23 september 2023

23 september 2023

John Bjarne Grover

Horace, DDS, Diziani

I wanted quite leisurely to take another look at a couple of correlations between Horace and my DDS and looked up - very coincidentally - two Horace fragments and my own poems thereto. ABS is the absolute enumeration of DDS, given at the end of the book here in volume 4 p.898f - file is 11,4 MB (the same lookup for Rigveda cyclicity and verses from Genesis see this list), the REL is the relative on top of the page of the same volume 4, RAD is the corresponding chinese Kangxi radical. The Horace reference gives the latin text with links to dictionary lookup for each word. The only english version I have found on the web is this prose translation by Smart - search for 'epistle xvi' - the relevant fragment Epistle I.xvi.37,9-54,2 is this:

"...color [...]? Whom does false honor delight, or lying calumny terrify, except the vicious and sickly-minded? Who then is a good man? He who observes the decrees of the senate, the laws and rules of justice; by whose arbitration many and important disputes are decided; by whose surety private property, and by whose testimony causes are safe. Yet [perhaps] his own family and all the neighborhood observe this man, specious in a fair outside, [to be] polluted within. If a slave should say to me, "I have not committed a robbery, nor run away:" "You have your reward; you are not galled with the lash," I reply. "I have not killed any man:" "You shall not [therefore] feed the carrion crows on the cross." I am a good man, and thrifty: your Sabine friend denies, and contradicts the fact. For the wary wolf dreads the pitfall, and the hawk the suspected snares, and the kite the concealed hook. The good, [on the contrary,] hate to sin from the love of virtue; you will commit no crime merely for the fear of punishment. Let there be a prospect of escaping, you will confound sacred and profane things together. For, when..."

and here is satire 2,1. For this satire I bring also this excerpt from Fairclough's translation in the Loeb series.

ABS
250
69 REL
155
55 RAD
179
69 Horace
Epistle I.xvi.37,9-54,2
Satire II.i.47,5-63,5

The first of these - DDS part 1 poem #155 - was very precise indeed - and confirmed my theory of the correlation strongly. For Kangxi radical 179 = 韭 = 'onion', 'leek' could also be seen as supporting this. (Mathews refers to 'onions'). See also the glyph origin.

The second, with relative enumeration #55 in my DDS part 1 - was a little harder to get in place with the english translation of Horace by Fairclough, but with the help from the german translation by Kytzler I could wriggle it into a satisfactory correlation.

Then I turned to some lookups of Gaspare Diziani's artworks on the web and came across his 'Nativity of Jesus and the adoration of the shepherds' - which turned out to be a very convincing parallel to Horace's fragment Satire II.i.47,5-63,5 for my DDS I:55. Take the donkey for a wolf and there it is. It reads sort of diagonally from up left to down right, with a little detour up to the angels and the three puttis apparently called TREBATIUS by Horace. It is the last words in this fragment which are convincing for the right- and lowermost part of the artwork: The palm of the shepherd looks like the back of a man who could have been posed for flogging.

It is because this is a NATIVITY theme of the artwork that it maps perfectly onto my #55.

I noticed the suggestive 'sexuality' or 'sensuality' in the leftmost angel - that 'erotic' leg - is that normal for these sorts of artworks? Ah, there it is in Horace (line 58): "whether peaceful age awaits me, or Death hovers round with sable wings" (Fairclough) - the angel to the right is the peaceful age, the one to the left has this earthen taint. LORIA IN ECELSIS etc.

See also the glyph origins to Kangxi radical #69: Is it that specific leg of the angel to the left (see the 'bronze' form)?

But a closer look at the reproductions on the web showed that this phenomenon is due to an excerpt in one of them:

Here is the excerpt which leaves an 'earthen taint' on the angel to the left
- (and here is my quote in case it should disappear from the web)

Here is the full artwork and then there is not so much left of the 'earthen taint'
- (and here is my quote in case it should disappear from the web)

(I notice a potential 'Schmetterling' with diagonal from the up left angel to the shoulder-blade = 'scapula' - only one - in the palm of the man).

Interestingly, it seems that Horace - by the fragmentation relative to my DDS - has captured the characteristics of the excerpt. Also, the big urn down left (or the part below the excerpt generally) in the full work corresponds to the last words of the preceding fragment in my listing - what corresponds to my DDS I:54a - "Cervius iratus leges minitatur et urnam" (line 47) - here the latin source.

A quite convincing fragment border phenomenon in Horace - which clearly can be seen as the very theme also of Diziani's artwork.

I myself am quite impressed by this study of mine of Horace - which also lends much weight to my theory that Horace is constituted by the ordinality in human knowledge - the same as in the chinese radicals - but have so far not seen any responses. It is very important that my work does not fall prey of the secrecy mania of the secret intelligences and organizers of abuse of such things.

PS - I tried a third one and landed coincidentally on ABS 33 = REL 21 = RAD 33 = Satire I.iv.113,8-129,8 which seems well solved by way of Diziani's 'Conversion of Paul'. See the 'nie ausverstorbner Kuss' lying on the ground with hand up - a little to the right of the 'mediocre' mid = Horace's last word 'mediocribus' in line 129,8 - the shadow under his chin looks like protruded lips. Here the 'Joch' = 'yoke' is the horse itself etc. The prose translation by Smart - search for 'satire iv' - for Satire I.iv.113,8-129,8:

"...Trobonius, who was caught in the fact, is by no means creditable. The philosopher may tell you the reasons for what is better to be avoided, and what to be pursued. It is sufficient for me, if I can preserve the morality traditional from my forefathers, and keep your life and reputation inviolate, so long as you stand in need of a guardian: so soon as age shall have strengthened your limbs and mind, you will swim without cork. In this manner he formed me, as yet a boy: and whether he ordered me to do any particular thing: You have an authority for doing this: [then] he instanced some one of the select magistrates: or did he forbid me [any thing]; can you doubt, [says he,] whether this thing be dishonorable, and against your interest to be done, when this person and the other is become such a burning shame for his bad character [on these accounts]? As a neighboring funeral dispirits sick gluttons, and through fear of death forces them to have mercy upon themselves; so other men's disgraces often deter tender minds from vices. From this [method of education] I am clear from all such vices, as bring destruction along with them: by lighter foibles..."

Sources:

Horace: Satires, Epistles and Ars Poecitia. With an english translation by H.Rushton Fairclough. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts / London, England 1978.

Horaz/Horatius, Q.F.: Sämtliche Werke. Lateinisch/Deutsch. Mit den Holzschnitten der Straßburger Ausgabe von 1498. Mit einem Nachwort herausgegeben von Bernhard Kytzler. Philipp Reclam jun. Stuttgart 2006.

Mathews, R.H.: Chinese-English Dictionary. (A Chinese-English Dictionary Compiled for the China Inland Mission by R.H.Mathews, Shanghai: China Inland Mission and Presbyterian Mission Press, 1931). Revised american edition 1943. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Horatius Satyrarum libri 2,1 (latin with dictionary link for each word)

Horatius Epistle 1,16 (latin with dictionary link for each word)

Horace's works in english

Horace's works in latin

Horace's works