Plato on Lyric Poets

A poet who accompanied his or her verses with music played on a lyre.

"And when the boy has learned his letters and is beginning to understand what is written, as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into his hands the works of great poets, which he reads sitting on a bench at school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate or emulate them and desire to become like them. Then, again, the teachers of the lyre take similar care that their young disciple is temperate and gets into no mischief; and when they have taught him the use of the lyre, they introduce him to the poems of other excellent poets, who are the lyric poets; and these they set to music, and make their harmonies and rhythms quite familiar to the children's souls, in order that they may learn to be more gentle, and harmonious, and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action; for the life of man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm."

Plato, Protagoras (4th century B.C.)

[translated by Benjamin Jowett].

Auctioneers and Architects

"If it's money he wants to earn,
he can easily learn
To twang the harp in the chorus, or toot
The accompanist's flute.
If he seems short on intellect,
Make him an auctioneer or an architect."

Martial, The Epigrams (85 AD).

Cooks

"Even were a cook to cook a fly, he would keep the breast for himself."

--Polish proverb.

Sword Swallowers

"Last night at supper I was challenged to an eating race by some people at my table and tried to swallow too large a mouthful of polenta cheese. It was so doughy and soft that it stuck half-way down my throat, blocking my windpipe, and I nearly choked to death. Yet only a few days before, at the Painted Porch in Athens, I had watched a juggler actually swallow a sharp cavalry sabre, point downwards too; after which, he collected a few coins from us bystanders and swallowed a hunting spear in the same astonishing way. We watched him tilt his head backwards with the handle sticking out from his throat into the air; and presently, believe it or not, a beautiful boy began to wriggle up that handle with such slippery movements that you might have mistaken him for the royal serpent coiled on the roughly-trimmed olive club carried by the God of Medicine; he seemed to have neither bone nor sinew in his whole body."

Apuleius, The Golden Ass (2nd Century A.D.)

[translated by Robert Graves].

Heroes and Harvesters

“In the middle of the room stood a long table of plain boards placed on trestles, with benches down each side. At one end of it, where an arm-chair stood pushed back, were spread the remains of the Badger’s plain but ample supper. Rows of spotless plates winked from the shelves of the dresser at the far end of the room, and from the rafters overhead hung hams, bundles of dried herbs, nets of onions, and baskets of eggs. It seemed a place where heroes could fitly feast after victory, where weary harvesters could line up in scores along the table and keep their Harvest Home with mirth and song, or where two or three friends of simple tastes could sit about as they pleased and eat and smoke and talk in comfort and contentment.”

Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (1908).

Big Consulting Practices like Jeeve's

“Jeeve’s reputation as a counsellor has long been established among the cognoscenti, and the first move of any of my little circle on discovering themselves in any form of soup is always to roll round and put the thing up to him. And when he’s got A out of a bad spot, A puts B on to him. And then, when he has fixed up B, B sends C along. And so on, if you get my drift, and so forth. That’s how these big consulting practices like Jeeve’s grow.”

P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves (1934).

The Unlearned Bishop

"He was chaste, but unlearned, for he understood not Latin and could scarce pronounce it. When therefore, at his consecration, he should have made his formal profession, he could not read it, though he had been instructed therein for many days beforehand; and having at last arrived, with many promptings from others, at the word 'Metropolitan,' which after many gasps he yet could not pronounce, at length he said in the French tongue 'let that be taken as read!' All the bystanders were amazed, mourning that such a man should be consecrated bishop. Another time, when he was conferring Holy Orders, and could not pronounce that phrase 'in aenigmate' [I Cor. xiii, 12], he said in French to those that stood by, 'By St. Louis, the man was a clown that wrote this word!'"

Robert de Graystanes, Chronicle (1336).

The Pirates of Gujerat

"Then there were lengthy stops in the hot, humid ports, where the ship was at the mercy of the local ruler; expensive port dues and presents had to be paid, and there would often be forced stays ending only when the possibilities of trade were exhausted. On the ocean, storms, reefs, and shallows were ever-present perils; captain and crew felt only slightly less helpless than the merchants; in the midst of huge waves man was indeed 'a worm on a splinter.' Add to this the terrible danger of pirates in their oared vessels, much faster in calms and light winds than any ship relying on sail alone; these could be repelled only by the action of fire-throwing machines that mariners carried aboard, except in the rare waters where a ruler kept a navy to safeguard shipping. Marco Polo says that the pirates of Gujerat formed cordons of twenty to thirty ships at intervals of five or six miles, signalling to each other by fire or smoke. In the midst of all these troubles, mariner and merchant called readily upon God for help, and the narratives of the sea are full of His name."

George F. Hourani, Arab Seafaring (1951).

The Cheating Charioteer

"The four-horse chariot of the Blues,
When Catianus plies the whip,
Drops back--to win the bribe and lose
The race. Consummate jockeyship!"

Martial, The Epigrams, (85 AD).

(Translated by James Michie).

Assistant Captain of the Quiver Bearers

"It is most unseemly for an Assistant Captain of the Quiver Bearers to make his night patrol in a hunting costume. And, if he wanders outside the women's quarters, ostentatiously clad in his terrifying red cloak, people will be sure to look down on him. They disapprove of his behaviour and taunt him with remarks like 'Are you searching for someone suspicious?'"

Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book, (11th Century).

[Translated by Ivan Morris.}

A High Constable, Serjeant, and Two Yeomen

"Soon after this his dinner was served, and then he was called on by five great nobles of the realm, one of whom, Viscount Beaumont, High Constable of England, told him that by the king's command he was under arrest. His own attendants were removed, and a serjeant with two yeomen of the guard took charge of the duke's person. This was on Saturday. During the following week, cut off from his friends and retainers, he slowly lapsed into a state of coma, from which he recovered sufficiently to make his last confession and to receive the sacrament, before he sank again and died about three in the afternoon of Thursday, 23 February 1447. Was he murdered, or was his end the natural end of a man of over fifty, worn out by debauchery, disappointment and disgrace? Contemporary opinion does not help, since every possible view is voiced, so that we are thrown back on surmise."

Six Medieval Men & Women, "Henry, duke of Gloucester," H. S. Bennett (1955).

Doctors, Petty Lawyers, and Theologians

"Next to doctors the petty lawyers take second place. Maybe they ought to be first, but the philosophers are all agreed that theirs is a profession for asses and are always laughing at them, and I don't want to do the same. Yet these asses can settle matters large and small if they give the word, and their estates multiply, while the theologian who has combed through his bookcases in order to master the whole of divinity nibbles at a dry bean and carries on a non-stop war with bugs and lice."

Erasmus, Praise of Folly (1509)

[translated by Betty Radice, notes by A. H. T. Levi (1993)].

Smashers

A counterfeiter, whether in coins or paper money.

“Most frequently the single-handed ‘smasher’ contents himself in passing one coin in an evening.”

The Westminster Gazette (1895).

Scale of 1 to 10—3. Good craftsmanship finds its immediate recompense.

The Rice Merchant's Strange New Empire

On a scale of 1 to 10—8. Too ridiculously profitable to last.

“This Yodoya, a rice merchant, was as much a symbol of his time as Yasui. His fortune is said to have included 21 solid-gold hens, with 10 chickens; 14 solid-gold macaws; 15 solid-gold sparrows; 51 solid-gold-and-silver doves; innumerable precious stones; 150 pounds of quicksilver; more than 700 swords; over 17,000 rolls of velvet, silk, and brocade; 480 carpets; 50 pairs of gold screens; 96 crystal sliding doors; a solid-gold checkerboard three inches thick; 3,500,000 ryo in gold coin (roughly 146,000 pounds troy); 14,000,000 ryo in silver (roughly 583,000 pounds troy); 550,000 copper coins; about 750 Chinese paintings; 540 mansions, houses, and warehouses; and 250 farms and fields. Most of this wealth had been accumulated by two generations of Yodoyas, after the family residence had been converted into an open market where feudal lords could exchange their rice for money, then just coming into general use. Thus the fortune was made at the expense of the lords themselves, who had little talent for business. From this we may judge that it was not in the interests of economy alone that the shogun censured Yodoya for his extravagant ways, and finally confiscated his wealth entirely. Yodoya was dangerous, not just as a bad example for the shogun’s subjects, but also as a rival potentate, an upstart who bled his betters in order to create a strange new empire.”

Wm. Theodore de Bary in his introduction to Ihara Saikaku, Five Women Who Loved Love (1686).

An Epigram on Physicians

“Diaulus, recently physician,
Has set up now as a mortician:
No change, though, in the clients’ condition.”
Martial, The Epigrams (85 AD).

Scale of 1 to 10—8. Always more customers.

Plautus on Parasites

Parasite: (from Greek, meaning to “sit beside” or “eat beside”). Someone who habitually eats off someone else’s table. Someone who lives at another’s expense.

“And here in this town, unless a parasite can take a few slaps in the face and bear having wine jars broken on his head, he’d better go out beyond the city gate and carry a porter’s sack for a living.”

Plautus, Prisoners of War (3rd Century B.C.)

On a scale of 1 to 10—2. Unsustainable as a vocation, except by the rare and extraordinary dinner companion. And even then.

Officers, Serving Maids, and Chimney Sweeps

“A wit has said that one might divide mankind into officers, serving maids, and chimney sweeps. To my mind this remark is not only witty but profound, and it would require a great speculative talent to devise a better classification. When a classification does not ideally exhaust its object, a haphazard classification is altogether preferable, because it sets imagination in motion.”

--Soren Kierkegaard.

Man

Man (as in manual labor).

"The Tenant shall hold his Hands together between the Hands of his Landlord, and shall say thus: I become your Man from this day forth."

Thomas Hobbes, Dial. Com. Laws (1670).

On a scale of 1 to 10: 2

Antiquary

A shopkeeper, only mustier. An official custodian, keeper, or recorder of antiquities.

“Antiquary—too often a collector of valuables that are worth nothing, and a re-collector of all that Time has been glad to forget.”

Horatio Smith, The Tin Trumpet (1836).

On a scale of 1 to 10—4

Mariners

"Nowadays the rage for possession has got to such a pitch that there is nothing in the realm of nature, whether sacred or profane, out of which profit cannot be squeezed, and that not only by princes, but even by priests. In old days, even under the tyrants (when they were as yet untutored and did not know what tyranny really was) certain things were common to all--the seas, the rivers, the highways, the wild game. Now the great lords arrogate everything to themselves, as if they alone were men, or rather gods. The most poverty-stricken mariner is obliged to change his course, even to his peril, and to do and suffer all sorts of things at the will of an insolent robber, as if it were not enough misfortune for him to have to struggle with winds and waves, without these other storms. He reaches the harbour, and something is extorted from him; there is a bridge to cross, toll must be paid; a river to cross, and you will encounter the rights of the prince; suppose you have a small piece of luggage, you must pay dues to get it out of the hands of these impious fellows; and, what is much more cruel, the common people, wretched as they are, are defrauded of their means of existence, and all these tithes and taxes gnaw away the livelihood of the poor. You may not carry the corn from your own fields, without paying a tenth. If you grind or mill it, another bit is nibbled off. Wines cannot be imported without being tithed over and over again. You may get the wine into your cellar, but not before you have parted with half or at least a quarter of the value to these rascally harpies. In some cases more than half of what they call cervisia [beer] is set aside for the overlord. You may not kill a beast without counting out coin to the tax-gatherers, nor sell a horse bought with your own money without paying out something."

Erasmus, Adages ("A mortuo tributum exigere") (1515).

[translated by Margaret Mann Phillips (1967)].

Grave Robbers

"These were real sacrifices of livestock, horses and even human beings, which we know from recent excavations were still being practised on the confines of the Christian world in the tenth century. In pagan rites a great many of these offerings would go to the dead, whom we therefore have to regard as an important category of consumers in an economic system that broadened out into the supernatural... To be sure, these expropriations involved mainly luxury items, the personal treasures that every human being, no matter how poor, would keep about him. But they also drew upon tools, especially metal ones, with which contemporary society seems to have been so badly provided. These indeed were assets so tempting that certain individuals were prepared to brave the terrifying vengeance of departed souls to steal them, as the harshness of penalties against despoiling tombs goes to show. But grave-robbers were never common, and the majority of the goods offered to the dead were not put back into circulation. No form of investment could have been more unproductive than this, yet it was the only one to be widely practised by this infinitely penurious society."

Georges Duby, The Early Growth of European Economy (1969).

[Translated by Howard B. Clarke.]

An Uncouth Figure Playing the Flute

"The door of the house is open, revealing a room filled with men listening to an uncouth figure playing the flute. The man seems to be exalted by his own music, a music such as I have never heard before and probably never will again. It seems like sheer improvisation and, unless his lungs give out, there promises to be no end to it. It is the music of the hills, the wild notes of the solitary man armed with nothing but his instrument. It is the original music for which no notes have been written and for which none is necessary. It is fierce, sad, obsessive, yearning and defiant. It is not for men's ears but for God's. It is a duet in which the other instrument is silent."

Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi (1941).

Net-and-Trident Fighters

"His entertainments were always on a truly noble scale. It's no use trying to describe the lavish preparations made; I couldn't possibly do the man justice. At any rate he had got together a company of gladiators famous for their wrist-play, and another of net-and-trident fighters equally famous for their foot-work, not to mention a gang of criminals who had forfeited the right to live at large and were being fattened up as food for the wild beasts. Then there were great timber structures on wheels, with towers and platforms and pictures painted on their sides, used as movable cages for the extraordinary collection of wild beasts that he had got together. Many of these were specially imported from overseas; living graves for the criminals, but what handsome ones!"

Apuleius, The Golden Ass, (2nd Century A.D.)

[translated by Robert Graves].

Savants

"The writer who belongs to me is far happier in his crazy fashion. He never loses sleep as he sets down at once whatever takes his fancy and comes to his pen, even his dreams, and it costs him little beyond the price of his paper. He knows well enough that the more trivial the trifles he writes about the wider the audience which will appreciate them, made up as it is of all the ignoramuses and fools. What does it matter if three scholars can be found to damn his efforts, always supposing they've read them? How can the estimation of a mere handful of savants prevail against such a crowd of admirers?"

Erasmus, Praise of Folly (1509)

[translated by Betty Radice, notes by A. H. T. Levi (1993)].

A Woman of Independent Means

"In the ancient Judaic culture, the only woman of independence was the prostitute. No other trades were open to women. All professions were filled by men. Everything was owned by men. The only valuable commodity a woman had was her body and her charm. Women became whores because they didn't want to prostitute themselves to one man in marriage. Prostitution was considered not only against the 'natural' order of things; it was also a sacrilege. While it was against religious law (certainly in ancient Judaism), what men really resented about prostitution was the independence. Prostitutes, then, were the lowest of the low, although in many cases they were the only women who had any degree of freedom whatsoever."

Peter McWilliams, Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do (1993)

Gamblers

"Men take their misfortunes to heart and keep them there. A gambler does not talk about his losses; the frequenter of brothels, who finds his favorite engaged by another, pretends to be just as well off without her; the professional street-brawler is quiet about the fights he has lost; and a merchant who speculates in goods will conceal the losses he may suffer. They are all like the 'man who steps on dog dung in the dark.'"

Ihara Saikaku, Five Women Who Loved Love (1686)

Jailers and Hangmen

"It really hurts me to see this poor old gentleman working as a jailer because of his son's troubles. But if his son can be brought home again, I would be able to bear doing any work; I would even take a job as a hangman."

Plautus, Prisoners of War (Third Century B.C.)

Shakespeare on Chroniclers

"Ignorant Tongues, which neither know My faculties nor person, yet will be The Chroniclers of my doing."

William Shakespeare, The famous history of the life of king Henry the eighth (1613).

A Butcher and a Waterman

"Abroad, and stopped at the Bear-garden stairs, there to see a prize fought. But the house so full there was no getting in there, so forced to go through an alehouse into the pit, where the bears are baited; and upon a stool did see them fight, which they did very furiously, a butcher and a waterman. The former had the better all along, till by and by the latter dropped his sword out of his hand, and the butcher, whether not seeing his sword dropped I know not, but did give him a cut over the wrist, so as he was disabled to fight any longer. But, Lord! to see how in a minute the whole stage was full of watermen to revenge the foul play, and the butchers to defend their fellow, though most blamed him; and there they all fell to it to knocking down and cutting many on each side. It was pleasant to see, but that I stood in the pit, and feared that in the tumult I might get some hurt. At last the rabble broke up, and so I away to White Hall."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (May 27, 1667).

Gardeners

"The Nijo mansion had been neglected and was somewhat run-down, and compared to the Rojujo mansion it seemed very cramped and narrow. Taking advantage of a few days when she was somewhat more herself, Genji sent gardeners to clear the brook and restore the flower beds, and the suddenly renewed expanse before her made Murasaki marvel that she should be witness to such things. The lake was very cool, a carpet of lotuses. The dew on the green of the pads was like a scattering of jewels."

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (11th Century).

[Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.]