that scour the woody Massilian plains, those that sift the pure fine gold of Arabia Felix, those that enjoy the famed cool banks of the crystal Thermodon, those that in many and various ways divert the streams of the golden Pactolus, the Numidians, faithless in their promises, the Persians renowned in archery, the Parthians and the Medes that fight as they fly, the Arabs that ever shift their dwellings, the Scythians as cruel as they are fair, the Ethiopians with pierced lips, and an infinity of other nations whose features I recognise and descry, though I cannot recall their names. In this other squadron there come those that drink of the crystal streams of the olive-bearing Betis, those that make smooth their countenances with the water of the ever rich and golden Tagus, those that rejoice in the fertilising flow of the divine Genil, those that roam the Tartesian plains abounding in pasture, those that take their pleasure in the Elysian meadows of Jerez, the rich Manchegans crowned with ruddy ears of corn, the wearers of iron, old relics of the Gothic race, those that bathe in the Pisuerga renowned for its gentle current, those that feed their herds along the spreading pastures of the winding Guadiana famed for its hidden course, those that tremble with the cold of the pineclad Pyrenees or the dazzling snows of the lofty Apennine; in a word, as many as all Europe includes and contains."

    Good God! what a number of countries and nations he named! giving to each its proper attributes with marvellous readiness; brimful and saturated with what he had read in his lying books! Sancho Panza hung upon his words without speaking, and from time to time turned to try if he could see the knights and giants his master was describing, and as he could not make out one of them he said to him:

    "Senor, devil take it if there's a sign of any man you talk of, knight or giant, in the whole thing; maybe it's all enchantment, like the phantoms last night."

    "How canst thou say that!" answered Don Quixote; "dost thou not hear the neighing of the steeds, the braying of the trumpets, the roll of the drums?"

    "I hear nothing but a great bleating of ewes and sheep," said Sancho; which was true, for by this time the two flocks had come close.

    "The fear thou art in, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "prevents thee from seeing or hearing correctly, for one of the effects of fear is to derange the senses and make things appear different from what they are; if thou art in such fear, withdraw to one side and leave me to myself, for alone I suffice to bring victory to that side to which I shall give my aid;" and so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and putting the lance in rest, shot down the slope like a thunderbolt. Sancho shouted after him, crying, "Come back, Senor Don Quixote; I vow to God they are sheep and ewes you are charging! Come back! Unlucky the father that begot me! what madness is this! Look, there is no giant, nor knight, nor cats, nor arms, nor shields quartered or whole, nor vair azure or bedevilled. What are you about? Sinner that I am before God!" But not for all these entreaties did Don Quixote turn back; on the contrary he went on shouting out, "Ho, knights, ye who follow and fight under the banners of the valiant emperor Pentapolin of the Bare Arm, follow me all; ye shall see how easily I shall give him his revenge over his enemy Alifanfaron of the Trapobana."

    So saying, he dashed into the midst of the squadron of ewes, and began spearing them with as much spirit and intrepidity as if he were transfixing mortal enemies in earnest. The shepherds and drovers accompanying the flock shouted to him to desist; seeing it was no use, they ungirt their slings and began to salute his ears with stones as big as one's fist. Don Quixote gave no heed to the stones, but, letting drive right and left kept saying:

    "Where art thou, proud Alifanfaron? Come before me; I am a single knight who would fain prove thy prowess hand to hand, and make thee yield thy life a penalty for the wrong thou dost to the valiant Pentapolin Garamanta." Here came a sugar-plum from the brook that struck him on the side and buried a couple of ribs in his body. Feeling himself so smitten, he imagined himself slain or badly wounded for certain, and recollecting his liquor he drew out his flask, and putting it to his mouth began to pour the contents into his stomach; but ere he had succeeded in swallowing what seemed to him enough, there came another almond which struck him on the hand and on the flask so fairly that it smashed it to pieces, knocking three or four teeth and grinders out of his mouth in its course, and sorely crushing two fingers of his hand. Such was the force of the first blow and of the second, that the poor knight in spite of himself came down backwards off his horse. The shepherds came up, and felt sure they had killed him; so in all haste they collected their flock together, took up the dead beasts, of which there were more than seven, and made off without waiting to ascertain anything further.

    All this time Sancho stood on the hill watching the crazy feats his master was performing, and tearing his beard and cursing the hour and the occasion when fortune had made him acquainted with him. Seeing him, then, brought to the ground, and that the shepherds had taken themselves off, he ran to him and found him in very bad case, though not unconscious; and said he:

    "Did I not tell you to come back, Senor Don Quixote; and that what you were going to attack were not armies but droves of sheep?"

    "That's how that thief of a sage, my enemy, can alter and falsify things," answered Don Quixote; "thou must know, Sancho, that it is a very easy matter for those of his sort to make us believe what they choose; and this malignant being who persecutes me, envious of the glory he knew I was to win in this battle, has turned the squadrons of the enemy into droves of sheep. At any rate, do this much, I beg of thee, Sancho, to undeceive thyself, and see that what I say is true; mount thy ass and follow them quietly, and thou shalt see that when they have gone some little distance from this they will return to their original shape and, ceasing to be sheep, become men in all respects as I described them to thee at first. But go not just yet, for I want thy help and assistance; come hither, and see how many of my teeth and grinders are missing, for I feel as if there was not one left in my mouth."

    Sancho came so close that he almost put his eyes into his mouth; now just at that moment the balsam had acted on the stomach of Don Quixote, so, at the very instant when Sancho came to examine his mouth, he discharged all its contents with more force than a musket, and full into the beard of the compassionate squire.

    "Holy Mary!" cried Sancho, "what is this that has happened me? Clearly this sinner is mortally wounded, as he vomits blood from the mouth;" but considering the matter a little more closely he perceived by the colour, taste, and smell, that it was not blood but the balsam from the flask which he had seen him drink; and he was taken with such a loathing that his stomach turned, and he vomited up his inside over his very master, and both were left in a precious state. Sancho ran to his ass to get something wherewith to clean himself, and relieve his master, out of his alforjas; but not finding them, he well-nigh took leave of his senses, and cursed himself anew, and in his heart resolved to quit his master and return home, even though he forfeited the wages of his service and all hopes of the promised island.

    Don Quixote now rose, and putting his left hand to his mouth to keep his teeth from falling out altogether, with the other he laid hold of the bridle of Rocinante, who had never stirred from his master's side-so loyal and well-behaved was he==and betook himself to where the squire stood leaning over his ass with his hand to his cheek, like one in deep dejection. Seeing him in this mood, looking so sad, Don Quixote said to him:

    "Bear in mind, Sancho, that one man is no more than another, unless he does more than another; all these tempests that fall upon us are signs that fair weather is coming shortly, and that things will go well with us, for it is impossible for good or evil to last for ever; and hence it follows that the evil having lasted long, the good must be now nigh at hand; so thou must not distress thyself at the misfortunes which happen to me, since thou hast no share in them."

    "How have I not?" replied Sancho; "was he whom they blanketed yesterday perchance any other than my father's son? and the alforjas that are missing to-day with all my treasures, did they belong to any other but myself?"

    "What! are the alforjas missing, Sancho?" said Don Quixote.

    "Yes, they are missing," answered Sancho.

    "In that case we have nothing to eat to-day," replied Don Quixote.

    "It would be so," answered Sancho, "if there were none of the herbs your worship says you know in these meadows, those with which knights-errant as unlucky as your worship are wont to supply such-like shortcomings."

    "For all that," answered Don Quixote, "I would rather have just now a quarter of bread, or a loaf and a couple of pilchards' heads, than all the herbs described by Dioscorides, even with Doctor Laguna's notes. Nevertheless, Sancho the Good, mount thy beast and come along with me, for God, who provides for all things, will not fail us (more especially when we are so active in his service as we are), since he fails not the midges of the air, nor the grubs of the earth, nor the tadpoles of the water, and is so merciful that he maketh his sun to rise on the good and on the evil, and sendeth rain on the unjust and on the just."

    "Your worship would make a better preacher than knight-errant," said Sancho.

    "Knights-errant knew and ought to know everything, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "for there were knights-errant in former times as well qualified to deliver a sermon or discourse in the middle of an encampment, as if they had graduated in the University of Paris; whereby we may see that the lance has never blunted the pen, nor the pen the lance."

    "Well, be it as your worship says," replied Sancho; "let us be off now and find some place of shelter for the night, and God grant it may be somewhere where there are no blankets, nor blanketeers, nor phantoms, nor enchanted Moors; for if there are, may the devil take the whole concern."
    "Ask that of God, my son," said Don Quixote; and do thou lead on where thou wilt, for this time I leave our lodging to thy choice; but reach me here thy hand, and feel with thy finger, and find out how many of my teeth and grinders are missing from this right side of the upper jaw, for it is there I feel the pain."

    Sancho put in his fingers, and feeling about asked him, "How many grinders used your worship have on this side?"

    "Four," replied Don Quixote, "besides the back-tooth, all whole and quite sound."

    "Mind what you are saying, senor."

    "I say four, if not five," answered Don Quixote, "for never in my life have I had tooth or grinder drawn, nor has any fallen out or been destroyed by any decay or rheum."

    "Well, then," said Sancho, "in this lower side your worship has no more than two grinders and a half, and in the upper neither a half nor any at all, for it is all as smooth as the palm of my hand."

    "Luckless that I am!" said Don Quixote, hearing the sad news his squire gave him; "I had rather they despoiled me of an arm, so it were not the sword-arm; for I tell thee, Sancho, a mouth without teeth is like a mill without a millstone, and a tooth is much more to be prized than a diamond; but we who profess the austere order of chivalry are liable to all this. Mount, friend, and lead the way, and I will follow thee at whatever pace thou wilt."

    Sancho did as he bade him, and proceeded in the direction in which he thought he might find refuge without quitting the high road, which was there very much frequented. As they went along, then, at a slow pace-for the pain in Don Quixote's jaws kept him uneasy and ill-disposed for speed-Sancho thought it well to amuse and divert him by talk of some kind, and among the things he said to him was that which will be told in the following chapter. (Translated by John Ormsby)

    En estos coloquios iban Don Quijote y su escudero, cuando vio Don Quijote que por el camino que iban venía hacia ellos una grande y espesa polvareda, y en viéndola se volvió a Sancho, y le dijo:

    -Este es el día, oh Sancho, en el cual se ha de ver el bien que me tiene guardado mi suerte; este es el día, digo, en que se ha de mostrar tanto como en otro alguno el valor de mi brazo, y en que tengo de hacer obras que queden escritas en el libro de la fama por todos los venideros siglos. ¿Ves aquella polvareda que allí se levanta, Sancho? Pues toda es cuajada de un copiosísimo ejército que de diversas e innumerables gentes compuesto, por allí viene marchando.

    -A esa cuenta, dos deben de ser- dijo Sancho, porque desta parte contraria se levanta asimesmo otra semejante polvareda.

    Volvió a mirarla Don Quijote, y vió que así era la verdad; y alegrándose sobremanera, pensó sin dudaalguna que eran dos ejércitos que venían a embestirse y a encontrarse en mitad de aquella espaciosa llanura, porque tenía a todas horas y momentos llena la fantasía de aquellas batallas, encantamientos, sucesos, desatinos, amores, desafíos, que en los libros de caballería se cuentan; y todo cuanto hablaba, pensaba o hacía, era encaminado a cosas semejantes, y a la polvareda que había visto la levantaban dos grandes manadas de ovejas y carneros, que por el mismo camino de dos diferentes partes venían, las cuales con el polvo no se echaron de ver hasta que llegaron cerca; y con tanto ahínco afirmaba Don Quijote que eran ejército, que Sancho le vino a creer, y a decirle:

    -Señor, ¿pues qué hemos de hacer nosotros?

    -¿Qué? dijo Don Quijote. Favorecer y ayudar a los menesterosos y desvalidos; y has de saber, Sancho, que este que viene por nuestra frente lo conduce y guía el gran emperador Alifanfaron, señor de la grande isla Trapobana; este otro, que a mis espaldas marcha, es el de su enemigo el rey de los Garamantas, Pentapolin del arremangado brazo, porque siempre entra en las batallas con el brazo derecho desnudo.

    -Pues ¿por qué se quieren tan mal estos dos señores? preguntó Sancho.

    – Quiérense mal- respondió Don Quijote, porque este Alifanfaron es un
    furibundo pagano, y está enamorado de la hija de Pentapolin, que es una muy hermosa y además agraciada señora, y es cristiana, y su padre no se la quiere entregar al rey pagano si no deja primero la ley de su falso profeta Mahoma, y se vuelve a la suya.

    – ¡Para mis barbas- dijo Sancho, si no hace muy bien Pentapolin, y que le tengo de ayudar en cuanto pudiere!.

    – En eso harás lo que debes, Sancho– dijo Don Quijote, porque para entrar en batallas semejantes no se requiere ser armado caballero.

    -Bien se me alcanza eso -respondió Sancho-; pero ¿dónde pondremos a este asno, que estemos ciertos de hallarle después de pasada la refriega, porque al entrar en ella en semejante caballería no creo que está en uso hasta agora?

    -Así es verdad, -dijo Don Quijote-; lo que puedes hacer dél es dejarle a sus aventuras, ahora se pierda o no, porque serán tanto los caballos que tendremos después que salgamos vencedores, que aún corre peligro Rocinante no le trueque por otro ; pero estáme atento y mira, que te quiero dar cuenta de los caballeros más principales que en estos dos ejércitos vienen, y para que mejor los veas y los notes, retirémonos a aquel altillo que allí se hace, de donde se deben descubrir los dos ejércitos.

    Hiciéronlo así y pusiéronse sobre una loma , desde la cual se veían bien las dos manadas que a Don Quijote se le hicieron ejército, si las nubes del polvo que levantaban no les turbara y cegara la vista; pero con todo esto, viendo en su imaginación lo que no veía ni había, con voz levantada comenzó a decir:

    -Aquel caballero que allí ves de las armas jaldes, que trae en el escudo un león coronado rendido a los pies de una doncella, es el valeroso Laurcalco, señor de la Puente de Plata. El otro de las armas de las flores de oro, que trae en el escudo tres coronas de plata en campo azul, es el temido Micocolembo, gran duque de Quirocia. El otro de los miembros gigantes que está a su derecha mano, es el nunca medroso Brandabarbar an de Boliche, señor de las tres Arabias, que viene armado de aquel cuero de serpiente, y tiene por escudo una puerta, que según es fama, es una de las del templo que derribó Sanson cuando con su muerte se vengó de sus enemigos. Pero vuelve los ojos a estotra parte, y verás delante y en la frente de estotro ejército al siempre vencedor y jamás vencido Timonel de Carcajona, príncipe de la Nueva Vizcaya, que viene armado con las armas partidas a cuarteles azules, verdes, blancos y amarillos, y trae en el escudo un gato de oro en campo leonado con una letra que dice "Miau", que es el principio del nombre de su dama, que según se dice es la sin par Miaulina, hija del duque de Alfeñiquen del Algarbe. El otro, que carga y oprime los lomos de aquella poderosa alfana, que trae las armas como nieve blancas, y el escudo blanco y sin empresa alguna, es un caballero novel, de nación francés, llamado Pierres Papin, señor de las baronías de Utrique. El otro, que bate las hijadas con los herrados carcaños a aquella pintada y lijera cebra, y trae las armas de los veros azules, es el poderoso duque de Nervia, Espartafilardo del Bosque, que trae por empresa en el escudo una esparraguera con una letra en castellano, que dice así: "Rastrea mi suerte".

    Y desta manera fué nombrando muchos caballeros del uno y del otro escuadrón que él se imaginaba, y a todo s les dió sus armas, colores, empresas y motes de improviso, llevado de la imaginación de su nunca vista locura, y sin parar prosiguió diciendo:

    -A este escuadrón frontero forman y hacen gentes de diversas naciones; aquí están los que beben las dulces aguas del famoso Janto, los montuosos que pisan los masilíscos campos, los que criban el finísimo y menudo oro en la felice Arabia, los que gozan las famosas y frescas riberas del claro Termodonte, los que sangran por muchas y diversas vías al dorado Pactolo, los mumidas dudosos ensus promesas, los persas en arcos y flechas famosos, los partos, los medos, que pelean huyendo, los árabes de mudables casas, los citas tan crueles como blancos, los etíopes de horadados labios, y otras infinitas naciones cuyos rostros conozco y veo, aunque de los nombres no me acuerdo. En estotro escuadrón vienen los que beben las corrientes cristalinas del olivífero Betis, los que tersan y pulen con el licor del siempre rico y dorado Tajo, los que gozan las provechosas aguas del divino Genil, los que pisan los tartesios campos de pastos abundantes, los que se alegran en elíseos jerezanos prados, los manchegos ricos y coronados de rubias espigas, los de hierro vestidos, reliquias antiguas de la sangre goda, los que en Pisuerga se bañan, famoso por la mansedumbre de su corriente, los que su ganado apacientan en las extendidas dehesas del tortuoso Guadiana, celebrado por su escondido curso, los que tiemblan con el frío del silboso Pirineo y con los blancos copos del levantado Apenino; finalmente, cuantos toda la Europa en sí contiene y encierra.

    ¡Válame Dios, y cuántas provincias dijo , cuántas naciones nombró, dándole a cada una con maravillosa presteza los atributos que le pertenecían, todo absorto y empapado en lo que había leído en sus libros mentirosos!

    Estaba Sancho Panza colgado de sus palabras sin hablar ninguna, y de cuando en cuando volvía la cabeza a ver si veía los caballeros y gigantes que su amo nombraba, y como no descubría a ninguno le dijo:

    -Señor, encomiendo al diablo, si hombre, ni gigante, ni caballero de cuantos vuestra merced dice parece por todo esto, a lo menos yo no los veo; quizá todo esto debe ser
    encantamiento como las fantasmas de anoche.

    ¿Cómo dices eso? –respondió Don Quijote, no oyes el relinchar de los caballos, el tocar de los clarines, el ruido de los atambores?

    -No oigo otra cosa, -respondió Sancho- sino muchos balidos de ovejas y carneros,

    Y así era la verdad, porque ya llegaban cerca los dos rebaños.

    -El miedo que tienes, -dijo Don Quijote- te hace, Sancho, que ni veas ni oyas a derechas, porque uno de los efectos del miedo es turbar los sentidos, y hacer que las cosas no parezcan lo que son; y si es que tanto temes, retírate a una parte y déjame solo, que solo basto a dar la victoria a la parte a quien yo diere mi ayuda.

    Y diciendo ésto puso las espuelas a Rocinante, y puesta la lanza en el ristre bajó de la costezuela como un rayo.

    Diole voces Sancho, diciéndole:

    -Vuélvase vuestra merced, señor Don Quijote, que voto a Dios que son carneros y ovejas las que va a embestir: vuélvase, desdichado del padre que me engendró: ¡qué locura es ésta! Mire que no hay gigante ni caballero alguno, ni gatos, ni armas, ni escudos partidos ni enteros, ni veros azules ni endiablados. ¿Qué es lo que hace? Pecador soy yo a Dios.

    Ni por esasvolvió Don Quijote, antes en altas voces iba diciendo:

    -¡Ea, caballeros, los que seguís y militais debajo de las banderas del poderoso emperador Pentapolin del arremangado brazo, seguidme todos! ¡Vereis cuán facilmente le doy venganza de su enemigo Alifanfaron de la Trapobana!

    Esto diciendo, se entró por medio del escuadrón de las ovejas, y comenzó de alanceallas con tanto con coraje y denuedo, como si de veras alanceara a sus mortales enemigos. Los pastores y ganaderos que con la manada venían, dábanle voces que no hiciese aquello; pero viendo que no aprovechaban, desciñéronse las ondas, y comenzaron a saludarle los oídos con piedras como el puño. Don Quijote no se curaba de las piedras; antes discurriendo a todas partes, decía:

    – ¿Adónde estás, soberbio Alifanfaron? Vente a mí, que un caballero solo soy, que desea de solo a solo probar tus fuerzas y quitarte la vida en pena de la que das al valeroso Pentapolin Garamanta.

    Llegó en ésto una peladilla de arroyo, y dándole en un lado, le sepultó dos costillas en el cuerpo. Viéndose tan maltrecho, creyó sin duda que estaba muerto o mal ferido, y cordándose de su licor, sacó su alcuza, y púsosela a la boca, y comenzó a echar licor en el estomago; mas antes que acabase de envasar lo que a él le parecía que era bastante llegó otra almendra, y dióle en la mano y en la alcuza tan de lleno, que se la hizo pedazo s, llevándole de camino tres o cuatro dientes y muelas de la boca, y machucándole malamente dos dedos de la mano.

    Tal fue el golpe primero, y tal el segundo o, que le fue forzoso al pobre caballero dar consigo del caballo abajo. Llegáronse a él los pastores, y creyendo que le habían muerto, y así con mucha priesa recogieron su ganado, y cargaron de las reses muertas, que pasaban de siete, y sin averiguar otra cosa se fueron.

    Estábase todo este tiempo Sancho sobre la cuesta, mirando las locuras que su amo hacía, y arrancábase las barbas, maldiciendo la hora y el punto en que la fortuna se le había dado a conocer. Viéndole, pues, caído en el suelo, y que ya los pastores se habían ido, bajó de la cuesta y llegóse a él, y hallándole de muy mal arte, aunque no había perdido el sentido, y díjole:

    -¿No le decía yo, señor Don Quijote, que se volviese, que los que iba a acometer no eran ejércitos, sino manadas de carneros?

    -Como éso puede desaparecer y contra hacer aquel ladrón del sabio mi enemigo, respondió Don Quijote: sábete, Sancho, que es muy fácil cosa a los tales hacernos parecer lo que quieren, y este maligno que me persigue, envidioso de la gloria que vío que yo había de alcanzar desta batalla, ha vuelto los escuadrones de enemigos en manadas de ovejas. Si no haz una cosa, Sancho, por mi vida, porque te desengañes y veas ser verdad lo que te digo: sube en tu asno y síguelos bonitamente, y verás cómo, en alejándose de aquí algún poco, se vuelven en su ser primero, y dejando de ser carneros, son hombres hechos y derechos, como te los pinté primero, pero no vayas ahora, que he menester tu favor y ayuda; llégate a mí, y mira cuántas muelas y dientes me faltan, que me parece que no me ha quedado ninguno en la boca.

    Llegóse Sancho tan cerca, que casi le metía los ojos en la boca, y fue a tiempo que ya había obrado el bálsamo en el estómago de Don Quijote, y al tiempo que Sancho llegó a mirarle la boca, arrojó de sí, más recio que una escopeta, cuanto dentro tenía, y le dió con todo ello en las barbas del compasivo escudero.

    – ¡Santa María!-dijo Sancho-. ¿Y qué es ésto que me ha sucedido? Sin duda este pecador está herido de muerte, pues vomita sangre por la boca.

    Pero reparando un poco más en ello, echó de ver en la color, sabor y olor, que no era sangre, sino el bálsamo de la alcuza que él le había visto beber; y fué tanto el asco que tomó, que revolviéndosele el estómago, vomitó las tripas sobre su mismo señor, y quedaron entrambos como de perlas. Acudió Sancho a su asno para sacar de las alforjas con qué limpiarse y con qué curar a su amo, y como no las halló, estuvo a punto de perder el juicio; maldíjose de nuevo; y propuso en su corazón de dejar a su amo y volverse a su tierra, aunque perdiese el salario de lo servido y las speranzas del gobierno de la prometida ínsula.

    Levántose en esto Don Quijote, y puesta la mano izquierda en la boca, porque no se le acabasen de salir los dientes, asió con la otra las riendas de Rocinante, que nunca se había movido de junto a su amo (tal era de leal y bien acondicionado), y fuese a donde su escudero estaba, de pechos sobre su asno, con la mano en la mejilla en guisa de hombre pensativo, además, y viéndole Don Quijote de aquella manera, con muestras de tanta tristeza, le dijo:

    -Sábete, Sancho, que no es un hombre más que otro si no hace más que otro: todas esta borrascas que nos suceden son señales de que presto ha de serenar el tiempo, y han de sucedernos bien las cosas, porque no es posible que el mal ni el bien sean durables, y de aquí se sigue que, habiendo durado mucho el mal, el bien está ya cerca, así que no debes congojarte por las desgracias que a mí me suceden, pues a ti no te cabe parte de ellas.

    -¿Cómo no? -respondió Sancho-; ¿Por ventura el que ayer mantearon era otro que el hijo de mi padre? ¿y las alforjas que hoy me faltan son de otro que del mismo?

    -¿Qué, te faltan las alforjas, Sancho? -dijo Don Quijote.

    -Sí que me faltan, -respondió Sancho.

    -¿De ese modo, no tenemos que comer hoy? -replicó Don Quijote.

    -Eso fuera, -respondió Sancho- cuando faltaran por estos prados las yerbas que vuestra merced dice que conoce, con que suelen suplir semejantes faltas los tan mal aventurados caballeros andantes, como vuestra merced es.

    -Con todo eso, -respondió Don Quijote- tomara yo más aina un cuartel de pan, o una hogaza y dos cabezas de sardinas arenques, que cuantas yerbas describe Dioscórides, aunque fuera el ilustrado doctor Laguna; mas con todo ésto, sube en tu jumento, Sancho el bueno, y vente tras mi, que Dios, que es proveedor de todas las cosas, no nos ha de faltar, y más andando tan en su servicio como andamos, pues no falta a los mosquitos del aire, ni a los gusanillos de la tierra, ni a los renacuajos del agua, y es tan piadoso, que hace salir su sol sobre los buenos y malos, y llueve sobre los injustos y justos.

    -Más bueno era vuestra merced, -dijo Sancho-, para predicador que para caballero andante.

    De todo sabían y han de saber los caballeros andantes, Sancho, -dijo Don Quijote-, porque caballero andante hubo en los pasados siglos, que así se paraba a hacer un sermón o plática en un camino real, como si fuera graduado por la universidad de París, de donde se infiere, que nunca la lanza embotó la pluma, ni la pluma la lanza.

    -Ahora bien, sea así como vuestra merced dice, -respondió Sancho-; vamos ahora de aquí y procuremos donde alojar esta noche, y quiera Dios que sea en parte donde no haya mantas, ni manteadores, ni fantasmas, ni moros encantados, que si los hay, daré al diablo el hato y el garabato.

    -Pídeselo tú a Dios, -dijo Don Quijote-, y guía tú por donde quisieres, que esta vez quiero dejar a tu elección el alojarnos; pero dame acá la mano, y atiéntame con el dedo, y mira bien cuántos dientes y muelas me faltan deste lado derecho de la quijada alta, que allí siento el dolor.

    Metió Sancho los dedos, y estándole atentándo le dijo:

    -¿Cuántas muelas solía vuestra merced tener en esta parte?

    – Cuatro -respondió Don Quijote- fuera de la cordal todas enteras y muy sanas.
    -Mire vuestra merced bien lo que dice, señor, -respondió Sancho.

    – Digo cuatro, si no eran cinco, -respondió Don Quijote-, porque en toda mi vida me han sacado diente ni muela de la boca, ni se me ha caído, ni comido de neguijon, ni de reuma alguna.

    -Pues en esta parte de abajo, -dijo Sancho-, no tiene vuestra merced más de dos muelas y media, y en la de arriba, ni media ni ninguna, que toda está rasa como la palma de la mano.

    ¡Sin ventura yo! -dijo Don Quijote-, oyendo las tristes nuevas que su escudero le daba, que más quisiera que me hubieran derribado un brazo, como no fuera el de la espada; porque te hago saber, Sancho, que la boca sin muelas es como el molino sin piedra, y en mucho más se ha de estimar un diente que un diamante; mas a todo esto estamos sujetos los que profesamos la estrecha orden de la caballería. Sube, amigo, y guía, que yo te seguiré al paso que quisieres.

    Hízolo así Sancho, y encaminose hacia donde le pareció que podía hallar acogimiento, sin salir del camino real, que por allí iba muy seguido.

    Yéndose, pues, poco a poco, porque el dolor de las quijadas de Don Quijote no le dejaba sosegar, ni atender a darse priesa, quiso Sancho entretenelle y divertirle diciéndole alguna cosa, y entre otras que le dijo, fue lo que se dirá en el siguiente capítulo.

  • The myth of the ages of man (2)

    It is a topic or commonplace in many cultures that human life on Earth began in a time of happiness and absolute serenity, then interrupted by the amoral behavior of man, which since then has continued to get worse. These creations are not only literary, but they are part of the ideas of general cultural imaginary.

    This is the famous biblical myth of the "earthly paradise", whose origin, like so many others, seems Mesopotamian, or the existence of wonderful "islands of the fortunate" or the myth of the "noble savage" (which is the model for Cynic philosophers and their proposal to autonomy or full independence), or the various draft of laws and constitutions of the polis or hope for  the "utopia". See  https://www.antiquitatem.com/en/uchronia-utopia-dystopia-livy-tomas-more

    Also in the early stages of Greek literature this myth appears strong. To it I dedicated an article about a comparison with a text of Cervantes' Don Quixote. Hesiod is the first Greek author tells us.

    Véase: https://www.antiquitatem.com/en/the-mith-of-the-ages-of-man-quixote-

    Often ancient conceived history as a cycle of successive moments, certainly impressed by the astronomical cycles and cyclical reproduction of stellar motions. This is a well represented by the Stoics idea whom each cycle ends with a great conflagration.

    They call "age", "Aetas" each stage of this movement which ever begins and ends. Consider that this denomination has had huge success: we still divide the history into "ages".

    More still, "the myth of the Ages" has been transposed to the History of Literature; so we speak  “Golden Age of Literature”, for example Spanish Golden Age; or Silver Age, for example of Latin Literature. I do not recognize the term "Bronze Age" refers to literature, perhaps because the literature is of Gold, of Silver least, or it is not literature. But extending the simile, we may refer to much of the current "Literature", to the  bestseller of supermarket as "Age of Barro" or better of "Mud", given the null literary value. While we must be careful with the names, after all there are several myths, pagan and Christian, which  make us beings originated from  humble mud.

    Well, in this context, the myth of the ages of man, that Hesiod told us the first, came. Then they are many other authors.

    Hesiod, who does not use the term "ages" but races, distinguishes five races. Many years later Aratus of Solos (310-240 BC) distinguishes three races too; Virgil, Horace and Tibullus in a passage speak of two; Horace elsewhere speaks of four.

    Aratus of Solos (310-240) is the author of the famous astronomical didactic poem "Phenomena", one of the most widespread and translated books in ancient. In verses 96-136 he describes  the constellation of the Virgin, which is the Justice, which he placed among men in the honorable times and escaped to heaven in view of the evils of men. This Catasterism (1)  of  Justice is connected to the myth of the races or ages. Hesiod does not explain to us the origin of each of the "ages"; for Aratus, who speaks also of races and ages and  distinguishes only three: golden, silver and bronze, the origin is on human evil itself which is progressive.

    Note: we call "Catasterism" to conversion or transformation of gods, heroic beings, mythological events, and even ethical principles later, in stars, celestial bodies in the sky, or clusters of stars. This is a technical or cult Greek term, composed of the preposition kata, κατά (above, below) and the noun ἀστήρ, aster, (star). The term was used as a title of a booklet attributable to the director of the Library of Alexandria, the mathematician, geographer, astronomer, physician, scholar, literary author, Eratosthenes.

    Aratus, Phaenomena,  93-136

    The Virgin (Virgo)

    Beneath both feet of Boötes mark the Maiden [Virgo], who in her hands bears the gleaming Ear of Corn [Spica]. Whether she be daughter of Astraeus, who, men say, was of old the father of the stars, or child of other sire, untroubled be her course! But another tale is current among men, how of old she dwelt on earth and met men face to face, nor ever disdained in olden time the tribes of men and women, but mingling with them took her seat, immortal though she was. Her men called Justice; but she assembling the elders, it might be in the market-place or in the wide-wayed streets, uttered her voice, ever urging on them judgements kinder to the people. Not yet in that age had men knowledge of hateful strife, or carping contention, or din of battle, but a simple life they lived. Far from them was the cruel sea and not yet from afar did ships bring their livelihood, but the oxen and the plough and Justice herself, queen of the peoples, giver of things just, abundantly supplied their every need. Even so long as the earth still nurtured the Golden Race, she had her dwelling on earth. But with the Silver Race only a little and no longer with utter readiness did she mingle, for that she yearned for the ways of the men of old. Yet in that Silver Age was she still upon the earth; but from the echoing hills at eventide she came alone, nor spake to any man in gentle words. But when she had filled the great heights with gathering crowds, then would she with threats rebuke their evil ways, and declare that never more at their prayer would she reveal her face to man. “Behold what manner of race the fathers of the Golden Age left behind them! Far meaner than themselves! But ye will breed a viler progeny! Verily wars and cruel bloodshed shall be unto men and grievous woe shall be laid upon them.” Even so she spake and sought the hills and left the people all gazing towards her still. But when they, too, were dead, and when, more ruinous than they which went before, the Race of Bronze was born, who were the first to forge the sword of the highwayman, and the first to eat of the flesh of the ploughing-ox, then verily did Justice loathe that race of men and fly heavenward and took up that abode, where even now in the night time the Maiden is seen of men, established near to far-seen Boötes. ( Translated by Mair, A. W. & G. R. Loeb Classical Library Volume 129. London: William Heinemann, 1921.)

    Cicero translated the poem of Aratus literally. Only fragments remain, about two thirds of that translation. He also used quotes in several of his works, such as the example we have in his On the Nature of the Gods (De natura deorum), in Book II, 159 (63), when referring to the oxen of work he translates the verses of Aratus 129 et seq. which  I reproduce:

    De natura deorum, II, 159,

    Why should I speak of oxen? The very shape of their backs makes it clear that they were not destined to carry burdens, whereas their necks were born for the yoke and their broad powerful shoulders for drawing the plough. And as it was by their means that the earth was brought under tillage by breaking up its clods, no violence was ever used towards them, so the poets say, by the men of that Golden Age:

       “But then the iron race sprang into being,
      And first did dare to forge the deadly sword,
       And taste the ox its hand  had tamed to bondage.”

    So valuable was deemed the service that ma received from oxen that to eat their flesh was held a crime. (Translated by H. Rackham, M.A. The Lobed Classical Library)

    “ quid de bubus loquar; quorum ipsa terga declarant non esse se ad onus accipiendum figurata, cervices autem natae ad iugum, tum vires umerorum et latitudines ad aratra †extrahenda. quibus cum terrae subigerentur fissione glebarum ab illo aureo genere, ut poetae loquuntur, vis nulla umquam adferebatur:

    ferrea tum vero proles exorta repentest
    ausaque funestum primast fabricarier ensem
    et gustare manu iunctum domitumque iuvencum:

    tanta putabatur utilitas percipi e bubus, ut eorum visceribus vesci scelus haberetur.

    Note that eating beef was a crime.

    Cicero,  Germanic and Avienus  translated into Latin Arato's work; this gives us an idea of the great success that this work was in a world where the stars determined the lives of men.

    Ovid tells us  there were four generations on Metamorphosis I, 70-163:

    And scarcely had He separated these
    and fixed their certain bounds, when all the stars,
    which long were pressed and hidden in the mass,
    began to gleam out from the plains of heaven,
    and traversed, with the Gods, bright ether fields:
    and lest some part might be bereft of life
    the gleaming waves were filled with twinkling fish;
    the earth was covered with wild animals;
    the agitated air was filled with birds.
    But one more perfect and more sanctified,
    a being capable of lofty thought,
    intelligent to rule, was wanting still
    man was created! Did the Unknown God
    designing then a better world make man
    of seed divine? or did Prometheus
    take the new soil of earth (that still contained
    some godly element of Heaven's Life)
    and use it to create the race of man;
    first mingling it with water of new streams;
    so that his new creation, upright man,
    was made in image of commanding Gods?
    On earth the brute creation bends its gaze,
    but man was given a lofty countenance
    and was commanded to behold the skies;
    and with an upright face may view the stars:—
    and so it was that shapeless clay put on
    the form of man till then unknown to earth.
    Quattuor aetates. Gigantes.
    THE FOUR AGES
    First was the Golden Age. Then rectitude
    spontaneous in the heart prevailed, and faith.
    Avengers were not seen, for laws unframed
    were all unknown and needless. Punishment
    and fear of penalties existed not.
    No harsh decrees were fixed on brazen plates.
    No suppliant multitude the countenance
    of Justice feared, averting, for they dwelt
    without a judge in peace. Descended not
    the steeps, shorn from its height, the lofty pine,
    cleaving the trackless waves of alien shores,
    nor distant realms were known to wandering men.
    The towns were not entrenched for time of war;
    they had no brazen trumpets, straight, nor horns
    of curving brass, nor helmets, shields nor swords.
    There was no thought of martial pomp —secure
    a happy multitude enjoyed repose.
    Then of her own accord the earth produced
    a store of every fruit. The harrow touched
    her not, nor did the plowshare wound
    her fields. And man content with given food,
    and none compelling, gathered arbute fruits
    and wild strawberries on the mountain sides,
    and ripe blackberries clinging to the bush,
    and corners and sweet acorns on the ground,
    down fallen from the spreading tree of Jove.
    Eternal Spring! Soft breathing zephyrs soothed
    and warmly cherished buds and blooms, produced
    without a seed. The valleys though unplowed
    gave many fruits; the fields though not renewed
    white glistened with the heavy bearded wheat:
    rivers flowed milk and nectar, and the trees,
    the very oak trees, then gave honey of themselves.
    When Saturn had been banished into night
    and all the world was ruled by Jove supreme,
    the Silver Age, though not so good as gold
    but still surpassing yellow brass, prevailed.
    Jove first reduced to years the Primal Spring,
    by him divided into periods four,
    unequal,—summer, autumn, winter, spring.—
    then glowed with tawny heat the parched air,
    or pendent icicles in winter froze
    and man stopped crouching in crude caverns, while
    he built his homes of tree rods, bark entwined.
    Then were the cereals planted in long rows,
    and bullocks groaned beneath the heavy yoke.
    The third Age followed, called The Age of Bronze,
    when cruel people were inclined to arms
    but not to impious crimes. And last of all
    the ruthless and hard Age of Iron prevailed,
    from which malignant vein great evil sprung;
    and modesty and faith and truth took flight,
    and in their stead deceits and snares and frauds
    and violence and wicked love of gain,
    succeeded.—Then the sailor spread his sails
    to winds unknown, and keels that long had stood
    on lofty mountains pierced uncharted waves.
    Surveyors anxious marked with metes and bounds
    the lands, created free as light and air:
    nor need the rich ground furnish only crops,
    and give due nourishment by right required,—
    they penetrated to the bowels of earth
    and dug up wealth, bad cause of all our ills,—
    rich ores which long ago the earth had hid
    and deep removed to gloomy Stygian caves:
    and soon destructive iron and harmful gold
    were brought to light; and War, which uses both,
    came forth and shook with sanguinary grip
    his clashing arms. Rapacity broke forth—
    the guest was not protected from his host,
    the father in law from his own son in law;
    even brothers seldom could abide in peace.
    The husband threatened to destroy his wife,
    and she her husband: horrid step dames mixed
    the deadly henbane: eager sons inquired
    their fathers, ages. Piety was slain:
    and last of all the virgin deity,
    Astraea vanished from the blood-stained earth.
    GIANTS
    And lest ethereal heights should long remain
    less troubled than the earth, the throne of Heaven
    was threatened by the Giants; and they piled
    mountain on mountain to the lofty stars.
    But Jove, omnipotent, shot thunderbolts
    through Mount Olympus, and he overturned
    from Ossa huge, enormous Pelion.
    And while these dreadful bodies lay overwhelmed
    in their tremendous bulk, (so fame reports)
    the Earth was reeking with the copious blood
    of her gigantic sons; and thus replete
    with moisture she infused the steaming gore
    with life renewed. So that a monument
    of such ferocious stock should be retained,
    she made that offspring in the shape of man;
    but this new race alike despised the Gods,
    and by the greed of savage slaughter proved
    a sanguinary birth.
    (Ovid. Metamorphoses. Brookes More. Boston. Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922.)

    Vix ita limitibus dissaepserat omnia certis,
    cum, quae pressa diu massa latuere sub illa,
    sidera coeperunt toto effervescere caelo.
    Neu regio foret ulla suis animalibus orba,
    astra tenent caeleste solum formaeque deorum,
    cesserunt nitidis habitandae piscibus undae,
    terra feras cepit, volucres agitabilis aer.

    Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae
    deerat adhuc et quod dominari in cetera posset.
    Natus homo est, sive hunc divino semine fecit
    ille opifex rerum, mundi melioris origo,
    sive recens tellus seductaque nuper ab alto
    aethere cognati retinebat semina caeli;
    quam satus Iapeto mixtam pluvialibus undis
    finxit in effigiem moderantum cuncta deorum.
    Pronaque cum spectent animalia cetera terram,
    os homini sublime dedit, caelumque videre
    iussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.
    Sic, modo quae fuerat rudis et sine imagine, tellus
    induit ignotas hominum conversa figuras.

    Aurea prima sata est aetas, quae vindice nullo,
    sponte sua, sine lege fidem rectumque colebat.
    Poena metusque aberant, nec verba minantia fixo
    aere legebantur, nec supplex turba timebat
    iudicis ora sui, sed erant sine vindice tuti.
    Nondum caesa suis, peregrinum ut viseret orbem,
    montibus in liquidas pinus descenderat undas,
    nullaque mortales praeter sua litora norant.
    Nondum praecipites cingebant oppida fossae;
    non tuba directi, non aeris cornua flexi,
    non galeae, non ensis erat: sine militis usu
    mollia securae peragebant otia gentes.
    ipsa quoque inmunis rastroque intacta nec ullis
    saucia vomeribus per se dabat omnia tellus;
    contentique cibis nullo cogente creatis
    arbuteos fetus montanaque fraga legebant
    cornaque et in duris haerentia mora rubetis
    et quae deciderant patula Iovis arbore glandes.

    Ver erat aeternum, placidique tepentibus auris
    mulcebant zephyri natos sine semine flores.
    Mox etiam fruges tellus inarata ferebat,
    nec renovatus ager gravidis canebat aristis;
    flumina iam lactis, iam flumina nectaris ibant,
    flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella.
    Postquam, Saturno tenebrosa in Tartara misso,
    sub Iove mundus erat, subiit argentea proles,
    auro deterior, fulvo pretiosior aere.
    Iuppiter antiqui contraxit tempora veris
    perque hiemes aestusque et inaequalis autumnos
    et breve ver spatiis exegit quattuor annum.
    Tum primum siccis aer fervoribus ustus
    canduit, et ventis glacies adstricta pependit.
    Tum primum subiere domus (domus antra fuerunt
    et densi frutices et vinctae cortice virgae).

    Semina tum primum longis Cerealia sulcis
    obruta sunt, pressique iugo gemuere iuvenci.
    Tertia post illam successit aenea proles,
    saevior ingeniis et ad horrida promptior arma,
    non scelerata tamen. De duro est ultima ferro.
    Protinus inrupit venae peioris in aevum
    omne nefas: fugere pudor verumque fidesque;
    In quorum subiere locum fraudesque dolique
    insidiaeque et vis et amor sceleratus habendi.
    Vela dabat ventis (nec adhuc bene noverat illos)
    navita; quaeque diu steterant in montibus altis,
    fluctibus ignotis insultavere carinae,
    communemque prius ceu lumina solis et auras
    cautus humum longo signavit limite mensor.

    Nec tantum segetes alimentaque debita dives
    poscebatur humus, sed itum est in viscera terrae:
    quasque recondiderat Stygiisque admoverat umbris,
    effodiuntur opes, inritamenta malorum.
    Iamque nocens ferrum ferroque nocentius aurum
    prodierat: prodit bellum, quod pugnat utroque,
    sanguineaque manu crepitantia concutit arma.
    Vivitur ex rapto: non hospes ab hospite tutus,
    non socer a genero; fratrum quoque gratia rara est.
    Inminet exitio vir coniugis, illa mariti;
    lurida terribiles miscent aconita novercae;
    filius ante diem patrios inquirit in annos.
    Victa iacet pietas, et virgo caede madentis,
    ultima caelestum terras Astraea reliquit.

    Neve foret terris securior arduus aether,
    adfectasse ferunt regnum caeleste Gigantas
    altaque congestos struxisse ad sidera montes.
    Tum pater omnipotens misso perfregit Olympum
    fulmine et excussit subiectae Pelion Ossae.
    Obruta mole sua cum corpora dira iacerent,
    perfusam multo natorum sanguine Terram
    inmaduisse ferunt calidumque animasse cruorem,
    et, ne nulla suae stirpis monimenta manerent,
    in faciem vertisse hominum. Sed et illa propago
    contemptrix superum saevaeque avidissima caedis
    et violenta fuit: scires e sanguine natos.

    Virgil refers extensively to the myth of the "ages" in four or five times. In particular he does it in the famous Fourth Eclogue, in which he sings a happy next time. At the time I will devote an article to this eclogue of now I just give four verses in which he expressly refers to the ages of man:

    Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung
    has come and gone, and the majestic roll
    of circling centuries begins anew:
    justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign,
    with a new breed of men sent down from heaven.
    Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom
    the iron shall cease, the golden race arise,
    befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own
    apollo reigns.
    (Vergil. Eclogues. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1895.)

    Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas;
    magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo:
    iam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna;
    iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto.
    Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum
    desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo,
    casta fave Lucina: tuus iam regnat Apollo.

    Note: This eclogue was written shortly before the birth of Christ, and later Christians gave it a meaning of Christian prophecy, for example Lactantius and Augustine. But the truth is that almost certainly it is dedicated to the newborn son of Pollio, consul inthat year.

    Virgil also refers it on Georgics I, 125-145 /

    Before Jove
    Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen;
    To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line—
    Even this was impious; for the common stock
    They gathered, and the earth of her own will
    All things more freely, no man bidding, bore.
    He to black serpents gave their venom-bane,
    And bade the wolf go prowl, and ocean toss;
    Shooed from the leaves their honey, put fire away,
    And curbed the random rivers running wine,
    That use by gradual dint of thought on thought
    Might forge the various arts, with furrow's help
    The corn-blade win, and strike out hidden fire
    From the flint's heart. Then first the streams were ware
    Of hollowed alder-hulls: the sailor then
    Their names and numbers gave to star and star,
    Pleiads and Hyads, and Lycaon's child
    Bright Arctos; how with nooses then was found
    To catch wild beasts, and cozen them with lime,
    And hem with hounds the mighty forest-glades.
    Soon one with hand-net scourges the broad stream,
    Probing its depths, one drags his dripping toils
    Along the main; then iron's unbending might,
    And shrieking saw-blade,—for the men of old
    With wedges wont to cleave the splintering log;—
    Then divers arts arose; toil conquered all,
    Remorseless toil, and poverty's shrewd push
    In times of hardship. Ceres was the first
    Set mortals on with tools to turn the sod,
    When now the awful groves 'gan fail to bear
    Acorns and arbutes, and her wonted food
    Dodona gave no more.
    (Vergil. Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics Of Vergil. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900.)

    Ante Iovem nulli subigebant arva coloni;
    ne signare quidem aut partiri limite campum
    fas erat: in medium quaerebant ipsaque tellus
    omnia liberius nullo poscente ferebat.
    Ille malum virus serpentibus addidit atris
    praedarique lupos iussit pontumque moveri,
    mellaque decussit foliis ignemque removit
    et passim rivis currentia vina repressit,
    ut varias usus meditando extunderet artis
    paulatim et sulcis frumenti quaereret herbam.
    Ut silicis venis abstrusum excuderet ignem.
    Tunc alnos primum fluvii sensere cavatas;
    navita tum stellis numeros et nomina fecit,
    Pleiadas, Hyadas, claramque Lycaonis Arcton;
    tum laqueis captare feras et fallere visco
    inventum et magnos canibus circumdare saltus;
    atque alius latum funda iam verberat amnem
    alta petens, pelagoque alius trahit humida lina;
    tum ferri rigor atque argutae lamina serrae,—
    nam primi cuneis scindebant fissile lignum
    tum variae venere artes. Labor omnia vicit
    inprobus et duris urgens in rebus egestas.
    Prima Ceres ferro mortalis vertere terram
    instituit, cum iam glandes atque arbuta sacrae
    deficerent silvae et victum Dodona negaret.

    And also in the final verses of Book II of the Georgics:

    Georgics, II 532 et seq .:

    Such life of yore the ancient Sabines led,
    Such Remus and his brother: Etruria thus,
    Doubt not, to greatness grew, and Rome became
    The fair world's fairest, and with circling wall
    Clasped to her single breast the sevenfold hills.
    Ay, ere the reign of Dicte's king, ere men,
    Waxed godless, banqueted on slaughtered bulls,
    Such life on earth did golden Saturn lead.
    Nor ear of man had heard the war-trump's blast,
    Nor clang of sword on stubborn anvil set.
    But lo! a boundless space we have travelled o'er;
    'Tis time our steaming horses to unyoke.
    (Translation by English J. B. Greenough, 1900)

    Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini,
    hanc Remus et frater, sic fortis Etruria crevit
    scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma,
    septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces.
    Ante etiam sceptrum Dictaei regis et ante
    inpia quam caesis gens est epulata iuvencis,
    aureus hanc vitam in terris Saturnus agebat;
    necdum etiam audierant inflari classica, necdum
    inpositos duris crepitare incudibus enses.
    Sed nos inmensum spatiis confecimus aequor,
    et iam tempus equum fumantia solvere colla.

    Note: On Virgili’s the work is not a punishment from Jupiter, but the source of civilization.

    Horace speaks on end of epode XVI of three ages, omitting Silver age:

    Epode, XVI, 57 et seq.

    The pine rowed by the Argonauts never attempted to come hither; nor did the lascivious [Medea] of Colchis set her foot [in this place]: hither the Sidonian mariners never turned their sail-yards, nor the toiling crew of Ulysses. No contagious distempers hurt the flocks; nor does the fiery violence of any constellation scorch the herd. Jupiter set apart these shores for a pious people, when he debased the golden age with brass: with brass, then with iron he hardened the ages; from which there shall be a happy escape for the good, according to my predictions. (Translated by C.Smart)

    non huc Argoo contendit rémige pinus,
    neque impudica Cochis intulit pedem;
    non huc Sidonii torserunt cornua nautae
    laboriosa nec cohors Vlixei:
    Iuppiter illa piae secrevit litora genti,
    ut inquinavit aere tempus aureum;
    aere, dehinc ferro duravit saecula, quórum
    piis secunda vate me datur fuga.

    Horace refers on other place  to the progressive degeneration of human generations (our grandparents, our parents, ourselves and our children, each geneation worse than the previous generation) Carmina, III, 6, 45 et seq .

    What has not cankering Time made worse?
    Viler than grandsires, sires beget
    Ourselves, yet baser, soon to curse
    The world with offspring baser yet.
    (Horace. The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. John Conington. trans. London. George Bell and Sons. 1882).

    damnosa quid non imminuit dies?
    aetas parentum peior avis tulit
    nos nequiores, mox daturos
    progeniem vitiosiorem.

    The Latin poet Tibullus Albius ( 50-19 BC) reduces the ages to two: the Age of Saturn, when love was free, and this one of Jupiter with violence, private property and theft

    Tibullus (50 a. C. – 19 a. C) .Elegies,  I,3,35-66

    How happily men lived when Saturn reigned!
        Ere weary highways crossed the fair young world,
      Ere lofty ships the purple seas disdained,
        Their swelling canvas to the winds unfurled!

      No roving seaman, from a distant course,
        Filled full of far-fetched wares his frail ship's hold:
      At home, the strong bull stood unyoked; the horse
        Endured no bridle in the age of gold.

      Men's houses had no doors? No firm-set rock
        Marked field from field by niggard masters held.
      The very oaks ran honey; the mild flock
        Brought home its swelling udders, uncompelled.

      Nor wrath nor war did that blest kingdom know;
        No craft was taught in old Saturnian time,
      By which the frowning smith, with blow on blow,
        Could forge the furious sword and so much crime.

      Now Jove is king! Now have we carnage foul,
        And wreckful seas, and countless ways to die.
      Nay! spare me, Father Jove, for on my soul
        Nor perjury, nor words blaspheming lie.

      If longer life I ask of Fate in vain,
        O'er my frail dust this superscription be:—
    "Here Death's dark hand TIBULLUS doth detain,
    Messala's follower over land and sea!"

      Then, since my soul to love did always yield,
        Let Venus guide it the immortal way,
      Where dance and song fill all th' Elysian field,
        And music that will never die away.

      There many a song-bird with his fellow sails,
        And cheerly carols on the cloudless air;
      Each grove breathes incense; all the happy vales
        O'er-run with roses, numberless and fair.

    Bright bands of youth with tender maidens stray,
        Led by the love-god all delights to share;
      And each fond lover death once snatched away
        Winds an immortal myrtle in his hair.

      Far, far from such, the dreadful realms of gloom
        By those black streams of Hades circled round,
      Where viper-tressed, fierce ministers of doom,—
        The Furies drive lost souls from bound to bound.

      The doors of brass, and dragon-gate of Hell,
        Grim Cerberus guards, and frights the phantoms back:
      Ixion, who by Juno's beauty fell,
        Gives his frail body to the whirling rack.

    (By Theodore C. Williams, Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company. (The Riverside Press Cambridge)1908

    Quam bene Saturno vivebant rege, priusquam
    Tellus in longas est patefacta vias!
    Nondum caeruleas pinus contempserat undas,
    Effusum ventis praebueratque sinum,
    Nec vagus ignotis repetens conpendia terris
    Presserat externa navita merce ratem.
    Illo non validus subiit iuga tempore taurus,
    Non domito frenos ore momordit equus,
    Non domus ulla fores habuit, non fixus in agris,
    Qui regeret certis finibus arva, lapis.
    Ipsae mella dabant quercus, ultroque ferebant
    Obvia securis ubera lactis oves.
    Non acies, non ira fuit, non bella, nec ensem
    Inmiti saevus duxerat arte faber.
    Nunc Iove sub domino caedes et vulnera semper,
    Nunc mare, nunc leti mille repente viae.
    Parce, pater. timidum non me periuria terrent,
    Non dicta in sanctos inpia verba deos.
    Quodsi fatales iam nunc explevimus annos,
    Fac lapis inscriptis stet super ossa notis:
    ‘Hic iacet inmiti consumptus morte Tibullus,
    Messallam terra dum sequiturque mari.’
    Sed me, quod facilis tenero sum semper Amori,
    Ipsa Venus campos ducet in Elysios.
    Hic choreae cantusque vigent, passimque vagantes
    Dulce sonant tenui gutture carmen aves,
    Fert casiam non culta seges, totosque per agros
    Floret odoratis terra benigna rosis;
    Ac iuvenum series teneris inmixta puellis
    Ludit, et adsidue proelia miscet Amor.
    65Illic est, cuicumque rapax mors venit amanti,
    Et gerit insigni myrtea serta coma.
    At scelerata iacet sedes in nocte profunda
    Abdita, quam circum flumina nigra sonant:
    Tisiphoneque inpexa feros pro crinibus angues
    Saevit, et huc illuc inpia turba fugit.
    tum niger in porta serpentum Cerberus ore
    stridet et aeratas excubat ante fores.

    Juvenal, for whom the people under Saturn lived simply, says in his Satire, VI, 1-20

    The Ways of Women

    In the days of Saturn, I believe, Chastity still lingered on the earth, and was to be seen for a time —-days when men were poorly housed in chilly caves, when one common shelter enclosed hearth and household gods, herds and their owners; when the hill-bred wife spread her silvan bed with leaves and straw and the skins of her neighbours the wild beasts—-a wife not like to thee, O Cynthia, nor to thee, Lesbia, whose bright eyes were clouded by a sparrow's death, but one whose breasts gave suck to lusty babes, often more unkempt herself than her acorn-belching spouse. For in those days, when the world was young, and the skies were new, men born of the riven oak, or formed of dust, lived differently from now, and had no parents of their own. Under Jove, perchance, some few traces of ancient modesty may have survived; but that was before he had grown his beard, before the Greeks had learned to swear by someone else's head, when men feared not thieves for their cabbages or apples, and lived with unwalled gardens. After that Astraea  withdrew by degrees to heaven, with Chastity as her comrade, the two sisters taking flight together.

    To set your neighbour's bed a-shaking, Postumus, and to flout the Genius of the sacred couch,6 is now an ancient and long-established practice. All other sins came later, the products of the age of Iron; but it was the silver age that saw the first adulterers.
    [Translated by G. G. Ramsay, 1918]

    Note: Juvenal, the satirist of “saeva indignatio”,  of the cruel spite, does not resist to demystify the myth when starting this Satire he contrasts the primitive atmosphere of happiness and naturalness  to "the mother disheveled breastfeeding and husband belching acorns"

    Credo Pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam
    in terris uisamque diu, cum frigida paruas
    praeberet spelunca domos ignemque laremque
    et pecus et dominos communi clauderet umbra,
    siluestrem montana torum cum sterneret uxor               5
    frondibus et culmo uicinarumque ferarum
    pellibus, haut similis tibi, Cynthia, nec tibi, cuius
    turbauit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos,
    sed potanda ferens infantibus ubera magnis
    et saepe horridior glandem ructante marito.               10
    quippe aliter tunc orbe nouo caeloque recenti
    uiuebant homines, qui rupto robore nati
    compositiue luto nullos habuere parentes.
    multa Pudicitiae ueteris uestigia forsan
    aut aliqua exstiterint et sub Ioue, sed Ioue nondum               15
    barbato, nondum Graecis iurare paratis
    per caput alterius, cum furem nemo timeret
    caulibus ac pomis et aperto uiueret horto.
    paulatim deinde ad superos Astraea recessit
    hac comite, atque duae pariter fugere sorores.               20
    anticum et uetus est alienum, Postume, lectum
    concutere atque sacri genium contemnere fulcri.
    omne aliud crimen mox ferrea protulit aetas:
    uiderunt primos argentea saecula moechos.

  • The myth of the ages or races of man

    The old myth of the ages or races of man, with a first gold age which degenerates to the hard and fierce iron age as the moral behavior of man worsens, exists in many literatures. A thousand times told in antiquity and since antiquity, it was sufficiently known by Cervantes who was influenced significantly by it: after all, the “Knight of the Sorrowful Figure” aims to create a better world, perhaps like that existed in the “golden age”, judging by the presence which this illusion has in Don Quixote.

    Some authors consider Don Quixote as an expression of another Utopia  in the style of these of philosophers or historians. It is not so sure, but certainly it comes through in the background a desire to correct the problems in this world to create a better world free of injustice, represented perfectly by Don Quixote and Sancho himself, who will be contaminated and becomes participant of the pursued objective by the knight.

    I reproduce  the full version which gives Cervantes in Don Quixote and then the story of Hesiod, who is the first of the Ancient we maintain. In a separate article I will collect  several other older versions to give the reader a better idea of the importance of this myth in literary creativity since ancient times. It is all a tribute to the survival of ancient myths on Cervantes.

    Don Quixote, I, 11

    The goatherds did not understand this jargon about squires and knights-errant, and all they did was to eat in silence and stare at their guests, who with great elegance and appetite were stowing away pieces as big as one's fist. The course of meat finished, they spread upon the sheepskins a great heap of parched acorns, and with them they put down a half cheese harder than if it had been made of mortar. All this while the horn was not idle, for it went round so constantly, now full, now empty, like the bucket of a water-wheel, that it soon drained one of the two wine-skins that were in sight. When Don Quixote had quite appeased his appetite he took up a handful of the acorns, and contemplating them attentively delivered himself somewhat in this fashion:

    "Happy the age, happy the time, to which the ancients gave the name of golden, not because in that fortunate age the gold so coveted in this our iron one was gained without toil, but because they that lived in it knew not the two words "mine" and "thine"! In that blessed age all things were in common; to win the daily food no labour was required of any save to stretch forth his hand and gather it from the sturdy oaks that stood generously inviting him with their sweet ripe fruit. The clear streams and running brooks yielded their savoury limpid waters in noble abundance. The busy and sagacious bees fixed their republic in the clefts of the rocks and hollows of the trees, offering without usance the plenteous produce of their fragrant toil to every hand. The mighty cork trees, unenforced save of their own courtesy, shed the broad light bark that served at first to roof the houses supported by rude stakes, a protection against the inclemency of heaven alone. Then all was peace, all friendship, all concord; as yet the dull share of the crooked plough had not dared to rend and pierce the tender bowels of our first mother that without compulsion yielded from every portion of her broad fertile bosom all that could satisfy, sustain, and delight the children that then possessed her. Then was it that the innocent and fair young shepherdess roamed from vale to vale and hill to hill, with flowing locks, and no more garments than were needful modestly to cover what modesty seeks and ever sought to hide. Nor were their ornaments like those in use to-day, set off by Tyrian purple, and silk tortured in endless fashions, but the wreathed leaves of the green dock and ivy, wherewith they went as bravely and becomingly decked as our Court dames with all the rare and far-fetched artifices that idle curiosity has taught them. Then the love-thoughts of the heart clothed themselves simply and naturally as the heart conceived them, nor sought to commend themselves by forced and rambling verbiage. Fraud, deceit, or malice had then not yet mingled with truth and sincerity. Justice held her ground, undisturbed and unassailed by the efforts of favour and of interest, that now so much impair, pervert, and beset her. Arbitrary law had not yet established itself in the mind of the judge, for then there was no cause to judge and no one to be judged. Maidens and modesty, as I have said, wandered at will alone and unattended, without fear of insult from lawlessness or libertine assault, and if they were undone it was of their own will and pleasure. But now in this hateful age of ours not one is safe, not though some new labyrinth like that of Crete conceal and surround her; even there the pestilence of gallantry will make its way to them through chinks or on the air by the zeal of its accursed importunity, and, despite of all seclusion, lead them to ruin. In defence of these, as time advanced and wickedness increased, the order of knights-errant was instituted, to defend maidens, to protect widows and to succour the orphans and the needy. To this order I belong, brother goatherds, to whom I return thanks for the hospitality and kindly welcome ye offer me and my squire; for though by natural law all living are bound to show favour to knights-errant, yet, seeing that without knowing this obligation ye have welcomed and feasted me, it is right that with all the good-will in my power I should thank you for yours."

    All this long harangue (which might very well have been spared) our knight delivered because the acorns they gave him reminded him of the golden age; and the whim seized him to address all this unnecessary argument to the goatherds, who listened to him gaping in amazement without saying a word in reply. Sancho likewise held his peace and ate acorns, and paid repeated visits to the second wine-skin, which they had hung up on a cork tree to keep the wine cool. (Translated by John Ormsby,)

    ….
    No entendían los cabreros aquella jerigonza de escuderos y de caballeros andantes, y no hacían otra cosa que comer y callar, y mirar a sus huéspedes, que, con mucho donaire y gana, embaulaban tasajo como el puño. Acabado el servicio de carne, tendieron sobre las zaleas gran cantidad de bellotas avellanadas, y juntamente pusieron un medio queso, más duro que si fuera hecho de argamasa. No estaba, en esto, ocioso el cuerno, porque andaba a la redonda tan a menudo (ya lleno, ya vacío, como arcaduz de noria) que con facilidad vació un zaque de dos que estaban de manifiesto. Después que don Quijote hubo bien satisfecho su estómago, tomó un puño de bellotas en la mano, y, mirándolas atentamente, soltó la voz a semejantes razones:

    –Dichosa edad y siglos dichosos aquéllos a quien los antiguos pusieron nombre de dorados, y no porque en ellos el oro, que en esta nuestra edad de hierro tanto se estima, se alcanzase en aquella venturosa sin fatiga alguna, sino porque entonces los que en ella vivían ignoraban estas dos palabras de tuyo y mío. Eran en aquella santa edad todas las cosas comunes; a nadie le era necesario, para alcanzar su ordinario sustento, tomar otro trabajo que alzar la mano y alcanzarle de las robustas encinas, que liberalmente les estaban convidando con su dulce y sazonado fruto. Las claras fuentes y corrientes ríos, en magnífica abundancia, sabrosas y transparentes aguas les ofrecían. En las quiebras de las peñas y en lo hueco de los árboles formaban su república las solícitas y discretas abejas, ofreciendo a cualquiera mano, sin interés alguno, la fértil cosecha de su dulcísimo trabajo. Los valientes alcornoques despedían de sí, sin otro artificio que el de su cortesía, sus anchas y livianas cortezas, con que se comenzaron a cubrir las casas, sobre rústicas estacas sustentadas, no más que para defensa de las inclemencias del cielo. Todo era paz entonces, todo amistad, todo concordia; aún no se había atrevido la pesada reja del corvo arado a abrir ni visitar las entrañas piadosas de nuestra primera madre, que ella, sin ser forzada, ofrecía, por todas las partes de su fértil y espacioso seno, lo que pudiese hartar, sustentar y deleitar a los hijos que entonces la poseían. Entonces sí que andaban las simples y hermosas zagalejas de valle en valle y de otero en otero, en trenza y en cabello, sin más vestidos de aquellos que eran menester para cubrir honestamente lo que la honestidad quiere y ha querido siempre que se cubra; y no eran sus adornos de los que ahora se usan, a quien la púrpura de Tiro y la por tantos modos martirizada seda encarecen, sino de algunas hojas verdes de lampazos y yedra entretejidas, con lo que quizá iban tan pomposas y compuestas como van agora nuestras cortesanas con las raras y peregrinas invenciones que la curiosidad ociosa les ha mostrado. Entonces se decoraban los conceptos amorosos del alma simple y sencillamente, del mesmo modo y manera que ella los concebía, sin buscar artificioso rodeo de palabras para encarecerlos. No había la fraude, el engaño ni la malicia mezclándose con la verdad y llaneza. La justicia se estaba en sus propios términos, sin que la osasen turbar ni ofender los del favor y los del interese, que tanto ahora la menoscaban, turban y persiguen. La ley del encaje aún no se había sentado en el entendimiento del juez, porque entonces no había qué juzgar, ni quién fuese juzgado. Las doncellas y la honestidad andaban, como tengo dicho, por dondequiera, sola y señora, sin temor que la ajena desenvoltura y lascivo intento le menoscabasen, y su perdición nacía de su gusto y propria voluntad. Y agora, en estos nuestros detestables siglos, no está segura ninguna, aunque la oculte y cierre otro nuevo laberinto como el de Creta; porque allí, por los resquicios o por el aire, con el celo de la maldita solicitud, se les entra la amorosa pestilencia y les hace dar con todo su recogimiento al traste. Para cuya seguridad, andando más los tiempos y creciendo más la malicia, se instituyó la orden de los caballeros andantes, para defender las doncellas, amparar las viudas y socorrer a los huérfanos y a los menesterosos. Desta orden soy yo, hermanos cabreros, a quien agradezco el gasaje y buen acogimiento que hacéis a mí y a mi escudero; que, aunque por ley natural están todos los que viven obligados a favorecer a los caballeros andantes, todavía, por saber que sin saber vosotros esta obligación me acogistes y regalastes, es razón que, con la voluntad a mí posible, os agradezca la vuestra.

    Toda esta larga arenga –que se pudiera muy bien escusar– dijo nuestro caballero porque las bellotas que le dieron le trujeron a la memoria la edad dorada y antojósele hacer aquel inútil razonamiento a los cabreros, que, sin respondelle palabra, embobados y suspensos, le estuvieron escuchando. Sancho, asimesmo, callaba y comía bellotas, y visitaba muy a menudo el segundo zaque, que, porque se enfriase el vino, le tenían colgado de un alcornoque.

    The myth in Antiquity:

    Hesiod (lived around 700 BC) is the first Greek author who narrates this myth in his "Works and Days", v. 106-201:

    Or if you will, I will sum you up another tale well and skilfully—and do you lay it up in your heart,—how the gods and mortal men sprang from one source.

    First of all  the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaven. And they lived like gods  without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things,  rich in flocks and loved by the blessed gods. But after the earth had covered this generation—they are called pure spirits dwelling on the earth, and are kindly, delivering from harm, and guardians of mortal men; [for they roam everywhere over the earth, clothed in mist and keep watch on judgements and cruel deeds, givers of wealth; for this royal right also they received;—then they who dwell on Olympus made a second generation which was of silver and less noble by far. It was like the golden race neither in body nor in spirit.  A child was brought up at his good mother's side a hundred years, an utter simpleton, playing childishly in his own home. But when they were full grown and were come to the full measure of their prime, they lived only a little time and that in sorrow because of their foolishness, for they could not keep from sinning and  from wronging one another, nor would they serve the immortals, nor sacrifice on the holy altars of the blessed ones as it is right for men to do wherever they dwell. Then Zeus the son of Cronos was angry and put them away, because they would not give honor to the blessed gods who live on Olympus.

    But when earth had covered this generation also—they are called blessed spirits of the underworld by men, and, though they are of second order, yet honor attends them also—Zeus the Father made a third generation of mortal men, a brazen race, sprung from ash-trees; and it was in no way equal to the silver age, but was terrible and strong. They loved the lamentable works of Ares and deeds of violence; they ate no bread, but were hard of heart like adamant, fearful men. Great was their strength and unconquerable the arms which grew from their shoulders on their strong limbs. Their armor was of bronze, and their houses of bronze, and of bronze were their implements: there was no black iron. These were destroyed by their own hands and passed to the dank house of chill Hades, and left no name: terrible though they were,  black Death seized them, and they left the bright light of the sun. But when earth had covered this generation also, Zeus the son of Cronos made yet another, the fourth, upon the fruitful earth, which was nobler and more righteous, a god-like race of hero-men who are called  demi-gods, the race before our own, throughout the boundless earth. Grim war and dread battle destroyed a part of them, some in the land of Cadmus at seven-gated Thebes when they fought for the flocks of Oedipus, and some, when it had brought them in ships over the great sea gulf  to Troy for rich-haired Helen's sake: there death's end enshrouded a part of them. But to the others father Zeus the son of Cronos gave a living and an abode apart from men, and made them dwell at the ends of earth. [And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed along the shore of deep-swirling Ocean, happy heroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year, far from the deathless gods, and Cronos rules over them; for the father of men and gods released him from his bonds. And these last equally have honor and glory. And again far-seeing Zeus made yet another generation, the fifth, of men who are upon the bounteous earth.

    Thereafter, would that I were not among the men of the fifth generation, but either had died before or been born afterwards. For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labor and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon them. But, notwithstanding, even these shall have some good mingled with their evils. And Zeus will destroy this race of mortal men also when they come to have grey hair on the temples at their birth.The father will not agree with his children, nor the children with their father, nor guest with his host, nor comrade with comrade; nor will brother be dear to brother as aforetime. Men will dishonor their parents as they grow quickly old, and will carp at them, chiding them with bitter words, hard-hearted they, not knowing the fear of the gods. They will not repay their aged parents the cost of their nurture, for might shall be their right: and one man will sack another's city. There will be no favor for the man who keeps his oath or for the just or for the good; but rather men will praise the evil-doer and his violent dealing. Strength will be right, and reverence will cease to be; and the wicked will hurt the worthy man, speaking false words against him, and will swear an oath upon them. Envy, foul-mouthed, delighting in evil, with scowling face, will go along with wretched men one and all. And then Aidos and Nemesis, with their sweet forms wrapped in white robes, will go from the wide-pathed earth and forsake mankind to join the company of the deathless gods: and bitter sorrows will be left for mortal men, and there will be no help against evil.

    (English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Works and Days. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.)

  • The Classical Humanism of Cervantes

    World Book and Copyright Day is celebrated on April 23 of every year. Some curious circumstance coincided the day of the death of Cervantes in Spain, of Shakespeare in England, of Garcilaso de la Vega, the Inca, on that day. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) considered it very suitable to celebrate the existence of books and promote reading; so it has been since 1995.

    In a blog about the "Ancient world", as this is, it seems appropriate at this time to spend some commentary on the relationship between Greek and Latin literature and Cervantes and more particularly in his masterpiece "Don Quixote". And  I will devote a few lines to that.

    The life of Cervantes and his entire work takes place in the framework of the Golden Age and Spanish Humanism, as it befits to the dates of his life. So  he is steeped entirely in classicism. No one chapter of Don Quixote is in which direct or indirect reference is not found to an old classic author or character
    But not only it is interesting to collect mechanically the quotes, which I will refer below, but to detect the infinite details of that influence and overall harmony and find out to what extent affected Cervantes.

    So Cervantes is certainly not a Latin scholar, but he is a large connoisseur of all classical topical literature of the time, which  he used profusely. For example when  he speaks, on Quijote, 9 about  historians, he builds  his definition of "history" from the topical and famous sentence of Cicero; of thath usually only it  is known and cited the most elementary part:  "Historia Magistra Vitae, the history is the teacher of life ":

    Quixote, I, 9

    which is ill done and worse contrived, for it is the business and duty of historians to be exact, truthful, and wholly free from passion, and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor love, should make them swerve from the path of truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, storehouse of deeds, witness for the past, example and counsel for the present, and warning for the future (Translated by John Ormsby

    Cicero in De oratore, IX, 36

    History vero testis temporum, Lux Veritatis vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuntia vetustatis

    Don Quijote, IX

    …habiendo y debiendo ser los historiadores puntuales, verdaderos y no nada apasionados, y que ni el interés ni el miedo, el rencor ni la afición, no les haga torcer del camino de la verdad, cuya madre es la historia, émula del tiempo, depósito de las acciones, testigo de lo pasado, ejemplo y aviso de lo presente, advertencia de lo porvenir.

    His first novel, Galatea, which Cervantes himself considered a “virgilian eclogue",  is a direct descendant of the Greco-Roman bucolic; his " The Works of Persiles and Sigismunda" is an imitation of the novel "Aethiopica" (imitating Homer's Odyssey ) of Greek Heliodorus, who lived in the third or fourth centuries.

    Even it is more evident his  debt in his plays, especially the Numancia, which of course is set in the time of old Hispania. The precepts of ancient rhetoric and poetics, from Aristotle to Cicero and Horace, set the tone of the creativity of Cervantes.

    The knowledge of ancient history, the discussions about the relationships between arms and letters, between poetry and history, are raised on numerous occasions. Countless statements, aphorisms, moral precepts, sayings that are being used as topoi from antiquity, references to classical mythology, dotted everywhere life of sane mind Don Quixote.

    Moreover, some authors believe that Cervantes tries to imitate the process of creating that some see also on Virgil himself, who began writing his pastoral poetry, the Eclogues, then didactic poetry, Georgics, and finally epic poetry, Aeneid.

    This process in the Middle Ages was called the "rota Virgilii" or "wheel of Virgil" which was represented as three concentric circles. The circles correspond to the three styles of ancient rhetoric: humble (humilis), medium (mediocris) and sublime (gravis). This should be the process of every good poet. The Galatea, Don Quixote and The work of Persiles and Segismunda would be the three steps or circles of "rota" that Cervantes would have completed. But we have no evidence that this was the plan of Cervantes, though certainly he was knowledgeable of this so called "rota Virgilii" and Virgil was  the classic author most cited on Don Quixote.

    I dedicate this first article to reproduce only the idea that Cervantes has  of the importance of Greek and Latin classical studies by mouth of his characters. In a second article I will refer, by way of example, the myth of the "ages of man" and third and last (at some point I must vary from case) the famous episode of attack of "gentleman" to a large and fierce army of tame sheep, which bears some resemblance to what Homer and Sophocles told of Greek hero in the Trojan War, Ajax, of great strength and remarkable persistence and stubbornness in their decisions.

    Philologists studies devoted to these issues on the relationship of Cervantes, and more specifically the Quixote, with classical literature are numerous. Let me quote the doctoral thesis of Antonio Barnes Vázquez “Yo he leído en Virgilio. Análisis sincrónico de la tradición clásica en el Quijote. Granada, 2008)," “I read Virgil. Synchronic analysis of the classical tradition in Don Quixote”. Granada, 1008), from which I extract some data I offer below.

    Antonio Barnes notes in Donl Quixote 1274 references to the classical world, 531 in the first half and 743 in the second. Of these 472 relate to any Greek or Roman author. According to Barnes there they appear 62 Greek or Roman authors, 37 Latin and 25 Greeks. The most represented are: Virgil 94 times, 58 Ovid, Homer 47, 46 Aristotle, Horace 45, Plato 32, 31 Cicero, Pliny the Elder 30, Seneca 19, Plutarch 12, Titus Livius 10, Aesop and Cato 9, Caesar 8; Ptolemy and Quintilian 6; Lucian, Aulus Gellius and Juvenal 5; Demosthenes, Isocrates, Apuleius, Marcial, Suetonius 4; Hippocrates, Xenophon, Pythagoras, Phaedrus, Quintus Curtius, Tacitus, Terence 3; Herodotus, Boethius, Claudius Donatus, Lucan, Macrobius, Plautus 2; Achilles Tatius, Arrian, Democritus, Strabo, Heliodorus, Hesiod, Pindar, Sextus Empiricus, Socrates, Theopompus, Tirteus, Zoilus, Appius Claudius, Catullus, Frontinus, Hyginus, Nepos, Papinianus, Persius, Pliny the Younger, Pomponius Mela, Propertius, Publilius Syrus, Sallust, Tibullus 1 (one time).

    And all this just in Don Quixote. So the field in which the curious reader can glean is immense.

    herefore, by way of summary I reproduce Chapter XVI of the II part where Cervantes leaves us his vision of the importance of the humanities.

    From this last observation of Don Quixote's, the traveller began to have a suspicion that he was some crazy being, and was waiting him to confirm it by something further; but before they could turn to any new subject Don Quixote begged him to tell him who he was, since he himself had rendered account of his station and life. To this, he in the green gaban replied "I, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, am a gentleman by birth, native of the village where, please God, we are going to dine today; I am more than fairly well off, and my name is Don Diego de Miranda. I pass my life with my wife, children, and friends; my pursuits are hunting and fishing, but I keep neither hawks nor greyhounds, nothing but a tame partridge or a bold ferret or two; I have six dozen or so of books, some in our mother tongue, some Latin, some of them history, others devotional; those of chivalry have not as yet crossed the threshold of my door; I am more given to turning over the profane than the devotional, so long as they are books of honest entertainment that charm by their style and attract and interest by the invention they display, though of these there are very few in Spain. Sometimes I dine with my neighbours and friends, and often invite them; my entertainments are neat and well served without stint of anything. I have no taste for tattle, nor do I allow tattling in my presence; I pry not into my neighbours' lives, nor have I lynx-eyes for what others do. I hear mass every day; I share my substance with the poor, making no display of good works, lest I let hypocrisy and vainglory, those enemies that subtly take possession of the most watchful heart, find an entrance into mine. I strive to make peace between those whom I know to be at variance; I am the devoted servant of Our Lady, and my trust is ever in the infinite mercy of God our Lord."

    Sancho listened with the greatest attention to the account of the gentleman's life and occupation; and thinking it a good and a holy life, and that he who led it ought to work miracles, he threw himself off Dapple, and running in haste seized his right stirrup and kissed his foot again and again with a devout heart and almost with tears.

    Seeing this the gentleman asked him, "What are you about, brother? What are these kisses for?"

    "Let me kiss," said Sancho, "for I think your worship is the first saint in the saddle I ever saw all the days of my life."

    "I am no saint," replied the gentleman, "but a great sinner; but you are, brother, for you must be a good fellow, as your simplicity shows."

    Sancho went back and regained his pack-saddle, having extracted a laugh from his master's profound melancholy, and excited fresh amazement in Don Diego. Don Quixote then asked him how many children he had, and observed that one of the things wherein the ancient philosophers, who were without the true knowledge of God, placed the summum bonum was in the gifts of nature, in those of fortune, in having many friends, and many and good children.

    "I, Senor Don Quixote," answered the gentleman, "have one son, without whom, perhaps, I should count myself happier than I am, not because he is a bad son, but because he is not so good as I could wish. He is eighteen years of age; he has been for six at Salamanca studying Latin and Greek, and when I wished him to turn to the study of other sciences I found him so wrapped up in that of poetry (if that can be called a science) that there is no getting him to take kindly to the law, which I wished him to study, or to theology, the queen of them all. I would like him to be an honour to his family, as we live in days when our kings liberally reward learning that is virtuous and worthy; for learning without virtue is a pearl on a dunghill. He spends the whole day in settling whether Homer expressed himself correctly or not in such and such a line of the Iliad, whether Martial was indecent or not in such and such an epigram, whether such and such lines of Virgil are to be understood in this way or in that; in short, all his talk is of the works of these poets, and those of Horace, Perseus, Juvenal, and Tibullus; for of the moderns in our own language he makes no great account; but with all his seeming indifference to Spanish poetry, just now his thoughts are absorbed in making a gloss on four lines that have been sent him from Salamanca, which I suspect are for some poetical tournament."

    To all this Don Quixote said in reply, "Children, senor, are portions of their parents' bowels, and therefore, be they good or bad, are to be loved as we love the souls that give us life; it is for the parents to guide them from infancy in the ways of virtue, propriety, and worthy Christian conduct, so that when grown up they may be the staff of their parents' old age, and the glory of their posterity; and to force them to study this or that science I do not think wise, though it may be no harm to persuade them; and when there is no need to study for the sake of pane lucrando, and it is the student's good fortune that heaven has given him parents who provide him with it, it would be my advice to them to let him pursue whatever science they may see him most inclined to; and though that of poetry is less useful than pleasurable, it is not one of those that bring discredit upon the possessor. Poetry, gentle sir, is, as I take it, like a tender young maiden of supreme beauty, to array, bedeck, and adorn whom is the task of several other maidens, who are all the rest of the sciences; and she must avail herself of the help of all, and all derive their lustre from her. But this maiden will not bear to be handled, nor dragged through the streets, nor exposed either at the corners of the market-places, or in the closets of palaces. She is the product of an Alchemy of such virtue that he who is able to practise it, will turn her into pure gold of inestimable worth. He that possesses her must keep her within bounds, not permitting her to break out in ribald satires or soulless sonnets. She must on no account be offered for sale, unless, indeed, it be in heroic poems, moving tragedies, or sprightly and ingenious comedies. She must not be touched by the buffoons, nor by the ignorant vulgar, incapable of comprehending or appreciating her hidden treasures. And do not suppose, senor, that I apply the term vulgar here merely to plebeians and the lower orders; for everyone who is ignorant, be he lord or prince, may and should be included among the vulgar. He, then, who shall embrace and cultivate poetry under the conditions I have named, shall become famous, and his name honoured throughout all the civilised nations of the earth. And with regard to what you say, senor, of your son having no great opinion of Spanish poetry, I am inclined to think that he is not quite right there, and for this reason: the great poet Homer did not write in Latin, because he was a Greek, nor did Virgil write in Greek, because he was a Latin; in short, all the ancient poets wrote in the language they imbibed with their mother's milk, and never went in quest of foreign ones to express their sublime conceptions; and that being so, the usage should in justice extend to all nations, and the German poet should not be undervalued because he writes in his own language, nor the Castilian, nor even the Biscayan, for writing in his. But your son, senor, I suspect, is not prejudiced against Spanish poetry, but against those poets who are mere Spanish verse writers, without any knowledge of other languages or sciences to adorn and give life and vigour to their natural inspiration; and yet even in this he may be wrong; for, according to a true belief, a poet is born one; that is to say, the poet by nature comes forth a poet from his mother's womb; and following the bent that heaven has bestowed upon him, without the aid of study or art, he produces things that show how truly he spoke who said, 'Est Deus in nobis,' etc. At the same time, I say that the poet by nature who calls in art to his aid will be a far better poet, and will surpass him who tries to be one relying upon his knowledge of art alone. The reason is, that art does not surpass nature, but only brings it to perfection; and thus, nature combined with art, and art with nature, will produce a perfect poet. To bring my argument to a close, I would say then, gentle sir, let your son go on as his star leads him, for being so studious as he seems to be, and having already successfully surmounted the first step of the sciences, which is that of the languages, with their help he will by his own exertions reach the summit of polite literature, which so well becomes an independent gentleman, and adorns, honours, and distinguishes him, as much as the mitre does the bishop, or the gown the learned counsellor. If your son write satires reflecting on the honour of others, chide and correct him, and tear them up; but if he compose discourses in which he rebukes vice in general, in the style of Horace, and with elegance like his, commend him; for it is legitimate for a poet to write against envy and lash the envious in his verse, and the other vices too, provided he does not single out individuals; there are, however, poets who, for the sake of saying something spiteful, would run the risk of being banished to the coast of Pontus. If the poet be pure in his morals, he will be pure in his verses too; the pen is the tongue of the mind, and as the thought engendered there, so will be the things that it writes down. And when kings and princes observe this marvellous science of poetry in wise, virtuous, and thoughtful subjects, they honour, value, exalt them, and even crown them with the leaves of that tree which the thunderbolt strikes not, as if to show that they whose brows are honoured and adorned with such a crown are not to be assailed by anyone."

    He of the green gaban was filled with astonishment at Don Quixote's argument, so much so that he began to abandon the notion he had taken up about his being crazy. But in the middle of the discourse, it being not very much to his taste, Sancho had turned aside out of the road to beg a little milk from some shepherds, who were milking their ewes hard by; and just as the gentleman, highly pleased, was about to renew the conversation, Don Quixote, raising his head, perceived a cart covered with royal flags coming along the road they were travelling; and persuaded that this must be some new adventure, he called aloud to Sancho to come and bring him his helmet. Sancho, hearing himself called, quitted the shepherds, and, prodding Dapple vigorously, came up to his master, to whom there fell a terrific and desperate adventure. (Translated by John Ormsby)

    Desta última razón de don Quijote tomó barruntos el caminante de que don Quijote debía de ser algún mentecato, y aguardaba que con otras lo confirmase; pero, antes que se divertiesen en otros razonamientos, don Quijote le rogó le dijese quién era, pues él le había dado parte de su condición y de su vida. A lo que respondió el del Verde Gabán:

    –Yo, señor Caballero de la Triste Figura, soy un hidalgo natural de un lugar donde iremos a comer hoy, si Dios fuere servido. Soy más que medianamente rico y es mi nombre don Diego de Miranda; paso la vida con mi mujer, y con mis hijos, y con mis amigos; mis ejercicios son el de la caza y pesca, pero no mantengo ni halcón ni galgos, sino algún perdigón manso, o algún hurón atrevido. Tengo hasta seis docenas de libros, cuáles de romance y cuáles de latín, de historia algunos y de devoción otros; los de caballerías aún no han entrado por los umbrales de mis puertas. Hojeo más los que son profanos que los devotos, como sean de honesto entretenimiento, que deleiten con el lenguaje y admiren y suspendan con la invención, puesto que déstos hay muy pocos en España. Alguna vez como con mis vecinos y amigos, y muchas veces los convido; son mis convites limpios y aseados, y no nada escasos; ni gusto de murmurar, ni consiento que delante de mí se murmure; no escudriño las vidas ajenas, ni soy lince de los hechos de los otros; oigo misa cada día; reparto de mis bienes con los pobres, sin hacer alarde de las buenas obras, por no dar entrada en mi corazón a la hipocresía y vanagloria, enemigos que blandamente se apoderan del corazón más recatado; procuro poner en paz los que sé que están desavenidos; soy devoto de nuestra Señora, y confío siempre en la misericordia infinita de Dios nuestro Señor.

    Atentísimo estuvo Sancho a la relación de la vida y entretenimientos del hidalgo; y, pareciéndole buena y santa y que quien la hacía debía de hacer milagros, se arrojó del rucio, y con gran priesa le fue a asir del estribo derecho, y con devoto corazón y casi lágrimas le besó los pies una y muchas veces. Visto lo cual por el hidalgo, le preguntó:

    –¿Qué hacéis, hermano? ¿Qué besos son éstos?

    –Déjenme besar –respondió Sancho–, porque me parece vuesa merced el primer santo a la jineta que he visto en todos los días de mi vida.

    –No soy santo –respondió el hidalgo–, sino gran pecador; vos sí, hermano, que debéis de ser bueno, como vuestra simplicidad lo muestra.

    Volvió Sancho a cobrar la albarda, habiendo sacado a plaza la risa de la profunda malencolía de su amo y causado nueva admiración a don Diego. Preguntóle don Quijote que cuántos hijos tenía, y díjole que una de las cosas en que ponían el sumo bien los antiguos filósofos, que carecieron del verdadero conocimiento de Dios, fue en los bienes de la naturaleza, en los de la fortuna, en tener muchos amigos y en tener muchos y buenos hijos.

    –Yo, señor don Quijote –respondió el hidalgo–, tengo un hijo, que, a no tenerle, quizá me juzgara por más dichoso de lo que soy; y no porque él sea malo, sino porque no es tan bueno como yo quisiera. Será de edad de diez y ocho años: los seis ha estado en Salamanca, aprendiendo las lenguas latina y griega; y, cuando quise que pasase a estudiar otras ciencias, halléle tan embebido en la de la poesía, si es que se puede llamar ciencia, que no es posible hacerle arrostrar la de las leyes, que yo quisiera que estudiara, ni de la reina de todas, la teología. Qu[i]siera yo que fuera corona de su linaje, pues vivimos en siglo donde nuestros reyes premian altamente las virtuosas y buenas letras; porque letras sin virtud son perlas en el muladar. Todo el día se le pasa en averiguar si dijo bien o mal Homero en tal verso de la Ilíada; si Marcial anduvo deshonesto, o no, en tal epigrama; si se han de entender de una manera o otra tales y tales versos de Virgilio. En fin, todas sus conversaciones son con los libros de los referidos poetas, y con los de Horacio, Persio, Juvenal y Tibulo; que de los modernos romancistas no hace mucha cuenta; y, con todo el mal cariño que muestra tener a la poesía de romance, le tiene agora desvanecidos los pensamientos el hacer una glosa a cuatro versos que le han enviado de Salamanca, y pienso que son de justa literaria.

    A todo lo cual respondió don Quijote:

    –Los hijos, señor, son pedazos de las entrañas de sus padres, y así, se han de querer, o buenos o malos que sean, como se quieren las almas que nos dan vida; a los padres toca el encaminarlos desde pequeños por los pasos de la virtud, de la buena crianza y de las buenas y cristianas costumbres, para que cuando grandes sean báculo de la vejez de sus padres y gloria de su posteridad; y en lo de forzarles que estudien esta o aquella ciencia no lo tengo por acertado, aunque el persuadirles no será dañoso; y cuando no se ha de estudiar para pane lucrando, siendo tan venturoso el estudiante que le dio el cielo padres que se lo dejen, sería yo de parecer que le dejen seguir aquella ciencia a que más le vieren inclinado; y, aunque la de la poesía es menos útil que deleitable, no es de aquellas que suelen deshonrar a quien las posee. La poesía, señor hidalgo, a mi parecer, es como una doncella tierna y de poca edad, y en todo estremo hermosa, a quien tienen cuidado de enriquecer, pulir y adornar otras muchas doncellas, que son todas las otras ciencias, y ella se ha de servir de todas, y todas se han de autorizar con ella; pero esta tal doncella no quiere ser manoseada, ni traída por las calles, ni publicada por las esquinas de las plazas ni por los rincones de los palacios. Ella es hecha de una alquimia de tal virtud, que quien la sabe tratar la volverá en oro purísimo de inestimable precio; hala de tener, el que la tuviere, a raya, no dejándola correr en torpes sátiras ni en desalmados sonetos; no ha de ser vendible en ninguna manera, si ya no fuere en poemas heroicos, en lamentables tragedias, o en comedias alegres y artificiosas; no se ha de dejar tratar de los truhanes, ni del ignorante vulgo, incapaz de conocer ni estimar los tesoros que en ella se encierran. Y no penséis, señor, que yo llamo aquí vulgo solamente a la gente plebeya y humilde; que todo aquel que no sabe, aunque sea señor y príncipe, puede y debe entrar en número de vulgo. Y así, el que con los requisitos que he dicho tratare y tuviere a la poesía, será famoso y estimado su nombre en todas las naciones políticas del mundo. Y a lo que decís, señor, que vuestro hijo no estima mucho la poesía de romance, doyme a entender que no anda muy acertado en ello, y la razón es ésta: el grande Homero no escribió en latín, porque era griego, ni Virgilio no escribió en griego, porque era latino. En resolución, todos los poetas antiguos escribieron en la lengua que mamaron en la leche, y no fueron a buscar las estranjeras para declarar la alteza de sus conceptos. Y, siendo esto así, razón sería se estendiese esta costumbre por todas las naciones, y que no se desestimase el poeta alemán porque escribe en su lengua, ni el castellano, ni aun el vizcaíno, que escribe en la suya. Pero vuestro hijo, a lo que yo, señor, imagino, no debe de estar mal con la poesía de romance, sino con los poetas que son meros romancistas, sin saber otras lenguas ni otras ciencias que adornen y despierten y ayuden a su natural impulso; y aun en esto puede haber yerro; porque, según es opinión verdadera, el poeta nace: quieren decir que del vientre de su madre el poeta natural sale poeta; y, con aquella inclinación que le dio el cielo, sin más estudio ni artificio, compone cosas, que hace verdadero al que dijo: est Deus in nobis…, etcétera. También digo que el natural poeta que se ayudare del arte será mucho mejor y se aventajará al poeta que sólo por saber el arte quisiere serlo; la razón es porque el arte no se aventaja a la naturaleza, sino perficiónala; así que, mezcladas la naturaleza y el arte, y el arte con la naturaleza, sacarán un perfetísimo poeta. Sea, pues, la conclusión de mi plática, señor hidalgo, que vuesa merced deje caminar a su hijo por donde su estrella le llama; que, siendo él tan buen estudiante como debe de ser, y habiendo ya subido felicemente el primer escalón de las esencias, que es el de las lenguas, con ellas por sí mesmo subirá a la cumbre de las letras humanas, las cuales tan bien parecen en un caballero de capa y espada, y así le adornan, honran y engrandecen, como las mitras a los obispos, o como las garnachas a los peritos jurisconsultos. Riña vuesa merced a su hijo si hiciere sátiras que perjudiquen las honras ajenas, y castíguele, y rómpaselas, pero si hiciere sermones al modo de Horacio, donde reprehenda los vicios en general, como tan elegantemente él lo hizo, alábele: porque lícito es al poeta escribir contra la invidia, y decir en sus versos mal de los invidiosos, y así de los otros vicios, con que no señale persona alguna; pero hay poetas que, a trueco de decir una malicia, se pondrán a peligro que los destierren a las islas de Ponto. Si el poeta fuere casto en sus costumbres, lo será también en sus versos; la pluma es lengua del alma: cuales fueren los conceptos que en ella se engendraren, tales serán sus escritos; y cuando los reyes y príncipes veen la milagrosa ciencia de la poesía en sujetos prudentes, virtuosos y graves, los honran, los estiman y los enriquecen, y aun los coronan con las hojas del árbol a quien no ofende el rayo, como en señal que no han de ser ofendidos de nadie los que con tales coronas veen honrados y adornadas sus sienes.

    Admirado quedó el del Verde Gabán del razonamiento de don Quijote, y tanto, que fue perdiendo de la opinión que con él tenía, de ser mentecato. Pero, a la mitad desta plática, Sancho, por no ser muy de su gusto, se había desviado del camino a pedir un poco de leche a unos pastores que allí junto estaban ordeñando unas ovejas; y, en esto, ya volvía a renovar la plática el hidalgo, satisfecho en estremo de la discreción y buen discurso de don Quijote, cuando, alzando don Quijote la cabeza, vio que por el camino por donde ellos iban venía un carro lleno de banderas reales; y, creyendo que debía de ser alguna nueva aventura, a grandes voces llamó a Sancho que viniese a darle la celada. El cual Sancho, oyéndose llamar, dejó a los pastores, y a toda priesa picó al rucio, y llegó donde su amo estaba, a quien sucedió una espantosa y desatinada aventura.

  • The man is a political animal (Zoon politikon, ζῷον πoλιτικόν)

    We must to be politically correct. But what does this “hackneyed” phrase meant on these days? There is no doubt it referrs to the obviously hypocritical attitude with which people, especially those who play a “political” function, should act to citizens, expressing just what your listeners want to hear or at least it which

    Interestingly, the first duty of those who express political correctness seems not defend nor positively assess the political activity itself, now absolutely despised and devalued in some countries like Spain. It is true that recent history offers many reasons for this disaffection with politics.

    And yet it is the most noble and lofty absolutely necessary activity.

    I know that the two texts of Aristotle, which I reproduce below, will not change the view of the majority of readers, despite the enormous authority that Aristotle has had throughout history until recently. Today it is not "politically correct" to recognize the scientific, moral or political  "authority" of a person.

    But  the aim of this blog is to help meet the ancient world in its relation to the current.

    As I said in the previous article in this blog, (https://www.antiquitatem.com/en/gerontocracy-argument-of-authority-  ) Aristotle (384-322 BC) was a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He created the first great philosophical system,  precisely it that most has influenced on Western culture for over two thousand years. In that system he studies the physical world (Physics), the being and the causes of things (Metaphysics) and the man himself and his behavior (Ethics). His most important work about human behavior is called  Nicomachean Ethics (Ethics for Nicomachus, who was his son).

    Precisely this work begins with the famous statement that "good is that to which all things aim." We should therefore find out what is the good which man pursues. This good, which he will then determine, is happiness, fulfillment as a man, eudaimonia, tells us it  belongs to politics, supreme managerial activity:

    Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I,2 (1094a-b):

    Now it would seem that this supreme End must be the object of the most authoritative of the sciences—some science which is pre-eminently a master-craft.  But such is manifestly the science of Politics;  for it is this that ordains which of the sciences are to exist in states, and what branches of knowledge the different classes of the citizens are to learn, and up to what point; and we observe that even the most highly esteemed of the faculties, such as strategy, domestic economy, oratory, are subordinate to the political science.  Inasmuch then as the rest of the sciences are employed by this one, and as it moreover lays down laws as to what people shall do and what things they shall refrain from doing, the end of this science must include the ends of all the others. Therefore, the Good of man must be the end of the science of Politics.  For even though it be the case that the Good is the same for the individual and for the state, nevertheless, the good of the state is manifestly a greater and more perfect good, both to attain and to preserve.To secure the good of one person only is better than nothing; but to secure the good of a nation or a state is a nobler and more divine achievement. (Translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934).

    In the Greece of the time there were no large states or empires but the called "city-states", the polis, political space consisting of a city small by today's standards with its adjacent territory. It is very difficult to know the demographics of antiquity, but in the case of Athens in the classical period, V-IV centuries BC, the extent of the polis was approximately 2,500 square kilometers and its population, at its best, divided into 140 demos or local communities could be about 300,000, of which they are only citizens with full rights 45,000 (Athenians free males over twenty years) and with their families could reach 150,000 people;; the metic  with their families (free but not citizens) 40,000; 110,000 slaves. According to Aristotle himself in his Constitution of the Athenians, fragment 5:

    On Lexicon Patm. p. 152 Sakkel.

    . . . As Aristotle narrates in his Athenian Constitution, where he says: 'And they were grouped in four tribal divisions in imitation of the seasons in the year, and each of the tribes was divided into three parts, in order that there might be twelve parts in all, like the months of the year, and they were called Thirds and Brotherhoods; and the arrangement of clans was in groups of thirty to the brotherhood, as the days to the month, and the clan consisted of thirty men. (translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1952.)

    After Cleisthenes' reforms, 510 B.C., there were ten tribes, each divided into Thirds and also into ten or more Demes; each Deme was divided into Brotherhoods (number unknown), and these perhaps into Clans. (Notes of H.Rackham)

    If in this context of population and reduced space,  politics is absolutely necessary to organize social life, how can be neglected it today in our countries and states with multimillion population?

    The importance that the Greeks and generally ancient granted to political life is the result of a generalized idea brilliantly expressed by Aristotle himself, for whom the "Man is a social, a political animal", ie man is made to live in a polis, in a city; the lonely man is a bitch. This is the famous expression  ζῷον πoλιτικόν (zôion, "animal" and, politikon political;  social, civic animal).

    He  reads it in this same work Nicomachean Ethics, 1097b

    "… since man is by nature a social being,"  (a political  thing) .

    but he had commented it widely in his Politics I, 2, 1253a2 (where he adds ζῷον, ‘a political animal.):

    From these things therefore it is clear that the city-state is a natural growth, and that man is by nature a political animal, and a man that is by nature and not merely by fortune citiless is either low in the scale of humanity or above it （like the “ clanless, lawless, hearthless

    ” man reviled by Homer, (Iliada, IX,63)  for one by nature unsocial is also ‘a lover of war’） inasmuch as he is solitary, like an isolated piece at draughts. And why man is a political animal in a greater measure than any bee or any gregarious animal is clear. For nature, as we declare, does nothing without purpose; and man alone of the animals possesses speech. The mere voice, it is true, can indicate pain and pleasure, and therefore is possessed by the other animals as well （for their nature has been developed so far as to have sensations of what is painful and pleasant and to indicate those sensations to one another）, but speech is designed to indicate the advantageous and the harmful, and therefore also the right and the wrong; for it is the special property of man in distinction from the other animals that he alone has perception of good and bad and right and wrong and the other moral qualities, and it is partnership in these things that makes a household and a city-state.

    Thus also the city-state is prior in nature to the household and to each of us individually. [20] For the whole must necessarily be prior to the part; (translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1944.)

    Indeed, in the first text we read that the "economy", as the other powers and sciences, must be subordinated to the "political". Not bad advice in these times when  the economy and all production is subordinated to monetary gain.

  • “The experience, the universal mother of sicences” (Don Quxote, I,21) / “Magister dixit”/ “Roma locuta, causa finita”

    Naturally, the experience is acquired with practice and it needs time; so the experience is typical of people of a certain age old. It is precisely the repetition of the action and the memory of what was done and how it was done that gives “knowledge” to the man. To this it must be added the need for cohesion of the social group facing a difficult life and livelihood. This largely explains the respect and consideration to the “authority” of the elderly.

    Far from my intention to belittle the participation of youth in social life, including work stations and places of managerial responsibility. In the current context, especially the political, such an attitude, besides misunderstood, would be suicidal. Far from me also the proposal of any gerontocracy or government of oldest (from Greek γέρων, γεροντος, geron, gerontos, old, elderly). But today, when so many principles have fallen, one of which made it more precipitously has been the called "principle of authority", by  which hitherto they are recognized values such as experience, accumulated knowledge, the right and proportional response to unexpected situations, etc

    The "auctoritas", "authority" is the quality that in the ancient world, and in the present, bases and gives strength and prestige to numerous events, including many legal acts. The auctoritas is the quality of auctor, and auctor (from Latin verb aucto and this from augeo, enhance, promote …) is the one who  gives his approval, support the act of another person, because that auctor enjoys the prestige.

    In the early Roman world prestige was given by the assent of the gods, because it  had the "auspicious" or divine approval. Under this power the father gives his auctoritas to marriage of the daughter, or the election give it to some signed pacts, or priest fixed the space of the sacred, or the judge sets what is  legitimate.

    It's easy to understand how this meaning was generalized and came to refer to the "moral authority" or confidence that inspires and produces one person over the other.

    It is true that in antiquity and practically until yesterday, the power, including formal, was hoarded and monopolized by parents, by elderly. That was the patriarchal society that excluded young people and women.

    Generally in primitive tribal cultures the "council of elders" is an essential institution. This institution was transformed and adapted, leading to institutions that maintained and preserved some of the main features. So the assembly of elders of Sparta, precisely called "gerousia" (from the Greek γερουσία of γέρων, γεροντος, geron, gerontos, elderly), consisting of thirty members, 28 elected elders not less than sixty years old (then very high age) and the existing two kings. It was a supreme court justice and a military council.

    In Rome the most powerful institution, that really ruled but it did not hold any executive power, is the "Senate" or assembly of elders, senes, the oldest, our "seniors" .

    In all cultures they were similar the role and power of the "older". And in all there has been the "question or generational conflict". Nowhere as in our culture it has been produced such devaluation of "senescence" expelling of work  mature well experienced professionals 50 years old or bright academic minds  a few more old, hopefully 65, often in the best intellecutal production time. I say sixty-five years, because it is the mandatory date in the administrative "death" occurs.

    Of course this sad reality contrasts with mythical and reverential respect  in which Roman children and youth were educated; of that it can be an expression the text of Juvenal, a Roman acid satirist who lived between 60 and 128 AD, which appears in his Satire XIII, 53-59, when he refers  to the first age of men:

    Dishonesty was a prodigy in those days; men deemed it a heinous sin, worthy of death, if a youth did not rise before his elders, or a boy before any bearded man, though he himself might see more strawberries, and bigger heaps of acorns, in his own home. So worshipful was it to be older by four years, so equal to reverend age was the first down of manhood! (Translated by G. G. Ramsay)

    Note: In the primitive and happy time without evil men naturally fed wild berries or strawberries and acorns. However, we should know that childhood lasted until about fourteen, when the first fuzz beard appeared and adolescence began lasted until  thirty and youth until forty or forty-five.

    inprobitas illo fuit admirabilis aeuo,
    credebant quo grande nefas et morte piandum
    si iuuenis uetulo non adsurrexerat et si              
    barbato cuicumque puer, licet ipse uideret
    plura domi fraga et maiores glandis aceruos;
    tam uenerabile erat praecedere quattuor annis
    primaque par adeo sacrae lanugo senectae

    Anyway I recognize that these issues are very conducive to the controversy, which I do not shrink, of course. Since I know that it will have little influence the Aristotle's text which I reproduce below; text  nothing confusing or pregnant with awesomeness; it is only the minimal expression of common sense.
    Aristotle (384-322 BC) was a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He created the first great philosophical system,  precisely it that most has influenced on Western culture for over two thousand years. In that system he studies the physical world (Physics), the being and the causes of things (Metaphysics) and the man himself and his behavior (Ethics). His most important work about human behavior is called  Nicomachean Ethics (Ethics for Nicomachus, who was his son).

    As Aristotle says, every being, every action tends to "good" and the good is the "virtue" which is nothing but the full development of the potentialities that every being has. The young man has enormous potential, not least because he  has not yet provided the necessary time to develop. So it should not surprise the overwhelming desire that too many "senes" have to recapture their youth. The myths that illustrate this desire to "eternal youth" are also numerous and general in all cultures. I will comment it on another occasion.

    Well, even at the risk of being "wrong" I will cite, therefore, a fragment of the work of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1095th:

    To criticize a particular subject, therefore, a man must have been trained in that subject: to be a good critic generally, he must have had an all-round education. Hence the young are not fit to be students of Political Science. For they have no experience of life and conduct, and it is these that supply the premises and subject matter of this branch of philosophy.  And moreover they are led by their feelings; so that they will study the subject to no purpose or advantage, since the end of this science is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether they are young in years or immature in character: the defect is not a question of time, it is because their life and its various aims are guided by feeling; for to such persons their knowledge is of no use, any more than it is to persons of defective self-restraint. But Moral Science may be of great value to those who guide their desires and actions by principle.  (Translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.)

    Well, the argument of Aristotle and its generalization are not acceptable, of course. It is also very different perception today of the generation gap between young and old people as that was in antiquity . The argument tells us that the young man has no knowledge of ethics because its acquisition requires expertise that is; but it goes further and says that although he obtained that knowledge, it would not him, because young people are swayed by passions and appetites.

    Any experience is a subjective fact and thus generalizations can only produce large errors. Moreover, the intensity of the experience and the development of the personality of each individual are also personal and different in each one. But it is also clear that the experience, and therefore the repetition of actions, it is absolutely necessary to acquire the knowledge and skills to make appropriate decisions on political issues. It is possible that the duration of the generation times have been shortened greatly today and there was young people whose "maturation" occurs very quickly because his experience or his personal situation is special.

    In any case learning is an acquisition that the person must  to perform with instruments which he naturally has, ie, with his own reason and this can not be substituted by any external authority nor trust generated by another individual.

    It seems that among the members of philosophical Pythagorean convent was such authority and respect for the founder, for Pythagoras, than any raised  issue they  resorted to "ipse dixit", "the same (Pythagoras) said so." The phrase is the equivalent of "magister dixit", "the teacher said."

    Similar is the phrase with which is enforced the strength of ecclesiastical authority: "Roma locuta, causa finita" "Rome has spoken, the discussion is over."  Of course, in the case of dogmas and miracles it may be no other way of ensuring belief, despising reason and logic, which shamelessly it is claimed to be "what most divine" has the man.

    It is interesting the following text of  Cicero, in his work "On the Nature of the Gods". In the first book he exposes and rejects the view of the Epicureans, extreme defenders of the power of reason in the case of the existence, the nature and the focus of the gods.

    On the Nature of the Gods, I, 5,(10)

    Those however who seek to learn my personal Lack of opinion on the various questions show an unreasonable degree of curiosity. In discussion it is not so much weight of authority as force of argument that should be demanded. Indeed the authority of those who profess to teach is often a positive hindrance to those who desire to learn ; they cease to employ their own judgement, and take what they perceive to be the verdict of their chosen master as settling the question.
    In fact I am not disposed to approve the practice traditionally ascribed to the Pythagoreans, who, when questioned as to the grounds of any assertion that they advanced in debate, are said to have been accustomed to reply  “He himself said so,' “he himself” being Pythagoras. So potent was an opinion already decided, making authority prevail unsupported by reason    . (Translation by H. Rackham (1933) The Loeb Classical Library )

    Cicero,  De natura deorum, I, 5 (10):

    Qui autem requirunt quid quaque de re ipsi sentiamus, curiosius id faciunt quam necesse est; non enim tam auctoritatis in disputando quam rationis momenta quaerenda sunt. quin etiam obest plerumque iis qui discere volunt auctoritas eorum qui se docere profitentur; desinunt enim suum iudicium adhibere, id habent ratum quod ab eo quem probant iudicatum vident. nec vero probare soleo id quod de Pythagoreis accepimus, quos ferunt, si quid adfirmarent in disputando, cum ex iis quaereretur quare ita esset, respondere solitos “ipse dixit”; ipse autem erat Pythagoras: tantum opinio praeiudicata poterat, ut etiam sine ratione valeret auctoritas.

    The scholastics used profusely during the Middle Ages the phrase "magister dixit" to enforce the opinion of Aristotle, as  Pythagoreans did, according to the text of Cicero.

    "Roma locuta est", "Roma locuta, causa finita" or the entire phrase "Roma locuta est, causa  finita est" was cited as an argument used by the Vatican to set papal infallibility, which incidentally was not established until the First Vatican Council of 1870, then and now being questioned by notable theologians, like Hans Küng now, who was forbidden to continue teaching Catholic theology.

    The phrase does not appear as such, with this form, but it is a synthesis of the thought of St. Augustine. The more like statement of St. Augustine (354-430) is the one in Sermo CXXXI 10. With regard to the question of Pelagianism, in an in Carthage on 23 September 417 sermon, St. Augustine believes that this issue should not be reopened.

    My brethren, have pity with me. When you find such (people) do not hide them, not be in you a wicked mercy; when you meet them before you, do not hide them. Argue with those who speak against (the grace),  and bring those who resist to us. Two councils have sent their reports to the Apostolic See and replies have come from it. The case is concluded; would that the error might now end”

    Fratres mei, compatimini mecum. Ubi tales inveneritis, occultare nolite, non sit in vobis perversa misericordia: prorsus ubi tales inveneritis, occultare nolite. Redarguite contradicentes, et resistentes ad nos perducite. Iam enim de hac causa duo concilia missa sunt ad Sedem Apostolicam: inde etiam rescripta venerunt. Causa finita est: utinam aliquando finiatur error! Ergo ut advertant monemus, ut instruantur docemus, ut mutentur oremus. Conversi ad Dominum… (PL (Patristica Latina 38,734))

    Well, the reason must prevail in every case, but also that reason requires no take  bearings nor  remove to an useless corner the older people with proven experience and with a capacity of unsurpassed decision.

    Ultimately,  we will say as Don Quixote to Sancho on  I, 20:

    – Sancho,” cried he, “I believe there is no proverb but what is true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences; fir instance, that saying, ‘That were one door shuts, another opens’

    – Paréceme,  Sancho, que no hay refrán que no sea verdadero, porque todo son sentencias sacadas de la mesma experiencia, madre de las ciencias todas, especialmente aquel que dice: “Donde una puerta se cierra, otra se abre”.

    Cervantes repeats the same idea in Don Quixote, II, 67.
     

  • Platonic Academy (2): The district or neighborhood of Academos.

    It should be some precision about the “Gardens of Academos” which gave name to the famous school founded by Plato. First, Academy is not a building, as one may think, but an area or neighborhood of Athens, outside the walls, approximately 1.5 kilometers, which is called the Academy, Ἀκαδημία, or Hekademeia (Ἑκαδήμεια), from the name of the local hero Academos or Hekademos, as Diogenes Laertius said in “Life of eminent Philosophers”, 3.7 ff.:

    The Academy was in the outskirts of Athens, 1.5 kms. north; it was reached by the door Dypilom a path in which there were numerous tombs of illustrious men, as Pausanias tells us in his famous Guide the Greek world, Description of Greece in 1, 29, 2-3:

    [2] Outside the city, too, in the parishes and on the roads, the Athenians have sanctuaries of the gods, and graves of heroes and of men. The nearest is the Academy, once the property of a private individual, but in my time a gymnasium. As you go down to it you come to a precinct of Artemis, and wooden images of Ariste （Best） and Calliste （Fairest）. In my opinion, which is supported by the poems of Pamphos, these are surnames of Artemis. There is another account of them, which I know but shall omit. Then there is a small temple, into which every year on fixed days they carry the image of Dionysus Eleuthereus.

    [3] Such are their sanctuaries here, and of the graves the first is that of Thrasybulus son of Lycus, in all respects the greatest of all famous Athenians, whether they lived before him or after him. The greater number of his achievements I shall pass by, but the following facts will suffice to bear out my assertion. He put down what is known as the tyranny of the Thirty, setting out from Thebes with a force amounting at first to sixty men; he also persuaded the Athenians, who were torn by factions, to be reconciled, and to abide by their compact. His is the first grave, and after it come those of Pericles, Chabrias and Phormio. (English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.)

    The site  was a place of very ancient cult, perhaps from the Bronze Age, as it is evidenced by its relationship with the demigods the Dioscuri, the forest of  olive trees dedicated to Athena, and to other gods.

    It was a space dedicated to various gods: Athena, who had an altar beside another  of Hephaestus and Prometheus, Hermes, Hercules, the Muses and Eros.

    Pausanias, Description of Greece, I, 30,2

    [2] In the Academy is an altar to Prometheus, and from it they run to the city carrying burning torches. The contest is while running to keep the torch still alight; if the torch of the first runner goes out, he has no longer any claim to victory, but the second runner has. If his torch also goes out, then the third man is the victor. If all the torches go out, no one is left to be winner. There is an altar to the Muses, and another to Hermes, and one within to Athena, and they have built one to Heracles. There is also an olive tree, accounted to be the second that appeared. (English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.)

    The land belonged at the time to Hipparchus, son of Peisistratos, who surrounded it by a wall and made a gymnasium; it was embellished and enhanced by Cimon, who led water by diverting Cephissus, nearby river,  and planted trees and created a stadium for racing, as Plutarch tells us, in Cimon 13.8

    [8] He was the first to beautify the city with the so-called ‘liberal’ (for entertainment) and elegant resorts which were so excessively popular a little later, by planting the market-place with plane trees, and by converting the Academy from a waterless and arid spot into a well watered grove, which he provided with clear running-tracks and shady walks. (English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. 2.)

    The Spartans, owners of Athens after the Peloponnesian War, respected Academy in memory of the assistance offered by Academos their heroes Castor and Polux, according to Plutarch, Theseus, 32.3

    [3] But Academus, who had learned in some way or other of her concealment at Aphidnae, told them about it. For this reason he was honored during his life by the Tyndaridae, and often afterwards when the Lacedaemonians invaded Attica and laid waste all the country round about, they spared the Academy, for the sake of Academus.  (English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. 1.)

    Plato certainly looking shady walks of Academy, bought some land to "philosophize" there with his disciples and friends. (Plutarch. From exsilio 10)

    The Academy near Athens, that was purchased for three thousand drachmas, was the place where Plato, Xenocrates, and Polemo dwelt; there they held their schools, and there they lived all their lifetime, except one day every year, when Xenocrates came into the city at the time of the Bacchanals and the new tragedies, to grace the feast, as they say. Theocritus of Chios reproached Aristotle, who affected a court-life with Philip and Alexander, that he chose instead of the Academy rather to dwell at the mouth of Borborus. For there is a river by Pella, which the Macedonians call by that name (Borborus). (Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 3.)

    Plato built in the grounds  of the Academy a small temple to the Muses, called Mouseion, in which Speusippus placed statues of the Graces. (Diogenes Laertius, IV 1,3,8 / and III, 5 and 20)

      A Persian named Mithridates commissioned to sculptor Silanion to make a statue of Plato, he took it to the temple and dedicated it to the Muses. (Diogenes Laertius III, 20)

    After the death of Plato, this statue was placed in the center of his school and the great philosopher was buried in the vicinity of the Academy, as tells us Pausanias, I, XXX, 3:

     Not far from the Academy is the monument of Plato,

    It is also given us a curious story about the prohibition of funerals in the city in a letter of Servius to Cicero on the occasion of  the death of his colleague M. Marcellus who had received two wounds, while in Athens and how he was cremated at the Academy;  it incidentally proves that it is not a building but a space, land or district of Athens:

    CICERO, Letters to Friends – Epistulae ad Familiares, IV, 12,3:

    SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (AT TUSCULUM) ATHENS, 31 MAY
    Servius sends many good wishes to Cicero. Though I know that I shall be giving you no very pleasant news, ….
    ….honourable funeral. I could not induce the Athenians to grant him a place of burial within the city, as they alleged that they were prevented by religious scruples from doing so; and it is a fact that they had never granted that privilege to anyone. But they allowed us, which was the next best thing, to bury him in any gymnasium we chose. We chose a place in the most famous gymnasium in the world—that of the Academy—and there we burnt the body, and afterwards saw to these same Athenians giving out a contract for the construction of a marble monument over him. So I think I have done all for him alive and dead required by our colleagueship and close connexion. Goodbye. 31 May, Athens.     (Translated by Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh. London. George Bell and Sons. 1908-1909.)

    ab Atheniensibus, locum sepulturae intra urbem ut darent, impetrare non potui, quod religione se impediri dicerent, neque tamen id antea cuiquam concesserant. quod proximum fuit, uti in quo vellemus gymnasio eum sepeliremus, nobis permiserunt. nos in nobilissimo orbi terrarum gymnasio Academiae locum delegimus ibique eum combussimus posteaque curavimus, ut eidem Athenienses in eodem loco monumentum ei marmoreum faciendum locarent. ita, quae nostra officia fuerunt pro collegio et pro propinquitate, et vivo et mortuo omnia ei praestitimus. vale. D. pr. K. Iun. Athenis.

    The Academy received a mortal blow when in 86 BC the Roman general Sulla captured and destroyed Athens. The director of the Academy, Philo of Larissa, left Athens the following year and died leaving no successor, which resulted in the death of the institution. But Sulla did not respect either the Academy and the Lyceum. Plutarch tells us it, in Sulla, 12.1-3

    12 1 As for Sulla, he at once received deputations and invitations from the other cities, but Athens was compelled by the tyrant Aristion to side with Mithridates. Against this city, therefore, Sulla led up all his forces, and investing the Piraeus, laid siege to it, bringing to bear upon it every sort of siege-engine, and making all sorts of assaults upon it. 2 And yet if he had been patient a little while, he might have captured the upper city without hazard, since it lacked the necessities of life and was already reduced by famine to the last extremity. But since he was eager to get back to Rome, and feared the spirit of revolution there, he ran many risks, fought many battles, and made great outlays that he might hasten on the war, in which, not to speak of his other munitions, the operation of the siege-engines p363called for ten thousand pairs of mules, which were employed daily for this service. 3 And when timber began to fail, owing to the destruction of many of the works, which broke down of their own weight, and to the burning of those which were continually smitten by the enemy's fire-bolts, he laid hands upon the sacred groves, and ravaged the Academy, which was the most wooded of the city's suburbs, as well as the Lyceum. (translation is that of the Loeb Classical Library edition (Cambridge, MA and London), by Bernadotte Perrin).

    Appian also in his History of Rome XII, 5.30 (War of Mithridates):

    Appian's History of Rome: The Mithridatic Wars, XII, 5,30

    Sulla chopped down the grove of the Academy  and constructed his largest engines there. He demolished the Long walls, and used the stones, timber, and earth for building mounds. (Translation by Horace White)

    When Antiochus returned to Athens in 88 BC restored the teaching, but not in the Academy. Cicero presents Antiochus teaching at a gym that was called Ptolemy.

    Cicero himself describes an emotional visit to the Academy one afternoon because it "is deserted at that hour."

    Cicero, De Finibus, 5, 1

    My dear Brutus, — Once I had been attending a lecture of Antiochus, as I was in the habit of doing, with Marcus Piso, in the building called the School of Ptolemy; and with us were my brother Quintus, Titus Pomponius, and Lucius Cicero, whom I loved as a brother but who was really my first cousin. We arranged to take our afternoon stroll in the Academy, chiefly because the place would be quiet and deserted at that hour of the day. Accordingly at the time appointed we met at our rendezvous, Piso's lodgings, and starting out beguiled with conversation on various subjects the •three-quarters of a mile from the Dipylon Gate. When we reached the walks of the Academy, which are so deservedly famous, we had them entirely to ourselves, as we had hoped. (English translation by H. Harris Rackham. Loeb Classical Library brother Aristus.1931)

    LIBER QUINTUS
    1. Cum audissem1 Antiochum, Brute, ut solebam,2 cum M. Pisone in eo gymnasio, quod Ptolomaeum vocatur, [p. 156] unaque nobiscum Q. frater et T. Pomponius Luciusque Cicero, frater noster cognatione patruelis, amore germanus, constituimus inter nos ut ambulationem postmeridianam conficeremus in Academia, maxime quod is locus ab omni turba id temporis vacuus esset. itaque ad tempus ad Pisonem omnes. inde sermone vario sex illa a Dipylo stadia confecimus. cum autem venissemus in Academiae non sine causa nobilitata spatia, solitudo erat ea, quam volueramus.

    The property of Plato with its school would be outside the walls of the Academy, somewhere between the currently visible gym and northeast hill called Hippios Kolonos. Unfortunately nothing remains of the Academy of Plato and there is not even agreement among archaeologists about your specific site, despite the efforts and despite what the current guidebooks of  Athens say.

    The name “Academy” was later given, in memory of Plato and his disciples, to other sites devoted to the study of literature and philosophy. Cicero called so a field he owned near Puteoli (Puzzole); Pliny, XXXI, 6 (3)

    The country-seat where these last are found is worthy of some further mention: travelling from Lake Avernus towards Puteoli, it is to be seen on the sea-shore, renowned for its fine portico and its grove. Cicero gave it the name of Academia, after the place so called at Athens: it was here that he composed those treatises of his that were called after it; it was here, too, that he raised those monuments to himself; as though, indeed, he had not already done so throughout the length and breadth of the known world. (The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.)

    dignum memoratu, villa est ab Averno lacu Puteolos tendentibus inposita litori, celebrata porticu ac nemore, quam vocabat M. Cicero Academian ab exemplo Athenarum, ibi compositis voluminibus eiusdem nominis, in qua et monumenta sibi instauraverat, ceu vero non et in toto terrarum orbe fecisset.

    Also on Ad Atticum, I,4,3

    … I am very glad to hear what you say about the Hermathena. It is an ornament appropriate to my "Academia" for two reasons: Hermes is a sign Common to all gymnasia, Minerva specially of this particular one. So I would have you, as you say, adorn the place with the other objects also, and the more the better. The statues which you sent me before I have not yet seen. They are in my villa at Formiae, whither I am at this moment thinking of going. I shall get them all transferred to my Tusculan villa. If I find myself with more than I want there I shall begin adorning Caieta. Please reserve your books, and don't despair of my being able to make them mine. If I succeed in that, I am superior to Crassus in wealth and look down on everybody's manors and pastures. (Translated by Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh)

    1.4.3 quod ad me de Hermathena scribis, per mihi gratum est. est ornamentum Academiae proprium meae, quod et Hermes commune omnium et Minerva singulare est insigne eius gymnasi. qua re velim, ut scribis, ceteris quoque rebus quam plurimis eum locum ornes. quae mihi antea signa misisti, ea nondum vidi; in Formiano sunt, quo ego nunc proficisci cogitabam. illa omnia in Tusculanum deportabo. Caietam, si quando abundare coepero, ornabo. libros tuos conserva et noli desperare eos meos facere posse. quod si adsequor, supero Crassum divitiis atque omnium vicos et prata contemno.

    When Cicero lost the opportunity to continue his political life over sixty years now and also coinciding with the death of his beloved daughter to give birth, he devoted himself to philosophy and reflection. He then wrote his “De finibus”, from which I have previously taken a small fragment and he wrote also these which he called " Tusculan Disputations". Cicero had a villa or farm in Tusculum in the Alban Hills, about 25 miles from Rome. There Cicero withdrew from time to time with some friends devoting time to reflection and intellectual fun. Once these, where he retired with five friends, is where lies his "Tusculan Disputations", named precisely by the place where they were generated. According he says, mornings were spent in declamation and rhetorical exercises and in afternoon they retired themselves to a gallery called the Academy, in memory of thaht one of Athens. Reflection on this occasion was on death and fear, pain, adversity in life, moderation of the passions and the value of virtue to be happy.

    Ciceron, Tusculanae Quaestiones, 2,III (9)

    And on this account I have always been pleased with the custom of the Peripatetics and Academics, of disputing on both sides of the question; not solely from its being the only method of discovering what is probable on every subject, but also because it affords the greatest scope for practising eloquence; a method that Aristotle first made use of, and afterward all the Aristotelians; and in our own memory Plilo, whom we have often heard, appointed one time to treat of the precepts of the rhetoricians, and another for philosophical discussion, to which custom I was brought to conform by my friends at my Tusculum; and accordingly our leisure time was spent in this manner. And therefore, as yesterday before noon we applied ourselves to speaking, and in the afternoon went down into the Academy, the discussions which were held there I have acquainted you with, not in the manner of a narration, but in almost the very same words which were employed in the debate. (Translated by C.D. Yonge)

    Itaque mihi semper Peripateticorum Academiaeque consuetudo de omnibus rebus in contrarias partis disserendi non ob eam causam solum placuit, quod aliter non posset, quid in quaque re veri simile esset, inveniri, sed etiam quod esset ea maxuma dicendi exercitatio. qua princeps usus est Aristoteles, deinde eum qui secuti sunt. nostra autem memoria Philo, quem nos frequenter audivimus, instituit alio tempore rhetorum praecepta tradere, alio philosophorum: ad quam nos consuetudinem a familiaribus nostris adducti in Tusculano, quod datum est temporis nobis, in eo consumpsimus. itaque cum ante meridiem dictioni operam dedissemus, sicut pridie feceramus, post meridiem in Academiam descendimus. in qua disputationem habitam non quasi narrantes exponimus, sed eisdem fere verbis, ut actum disputatumque est.

    The emperor Hadrian reproduced in his sumptuous villa of Tibur some of the most beautiful Greek buildings, he also erected  some buildings and planted gardens in imitation of these of the Academy of Athens. (Spartianus, Hadriani. 26,5):

    His villa at Tibur was marvellously constructed, and he actually gave to parts of it the names of provinces and places of the greatest renown, calling them, for instance, Lyceum, Academia, Prytaneum, Canopus, Poecile and Tempe. And in order not to omit anything, he even made a Hades. (English translation  by David Magie)

    Tiburtinam Villam mire exaedificavit, ita ut in ea et provinciarum et locorum celeberrima nomina inscriberet, velut Lyceum, Academian, Prytaneum, Canopum, Poicilen, Tempe vocaret. et, ut nihil praetermitteret, etiam inferos finxit.

    Indeed, the linguistic term soon became the generic meaning of "educational establishment" and "prestigious scientific, literary or artistic society". In relation to the first meaning, we speak of "academic disciplines" to refer to the various subjects studied or enrolled in these centers, especially in the University; "Academic Transcript" is the document that collects studies conducted and skills acquired by students. In relation to the second meaning, arts and sciences are symbolically covered by the Muses: literature, painting, sculpture, drawing, music, etc ..

    Synonyms for "academy", although with some small nuance, are "Athenaeum", Institute,  and "school". The word "Athenaeum" derives obviously from Athena, Greek goddess of arts, intelligence or wisdom, but also of the "war ".

    The Lyceum is the center or educational institution created by Aristóteleses. It is named from  the temple of Apollo Licius (the Λύκειον, likeion), near which it was built. This philosophical school and the education method of Aristotle is also called "peripatetic" (from the Greek περιπατητικός, from περι peri around and πατειν , patein, to walk) because he used to teach their lessons walking through the gate or portico. Over time Lyceum also acquired the generic meaning of institution or school of science or of the arts.
     

  • Platonic Academy (1): “Let none but geometers enter here.”

    The tradition says that this phrase was recorded at the entrance of the Academy of Plato.

    This tradition is transmitted by several commentators of Aristotle, as Elias in his "Commentary on the Categories, XVIII, 118, 18-19:

    "In Plato's Academy, before the temple of the Muses was written: '  Let None But Geometers Enter Here',

    καὶ διὰ Πλατὁνα ἐπιγράψαντα πρὸ τοῦ μουσείου ἀγεωμέτρητος μέδεις εἰσίτω (" kai dia Platona epigrápsanta pro tou mouseíou ageométretos médeis eisíto ")

    and John Philoponus on 'Commentary on the soul, XV, 117.27, with a slight variation:

    " Let None But Geometers Enter Here",

    "ageometretos me eisito" ἀγεωμέτρητος μὴ εἰσίτω.

    Diogenes Laertius in IV, 10 has an anecdote that shows the importance of geometry in Plato's teaching:

    "Xenocrates wanted to study with him without knowing music or geometry or astronomy, and Plato said," Go, because you do not have the handholds of philosophy ".

    But what was Plato's Academy? The name, which comes from the Latin Academy and this from Greek akademeia, Ἀκαδημία, defines the institution, school or philosophical-political corporation founded by Plato in the outskirts of the city of Athens, near the walls, which receives the name of the place where it was built, a space in which there was a shrine to the mythical hero attic Academo (minor in Greek mythology who revealed to the Dioscuri the place where Helena was hiding). So etymologically it means "the garden or field of Academos".

    Although the news is scarce, we must assume that this center would continue the educational program that Plato disclosed in the "Republic" dialogue. Mathematics and geometry had a specific gravity in it, as I said at the beginning of this article. Music is also essential  in the sense of "arts" inspired by the Muses.

    But the essential purpose of the Academy was to prepare men for the service of the state. From it  many statesmen came out, educated by the dialectical method, by which students were discovering the truth in coexistence with other members of the institution. Alongside philosophical activity an intense scientific reflection on mathematics was also developped on music, astronomy, division and classification. His teaching was based on lessons and dialogues. It also produced a lot of comments on Plato and Aristotle which have provided us with valuable information.

    The Academy is thus one of the oldest institutions of higher education; it must have been founded around 387 BC He continued actively to the death of Plato (347 BC), when his nephew Speusippus took it, although it certainly had other major philosophers. It is somewhat curious that who demanded choose the best for the city government, he did not follow the same principle to guide your institution, a clear example of nepotism. Among these best was precisely Aristotle, who created his school which is known as the Lyceum;  I will talk some other time on it.

    Note: it's called nepotism the granting of appointments and public employments to relatives and own family members. It derives from the Latin word nepos, -tis which means grandson, nephew.

    The Academy received a mortal blow when in 86 BC the Roman general Sulla captured and destroyed Athens. The director of the Academy, Philo of Larissa, left Athens the following year and he died leaving no successor, what resulted in the death of the institution.

    Centuries later, in the V of Christ Neoplatonic philosophers resurrected the Academy, but without the splendor and future of the first. However it survived until 529, when Justinian closed it for religious reasons, rather than philosophical, because Neoplatonism continued to influence in Byzantine era. From this time the institution was running out by starvation. So the Academy came to last more than nine hundred years.

    Regarding the closure by Justinian, it seems that no formal abolition, but it was a result of its legislation to suppress paganism.

    One of the main measures to prevent the spread of paganism was the prohibition that  pagan philosophers and teachers could teach, establishing harsh penalties for those who infringe these laws.

    During the consulate of Decius, the emperor sent an order to Athens that stipulates that no one could teach philosophy or interpret the law. This order is placed in relation to the law of the Code of Justinian I, tit. XI, 10, 2 which among other things says:

    Moreover, we forbid the teaching of any doctrine by those who labor under the insanity of paganism, so that they may not in that manner pretend to instruct those coming to see them in a way to excite pity, while in fact they corrupt the souls of their disciples. Nor shall they receive any salary (annona) in as much as they are not permitted to claim anything of the kind pursuant to a rescript or pragmatic sanction. (Translated by  Fred H. Blume)

    Omnem autem doctrinam ab  iis, qui impiorum paganorum furore laborant, doceri prohibemus, ut ne hoc modo simulent, se  eos, qui misera sorte ad ipsos veniant, erudire, sed revera ánimos erudiendorum corrumpant,  neque magis aliquid annonae ex publico percipiant, non habentes licentiam, ne ex divinis  quidem rescriptis vel pragmaticis sanctionibus eiusmodi ius sibi vindicandi (1.11.10) . 

    The law, it appears that not formally closes the Academy, but requires teachers to be baptized or exile. This situation and the economic hardships would end up ruining it. But there is no absolute agreement among historians about it.