Troilus

Read Troilus and Cressida over the weekend, and today read Aen 6, Il 3, Is 47, Rev. 21, and a book of Wilde short stories, particularly enjoying The Canterville Ghost. Troilus was a very good read. If I tried to read it as Greek it would have been nightmarish, but if you can think of it as a dream in which you know you’re dreaming, then the anachronisms and the awkward bits seem almost fun. I had no idea it was the origin of the CSL quote from Malcolm,

“tis mad idolatry

To make the service greater than the god;” (This v. much out of context in Malcolm!)

Other interesting bits:

“Nay, if we talk of reason,

Let’s shut our gates and sleep. Manhood and honour

Should have hare-hearts, would they but fat their thoughts

With this crammed reason; reason and respect

Make livers pale and lustihood deject.”

“Is that a wonder?

The providence that’s in a watchful state

Knows almost every grain of Pluto’s gold,

Finds bottom in th’uncomprehensive deeps,

Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,

Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.

There is a mystery—with whom relation

Durst never meddle—in the soul of state

Which hath an operation more divine

Than breath or pen can give expressure to.”

AENEAS
    Health to you, valiant sir,
    During all question of the gentle truce;
    But when I meet you arm'd, as black defiance
    As heart can think or courage execute.
DIOMEDES
    The one and other Diomed embraces.
    Our bloods are now in calm; and, so long, health!
    But when contention and occasion meet,
    By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life
    With all my force, pursuit and policy.
AENEAS
    And thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly
    With his face backward. In humane gentleness,
    Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchises' life,
    Welcome, indeed! By Venus' hand I swear,
    No man alive can love in such a sort
    The thing he means to kill more excellently.
DIOMEDES
    We sympathize: Jove, let Aeneas live,
    If to my sword his fate be not the glory,
    A thousand complete courses of the sun!
    But, in mine emulous honour, let him die,
    With every joint a wound, and that to-morrow!
AENEAS
    We know each other well.
DIOMEDES
    We do; and long to know each other worse.

“Thou, trumpet, there’s my purse

Now crack thy lungs, and split thy brazen pipe;

Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek

Outswell the colic of puffed Aquilon.

Come, stretch thy chest, and thy eyes spout blood;

Thou blowest for Hector.”

(Hopefully the O.E. sense of “villain”)

We had an interesting discussion at Bill’s on Sat. night, following a talk with Calvus & Beka attempting to reconcile this passage in Matthew

Μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον ἢ τοὺς προφήτας: οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.

With this one in Ephesians:

ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ αὐτοῦ, τὸν νόμον τῶν ἐντολῶν ἐν δόγμασιν καταργήσας, ἵνα τοὺς δύο κτίσῃ ἐν αὑτῷ εἰς ἕνα καινὸν ἄνθρωπον ποιῶν εἰρήνην,

in his flesh, the law of the the commands in dogmas abolishing, that those two he might make one new man in himself creating peace.

There turns out to be an enormous difference between καταλύω and καταργέω though I think that Jesus and Paul are talking about to completely different conceptions of νόμος. (The Matthew passage referring to the Tao and/or some sense of covenant, the second referring to compulsory circumcision, as is made clear in the context.)