Author Archives: Michael Hendry

Hmmmmm . . . .

Posted on Tuesday: July 4, 2006 by Michael Hendry

Terry Teachout’s life of H. L. Mencken is titled The Skeptic. Given Mencken’s taste (and aptitude) for invective, it might just as easily have been titled The Skoptic — not that anyone outside of Classics departments would know what that … Continue reading →

Posted in Orbilius | Leave a comment

Quotation of the Millennium

Posted on Monday: July 3, 2006 by Michael Hendry

The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot … Continue reading →

Posted in - Quotations, Ephemerides, Work: Teaching | 1 Comment

A Missed Opportunity

Posted on Wednesday: June 28, 2006 by Michael Hendry

The BBC reports the discovery (or reclassification) of a huge underwater volcano off the south coast of Sicily, which scientists have named Empedocles. They explain the name in their last paragraph: The volcano was named Empedocles after the Greek philosopher … Continue reading →

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Two (Non-Classical) Riddles

Posted on Wednesday: June 28, 2006 by Michael Hendry

What fact connects the following words? cross, lane, return, rock, waltz How about the following series of words and phrases? amnesia, babe, baby, blues, crowd, gal, girls, hardwood floor, healin’, heart, husband, man, merry go round, moon, night time man, … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Orbilius | 4 Comments

Scholastic Humor

Posted on Tuesday: June 20, 2006 by Michael Hendry

In Martial: Select Epigrams (Cambridge ‘green and gold’, 2003), Lindsay and Patricia Watson include 4.87 (71 in their numeration): Infantem secum semper tua Bassa, Fabulle,     conlocat et lusus deliciasque uocat, et, quo mireris magis, infantaria non est.     ergo quid in … Continue reading →

Posted in Exegesis, Latin Literature | Tagged | 1 Comment

An Editorial Shipwreck

Posted on Monday: June 19, 2006 by Michael Hendry

I’ve been reading the new translation of Sebastiano Timpanaro’s The Genesis of Lachmann’s Method, edited and translated by Glenn W. Most and published by the University of Chicago Press (2005). Or rather, I have been trying to read it, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Orbilius | 1 Comment

World’s Oldest Country Music Fan?

Posted on Wednesday: June 7, 2006 by Michael Hendry

That would be 110-year-old Jutland veteran, Henry Allingham, “who once attributed his old age to ‘cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women’” (þ Harry’s Place). None of the first dozen or so commenters noticed that that was a direct quotation from … Continue reading →

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An Unnecessary Gloss?

Posted on Wednesday: June 7, 2006 by Michael Hendry

In Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932), the subtitles quote the maid as telling the title character, Priape Boudu, “You behave like a Neanderthal”, but the last word is clearly audible as ‘troglodyte’. Was the gloss really necessary? Surely anyone likely … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies, Orbilius | 1 Comment

Blogrolling

Posted on Monday: May 29, 2006 by Michael Hendry

I’ve updated the blogroll on the right, adding Philolog and Thoughts on Antiquity to the Classics section, deleting a couple of inactive blogs from the Culture section, and catching up with a couple of name-changes. Another apparently classical weblog that … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 1 Comment

Memorial Day Texts

Posted on Monday: May 29, 2006 by Michael Hendry

(This is a rewrite of a previous Memorial Day post.) 1. Simonides’ epitaph on the 300 Spartans who died at Thermopylae: ὦ ξεῖν᾿, ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε     κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων πειθόμενοι νομίμοις. Stranger, tell the Lacedemonians that we lie here, … Continue reading →

Posted in Greek Literature | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Aphorism of the Day

Posted on Wednesday: May 24, 2006 by Michael Hendry

El paganismo es el otro Antiguo Testamento de la Iglesia. Paganism is the other Old Testament of the Church. (Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a un Texto Implícito, 1.206)

Posted in - Aphorisms, Ephemerides | Leave a comment

Gluttony and Self-Knowledge

Posted on Sunday: May 14, 2006 by Michael Hendry

A link from Martin Kramer led me to two articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education by the pseudonymous ‘Thomas H. Benton’, The 7 Deadly Sins of Students and The 7 Deadly Sins of Professors. Here’s a bit from the … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy | 1 Comment

Aphorism of the Day

Posted on Sunday: May 14, 2006 by Michael Hendry

Las escuelas filosóficas fueron las órdenes monásticas de la antigüedad.El pitagorismo, por ejemplo, se parece más a la reforma cluniacense que al idealismo alemán. The philosophical schools were the monastic orders of antiquity.Pythagoreanism, for example, has more resemblance to the … Continue reading →

Posted in - Aphorisms, Ephemerides, Philosophy | Leave a comment

Aphorism of the Day

Posted on Thursday: May 11, 2006 by Michael Hendry

El léxico del verdadero escritor no está en ningún diccionario. The lexicon of the true writer is not in any dictionary. (Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a un Texto Implícito, 1.137)

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Aphorism of the Day

Posted on Wednesday: May 10, 2006 by Michael Hendry

Hombre culto es aquel para quien nada carece de interés y casi todo de importancia. An educated man is the one for whom nothing lacks interest and nearly everything lacks importance. (Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a un Texto Implícito, 1.399)

Posted in - Aphorisms, Ephemerides | 1 Comment

Back-Handed Compliment

Posted on Sunday: May 7, 2006 by Michael Hendry

Ann Althouse is a law professor at the University of Wisconsin. Here is one of her posts from today, in full: God bless the dork . . . Overheard on State Street today: “I said I would never go back … Continue reading →

Posted in Work: Teaching | 1 Comment

Ephemerides

Posted on Sunday: May 7, 2006 by Michael Hendry

As some of you have noticed, I have been unable to keep up my Joke of the Day (Ioci Antiqui) feature. As a partial substitute, I have set up the last of the categories in the left-hand column: Ephemerides, with … Continue reading →

Posted in Ephemerides | Leave a comment

Fragmentary Wisdom

Posted on Sunday: May 7, 2006 by Michael Hendry

Euripides, Fragment 1018 Kannicht, from an unknown play: ὁ νοῦς γὰρ ἡμῶν ἐστιν ἐν ἑκάστῳ θεός. For in each of us our mind is a god.

Posted in - Fragments, Ephemerides | Leave a comment

Any Questions?

Posted on Sunday: April 30, 2006 by Michael Hendry

The Rat wants a feminine equivalent of ‘avuncular’. That’s easy: ‘materteral’. According to the Random House Word of the Day site, the word is listed only once in the Oxford English Dictionary, but is actually older (1823) than ‘avuncular’ (1831). … Continue reading →

Posted in Etymology | Leave a comment

The Last of Timon’s Last Words

Posted on Sunday: April 30, 2006 by Michael Hendry

Book VII of the Greek Anthology includes a sequence of eight supposed epitaphs of Timon of Athens, the famous misanthrope, epigrams 313-320. Having already posted seven of them, here is the eighth, by “Zenodotus or Rhianus” (A.P. 7.315), with W. … Continue reading →

Posted in - Epigrams, Ephemerides | 1 Comment