terribly

Lucretius: “It is comforting…”

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Jan 302013
 

It is comforting, when winds are whipping up the waters of the vast sea, to watch from land the severe trials of another person: not that anyone’s distress is a cause of agreeable pleasure; but it is comforting to see from what troubles you yourself are exempt. It is comforting also to witness mighty clashes of warriors embattled on the plains, when you have no share in the danger. But nothing is more blissful than to occupy the heights effectively fortified by the teaching of the wise, tranquil sanctuaries from which you can look down upon others and see them wandering everywhere in their random search for the way of life, competing for intellectual eminence, disputing about rank, and striving night and day with prodigious effort to scale the summit of wealth and to secure power.

Catullus 42: “Come here, nasty words…”

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Jan 252013
 

Come here, nasty words, so many I can hardly
tell where you all came from.
That ugly slut thinks I’m a joke
and refuses to give us back
the poems, can you believe this shit?
Lets hunt her down , and demand them back!
Who is she, you ask? That one, who you see
strutting around, with ugly clown lips,
laughing like a pesky French poodle.
Surround her, ask for them again!
“Rotten slut, give my poems back!
Give ’em back, rotten slut, the poems!”
Doesn’t give a shit? Oh, crap. Whorehouse.
or if anything’s worse, you’re it.
But I’ve not had enough thinking about this.
If nothing else, lets make that
pinched bitch turn red-faced.
All together shout, once more, louder:
“Rotten slut, give my poems back!
Give ’em back, rotten slut, the poems!”
But nothing helps, nothing moves her.
A change in your methods is cool,
if you can get anything more done.
“Sweet thing, give my poems back!”

Translation by Richard Bullington

Catullus 39: …nothing is more silly than a silly smile

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Jan 172013
 

Egnatius, because he has bright white teeth,
always smiles: If someone comes to the defendant’s
bench, when the speaker arouses weeping,
he grins; If there is weeping at the funeral pyre of
a dutiful son, when the bereaved mother laments her only son,
he grins. Whatever it is, wherever he is,
whatever he is doing, he grins: he has this disease,
neither elegant, as I think, nor refined.
Therefore I must warn you, my good Egnatius.
If you were a city man or a Sabine or a Tiburnan
or a thrifty Umbrian or a fat Etruscan
or a swarthy or toothy Lanuvian or
a Transpadane, to touch on my own people as well,
or anyone you like who cleans his teeth with clean water,
I still should not want you to smile on all occasions:
for nothing is more silly than a silly smile.
Now you are a Celtiberian: in the land of Celtiberia,
whatever each man has urinated, with this he is accustomed
in the morning to rub his teeth and gums until they are red,
so that the more polished those teeth of yours are,
the more urine they proclaim you to have drunk.

Anne Carson: those little kidnaps in the dark

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Jan 162013
 

Prowling the meanings of a word, prowling the history of a person, no use expecting a flood of light. Human words have no main switch. But all those little kidnaps in the dark. And then the luminous, big, shivering, discandied, unrepentant, barking web of them that hangs in your mind when you turn back to the page you were trying to translate.

-from Nox

P.T. Barnum: The 20 Maxims of Money Getting

 Orts  Tagged with:
Jan 022013
 
  1. Don’t mistake your vocation (i.e. choose a profession you enjoy).
  2. Select the right location (i.e where you can realistically engage in your profession).
  3. Avoid debt.
  4. Persevere.
  5. Whatever you do, do it with all your might.
  6. Depend upon your own personal exertions (i.e. learn your profession).
  7. Use the best tools.
  8. Don’t get above your business (i.e. don’t be above doing the hands-on labor).
  9. Learn something useful (i.e have a trade or skill to fall back on).
  10. Let hope predominate. But be not too visionary (i.e. don’t automatically believe every project will succeed).
  11. Do not scatter your powers (i.e. don’t be a “jack-of-all-trades” and focus on one profession).
  12. Be systematic (i.e set times and places for your work, be organized and punctual, do one thing at a time).
  13. Read the newspapers.
  14. Beware of “outside” operations (i.e. spending speculative venture capital on risky, unknown operations and companies).
  15. Don’t endorse without security (i.e. don’t give away/invest money in someone or something, even if you feel safe about it, without some security to protect yourself).
  16. Advertise your business.
  17. Be polite and kind to your customers.
  18. Be charitable.
  19. Don’t blab (i.e. say nothing of your internal operations to others).
  20. Preserve your integrity (i.e. your integrity far outweighs profits so come by profits honestly).

from The Art of Money Getting (1880)