Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704) - The Nativity

H. Purcell - The Fairy Queen "O Let Me Weep" Sylvia McNair

Beethoven - 5 Russian and Polish Folk Songs

Russian Animation - Про Ивана-дурака (2004), часть 2/2

Russian animation: Cheburashka 1/2 (+English subtitles)

Как обезьянки обедали

russian cartoons

My prayer for the time being

1 [For the choirmaster For flutes Psalm Of David] Give ear to my words, Yahweh, spare a thought for my sighing.
2 Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God! To you I pray,
3 Yahweh. At daybreak you hear my voice; at daybreak I lay my case before you and fix my eyes on you.
4 You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil, no sinner can be your guest.
5 Boasters cannot stand their ground under your gaze. You hate evil-doers,
6 liars you destroy; the violent and deceitful Yahweh detests.
7 But, so great is your faithful love, I may come into your house, and before your holy temple bow down in reverence of you.
8 In your saving justice, Yahweh, lead me, because of those who lie in wait for me; make your way plain before me.
9 Not a word from their lips can be trusted, through and through they are destruction, their throats are wide -- open graves, their tongues seductive.
10 Lay the guilt on them, God, make their intrigues their own downfall; for their countless offences, thrust them from you, since they have rebelled against you.
11 But joy for all who take refuge in you, endless songs of gladness! You shelter them, they rejoice in you, those who love your name.
12 It is you who bless the upright, Yahweh, you surround them with favour as with a shield.

The foundation of the modern State

Translating today a short treatise on criminal law. Found something interesting:

The iustitia communtativa in the Politics and Ethics of Aristotle used to be the foundation of retributive criminal law. At the same time it is the very foundation of the legitimation of the state itself, because a pre-modern state represents the moral status of the society. The modern state in comparison doesn't claim to represent the moral status of the society (it is any way impossible in a multi-cultural society like that in the industrialized world), instead, its only legitimation lies in the alleged guarantee of individual freedom. So we get the problem that retributive penalty can't be justified through its function of restitution of the normative legal status which is injured by criminal deeds. But how can a state whose legitimation lies in the individual freedom claim to restrict the freedom of its citizens in form of penalty? That is the dilemma for retributive theory of legal penalty for criminal deeds.

Old Roman chant - Inveni David servum meum

Ambrosian chant - Ecce apertum est Templum tabernaculi

Reading the "History of the Romish Literature" of Manfred Fuhrmann (Part I)

1) the Latin language: only the idiom of the region Latium, but together with the Idea of the State the Romish idiom became the normative language for the west part of the Roman Empire, especially for Iberia, North Africa, the region around the Black See. The Rumanian language of today is developed from Latin. The development of the Latin language to its classic form as a normative language of the Empire includes the "Rhotacism" ('s' between vocals is substituted by 'r'); the disappearance of Diphthongs; the three verbal forms of the Indo-German language family, which survive in Greek, were reduced: the aorists were reduced to the present and perfect forms; the grammar became more strict.

2) the begin of the Romish literature: 240 before Christus with the translation of Greek comedies and tragedies. Greeks began to settle down in Italy and had a large influence on the Etruscan culture. The Romans didn't have their own myths and thus the Greek literature must have had also an influence on the development of the Roman religion. Also the Lex XII tabularum was the result of the influence of Greek culture. The Romish religion is more abstract, the gods were identified with their power and acts, while the Greek religion is more anthropomorphic. The symbols of the power: faces, lictores and the sella curulis go back to the Etruscan influence. Livius wrote about the Etruscan people: "Gens ante omnes alias eo magis dedita religionibus, quod excelleret arte colendi eas". The fights of the gladiators also go back to Etruscan customs. Before the direct influence of the Greeks the Romans didn't know the difference between proses and poetry. They used rhythmic lines in the proses, and called text written in such a way "Carmen". One kind of verses was known: versus Saturnius (allusion of the Golden age), which was used by Livius Andronicus and Naevius. But Ennius substituted it through the Greek hexameter. Two examples of the Versus Saturnius: "Adesto, Tiberine, cum tuis undis" (a prayer) and "Virum mihi, Camena insece versutum" (the translation of "Odysseus" by Livius Andronicus). Other kinds of literature: nenia, accompanied by flute, lamentation of the dead; heroic songs, sung at the meal, and harvest songs. Besides these one can also find the Fabula Atellana, the Laudatio Funebris (a specific Roman genre), and the Annales.

3) the development of the Romish Literature after the muster of the Greek literature: ludi Romani - ludi scaenici (theatre plays). The school system of the Greeks: all children could learn gymnastics, music, writing, reading and calculating. Children from better families could go later to school to learn literature, grammar and stile. Later, a small number of privileged young men could learn rhetoric. The Romans copied this kind of school system. The Roman schools were private, while the theatre plays were organised by the State. Not only in these two domains did the Greek culture influence the Roman culture, but also regarding the Roman customs.

(To be continued)

The Death as Cynic - Johannes von Tepl's "The Ploughman and the Death"

It is a short dialogue between a Ploughman, who ploughed with feather (that means he was not a peasant, but a clerk) written in Middle High German. The ploughman laments the early death of his wife Margaretha, whom he loves dearly, and accused the Death of injustice. The Death answers in plural form "We", like God do in the second last chapter of this dialogue. The Death attests that the wife of the ploughman has been a very virtuous woman, but refuses to acknowledge the injustice down to the ploughman. As everyone who is once born must die, disregarding with what age and who. The ploughman lists the virtues and great deeds of man, but the Death laughs at the folly of man. The ploughman praises the luck of family life, the Death numbers all the disadvantages of a married life. The ploughman sings a hymn of beautiful and virtuous women, the Death sneers and plays the role of the worst misogynist. The ploughman asks sincerely for advices to make amend of sorry, the Death stresses the uselessness of all hope to find remedy for the loss. In the end God comes to settle the quarrel, and tells the Death to be humble as the power of Death comes only from God. The ploughman is praised for his courage but is also asked to rest the case, because, as God is written as saying: "Every human being is obliged to give the Death his life, the Earth his body, and Us his soul" (chapter 33). Thus, the ploughman calms down and prays for the soul of his wife. The last chapter (34) consists in a very long and moving prayers which assembles a litany, in which the ploughman addresses God in all his attributes as the Creator and Lord of our life and existence.

But I don't quite see which function the quarrel can have: the Death appears in the role of a cynic. Life is nothing than sorrow and hardship, human beings are bad, hope and joy make only the loss of what is dear to us more painful. The human body is nothing than a cadaver, given over to the worms. The ploughman is in comparison a lover of the mankind and tries his best to defend the value of life and dignity of man, because, as he stresses on many places, man is the creature of God so can't be as bad and unworthy as the Death sees him. But neither party lets himself be convinced by only one point of his opponent. So it is a riddle to me what the point of this dialogue is. Perhaps the writer only wants to show the unreconcilable antithesis of the human existence: Life and Death, Joy and Sorrow. Without the Christian Faith it will ends in an aporia. Without the Christian Faith we will go back to the hopeless melancholy of Horace, whose only advices to overcome this antithesis is to carpe diem, and drown your sorrow in the drunkenness. While the Death in this dialogue tells one, despite all his sneers, to "avoid the evil and do what is good, to search for the peace and to keep it constantly. And one should not overestimate the earthly joy and possessions. Above all, one should have a pure conscious". So the Death as cynic is not a hedonist nor a nihilist. He is a curing cynic like the cynics in Lucian's Satire: the cynic is there to keep people honest and to free their soul from foul spots and superfluous sorrow and conceitedness.

One chapter (chapter 16) where the Death describes himself is especially interesting, which I translate as in the following:

"You ask, what we are: We are nothing and are nevertheless something. We are nothing, because we have no life nor substance, no figure nor duration (unterstand: not quite sure what meaning this word in Mhd. has). We are again something, because we are the End of Life, the End of the Existence, the Begin of Nothing, a thing between both of them. [...]".

De vera Religione - Part I: Plato and Christianity

Yesterday in a hurry I bought the "De vera religione" for the train trip, didn't read it much though. Today I read Chapter I to VII. To be noted is the description of Plato as a crypt Christian. The search of Plato after the stable, never changing beauty is taken by Augustine as the search after God. The similitude between Plato's thinking and the Christian teaching consists according to Augustine in the followings: 1) the truth should be seen through the mind, not through eyes (non corporeis oculis sed pura mente veritatem videri), and that to adhere to this truth is the perfect luck, and that to achieve this one must live an ascetic life without the distortion and delusion which are brought up by the lusts; 2) to see the unchanging beauty, the soul must be healthy (sana); 3) among all creatures only the rational and intellectual soul is able to see the eternity of God and to enjoy the eternal life. But Augustine opines that Plato was afraid to act against the conventions of his society and thus didn't give up a life in the world and to seek God in a life style whilst all the secular interests were left behind. In comparison, the Christians achieved what Plato originally intended to.

From Chapter V to VII Augustine writes that the True Religion is only in the Catholic Church. His definition of what is catholic is quite interesting: that is the community which is free from heresy and schism (which comes up due to the arrogance). Although people can have the same liturgy, but the difference in belief can excommunicate one from the catholic community. And it is possible, thus Augustine, that very orthodox and pious people can be excommunicated through mistake. But a true saint will endure all this injustice and will never start an act of disobedience (nr. 33: "quam contumeliam vel iniuriam suam cum patientissime pro ecclessiae pace tulerint neque ullas novitates vel schismatis vel heresis moliti fuerint, docebunt homines quam vero affectu et quanta sinceritate caritatis deo serviendum sit").

To be continued. 

Death in Life (Horace's Carmen 1, 4)

The motif of the famous "Carpe Diem" (1, 11) poem of Horace can also be found in his Carmen 1, 4, where he wrote in the first three verses about the Joy of Spring. But in the first line of the fourth verse the word "Death" appeared: pallida Mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas regumque turris. And he mentioned also that we should not make plan and have expectations for times long after: o beate Sesti, vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam; iam te premet nox fabulaeque Manes.

to: Manes see the tombstone below

written in Archilochium tertium.

But why! Is it common for the ancient literature? This melancholy. I don't think so. Horace seems to be too sentimental for an ancient poet. No unreflected serenity which is supposed to be so characteristic for the ancient world. Always with the antithesis of Life and Death, oh the Death triumphs in the end! But for my taste, this reflection is again too shallow. It is without the metaphysical depth of the baroque poetry, without the heroic attitude of a baroque man.

And does it move me, this poem? Not so much like that of his Carmen 1, 11. Why? Because it is only about the shortness of one's own life - though he talks to Sestius, but he just means the pleasure of one's life is so transient. In comparison, Carmen 1, 11 talks about the shortness of the time two friends (lovers) can be together. And only the latter pains me. Not only Death can part two, oh lucky is she who parts from her friend only through Death. To part while still in life is a greater pain! And do I fear Death? I don't. But people say I only say I fear Death not because I am still young. Perhaps they are right.

Die Oratio Dominica (Chapter 5 of "Jesus of Nazareth"

Recapitulation of chapter 4: the Sermon on the Mountain tells us how to be a human being. And a real anthropology is only possible in the light of a theology.

1) Then Pope Benedict turns to the version of Oratio Dominica in the Matthew's Gospel: the evangelist tells us how to pray in a right way. Not the human being should be in the centre of the prayer, but only the love to God. As the Revelation says, God calls everyone with his own name, which nobody knows other than God (Rev. 2, 17). The Oratio Dominica is a We-Prayer, that means, only in the Church we can reach God as individuals! So in a correct prayer one should brings one's innermost personality to God but at the same time in a community. The other false way to pray is the thoughtless repetition, as we are told by the evangelist.

In the prayer we intensify our relationship to God. But not only the awareness of being together with God is needed, but also concretes formulas of prayers. The prayers of Israel and later the prayers of the Church are the school of praying and also lead to a deep transformation of our life.

Saint Benedict wrote in his Regula: Mens nostra concordet voci nostrae (cf. also Reg 19, 7). But in the prayers of psalms and the prayers in the liturgy of the Church it is different: our mind must be obedient to the Word, in this Word God comes to help us to pray and find Him.

 2) the version of Luke's Gospel: the Father-Son-relationship in the Oratio Dominica. The inner unity with God.

3) Structure of the Oratio Dominica:

Our Father:
three petitions with "thou", and 7 with "we", thus its structure is parallel to Decalogue. As we only know the Father through the Son, so the prayer begins with the addressing of God as "Father". And God is our Father, because our life comes from Him as the Creator and belongs to Him. To be children of God is to be the followers of Christ. But only Jesus Christ can say: "my Father", but we all must say "our Father".

Who art in heaven:
Name of God: I am who I am (Ex 3,6).

Thy Kingdom come: 
The Kingdom of God comes over a pure heart, and this is what we pray for.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven:
Jesus Christ is the heaven, and God's will is done in Heaven. We on the earth should follow Christ in obedience, so that we can come nearer to heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread:
As Cyprian already said, we pray for OUR daily bread, no one should pray for his own alone. And he said also, that who he must pray for the bread of today, is poor, so the followers of Christ are poor because they give up their property for God's sake. And the others, who haven't went so far, should stay in solidarity with these who try to love God in such a radical way (the religious). And of course already explained by the Fathers of the Church as the prayer for Eucharist.


and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us:
This is a christological prayer, not merely a moral appeal, because the forgiveness of our Sins costed our Lord the Blood of His Son.

And lead us not into temptation:
Parallel to Hiob: not that God will tempt us into sin, but that he will send us trial, which we withstand ad gloriam Dei. But we pray at the same time, that God never let us alone in our trial.

but deliver us from evil:
with this prayer we pray for the Kingdom of God. And that is why in the Liturgy after the Pater noster the Priest prays further: Libera nos, quaesumus, Domine, ab omnibus malis, praeteritis, praesentibus, et futuris, et intercedente beata et gloriosa semper Virgine Dei Genitrice Maria, cum beatis Apostolis tuis Petro et Paulo, atque Andrea, et omnibus Sanctis, da propitius pacem in diebus nostris, ut ope misericordiae tuae adjuti, et a peccato simus semper liberi, et ab omni perturbatione securi. Per eumdem Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum. Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus. Per omnia saecula saeculorum. This Embolism, thus Pope Benedict, shows the human side of the Church, which is very much in need of deliverance.

The Sermon on the Mountain (reading the Jesus Book of Pope Benedict - First Volume)

(Chapter 4) The Sermon on the Mountain is a passage which is often misused by the modernists to show that nothing is needed to achieve the salvation, no study, no observation of the laws, only a simple mind suffices. And liberal theologians tend to see this sermon as an abolishment of the Old Law, including the Decalogue. 

Pope Benedict shows us that not an iota of the Old Law can be abolished, and tells us what the real meaning of this passage is. What is striking for me is how Pope Benedict shows the continuity between the Sermon on the Mountain and the Old Testament, especially the Psalms. It is also very interesting that he mentions on many places his good friend Rabbi Neusner. Thus, the liberal thesis that the Sermon on the Mountain presents a new Ethics and abolish the old Ethics of OT is refuted. And with "the poor" mentioned in the sermon are not meant impoverished people, as poverty doesn't lead to salvation, but those who are poor before God, that is, those, who don't boast of what they have done. The Holy Father cites a sentence of Therese of Lisieux: "I will stand before God with empty hands and keep them open". It means, we open our hands to receive the Grace of the Lord. The poor are also those who decide to abandon earthly comfort to follow the example of Christ, like Francis of Assisi did.

The Sermon on the Mountain, thus Pope Benedict, is a hidden Christology: as God took the flesh of man and died for our sake. So the Sermon on the Mountain tells us how to be the true imitator of Christ: to love, and that means to abandon every kind of egoism. And Pope Benedict wrote: "in opposite to the alluring glamour of Nietzsche's picture of man this way (of imitation Christi) appears poor, but it is the real way of life to ascend, only on the way of love the richness of life and the magnitude of human vocation become available".

In the second part of this chapter Pope Benedict tells us that according to the Jewish Tradition, the Messiah is supposed to bring his own "Torah". So the question is raised again: do the new laws substitute the old ones? The answer of Pope Benedict is: they don't abolish the old laws, but fulfil them. A very interesting passage which our Pope quotes from the book of Rabbi Neusner is: Jesus has, in comparison to the prophets, not a single new law! Jesus said only, come and follow me (Mt. 19, 20). And that is the reason why Rabbi Neusner decides that he remains in the Jewish Religion, because Rabbi Neusner finds that to follow Jesus will be contrary to the first (to honour God alone and to keep Sabbath) and the fourth (to honour father and mother) commandment. Pope Benedict shows that these commandments are fulfilled in the social teachings of the Church. And Pope Benedict shows also that in the Torah Israel is not only for its own people there, but is to become the light of all people in the world. The aim of the Holy Father is, as I see it, to show that Jesus Christ stands in the continuity with the OT, though he brought very new and revolutionary teachings. But his teachings can also be found in the inner structure of the Torah.

This approach of our Holy Father to the NT is very interesting. It is not only in the hermeneutic tradition of the analogical reading, but also in a new sense as he is using the Jewish Tradition of Bible reading to support our Christian teachings. It will not only teach us to have more respect and insight for the Jewish Tradition which is in part also ours, but can also be useful to explain to the Jews what Christianity is, and even persuade some of them more easily, as the Scripture is central for the Jewish Religion.

The Reception of Homer in the Caroligian Renaissance?

I know that Homer was not read during the most time of the medium aevum. Greek was seldom studied. And as far as I know, there were no translations of Homer's Iliad and Odysseus. But it astonishes me to read that during the Carolingian Renaissance students were to read Homer. Well, at that time, Greek was still studied. Even Hincmar of Reims translated the Pseudo-Dionysius as well as John Scottus Eriugena. But still one expects little that they did read Homer. Did they learn from Homer's works through a second hand source, or was Homer read in original? This question I still have to pursuit. But it astonishes one not little when one reads from the classic allusions in a Latin poem by Eriugena (very long, typed according to the MGH edition, there nr. 2). But it doesn't show that he did read Homer himself. This poems goes on very quickly to the praise of the Cross and Christus. Eriugena wants to show that the Christian Reign is more glorious than the ancient reigns:

Hellinus Troasque suos cantarat Homerus,
Romuleum prolem finxerat ipse Maro;
At nos caeligenum regis pia facta canamus.
Continuo cursu quem canit orbis ovans.
Illis Iliacas flammas subitasque ruinas
Eroumque Machas dicere ludus erat;
Ast nobis Christum devicto principe mundi
Sanguine perfusum psallere dulce sonat.
Illi composito falso sub imagine veri
Fallere condocti versibus Arcadicis;
Nobis virtutem patris veramque sophiam
Ymnizare licet laudibus eximiis.
Moysarum cantus, ludos satyrasque loquaces
Ipsis usus erat plaudere per populos:
Dicta prophetarum nobis modulamine pulchro
Consona procedunt cordibus ore fide.
Nunc igitur Christi videamus summa tropea
Ac nostrae mentis sidera perspicua.
Ecce crucis lignum quadratum continet orbem.
In quo pendebat sponte sua dominus
Et verbum patris dignatum sumere carnem
In quo pro nobis hostia grata fuit.
Aspice confossas palmas humerosque pedesque,
Spinarum serto tempora cincta fero.
In medio lateris reserato fonte salutis
Ves haustus, sanguis et unda, fluut. 
Unda lavat totum veteri peccamine mundum,
Sanguis mortales nos facit esse deos.
Binos adde reos pendentes arbore bina:
Par fuerat meritum, gratia dispar erit.
Unus cum Christo paradisi limina vidit.
Alter sulphureae mersus in ima stygis.
Eclypsis solis, lunae redeuntis Eoo
Insolito cursu sideris umbra fuit;
Commoto centro tremulantia saxa dehiscunt:
Rupta cortina sancta patent populis.
Interea laetus solus subit infera Christus.
Committens tumulo membra sepulta novo.
Oplistês fortis reseravit claustra profundi;
Hostem percutiens vasa recpta tulit
Humanumque genus nolens in morte perire
Eripuit totum faucibus ex Erebi.
Te Christum colimus caeli terraque potentem:
Namque tibi soli flectitur omne genu.
Qui tantum, largire, vides quod rite rogaris
Et quod non recte rite negare soles:
Da nostro regi Karolo sua regna tenere,
Quae tu donasti partibus almigenis.
Fonte tuo manant ditantia regua per orbem:
Quod tu non dederis, quid habet ulla caro?
Indiviam miseram fratrum saevumque furorem
Digneris pacto mollificare pio.
At ne disturbent luctantia fraude maligna,
Aufer de vita semina nequitiae.
Hostiles animos paganaque rostra repellens
Da pacem populo, qui tua iura colit.
Nunc reditum Karoli celebramus carmine grato;
Post multos gemitus gaudia nostra nitent.
Qui laeti fuerant quaerentes extera regna,
Alas arripiunt, quas dedit ipsa fuga.
Atque pavor validus titubantia pectora turbans
Compellit Karolo territa dorsa dare.
Heheu quam turpis confundit corda cupido
Expulso Christo sedibus ex propriis.
O utinam, Hluduwice, tuis pax esset in oris,
Quas tibi distribuit qui regit omne simul.
Quid superare velis fratrem? Quid pellere regno?
Numquid non simili stemmate progeniti?
Cur sic conaris divinas solvere leges?
Ingratusque tuis cur aliena petis?
Quid tibi baptismus, quid sancta sollempnia missae
Occultis semper nutibus insinuant?
Numquid non praecetpa simul fraterna tenere,
Viribus ac totis vivere corde pio?
Ausculta pavidus, quid clamat summa sophia,
Quae nullum fallit dogmata vera docens:
'Si tibi molestum nolis aliunde venire,
Nullum praesumas laedere parte tua'.
Christe, tuis famulis caelestis praemia vitae
Praesta; versificos tute tuere tuos.
Poscenti domino servus sua debita solvit,
Mercedem servi sed videat dominus.

The Aesthetics of St. Bonaventure

Another book on Bonaventure:
The Category of The Aesthetic in the Philosophy of Saint Bonaventure, by Sister Emma Jane Marie Spargo, St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 1953.

This book, though quite good, is not such a splendid work like the Bonaventure book of our Holy Father. The author repeats too often the same ideas again and again, and doesn't develop many original insights. Nevertheless, some main ideas are quite interesting:

1) The optimism of Bonaventure and the positive attitude to the sensual world. Everything, that is, is beautiful and good. And the world is a book written by God, with his signature in it and hidden signs which could lead us to know God himself. This idea is not an uncommon one, nor is it new. The Irish theologian John Scot Eriugena already put forward a similar idea. That Bonaventure happened to concur with Eriugena, must be due to the Pseudo-Dionyius Areopagita renaissance in the thirteenth century, who inspired greatly Eriugena. In the system of Bonaventure, the transcendence is not totally separated from our sensual world. Instead, the world is a symbol of the thought of God before the creation, which was brought to actuality through the Son. The Divine Idea is hidden within the created world, which is actually an immense book written by God. And Bonaventure takes the Cosmos as a whole, quite in Platonic tradition. This can be seen in the Exemplarism of the Augustinian tradition. For Bonaventure there is a triune structure: Emantion - Exemplarism - Illumination The son emanates from the Father through a natural mode, the Divine wisdom knows everything, is the ground of knowledge. It is called light and mirror, and the book of life (Breviloquium I, 8, 2). It is the Exemplar of all creatures.

And the beauty of the Cosmos consists, not surprisingly, as the Platonics already teach, in the order and harmony between its parts. This idea is manifested in the Gothics of the 13th. century, in which Cathedrals were built according to a rational and systematic plan, and sculptures were cast as ideal of men and women, quite in contrast to the realism of the late medieval time. What is highly interesting is that 'beautiful' is taken by Bonaventure as a fourth transcendal (the other three being: unum, verum, bonum, as Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason still mentions). Transcendals are concepts which can be used to describe everything, which is. So the optism is really striking. I don't think the Platonic tradition teaches this doctrine. But Sister Spargo mentions Pseudo-Dinonysius Areopagite as the source of this thought. Nevertheless, some Franciscans already thought in this way, for example Thomas of York, Robert of Grosseteste, and John de la Rochelle.

In his Commentarium in libro Sententiarum St. Bonaventure says that "whatever possesses being will likewise possess a certain form, and everything that possesses form will possess beauty also as a necessary consequent following upon the form that gives it being" (p. 34). He refers to the etymology of the word formosa: Omne quod est ens, habet aliquam formam; omne autem quod habet aliquam formam, habet pulchritudinem (II 34, 2, 3, 6). Everything that is, is also good, and everything that is, is also beautiful. All good and all beauty have their source in the goodness of God: Omne bonum et pulchrum est a Deo bono; sed omnia visibilia bona sunt et pulcra (II 1, 1, 2, 1). The beauty is the proportion or harmony (congruentia), and there is an interior and an exterior beauty. This idea can be traced back to the Book of Wisdom: in the numero, pondere, mensura consist the habitudines. There are two trinities regarding the relation of one creature to another: one, taken from Dionysius: substantia, virtus et operation, the other is taken from Augustine: quo, constat, quo congruit, quo discernitur. For St. Bonaventure, as for St. Augustine, matter is not pure privation or potency, but contains the first and all prevading substantial form of light. According to St. Augustine matter has modum, speciem and ordinem. And beauty consists in order (II 9, unica, 6). The beauty and perfection of the universe result from unity.

Platonic concepts: the one, the true and the good, and to each of them there is a differnt kind of causality can be attributed (cf. p. 36):
the one - efficient causality
the good - final causality
the true - formal causality
And the beautiful embraces all these causes.

2) the rational structure of beauty: it is quite striking for Bonaventure. Not only does the rationality of beautiful consists in the above mentioned order and proportion, but also in the rational reflection which follows the delight which one experiences at the presence of what is beautiful. Beauty leads to love. The delight is experienced in the presence of the beautiful in a spontanious way and without reflection. Afterwards there follows an act of the intellect which inquires why these objects produce their pleasant effects and what constitutes the pleasure that result from their perception. (Hoc est autem cum quaeritur ratio pulchri, suavis et salubris; et invenitur, quod haec est proportio aequalitatis. Ratio autem aequalitatis est eadem in magnis et parvis nec extenditur dimensionibus nec succedit seu transit cum transeuntibus nec motibus alteratur). In this point St. Bonaventure differs from St. Thomas, the latter proposes that an element of grandeur is needed for an object to be considered beautiful. What makes the things beautiful is the beauty itself. Beauty, while it delights, does not fully satisfy, but leads one to seek further on, as Bonaventure wrote: "Scientia reddit opus pulcrum, voluntas reddit utile, persevarantia reddit stabile. Primum est in rationali, secundum in concupiscibili, tertium in irascibili" (De Red. Art. ad Theol. 13).

3) The Christo-centric theology of Bonaventure leads him to take scars as beautifying the body, it is also a Franciscan tradition as the Franciscans confide themselves to the Amor Pauperis Crucifixi. This Christo-centric theology is supposed by some researchers to be manifested in the depiction of Christ as the Creator, for example at the portal of Cathedral Chartres. At the entrance of Chartres Cathedral one can see: the Creator is not shown as an image of God the Father, but is Christ. There is another picture showing Christ as Creator (from a manuscript of the 13th. century):


Father Boehner of the Franciscan Order pointed out, that the Frecos Stanza della Segnatura of Raphael was inspired by Franciscan thought, and that the textual source for it is the Prologue to Bonaventure's Breviloquium. In this series of frescos, we can see the Cardinal himself depicted, together with Pope Sixtus IV, who canonized him. (on the right side beneath, the one with the Cardinal's hat).



4) the natural and supernatural Beauty
Natural Beauty of the Soul: imago Dei - memoria, intellectus, voluntas - philosophical virtues; supernatural Beauty of the soul - theological virtues.

Pope Benedict on Bonaventure (His book: The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure)

A great book. Before I go into details, I want to enhance some important points and thoughts which occurred to me while reading:

1) The notion of history with an emphasis on the future in the theology of Bonaventure is quite interesting, Pope Benedict could be thinking of the Council Document "Gaudium et Spes" while writing;

2) the Notion of Tradition is interesting, against a static understanding of Tradition, this point, according to my understanding, is responsible for the "Hermeneutic of Continuity" of our Holy Father;

3) The development of the understanding of the Scripture;

On the 14th. of July, the Church celebrated the Feast Day of St. Bonaventure, the Doctor Seraphicus. Already at the age of 36 he was elected the seventh Superior General of the Franciscan Order. He doesn't belong to the most famous or the popular saints, though he was already raised to the altar on the on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the Church in the year 1588 by Pope Sixtus V. Nevertheless, Saint Bonaventure is not only a key figure in the history of philosophy and theology, his thought is even today of actuality, because his thinking is important for a better understanding of the theology of our Holy Father Benedict XVI.

Our Holy Father wrote as a young man his qualification's writing for a teaching position (Habilitationschrift) on the theology of St. Bonaventure (engl. translation by Zachary Hayes OFM, The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1971), in which the young theologian Joseph Ratzinger explored Bonaventure's attitude to Joachim of Fiores conception of history and prophecy. The abbot Joachim was a controversial figure in the Church history. He was considered by many as a Saint, though never officially approved, and his Feast Day was celebrated, unofficially, on the 29th. of May. And Dante made him immortal in the Divina Comedia, as standing at the side of St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure:

... e lucemini da lato
il Calavrese abate Gioachino
de spirito profetico dotato. (Parad., XII, 130-141)

But Joachim's teaching on the Trinity was criticised by the famous Peter Lombard, whose Sententiae was generally used as a textbook in the scholastics. Peter Lombard opined that Joachim presented a kind of Quartenitas, which took the Trinity as fourth unity besides the God Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. And some other points of Joachim's teaching were examined in year 1254, though he was never officially accused of heresy by the Church. Nevertheless, his followers, the Joachimites were condemned by Pope Alexander IV. in 1256.

In his thesis, Joseph Ratzinger takes a close look at Bonaventure's Collationes in Hexaemeron, which presents a fundamental treatment of the theology of history. Through careful textual analysis, Ratzinger shows that in difference to the traditional schema of seven ages, which goes back to Augustine (De civitate Dei ), or the schema of five ages based on the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt. 20, 1-16). Bonaventure offers a new schema of two ages which consists of the age of the Old Law and the New Law. Significant for Bonaventure's theology of history is also the inner-worldly, inner-historical messianic hope, while he rejects the view that with Christ the highest degree of inner-historical fulfilment is already realized so that only an eschatological hope for that which lies beyond all history is left (op. cit. 14). The future has its seeds in the past, and history is not a concatination of blind and chance happenings. With this, the rational structure of history is decisively affirmed. The real point, thus writes Ratzinger, is not the understanding of the past, but prophecy about that which is to come. But a knowledge of the past is necessary for the grasp of the future.

Though Bonaventure borrowed the two ages schema from Joachim, he did condemn the latter's idea of an eternal Gospel, which was supposed to take the place of the New Testament. And whilst Joachim expresses the idea of a new Order in which the ecclesia comtemplativa makes up the final age, while Bonaventures sees the new Order only as a fuller insight into the Scripture. In opposition to the Spirituals led by figures like Joachim and Johannes of Parma, Bonaventure stressed that Francis' own eschatological form of life could not exist as an institution in this world; "it could only be realized as a break-through of grace in the individual until such time as the God-given hour would arrive at which the world would be transformed into its final form of existence" (op. cit. 51).

"Francis is the apocalyptic angel of the seal from whom should come the final People of God, the 144,000 who are sealed. This final people of God is a community of contemplative men; in this community the form of life realized in Francis will become the general form of life. It will be the lot of this People to enjoy already in this world the peace of the seventh day which is to precede the Parousia of the Lord. [...] When this time arrives, it will be a time of contemplatio, a time of the full understanding of Scripture, and in this respect, a time of the Holy Spirit who leads us into the fullness of the truth of Jesus Christ" (op. cit. 54-55).

2. revelation: Bonaventure didn't talk of the "revelation" like we do today in the Fundamental Theology, but of "revelations". Three meanings in the works of Bonaventure: 1) In the Hexaemeron, revelatio means the unveiling of the future; 2) the hidden "mystical" meaning of Scripture; 3) that imageless unveiling of the divine reality which takes place in the mystical ascent (cf. Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite).

According to Bonaventure, the goal of Chrisitan learning is Wisdom, which can be divided into the following degrees:

sapientia multiformis - Epistle to the Ephesians
sapientia omniformis - Salomon
sapientia nulliformis - the mystic approaches in silents to the threshold of the mystery of the eternal God in the night of the intellect (Paul taught it to Timothy and Dionysius)

Bonaventure doesn't refer to the Scriptures themselves as "revelation". Instead, the revelation for him is the spiritual sense of Scripture.

Three visions (like Rupert of Deutz and St. Augustine): visio corporalis, visio spiritualis, viso intellectualis. Bonaventure holds that the content of faith is not found in the letter of Scripture but in the spiritual meaning lying behind the letter. But this view ought not to be understood as a kind of subjective actualism. because the deep meaning of Scripture is not left up to the whim of each individual. Instead, the content of the Faith "has already been objectified in part in the teachings of the Fathers and in theology so that the basic lines are accesible simple by the acceptance of the Catholic Faith. [...] Only Scripture as it is understood in faith is truly holy Scripture. Consequently, Scripture in the full sense is theology" (op. cit. 67).

Bonaventure believes that there is a gradual, historical, progressive development in the understanding of the Scripture which was in no way closed.

3) the Concept of Tradition and the Franciscan Order

According to Martin Grabmann, for Hugo of St. Victor, Scripture and the Fathers flow together into one great Scriptura Sacra. And at the time of Bonaventure, the Canon was set down for him as it stands today. But St. Francis challenged with his life according to the Sermon on the Mount this overtly statistic concept of Tradition.

4) Bonaventure in context of his time

under the influence of Rupert of Deutz (the emphasis on the future), Honorius of Autun and Anselm of Havelberg (the eschatological aspect of history).

"In contrast with Aquinas, Bonaventure expressly recognized Joachim's Old Testament exegesis and adopted it as his own. In this case, Thomas is more an Augustinian than is Bonaventure. [...] But the difference that separates Bonaventure from Joachim is greater than it may seem at first. Bascially he is in agreement with the Thomistic critique, for he also affirms a Christo-centrism. Bonaventure does not accept the notion of an age of the Holy Spirit which destroyed the central position of Christ in the Joachimite view" (op. cit. 117).

5) the Anti-Aristotelism of Bonaventure:

for a Christian understanding of time. For Aristotle, the world is eternal, which is contra the Christian teaching.
Philosophy as a "lignum scientiae boni et mali". but also as the Beast from the Abyss (Hexaemeron XVI), reason, the Harlot and the prophecy of the end of rational theology.

Carpe diem!

Today I picked up occasionally the edition of Horace's Odes and Epodes, edited by the Latinist Bernard Kytzler for students (Reclam 2000). Though I found initially Horace's world foreign to me, his carmen I, XI which I happened to read today struck me directly in the heart. It is written in Asclepiadeus maior (---uu- | -uu- | -uu-uu). The phrase "carpe diem" emerges in the last verse. An outworn phrase used to urge people to enjoy the life. But indeed I find it not so jolly as it seems. If you don't think of the nearing death, you won't be in need of urging yourself to grasp the fleeing day. How is it possible to get hold of the time, I ask you mate? Especially the word "pati" in the third verse betrayed the sadness hidden behind the seemingly careless tone of the poet. And the first lines of this poem begin directly with the thought on Death. It reminds me of the poems of the baroque era in which the poet urges his beloved woman not to hesitate to accept his love, because the snow of her shoulders will be ashes tomorrow.


Horatius carmen I, XI:

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. ut melius, quidquid erit, pati.
seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum: sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.

Cor, quare me flere facis?

Cor stultum, putas quod iste vir me puellam miseram olim amavit? Ego nescio utrum hoc verum est. Nec audeo interrogare me ipsum utrum. Solum flere volo. Mens mea, mihi nullam responsionem da, cor meum franges.

Mens, cor, cur me affligitis? Amo, et amare desistere non possum. Umbram amo, animam pulchram amo. Mens, noli docere me quid prudens est, quia timeo me numquam somniaturam esse. Sed somniare volo. Cor, quare me flere facis? Somnium istud bellulum est. Cor, quare fleo quamvis somnio? Fleo veraciter in somnio.

Cor meum iam fractum est.

Eriugena's Immediate Influence (Note on the same book of O'Meara, Chapter 11)

In the Gesta episcoporum Autissiodorensium one reads that Wicbald (Guibaud), Bishop of Auxerre (879), was a disciple of Eriugena.

Eriugena was in the palace school of Charles the Bald. Indications show that he remained there from the early fifties until perhaps the late seventies of the ninth century. But it is unknown where this palace school was. It might have been in Laon, or in the neighbourhood, at Quierzy or Compiègne.

Two persons are especially important: Wulfad and Winibert. The Periphyseon was dedicated to Wulfad. Wulfad was a cleric of Reims, ordained by Ebbon but unrecognized by Hincmar, he became tutor of Charles the Bald's son Carloman (854-60), than abbot of Montierender (855-6), abbot of Saint-Médard at Soisson (858), abbot of Rebais (after 860), finally archbishop of Bourges. *(very important fact!):

"A list of some thirty-one books in his library show that it contained many of the same Greek authors as are found in Laon. It also contained Eriugena's translation of the Pseudo-Dionysius and the Quaestiones ad Thalassium of Maximus the Confessor as well as the Periphyseon. The list itself was written on the penultimate leaf of a volume containing Eriugena's translation of Maximus's Ambigua" (p. 199).

Manuscript Laon 24 contains a letter to a certain dominus Winibertus (according to J.J. Contreni the abbot of Schuttern in the diocese of Strasbourg) in which Eriugena expresses regret that he and Winibert had been separated so that their work on Martinaus Capella had become difficult.

Martin the Irishman, who taught at the cathedral school in Laon, belonged to the group of Irish in Laon whom Eriugena knew there. Martin used poems of Eriugena in his handbook MS Laon 444.

MS Paris BN lat. 10307 contains extracts from the Greek-Latin glossary of Martin and also a verse concerning Fergus and two distichs identified as Eriugena's by C. Leonardi.

Fergus was a close friend of Sedulius. Both Sedulius and Fergus are metioned in the marginalia of the ninth-century Codex Bernensis 363 along with Eriugena and some twelve other Irish contemparies. Also included in the marginalia are Gottschalk, Hincmar, and Ratramnus. Authors referred to in the MS are Donatus, Fulgentius, Hadrian, Honoratus, Isidore, Martinaus Capella, Priscian, Sergius, and Virgilius. The combination of all these naems of Eriugena's contemporaries suggest a common interest in the themes associated with the authors detailed. The name of Eriugena is entered over and over again aomong the marginalia of this manuscript, opposite passages relevant to Eriugena's teaching, and it is clear that the glossators knew the Periphyseon. Fergus, described as a grammaticus, is probably also to be associated with Eriugena and Bishop Pardulus of Laon in relation to a medicament recommended for the removal of unwanted hair (curious thing).

Two pupils of Eriugena: Elias, an Irishman, later bishop of Angoulême (861-75) and Wicbald, later bishop of Auxerre (879-87). In biblical glosses attributed to Eriugena some fifty words in Old Irish are used as glosses on the Old Testament.

Others who were influenced by him: Almannus of Hautvillers and Hucbald of St. Amand, the latter made a florilegium of Eriugenan thoughts.

Heiric of Auxerre, author of Life of St Germanus, Collectanea, Homiliary. He borrowed from Eriugena in his Life of St. Germanus and Homiliary. In the Life of St. Germanus: the same language, the same themes, the same insertion of occasional Greek words or verses. Also his Homiliaryis heavily indebted to Eriugena's Homily on the Prolouge to St. John's Gospel. Heiric was in his Life of St. Germanus indebted to Periphyseon I-III. The Homily reveals that he knew Periphyseon IV and V as well.

Three ancient texts were glossed by those engaged in teaching and learning: Martianus Capella's De nuptiis (glossed by Eriugena and Marin); Boethius's Opuscula sacra and the Categoriae decem (a worled attributed to Augustine and used extensively by Eriugena in the first book of Periphyseon). 

Heiric might have become a follower of Eriugena through his teacher Remigius of Auxerre Remigius might have been born in Ireland in the early forties. He is first identified as a monk at the abbey of St-Germain at Auxerre, wrote a commentary on the Consolatio of Boethius and a commentary on Martianus Capella.

Animals in Paradise (a Poem by William Blake)

Talking about animals in Paradise, I remember a poem written by William Blake:

(Though the interpreters are not in full agreement whether this poem can be taken as a picture of terrestrial paradise, E.D. Hirsch is the one who suggested this reading, cf. Hirsch, E.D.: Innocence and Experience: An Introduction to Blake. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964).

The Little Girl Lost
In futurity
I prophesy
That the earth from sleep
(Grave the sentence deep)

Shall arise, and seek
For her Maker meek;
And the desert wild
Become a garden mild.

In the southern clime,
Where the summer's prime
Never fades away,
Lovely Lyca lay.

Seven summers old
Lovely Lyca told.
She had wandered long,
Hearing wild birds' song.

'Sweet sleep, come to me,
Underneath this tree;
Do father, mother, weep?
Where can Lyca sleep?

'Lost in desert wild
Is your little child.
How can Lyca sleep
If her mother weep?

'If her heart does ache,
Then let Lyca wake;
If my mother sleep,
Lyca shall not weep.

'Frowning, frowning night,
O'er this desert bright
Let thy moon arise,
While I close my eyes.'

Sleeping Lyca lay,
While the beasts of prey,
Come from caverns deep,
Viewed the maid asleep.

The kingly lion stood,
 And the virgin viewed:
 Then he gambolled round
 O'er the hallowed ground.

 Leopards, tigers, play
 Round her as she lay;
 While the lion old
 Bowed his mane of gold,

 And her breast did lick
 And upon her neck,
 From his eyes of flame,
 Ruby tears there came;

 While the lioness
 Loosed her slender dress,
 And naked they conveyed
 To caves the sleeping maid.

Festina lente - What Erasmus can make out of an adage

The Adagia of Erasmus of Rotterdam provides an example of the encyclopaedic and polihistorical character of the Humanist scholarship.

Just reading the Adagium Festina lente, it begins with etymological observations and citations from ancient authors like Aristophanes, Homer and Hesiod, and moves on to rhetoric and emblematic observations. He mentions a coin of Vespasian, whose backside shows a dolphin who embraces an anchor. However, what most amusing is how Erasmus makes out of this proverb a philosophy of time: dolphin is the symbol for quickness, whilst the anchor is the symbol for slowness. Together they display exactly this adagium. Erasmus goes on to a philosophical excursion and refers to Aristotle. What strikes me is how unaristotelian his account of the view of Aristotle on time is: he mentions the impetus theory, according to which the impetus is the smallest and indivisible  unit of time. It might be basing on the influence of late medieval natural philosophy, but it is not at all Aristotelian as Aristotle opposes to the atom theory of Democrit. According to Aristotle there is no smallest unit of time.

Just a note.

P.S. a quick search brings on to very interesting facts: the dolphin in the heraldry: John Vinycomb: Fictitious and Symbolic Creatures in Art, 1909.

And Alciato expanded on this emblema (from http://www.mun.ca/alciato/, a wonderful discovery! the whole Liber Emlematum of Alciato as online edition!). Though in a different meaning than Erasmus: 

Alciati Emblematum liber

Emblema CXLIV
Princeps subditorum incolumitatem procurans

Titanii quoties conturbant aequora fratres,
  Tum miseros nautas anchora iacta iuvat:
Hanc pius erga homines Delphin complectitur, imis
  Tutius ut possit figier illa vadis.
Quam decet haec memores gestare insignia Reges,
  Anchora quod nautis, se populo esse suo.

Commentary to this Emblema (from the same project: http://www.mun.ca/alciato/index.html):
The "Titan brothers" are the winds. The kindness of dolphins towards men was written about very early (eg, Aristotle History of Animals book 5). The anchor as a sign of political stability appears in a number of classical authors.

Erasmus in his Adages has a full discussion of the anchor and dolphin, but interprets it quite differently from Alciato, under the heading of "Festina lente" or "Hasten slowly" where the swift movement of the dolphin is tempered by the stability of the anchor (2.1.1; trans Collected Works of Erasmus 33:3-17). The symbol appeared on an ancient coin of the emperor Titus Vespasian in AD 80. Apparently (note in CWE 33:340) the juxtaposition of anchor and dolphin had been associated with the god Neptune and the coin was issued in propitiation for the eruption of Vesuvius the year before. Erasmus sees the symbol as a hieroglyphic, which he explains in a long passage. Aldus Manutius (Aldo Manuzio, the Venetian printer, d 1515), published the 1508 edition of Erasmus' Adages, and in his adage 2.1.1 Erasmus tells how Aldus showed him the ancient coin of Vespasian. Aldus had been familiar with this symbol for some time. It appeared in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published by Aldus in 1499, as a "hieroglyphic" symbol. Soon after Aldus began to use the anchor and dolphin as his mark, and it was retained by his family after his death (you can see it on the title page of the 1546 edition). It is perhaps the most famous trademark in the history of Western printing.

Sadness

Not in a creative state. Feelings and Thoughts all messed up. Sadness deep in heart. An inconsolable longing. Must get my acts together, desperately the mind tries to command. Where is my will? Suffer under the ἀκρασία, drifting with the stream, carried downstream like petals on the water surface. It carries me to nowhere. Only to the sea of indefinite width. No one is waiting at the end of the journey. 


Lord have mercy on me!

Christianization and Europe

In the Geschichte der Religiosität im Mittelalter Arnold Angenendt wrote:

Zunächst war Europa ein ethnischer, kultureller und religiöser Flickenteppich, der sich additiv aneinanderreihte, aber keinen den Gesamtraum übergreifenden Zusammenhalt besaß und somit auch keine gemeinsame Geschichte hatte. Erst die Missionierung, die von der Taufe Chlodwigs bis zur Christianisierung der baltischen Völker im 14. Jahrhundert tausend Jahre in Anspruch nahm, hat jenen inneren Verbund herbeigeführt, der Europa ausmacht. Dabei sind in großem Ausmaß Verluste und Zerstörungen, doch auch bedeutsame Gewinne zu verzeichnen, eben das neu geschaffene Europa.

Without Christianity and Mission there would have been no Unity of Europe. Thus the process of secularisation is alarming as there would be no common ground for communication any more if the governments should get rid entirely of the Christian roots of their own culture. I think it must be one of the reasons why Pope Benedict established the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation of Europe.

By the way, I found a very lovely video about the brothers Ratzinger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iArg7ZSjbc

Psalm 114 on Exodus

That is one of my favourite Church songs by Mozart (and easy to sing):
But I am still full of melancholy. The little cat is whining again, and inside me my heart too. I feed her again, and she is happy now, but I remain in the same state. 

Psalm 114: Als aus Ägypten Israel (only the first and sixth verse available on Youtube)
The anonymous German (quite free) translation of Psalm 114 set by Mozart reads:

Als aus Ägypten Israel,
vom Volke der Barbaren,
gezogen aus dem Heidentum
die Kinder Jakobs waren,
da ward Judäa Gott geweiht
und Israel gebenedeit
zu seinem Reich und Erbe.

Das Weltmeer sah's, erstaunt' und floh;
der Jordan wich, floss klemmer,
wie widder hüpften Berg' empor
und Hügel wie die Lämmer,
was war dir, Weltmeer, dass du flohst?
Dir, Jordan, dass zurück du zohst?
Was hüpften Berg' und Hügel?

Vor ihres Gottes Gegenwart,
durch den die Schöpfung lebet,
vor Gottes Jakobs Angesicht
hat Erd' und Meer gebebet,
vor ihm, dess' mächt'ge Wunderkraft
aus Stein und Felsen Seen schafft,
aus Kiesel Wasserquellen.

Nicht uns gib Ehre, Herr, nicht uns,
dein Ruhm soll alles füllen;
allein um der Erbarmungen,
um deiner Wahrheit willen.
In Dir nur ist Vollkommenheit,
und all dein Tun Barmherzigkeit;
preis sei nur deinem Namen!

Daß nun nicht mehr mit Frevlerspott
das Volk der Heiden fraget:
Wo ist ihr allgewalt'ger Gott,
der ihrer Sorge traget?
Im Himmel thront Gott, unser Herr,
und was er will, das schaffet er
allmächtig, gütig, weise.

Der Heiden Götzen, Silber, Gold,
die nur durch sie entstehen,
die haben Ohren, hören nicht,
und Augen die nicht sehen,
und Mund und Kehle, die nicht spricht.
Sie riechen, tasten, gehen nicht
mit Nase, Händen, Füssen.

Gleich ihnen werde, der sie macht
und der auf sie vertrauet;
doch Israels und Aarons Haus
hat auf den Herrn gebauet,
und jeder Fromme hofft auf ihn.
Darum wird Rettung ihm verlieh'n.
Gott ist sein Schirm, sein Helfer!

Stets war Gott unser eingedenk
wenn Übels uns begegnet;
er hat gesegnet Israel,
hat Aarons Haus gesegnet.
Der Herr liess allen, die ihn scheu'n,
Erbarmung, Segen angedeih'n,
vom Mind'sten bis zum Grössten.

Noch ferner komm auch Gottes Heil
auf euch und eure Kinder,
stets werde seines Segens mehr
und stets des Argen minder.
Der Erd' und Himmel hat gemacht,
der Herr sei seines Volks bedacht,
schütz' uns, sein salig Erbe.

Du gabst, Herr, dess' die Himmel sind,
das Erdreich Menschensöhnen;
von Toten, die der Abgrund schlingt,
wird nicht dein Lob ertönen;
doch wir, in denen Leben ist,
wir preisen Dich von dieser Frist
in ewig ew'ge Zeiten!

Petrarca: Canzoniere

Poor maiden! You are not born with honeyed mouth, never drank the nectar, never learned to sing in verses, never played a lyre. But how come that you, without the genius of a poet, should suffer his pain and languish? Let the poet sing for you, he, a luckier soul, could transfer his anguish into immortal melody (and I, though never learned Italian, type it in original as it is more beautiful than in translation), and teresa be an echo of his song:

132
S'amor non è, che dunque è quel ch'io sento?
Ma s'egli è amor, perdio, che cosa et quale?
Se bona, onde l'effecto aspro mortale?
Se ria, onde sì dolce ogni tormento?

S'a mia voglia ardo, onde 'l pianto e lamento?
S'a mal mio grado, il lamentar che vale?
O viva morte, o dilectoso male,
come puoi tanto in me, s'io nol consento?

Et s'io 'l consento, a gran torto mi doglio.
Fra sì contrari vènti in frale barca
mi trovo in alto mar senza governo,

sì lieve di saver, d'error sì carca
ch'i' medesmo non so quel ch'io mi voglio,
e tremo a mezza state, ardendo il verno.

There is a baroque German translation to it by Martin Opitz (Sonnet with Alexandrian verses)

Francisci Petrarchae (Sonnet XXI)

ISt Liebe lauter nichts / wie daß sie mich entzündet?
Ist sie dann gleichwol was / wem ist ihr Thun bewust?
Ist sie auch gut vnd recht / wie bringt sie böse Lust?
Ist sie nicht gut / wie daß man Frewd' auß jhr empfindet?
Lieb' ich ohn allen Zwang / wie kan ich schmertzen tragen?
Muß ich es thun / was hilfft's daß ich solch Trawren führ'?
Heb' ich es vngern an / wer dann befihlt es mir?
Thue ich es aber gern'/ vmb was hab' ich zu klagen?
Ich wancke wie das Graß so von den kühlen Winden
Vmb Vesperzeit bald hin geneiget wird / bald her:
Ich walle wie ein Schiff das durch das wilde Meer
Von Wellen vmbgejagt nicht kan zu Rande finden.
Ich weiß nicht was ich wil / ich wil nicht was ich weiß:
Im Sommer ist mir kalt / im Winter ist mir heiß.

Johannes Eriugena's Poetry (Notes)

Reading John J. O'Meara's Eriugena, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.

Chapter 10 is on the Poetry of Eriugena:

1) historical context
Poetry in Latin was an important element in the Carolingian Renaissance. This poetry was political and inspired by Virgil, especially by his Aeneid. Louis the Pious reacted against this, Charles the Bald revived it.

Prevalent themes are the praise of the holy Cross, hagiography and moral didacticism. The focus of the poetry is Charles the Bald himself. Almost every poem of Eriugena praises and prays for him.

Irishmen had a great influence in promoting theological debates at that time.

Poets in Charles' time had an interest in parody, for example Sedulius Scotus's poem on the ram.

2) Eriugena's poetry

In the Edition of L. Traube in the MGH (Monumenta germaniae historica: poetae latini aevi Carolini, 3) one can find lists of Greek words in Greek script.. There are some pieces composed altogether in Greek written in Greek script. There is one in Greek but transliterated into Latin script. There are poems in Greek (in Greek script) followed by a word-for-word translation in Latin. Many of the poems have Greek words introduced here and there, sometimes few, sometimes many. About half of the poems are written in elegiac couplets and half in dactylic hexameter (p. 178-179).

His poems derive from a collection formed during his lifetime and probably by the author himself. They were written between 850 and 877. The extant poems come mainly form MSS Vat. Reg. 1587 and 1709.


3) Interpretation
One of the more interesting poems is Aulae siderae. Madame Viellard-Troiekouroff thought it describes the Church of St. Mary of Compiègne. Her evidence is verse 87 where the word 'hundred' is mentioned, and took it to be an allusion to the numbers of clerics this church was built for. But P. Dutton and É. Jeauneau thought together with Y. Christe that this number can be biblical (one hundred cubits in the temple of Ezekiel).

For Viellard-Troiekouroff the poem clearly indicates the octagonal character of the church built by Charles the Bald, but it does not clearly indicate that it has a cupola.

Foussard offers a metaphysical interpretation.


4) Content of Aulae siderae
The poem centres in its earlier part around the numbers four and eight. Four itself, as the poems tells us, is the number of the seasons which are headed by Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn which mark the equinoxes and solstices. These constellations mark also the conception of Christ (Aries, 25 March), the birth of John the Baptist (Cancer, 24 June), the conception of the Baptist (Libra, 24 September), and the birth of Christ (Capricorn, 25 December).

Eight is an important number in relation to Christ and the reintegration of all things in the end. Christ was born on the eighth day before the kalends of January, was conceived on the eighth day before the kalends of April, was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth, and rose from the dead on the eighth day of the week. The universe will end in its eighth age.

The main theme is the birth of Christ and the return of man which it makes possible.

The poem ends with a prayer for Charles to Christ and to Mary. For Mary Charles is building a church which is therupon described in some detail Charles is shown as seated on a throne in the church looking out upon all, wearing on his head a diadem and holding sceptres in his hands.

It contains one hundred hexameters which is followed by one line of acclamation.

The Aulae siderae can be considered as an instance of Eriugena's interest in art and as conveying his approach to it - his philosophy of art.

In his poems generally he manifests an interest in objets d'art and speaks of the robes encrusted with jewels that the queen, Ermentrude, weaves for Charles; of the golden vases and broad hangings that furnish a church built by Charles; and of gold and gems burning like flames. He speaks of the purple vestments of the ministers of the altar and shows a lively consciousness of things artistic.

The prosody of this poems is acceptable but the verses have little of the harmonious movement of Virgil's. This is partly due to the total avoidance of elision and synapheia. The result is inevitalbe staccato. But it has still some possibly Virgilian echoes (v. 54) for example

Salve sancta domus, panis ditissima patrum

cf. Virgil's Aeneid 5.80:

Salve, sancte parens, iterum salvete, recpti
nequiquam cineres

or in his Georgics, 2.173:

Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus.

Also cf. Statius' Silvae 3.3.208

Salve supremum, senior mitissime patrum

5) Usage of Greek

M. Lapidge believes that Eriugena derived this practice of incorporating Greek words and verses in his poems not from his forbears in Irland (though there are some phrases in Greek in the Book of Armagh, written in 807), nor from Ausonius, who was not much read in the Carolingian period, but, possibly from Martianus Capella. However it is more probable that the practice originated with Eriugena himself.

6) Influence on his contemporaries

Martin the Irishman collected the Greek words that were in the verses of Johannes Scottus (Laon MS 444). Hincmar of Laon, Heiric and Remi of Auxerre all followed him in this practise of using Greek words. And especially Odon of Fleury.

Yeats & Propertius - The Key

The poem of Yeats posted two days ago is so dark, I don't really understand it. But comparing with the second book of Elegiae by Propertius, I find one poem which could be the inspiration of Yeats:

Liber secundus II

Liber eram et vacuo meditabar vivere lecto;
at me composita pace fefellit Amor.
cur haec in terris facies humana moratur?
Iuppiter, ignosco pristina furta tua.
fulva coma est longaeque manus, et maxima toto
corpore, et incedit vel Iove digna soror,
aut cum Dulichias Pallas spatiatur ad aras,
Gorgonis anguiferae pectus operta comis;
qualis et Ischomache Lapithae genus heroine,
Centauris medio grata rapina meo;
Mercurio et qualis fertur Boebeidos undis
virgimeum Brimo composuisse latus.
cedite iam, divae, quas pastor viderat olim
Idaeis tunicas ponere verticibus!
hanc utinam faciem nolit mutare senectus,
etsi Cumaeae saecula vatis agat!

Tristia

Puto te amicum me nunquam visuram esse. Hac aestate me iterum reliqueris. Relicta in campo saevo expectavi vana spe te iterum invenire. Titan rotavit quinquadraginta circulos, luna crevit luna descrevit, sed te non vidi.

Campum quis prius arcadia nostra erat nunc habitant homines saevi et rudes. Teresa illum locum reliquit, et non scit an reddet. Spes puellae teresae vana est. Somnium veris tantum, sed nullum somnium aestatis istae miserae puellae dabitur.

Esne salvus? Esne felix? Sed teresa miserissima et tristissima sum, quia spes me perdit, somnium me perdit, laetitia me perdit. Et scio causam miserae meae solum meum stultum corda esse. Mens mea dicit esse vanam spem sed cor istam spem non omittere vult.

Cor desiste sperare! Quia ista spes mors mea est. Parce mihi, quia vivere volo.

Yeats & Propertius

Reading the Oxford's Anthology of W.B. Yeats (The Major Works, including poems, plays, critical prose), found a dark poem which he claims to be inspired by the Second Book of Elegy by Propertius - A Thought from Propertius: (p. 70)

She might, so noble from head
To great shapely knees
The long flowing line,
Have walked to the altar
Through the holy images
At Pallas Athena's side,
Or been fit spoil for a centaur
Drunk with the unmixed wine.

(Shall compare with Propertius and expand on it later).

Last Summer in Norway

This summer came too late. But now it is here. Warm. The hills around our village are deep green, and the ripening crops slumber in the burning sunshine. No wind. And the evening is peaceful, when the glaring sun retires but the heaven is still bright and hanging over us in a pale blue.

Now I must remember the happy and peaceful days last year in Norway. Never seen such a beautiful country. They said it rained often in summer, but during my visit I had mostly sonny days. The never ending days of the Norwegian Summer! The sun doesn't sink to the bosom of his bride, but suspends just above their marital bed and projects a long red shadow on the surface of the ocean.

Being alone there and with all the colleagues of the institute which hosted me gone home to their wives and kids, I enjoyed extended walks in the city and in the hills surrounding it. Wherever you are, you get a view of the bays, the Fjords as they call them. Loosed from the embrace of the pine trees you soul flows out to the wide sky and the boundless sea, an unspeaking longing, and free! (And I must recall the painting of Caspar David Friedrich, Kreidefelsen auf Rügen).

The light was so pale there that it deemed everything unreal. A landscape for sleep-wanderers. In the city the youth enjoyed the prolonged day and everyone was celebrating. At 4 o'clock teens and students still roamed the streets. And in the parks they brought casts of beer. But I enjoyed more the loneliness of my walk in areas with no bars but a magnificent view over the city and the bays. But away from the city, in a park alongside the bay, I stopped and observed a party of young men and women who enjoyed their sprouting youth. And suddenly I understood Edvard Munch, who painted series of "the Frieze of Life" with the stretched reflection of the suspending sun over the water a returning motive. It was the force of life they displayed: Sexuality and the lust for life. Today, manifested in a more primitive form than at the time of Munch, but the substance is the same. Do these youth know what melancholy is, or they just drink it away as melancholy is for them painful and unendurable?

Melancholy, the tendency to death, the mother of reflection, is never absent from the earlier paintings of Munch. So the life radiating youth together with me make a full picture of reality. And upon turning away from this scene, I was struck by the sight of a Moslem sitting on a bench just meters away, praying with a Koran in his hands.

(My favourite painting of Munch is: Summer Night, Inger on the Shore, from the Rasmus Meyer Collection).

Some Notes on Christologie (in the Patristics)

1. Basic Concepts:

gr. ousia/physis hypostasis/prosopon
lat. essentia/substantia substantia prima/subsistentia/persona
engl. natur person

2. the classic christological dogma:

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the one Person of the Divine word, which subsists eternally in the Divine nature of the Logos and temporally in the human nature he took.

The word "Jesus" means not only the empirical reality of the man from Nazaret (i.e. the natural prosopon), but also the invisible Person of the Logos (p. 322 in the Handbook of Dogmatics), which conveys the unity of two natures and individualizes the concrete human existence of Jesu.

Johannes Scotus Eriugena (Poemata-1)

The edition of his poems can be found in MGH Poetae 3,2, p. 516ff.

I
Caesare sub Karolo Francorum gloria pollet,
Litora ceu pelagi piscibus atque salo:
Secta diabolici damnatur dogmatis atque
Pastorum cura plendet amoena fides.

Another very long Poem with Greek words used occasionally will be posted soon.

(a recent edition of his Carmina: Iohannes Scottus Eriugena. Herren, Michael, ed. Carmina. Scriptores Latini Hiberniae, vol. 12. Pp. viii, 179. ISBN: 1-855-00162-4., Book review).

Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagiter in the Latin translation of John Scot Eriugena

His Latin translation is available online (the Patrologia Latina edition).

Yesterday in a lecture I heard something quite interesting: Pseudo-Dionysius mentioned in the 11. Chapter of his De Divinis Nominibus that Peace is a name of God:

I. Some notes

The divine and ecclesiastical (divina et archisynagoga pax) Peace is "omnium adunatrix, et omnium consensus, et connaturalitatis genitrix et operatrix". The Peace is the unifier of everything, the generator and effector of all agreement and likeness (how to translate connaturalitas adequately? ).

Everything desires the Peace because it unifies the multitity into one, and tie the concurrence (or better battle?/ bellum) into an uniform cohabitation.

The first of the with each other combining powers (primores congregatarum virtutum) participate in the divine Peace and unify themselves into one. They keep everything from running into anarchy (c.f. "non sinit separata fundi ad multum et infinitum, inordinata, et incollocata, deserta Deo facta").

Divine Peace or the Repose (silentio), which is called by the holy Justus ajfqegxivan? (the unutterable? This word must have been written in Greek, the transcription here in the electronic edition is strange, must look up in the PL itself. ), never loses its unity.

But the Divine Peace is not permitted for anyone of the existent things to speak out or to be understood, nor is possible to do this (Neque dicere, neque intelligere cuidam existentium est fas, neque possibile).


But we can make the following observations about the Divine Peace:

1) Through the Divine Peace an unloosable unity according to Divine Harmony is established (cf. Per quam una et insolubilis omnium complicatio secundum divinam ejus harmoniam constituitur, et compaginatur consonantia perfecta, et consensus, et congerminatio congregans inconfuse, inseparabiliterque confusa).

2) God: Sed per seipsum esse, et per seipsam vitam, et per seipsam deitatem dicimus principaliter quidem et deiformiter et causaliter unum omnium superprincipale et superessentiale principium et causam. Participaliter autem editas ex Deo non participante providas virtutes, per seipsam deificationem, per seipsam vivificationem, per seipsam deificationem, quas existentia proprie sibimetipsis participant, et existentia, et viventia, et divina, et sunt, et dicuntur, et alia similiter.

But under 2) no further connection is made with the Divine Peace

II. the usage of Greek words in the Latin translation

two Greek words are introduced in this chapter,
1) the "unutterable" (Greek form still to be found in PL)
2) nullum ον, quod quidem est.

A dark text. Doesn't seem philosophically significant to me. What is he trying to say here beside of the already known Platonic doctrines like the One and the Multitude?

Perhaps should read the whole text in full, not just this one chapter.

The order of the demons: Something Father Cumanus told me tonight

Pride - Lucifer
Avarice - Mammon
Lust - Asmodeus
Wrath - Satan
Gluttony - Beelzebub
Envy - Leviathan
Sloth - Belfagor

Shall write more about it later.

Material (Johannes Scottus Eriugena)

1) Neuplatonismus und Ästhetik. Zur Transformationsgeschichte des Schönen, hrsg. von Verena
Olejniczak Lobsien und Claudia Olk. Berlin, New York (Walter de Gruyter) 2007, 256 S. EUR 78,- (Transformationen der Antike, hrsg. von H. Böhme u. a., Bd. 2; ISBN 978-3-11-019225-4).
in this book an article from Walter Haug, an outstanding medievalist, on the Neoplatonic Aesthetics, he covered Jamblich, Proklos, Augustinus, Dionysius, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, Isidor
von Sevilla, Macrobius und Alanus von Lille.

2) Glosses of Pschychomachia of Prudentius
John M. Burnam: Glossemata de Prudentio, edited from the Paris and Vatican manuscripts. University Press, Cincinnati (Ohio) 1905 (Ausgabe der Glossen von Johannes Scotus Eriugena)

3) Kurt Ruh: Die Grundlegung durch die Kirchenväter und die Mönchstheologie des 12. Jhs., 1990.

4) Max Manitius: Geschichte der Lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 1974.

5) Hanns Peter Neuheuser: Zugänge zur Sakralkunst: narratio und instututio. 2001

(to be expanded)

Some examples of the Reception of Ovid's Heroides

Boccaccio's Elegia di madonna Fiammeta
Diego de San Pedro: Carcel de Armor (1492)

And don't know whether these soliloquies of love can be considered to be the continuation of the same tradition too, for example:
Franz Schubert: Gretchen am Spinnrad (from Goethe's Faust I) (the video is too sentimental for my taste, but the interpretation is the best I can find in web).

Ovid: Epistulae Heroidum (I: Penelope to Ulysses)

Carmen 1

I. to the text in general:

This kind of fictional epistle is a new form of art i.e. sliloquy. There were before some similar examples, to be found in Propertius' Poem which displays a letter of Arethusa to her husband Lycotas, but it is supposed to have been written by a real person to a real person (from Aelia Galla to Postumus). As Prof. Palmer says, Propertius "did not grasp, or at any rate did not work out the idea that such an epistolary form could be used in general for the delineation of character and the expression of emotion" (Arthur Palmer in his Introdoction to Heroides, Hildesheim: Olms, 167, xii). It was Ovid who expanded this genre.

Main Manuscript: Codex Parisnus 8242 (P) of the 11th. century (Puteaneus).

Medieval translation into Greek!: by Maximus Planudes (13th. century), along this work he translated also: Cicero's Somnium Scipionis and its commentary by Macrobius, Caesar's Gallic War, Ovid's Metamorphoses, St. Augustin's De Trinitate, Boethius' De consolatione Philosophae,

Influence: the tradition of 'female complaint', the Spanish novela sentimantal of the 15th. century, and the epistolary novel of the 18th. century.


II. notes: (from ed. Peter E. Knox: Ovid Heroides, Select Epistles, Cambridge University Press, 1995)

Homer's Odysseus was also read as a love story. Like Ovid made it clear himself in his defence of his poetry to Augustus, where he wrote: "aut quid Odyssea est nisi femina propter amorem, dum uir abest, multis una petita procis" (Trist. 2.375-6).


to the letter: according to the narration in the poem we can judge that the letter is meant to be written after the fall of Troy and the return of the Greeks, and after Penelope's interview with Telemachus, which takes place the day before the suitors are killed. Kennedy suggests that the intended carrier of the letter would be non other than Ulysses himself.


(line: 7-10) Penelope's complaint that she must sleep alone and pass the night in weaving mirrors Cynthia's complaint in Propertius' elegy 1.3.41 "nam modo purpureo fallebam stamine somnum

7-8 in Homer's Odysseus Penolope complains the same to the disguised Odysseus

nomine in Hectoreo: at the mention of Hector's name

17 Menoetiaden: Patroclus, son of Menoetius

33 Sugeua tellus: the land of Troy, called after the promontory Sigeum, the burial place of Achilles and Patroclus (Virg. Aen. 7.294)

39-46 Diomedes and Ulysses captured the Trojan spy Dolon and were informed by him of the location of Rhesus' camp.

vertere puppim: landing a ship stern first

and some more explanatory notes added by me:

1) Pergama: the citadel of Troy, poet. for Troy: Pergama
2) Simois: a river near Troy, flows into the Scamander
3) Aeacides: derived from Aeacus, given to various of his descendants, here must be Achilles, his grandson

Text in full (fairly long) according to the Brepol-edition

Hanc tua Penelope lento tibi mittit, Ulixe;
Nil mihi rescribas, at tamen ipse veni!
Troia iacet certe Danais invisa puellis:
Vix Priamus tanti tota que Troia fuit.
O utinam tum, cum Lacedaemona classe petebat,
Obrutus insanis esset adulter aquis!
Non ego deserto iacuissem frigida lecto,
Non quererer tardos ire relicta dies,
Nec mihi quaerenti spatiosam fallere noctem
Lassasset viduas pendula tela manus.

Quando ego non timui graviora pericula veris?

Res est solliciti plena timoris amor.

In te fingebam violentos Troas ituros,
Nomine in Hectoreo pallida semper eram;
Sive quis Antilochum narrabat ab Hectore victum,
Antilochus nostri causa timoris erat;
Sive Menoetiaden falsis cecidisse sub armis,
Flebam successu posse carere dolos;
Sanguine Tlepolemus Lyciam te pefecerat hastam:
Tlepolemi leto cura novata me ast;
Denique, quisquis erat castris iugulatus Achivis,
Frigidius glacie pectus amantis erat.

Sed bene consuluit casto deus aequus amori:
Versast in cineres sospite Troia viro.

Argolici rediere duces: altaria fumant;
Ponitur ad patrios barbara praeda deos;
Grata ferunt nymphae pro salvis dona maritis,
Illi victa suis Troica fata canunt;
Mirantur iusti que senes trepidae que puellae,
Narrantis coniunx pendet ab ore viri,
Atque aliquis posita monstrat fera proelia mensa
Pingit et exiguo Pergama tota mero:
'Hac ibat Simois, haec est Sigeia tellus,
Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis;
Illic Aeacides, illic tendebat Ulixes,
Hic lacer admissos terruit Hector equos'.

Omnia namque tuo senior te quaerere misso
Rettulerat nato Nestor, at ille mihi.
Rettulit et ferro Rhesum que Dolona que caesos,
Ut que sit hic somno proditus, ille dolo.

Ausus es, o nimium nimium que oblite tuorum,
Thracia nocturno tangere castra dolo
Tot que simul mactare viros, adiutus ab uno!
At bene cautus eras et memor ante mei!
Usque metu micuere sinus, dum victor amicum
Dictus es Ismariis isse per agmen equis.

Sed mihi quid prodest vestris disiecta lacertis
Ilios et, murus quod fuit, esse solum,
Si maneo, qualis Troia durante manebam,
Vir que mihi dempto fine carendus abest?

Diruta sunt aliis, uni mihi Pergama restant,
Incola captivo quae bove victor arat.

Iam seges est, ubi Troia fuit, resecanda que falce
Luxuriat Phrygio sanguine pinguis humus,
Semisepulta virum curvis feriuntur aratris
Ossa, ruinosas occulit herba domos:
Victor abes, nec scire mihi, quae causa morandi,
Aut in quo lateas ferreus orbe, licet!
Quisquis ad haec vertit peregrinam litora puppim,
Ille mihi de te multa rogatus abit,
Quam que tibi reddat, si te modo viderit usquam,
Traditur huic digitis charta notata meis.

Nos Pylon, antiqui Neleia Nestoris arva,
Misimus: incertast fama remissa Pylo;
Misimus et Sparten: Sparte quoque nescia veri.

Quas habitas terras aut ubi lentus abes?
Utilius starent etiamnunc moenia Phoebi:
(Irascor votis heu! levis ipsa meis)
Scirem, ubi pugnares, et tantum bella timerem,
Et mea cum multis iuncta querela foret.

Quid timeam, ignoro; timeo tamen omnia demens,
Et patet in curas area lata meas:
Quaecumque aequor habet, quaecumque pericula tellus,
Tam longae causas suspicor esse morae.

Haec ego dum stulte metuo, quae vestra libidost,
Esse peregrino captus amore potes;
Forsitan et narres, quam sit tibi rustica coniunx,
Quae tantum lanas non sinat esse rudes.

Fallar, et hoc crimen tenues vanescat in auras,
Neve, revertendi liber, abesse velis!
Me pater Icarius viduo discedere lecto
Cogit et inmensas increpat usque moras.

Increpet usque licet! tua sum, tua dicar oportet:
Penelope coniunx semper Ulixis ero.
Ille tamen pietate mea precibus que pudicis
Frangitur et vires temperat ipse suas:
Dulichii Samii que et, quos tulit alta Zacynthos,
Turba ruunt in me luxuriosa proci
In que tua regnant nullis prohibentibus aula;
Viscera nostra, tuae dilacerantur opes.
Quid tibi Pisandrum Polybum que Medonta que dirum
Eurymachi que avidas Antinoi que manus
Atque alios referam, quos omnis turpiter absens
Ipse tuo partis sanguine rebus alis?

Irus egens pecoris que Melanthius actor edendi
Ultimus accedunt in tua damna pudor.

Hinc faciunt custos que boum longaeva que nutrix,
Tertius inmundae cura fidelis harae!
Tres sumus inbelles numero, sine viribus uxor
Laertes que senex Telemachus que puer.

Telemacho veniet, vivat modo, fortior aetas:
nunc erat auxiliis illa tuenda patris;
Ille per insidias paenest mihi nuper ademptus,
Dum parat invitis omnibus ire Pylon;
Di, precor, hoc iubeant, ut euntibus ordine fatis
Ille meos oculos conprimat, ille tuos.

Sed neque Laertes, ut qui sit inutilis armis,
Hostibus in mediis regna tenere potest,
Nec mihi sunt vires inimicos pellere tectis:
Tu citius venias, portus et ara tuis!
Est tibi sit que, precor, natus, qui mollibus annis
In patrias artes erudiendus erat;
Respice Laerten; ut iam sua lumina condas,
Extremum fati sustinet ille diem;
Certe ego, quae fueram te discedente puella,
Protinus ut venias, facta videbor anus.

Schubert's Adaption of Anakreons Εις λυρα (an the lyra)

Franz Schuberts "An die Leier" of Anakreon (Odes 1), op. 56 no. 1, D. 737 (German Text: Franz Seraph Ritter von Bruchmann)
Ich will von Atreus' Söhnen,
Von Kadmus will ich singen!
Doch meine Saiten tönen
Nur Liebe im Erklingen.

Ich tauschte um die Saiten,
Die Leier möcht ich tauschen!
Alcidens Siegesschreiten
Sollt ihrer Macht entrauschen!
Doch auch die Saiten tönen
Nur Liebe im Erklingen!

So lebt denn wohl, Heroen!
Denn meine Saiten tönen
Statt Heldensang zu drohen,
Nur Liebe im Erklingen.

Εις λυρα
Θέλω λέγειν Ἀτρείδας,
θέλω δὲ Κάδμον ἄιδειν,
ὁ βάρβιτος δὲ χορδαῖς
ἔρωτα μοῦνον ἠχεῖ.

ἤμειψα νεῦρα πρώην
καὶ τὴν λύρην ἅπασαν·
κἀγὼ μὲν ἦιδον ἄθλους
Ἡρακλέους, λύρη δέ
ἔρωτας ἀντεφώνει.

χαίροιτε λοιπὸν ἡμῖν,
ἥρωες· ἡ λύρη γάρ
μόνους ἔρωτας ἄιδει.

Example: Sung by Jussi Börling
Important literature: Vertonung Antiker Texte von Barock bis zur Gegenwart, Joachim Draheim, Amsterdam : B. V. Grüner, 1981.

θάνατος

Talking about the Triumph of the Death yesterday, a thought occurred to me upon waking up today: how comes that this theme was so popular in the Renaissance? The theme of Memento Mori was a commonplace in Christian arts throughout the middle ages. We find sculptures displaying a woman covered with toads and worms for example. But the horrid vision of the triumph of death as it was depicted in the panel painting of Peter Bruegel the Elder was new. The medieval sculptures remind us only of the transient nature of our earthly life and admonish us to hold the salvation of our souls higher than the earthly happiness. But never was the Death thought thus mighty as it appears in Bruegels Painting. We know that Dürer's woodcut of the four apocalyptic knights: the fourth riding on a pale horse is named Death. But what a majestic sight! Not fear, but awe and hope does it infuse one with! Or is it only me? It is a great difference to the horror scene in the painting of Bruegel.

Can we say that it is due to the terrible experience with the Black Death? But the Black Death peaked in Europe between 1348 and 1350, and by the time when Bruegel painted his picture, this pandemics was long gone.

And how it is possible that this painting occurred in the Renaissance, when people began to build churches filled with light and air, and to enjoy more the temporal happiness and to stress the significance of human virtues? And how diagonal does it stand to the increasing interest in Ancient culture! We do know the Thanatos was depicted as a young man who extinguished the torch. Nothing horrible is to see in him.

The horrifying depicting of the Death as a skeleton figure seems to be a Christian innovation. Or am I not sufficiently informed? And not even a medieval one! Recalling the gravestones I have seen, the medieval ones talk hope of the resurrection and confidence in Jesus Christ. The memento mori theme has in these cases a moral and religious meaning. But the skull and crossed thigh bones are more often used during the baroque times. The religious feeling was another one. The optimism of the middle ages is gone, in its place melancholy steps. It displays not despair, but the sighing upon seeing the shortness of man's life. But Bruegel's painting shouts out pure despair. It shout as loud as the painting of Munch. It speaks panic. What is happening?

Perhaps displaying Death as an ugly skeleton is a commitment to the reality. And this horrifying fact is only bearable with the help of religion. The fear can be only overwhelmed with a stoic attitude which can also be found in the Christian religion. We shouldn't forget that Stoicism was rediscovered and became very popular in the Renaissance and especially baroque era. But in the painting of Bruegel not even the consolation of religion and philosophy can be found. It is only fear. I believe this painting must be singular. But perhaps I am not well informed enough.

Whatever it is like, it was only in the classicism that the Death was again depicted as a beautiful young man. But in the Baroque era the motive of putto did appear.

So, we can ask, did the ancient Greeks and Romans, as Nietzsche would like it, try to overcome their fear of reality through inventing an apparent world? But how can we say they feared Death as the Homeric heroes willingly died for fame? But perhaps they didn't fear dying, because they made themselves believe that the Death is not horrible. As Socrates didn't fear the hemlock. And didn't Solon say that the best what could happen to a human being is to die young? Perhaps the ancient philosophy saw this illusion through and returned to reality. And the Christians accepted this reality because they had a hope beyond this finite reality. But with the increasing secularism during the 18th. and 19.th., Death couldn't be born as it is, people began to find consolation in apparent and illusion again. And didn't they, as I learned during my visit to Trier, remove in the 19th. the skeleton man from the grave in the Cathedral?

Just a casual thought.

Lamentatio

Misera teresa peccatorix, quid quaeris, quid expectas? Umbram sequeris et numquam invenies quod tibi in somnio tuo apparuit. Quando expergisceris?

Litore Naxou sola relicta es, nullus homo nec deus tibi subveniet. Nec Bacchus te ex tuo misero eripiet. Theseus iam navigavit ad Athenam. Lacrima dos tibi stulta puella. Et num credis quod is cuius tu nolis obliviscere lacrimas tuas polluctum accipiet? Vocem tuam diffigiunt venti. lacrimas tuas potant flumina maris.

A casual thought: Joyce and Laurence Sterne

It occurred to me a few days ago that there is certain similarity between the writing method of Joyce and Sterne. Didn't both travesty earnest academical genres like Tractatus, Quaestiones and so on for literary purposes? The chapter on the nose in "The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy" is such a one. And both in "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake" one can find sufficient examples. Joyce even used footnotes, glosses and marginal notes. Though I knew before what both were doing with these passages, but I never brought both authors into connection with each other.

Is it only a coincidence?

Erinna

Is it a coincidence? The girl lying buried under the stone plate in the church aisle died at the age of 19, and Erinna too, who wrote the verse "Therefore only the empty Echo enters Hades; Silence in the realm of the Dead - the voice dies out in the darkness" (cf. Wilamowitz, Hellenistische Dichtung I 109).

Today I made a visit to the library, and found two epigrams of her in the Anthologie Grecque, Première Partie Anthologie Palatine, par Pierre Waltz, Paris: Siciété d'Édition "Les Belles Lettres", 1960:

1) Erinna's Grave epitaph for her friend Baucis: (Anthologia Grecque VII, 710)

Στᾶλαι καὶ Σειρῆνες έμαὶ πὲνθιμε κρωσσὲ,
ὅστις ἔχεις Ἀΐδα τάν ὀλίγαν σποδιἀν,
τοῖς ἐμὸν ἐρχομένοισι παρ' ἠρίον εἴπατε χαίρειν,
αἴτ' ἀστοὶ τελέθωντ' αἴθ' ἑτεροπτόλιες.
χὥτι με νύμφαν εὖσαν ἔχει τάφος, εἴπατε καὶ τό.
χὥτι πατήρ μ' ἐκάλει Βαυκίδα, χὥτι γένος
Τηνία, ὡς εἰδῶντι. καὶ ὅττι μοι ἁ συνεταιρὶς
Ἤρινν' ἐν τύμβῳ γράμμ’ ἐχάραξε τόδε.

2) a lamentation of the same Baucis (Anthologia Grecque VII, 712):
Νύμφας Βαυκίδος εἰμί. πολθκλαύταν δὲ παρέρπων
στάλαν τῷ κατὰ γᾶς τοῦτο λέγοις Ἀΐδα.
«Βάσκανος ἔσσ', Ἀΐδα.» Τὰ δέ τοι καλὰ σάμαθ' ὁρῶντι
ὠμοτάταν Βαθκοῦς ἀγγελἐοντι τύχαν,
ὠς τὰν παῖδ', "Υμέναιος ἐφ' αἶς ἀείδετο πεύκαις,
ταῖσδ' ἐπι καδεστὰς ἔφλεγε πυρκαϊᾷ.
καὶ σὺ μὲν, "Υμέναιε, γάμων μολπαῖον ἀοιδὰν
ἐς θρήνων γοερῶν φθέγμα μεθαρμόσαο.

(try to type Greek with my two left hands)

The note of W. Marg in his translation to the first Epigram is quite interesting, that the Sirens are symbols for souls, didn't know it before. But now I do remember having seen Renaissance-gravestones decorated with Sirens.