ETYMOLOGIES

  • Page’s philological prudence
    T. E. Page’s edition (with commentary) of Virgil’s works (first edition 1898) is enormously useful. (The volume on the Bucolics and Georgics is available here). Here is an illustration of Page’s singular philological prudence. He considers Georgics 2.140–144 (Virgil refers to Jason’s sowing of a dragon’s teeth): haec loca non tauri spirantes naribus igneminuertere satis…More
  • “jusqu’à ce qu’il comprenne qu’il est un monstre incompréhensible”
    Blaise Pascal, Pensées 418, 420: Il est dangereux de trop faire voir à l’homme combien il est égal aux bêtes, sans lui montrer sa grandeur. Il est encore dangereux de lui trop faire voir sa grandeur sans sa bassesse. Il est encore plus dangereux de lui laisser ignorer l’un et l’autre. Mais il est très avantageux…More
  • “wide and generous encounters with the whole of humanity”
    Alan Jacobs: Blogging is a poor tool for political resistance; clicktivism is not activism. Kottke thinks that the problem is that people don’t know what’s going on — which is why he’s blogging about it — but you can tell that that’s not true from the fact that almost everybody he quotes is writing for…More