PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK:

DECIMUS IUNIUS IUVENALIS

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

The People of A Week: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

A WEEK: I know of no studies so composing as those of the classical PEOPLE OF scholar. When we have sat down to them, life seems as still and A WEEK serene as if it were very far off, and I believe it is not habitually seen from any common platform so truly and unexaggerated as in the light of literature. In serene hours we contemplate the tour of the Greek and Latin authors with more pleasure than the traveller does the fairest scenery of Greece or Italy. Where shall we find a more refined society? That highway down from Homer and Hesiod to Horace and Juvenal is more attractive than the Appian. Reading the classics, or conversing with those old Greeks and Latins in their surviving works, is like walking amid the stars and constellations, a high and by way serene to travel. Indeed, the true scholar will be not a little of an astronomer in his habits. Distracting cares will not be allowed to obstruct the field of his vision, for the higher regions of literature, like astronomy, are above storm and darkness.

HOMER HESIOD HORACE JUVENAL HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

55 CE

Britannicus, son of the Emperor Claudius, was poisoned by the Emperor Nero.

Birth of Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, according to the tradition: “The precise details of the author’s life cannot be securely reconstructed based on presently available evidence.” This “Juvenal” would create in dactylic hexameter. Their hyperbolic, comedic mode of expression make it quite impossible for us to rely upon any factoids which we are extrapolated. A biography that had by the 10th century become associated with these manuscripts, VITA IUVENALIS, seems little more than a series of extrapolations from the material itself. We are advised that his full name had been Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, that he had been born in Aquinum, and that he had been a son, or perhaps an adopted son, of a Roman freedman of means. We are to suppose him to have been a pupil of Quintillian, who practised rhetoric into his middle age. We are to suppose that these satires for which he is remembered were produced at a rather late stage in his life, and that the period of this florut was the late 1st and early 2nd century of the Christian era. He is credited with 16 known satires divided between 5 books. • Book I: Satires #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 • Book II: #6 • Book III: Satires #7, #8, #9 • Book IV: Satires #10, #11, #12 • Book V: Satires #13, #14, #15, #16 (incomplete)

We can trace to this source a number of well-known maxims, such as that the common people are influenced unduly by panem et circenses (Satire #10, 81), “bread and circuses” –which is to say, freebies and spectacle– in the constant struggle to maintain their liberties; that we ought to seek as our ideal mens sana in corpore sano (Satire #10, 356), “a sound mind in a sound body”; that a perfect wife is a rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cycno (Satire #6, 165), “a bird as rare to be seen as a black swan”; and that the most troubling political issue is always quis custodiet ipsos custodes (Satire #6, 347-48), “who will protect us from our protectors?”

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

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THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

93 CE

Having risen through a series of high administrative posts, Pliny the Younger was made a praetor.

At this point (according to the tradition) Juvenal, having offended someone, was driven into exile, perhaps in Egypt or in England.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

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THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

96 CE

Between this year and 117 CE Darius and Trajan would renovate Pharaoh Necho II’s “Suez Canal,” (as this was not very suitable for navigation it would later be abandoned). EGYPT

At this point (according to the tradition) Juvenal was able to return to Rome from exile.

After the Emperor Domitian was murdered by the orders of the court officials and of his wife the Empress Domitia, the “Flavian dynasty” came to an end and the series began that is known as “the five Good Emperors” (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius). Here is Nerva: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK The “Epistle of Barnabas,” neither an epistle nor by Barnabas, was likely written during 96-98 CE and, interestingly, shows no contact with any existing New Testament text.

In this year the Roman poet Statius (born 40 CE?) created SILVAE, THEBAIS, and ACHILLEIS.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

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THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

138 CE

Hyginus (138?-142 CE), a Greek philosopher from Athens, is listed as a Papa of Rome. During his reign (140 CE) the Christian Gnostic Church leaders Valentinus of Egypt and Cerdo of Syria came to Rome.

The Emperor Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius and had him adopt Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (age 17) and Lucius Verus. The Emperor Hadrian died and was succeeded by Antoninus Pius.

At this point (according to the tradition) Juvenal, who had been born (according to the tradition) in 55 CE, although aged, was still alive: “The precise details of the author’s life cannot be securely reconstructed based on presently available evidence.” The only actual evidence is a dedicatory inscription said to have been recovered in conjunction with the writings during the 19th Century at Aquinum: ...]RI·SACRVM CERE]RI·SACRVM To Ceres (this) sacred (thing) ...]NIVS·IVVENALIS D(ECIMVS) IV]NIVS·IVVENALIS (Decimus Junius?) Juvenalis ...] COH·[.]·DELMATARVM TRIB(VNVS)] COH(ORTIS)·[I]·DELMATARVM military tribune of the 1st cohort of the Dalmatian (legions) II·VIR·QVINQ·FLAMEN II·VIR·QVINQ(VENNALIS)·FLAMEN Duovir, Quinquennalis, Flamen DIVI·VESPASIANI DIVI·VESPASIANI of the Divine Vespasian VOVIT·DEDICAV[...]UE VOVIT·DEDICAV[ITQ]UE vowed and dedicated SVA PEC SVA PEC(VNIA) at his own expense

The problem with the above is that since the Dalmatian legions had not existed prior to 166 CE, the Junius being spoken of would have been not the poet himself but another member of his family bearing that name.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

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THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1810

Alexander Chalmers’s THE WORKS OF THE ENGLISH POETS, FROM CHAUCER TO COWPER; INCLUDING THE SERIES EDITED WITH PREFACES, BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, BY DR.: AND THE MOST APPROVED TRANSLATIONS, a revised and expanded version of Dr. Johnson’s 1779-1781 LIVES OF THE POETS, began to come across the London presses of C. Wittingham. It would amount to 21 volumes and the printing would require until 1814 to be complete. According to the Preface, this massive thingie was “a work professing to be a Body of the Standard English Poets”1:

1. When the massive collection would come finally to be reviewed in July 1814, the reviewer would, on the basis of Chalmers’s selection of poems and poets, broadly denounce this editor as incompetent. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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PERUSE VOLUME I PERUSE VOLUME III PERUSE VOLUME IV PERUSE VOLUME V PERUSE VOLUME VI PERUSE VOLUME VII PERUSE VOLUME VIII PERUSE VOLUME IX PERUSE VOLUME X PERUSE VOLUME XI PERUSE VOLUME XII PERUSE VOLUME XIII PERUSE VOLUME XIV PERUSE VOLUME XV PERUSE VOLUME XVI PERUSE VOLUME XVII PERUSE VOLUME XVIII PERUSE VOLUME XIX PERUSE VOLUME XX PERUSE VOLUME XXI HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

WALDEN: Breed’s hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though it had long been unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. It was set on fire by mischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived on the edge of the village then, and had just lost myself over Davenant’s Gondibert, that winter that I labored FIRE with a lethargy, –which, by the way, I never knew whether to regard as a family complaint, having an uncle who goes to sleep shaving himself, and is obliged to sprout potatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to keep awake and keep the Sabbath, or as the PEOPLE OF consequence of my attempt to read Chalmers’ collection of English WALDEN poetry without skipping. It fairly overcame my Nervii. I had just sunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in hot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook. We thought it was far south over the woods, –we who had run to fires before,– barn, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together. “It’s Baker’s barn,” cried one. “It is the Codman Place,” affirmed another. And then fresh sparks went up above the wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all shouted “Concord to the rescue!” Wagons shot past with furious speed and crushing loads, bearing, perchance, among the rest, the agent of the Insurance Company, who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon the engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure, and rearmost of all, as it was afterward whispered, came they who set the fire and gave the alarm. Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence of our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard crackling and actually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, and realized, alas! that we were there. The very nearness of the fire but cooled our ardor. At first we thought to throw a frog-pond on to it; but concluded to let it burn, it was so far gone and so worthless. So we stood round our engine, jostled one another, expressed our sentiments through speaking trumpets, or in lower tone referred to the great conflagrations which the world has witness, including Bascom’s shop, and, between ourselves we thought that, were we there in season with our “tub”, and a full frog-pond by, we could turn that threatened last and universal one into another flood. We finally retreated without doing any mischief, –returned to sleep and Gondibert. But as for Gondibert, I would except that passage in the preface about wit being the soul’s powder, –“but most of mankind are strangers to wit, as Indians are to powder.”

INSURANCE NARCOLEPSY ALEXANDER CHALMERS BASCOM & COLE

THE ENGLISH POETS: Joseph Addison, Akenside; Armstrong; Beattie; Francis Beaumont; HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

Sir J. Beaumont; Blacklock; Blackmore; Robert Blair; Boyse; Brome; Brooke; Broome; Sir Thomas Browne; Charles Butler; George Gordon, Lord Byron; Cambridge; Thomas Carew; Cartwright; Cawthorne; Chatterton; Geoffrey Chaucer; Churchill; William Collins; William Congreve; Cooper; Corbett; Charles Cotton; Dr. Cotton; Abraham Cowley; William Cowper; Crashaw; Cunningham; Daniel; William Davenant; Davies; Sir John Denham; Dodsley; John Donne; Dorset; Michael Drayton; Sir William Drummond; John Dryden; Duke; Dyer; Falconer; Fawkes; Fenton; Giles Fletcher; John Fletcher; Garth; Gascoigne; Gay; Glover; Goldsmith; Gower; Grainger; Thomas Gray; Green; William Habington; Halifax; William Hall; Hammond; Harte; Hughes; Jago; Jenyns; Dr. Samuel Johnson; Jones; Ben Jonson; King; Langhorne; Lansdowne; Lloyd; Logan; Lovibond; Lyttelton; Mallett; Mason; William Julias Mickle; John Milton; Thomas Moore; Otway; Parnell; A. Phillips; J. Phillips; Pitt; Pomfret; Alexander Pope; Prior; Rochester; Roscommon; Rowe; Savage; Sir Walter Scott; William Shakespeare; Sheffield; Shenstone; Sherburne; Skelton; Smart; Smith; Somerville; Edmund Spenser; Sprat; Stepney; Stirling; Suckling; Surrey; Jonathan Swift; James Thomson; W. Thomson; Tickell; Turberville; Waller; Walsh; Warner; J. Warton; T. Warton; Watts; West; P. Whitehead; W. Whitehead; Wilkie; Wyatt; Yalden; Arthur Young. TRANSLATIONS: Alexander Pope’s Iliad & Odyssey; John Dryden’s Virgil & Juvenal; Pitt’s Aeneid & Vida; Francis’ Horace; Rowe’s Lucan; Grainger’s Albius Tibullus; Fawkes’ Theocritus, Apollonius Rhodius, Coluthus, Anacreon, Sappho, Bion and Moschus, Museus; Garth’s Ovid; Lewis’ Statius; Cooke’s Hesiod; Hoole’s Ariosto & Tasso; William Julias Mickle’s Lusiad. COMMENTARY: William Julias Mickle’s “Inquiry into the Religion Tenets and Philosophy of the Bramins,” which Thoreau encountered in 1841 in Volume 21 (pages 713-33).

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

The People of A Week: Juvenal “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1814

D. JUNII JUVENALIS ET A. PERSII FLACCI SATIRÆ. INTERPRETATIONE AC NOTIS ILLUSTRAVIT LUDOVICUS PRATEUS, RHETORICÆ PROFESSOR EMERITUS; JUSSU CHRISTIANISSIMI REGIS, IN USUM. SERENISSIMI DELPHINI. EDITIO PRIMA AMERICANA. (Philadelphiæ: Typis L.R. Bailey. Impensis M. Carey. M.DCCC.XIV.). Henry Thoreau would have a copy of this 1st American edition in his personal library. JUVENALIS ET PERSIUS

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

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THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1828

D. Junii Juvenalis. SATIRÆ EXPURGATÆ. ACCEDUNT NOTÆ ANGLICÆ. IN USUM SCHOLÆ BOSTONIENSIS. CURA F. P. LEVERETT (Bostoniæ, Hilliard, Gray, Little et Wilkins). DECIMUS IUNIUS IUVENALIS

The 16 satires of Juvenal, in this expurgated Latin, would be required reading during David Henry Thoreau’s period of formal instruction at the Concord Academy, or at Harvard College. FREDERIC PERCIVAL LEVERETT

[Now here’s something I’d like to check out with you. My question to you will be, am I over-interpreting?]

In studying about this edition offered for use in an all-male school context, I have certain suspicions about a textbook title that boasts of expurgation. I say to myself, these schoolteachers do know about their pubescent lads –they themselves had once upon a time been pubescent lads– and so they were fully aware that this amounts to a dare. They knew that their charges were bound to seek out an unexpurgated edition to specifically look up the lacunae and give to the accurate translation of these lacunae their undivided interest. In other words, rather than constituting any sort of tactic for suppression of information, the tactic they were deploying was a tactic guaranteed to focus attention.

“Damn the expurgated books! I say damn ’em! The dirtiest book in all the world is the expurgated book!” — Walt Whitman

Consider what we find in the recent book CLASSICAL BEARINGS (Berkeley: U of California P, 1989). The author informs us of the great lengths to which he and other of his Sixth Form fellows at the Charterhouse School in Godalming in Surrey had gone, to sniff out the meanings of obscenities and foulnesses omitted from

their texts of Juvenal, for instance vetulae vesica beatae in Satire #1, and then Satires #2, #6, #9, .... Peter Green confesses on his page 242 that this had been “how I first acquired the basic techniques of scholarly research.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

What sort of material historically has been kept from the eyes of such as Henry Thoreau and thus, in all actuality, emphatically brought before his attention? Typically, Satires #7 and #9, the satires that deal heavily with homosexual deeds. Here are lines 27-37 of Satire #6: Postumus marrying? You used to be sane; no doubt about that. What Fury, then, with her maddening snakes is hunting you down? Can you bear to be the slave of a woman, when so much rope is at hand, when those vertiginous top-floor windows are standing open, and when the Aemilian bridge nearby offers assistance? If none of these means of deliverance seems to have any appeal, don’t you think it better to sleep with a little boyfriend? A boyfriend doesn’t argue all night or ask you for presents as he lies beside you, or complain that you are not giving a hundred percent and are not producing the requisite panting and puffing.

Lines 27-46 of Satire #9 have the narrator provide sympathetic attention to a male homosexual prostitute as he complains about the downside of butt-fucking one of his repeat clients: Many have made a profit from this kind of life, but I have had no return for my efforts. […] Men are governed by fate, including those parts hidden beneath their clothes. For if the stars are not in your favor, the unheard-of length of your dangling tool will count for nothing, even though, when you’re stripped, Virro stares at you drooling and sends you a continuous stream of coaxing billets-doux. […] And yet, what creature is more grotesque than a miserly pervert? “I paid you this; I gave you that; and then you got more.” As he tots it up he wriggles his rump. Well, set out the counters; send for the slaves and the abacus. Put down five thousand in all as paid to me. And then put down my heavy exertions. Do you think it’s nice and easy to thrust a proper-sized penis into a person’s guts, encountering yesterday’s dinner? The slave who plows the field has a lighter task that the one HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

who plows its owner.

I can think of only one explanation for this phenomenon. Here we have a privileged intellectual education being offered to the privileged youth, to make of them top-quality young gentlemen who knew very well that they were top-quality young gentlemen, a caste of the entitled few. And, by ostensibly denying salacious material to them, salacious material was being most forcefully forwarded to their attention. Part of the message here is in the material itself –to wit a notice that such things do indeed go on in this world although no proper person would ever speak of that– and part of the message here is the very medium in which this message is being transmitted encoded — the method of transmission actually offers itself as an example, a model, for our conduct. You entitled gentlemen may kiss but you do not tell — you entitled gentlemen are entitled to kiss one another but you do not ever tell. The operative rule is, conduct is one thing and discourse another, another thing entirely. You may follow your bliss whatever your bliss may be — but if this leads you to be a black swan, you are to disguise yourself in white plumage. The serious business of life involves having a wife and a home and children but what you do for fun on Saturday in town is merely what you do for fun. It is not to define you. You are not to allow it to define you. You are to preserve deniability not only for yourself but also for all of us, the caste of well-educated and entitled gentlemen.2

[Remember my question to you is, am I over-interpreting? You need to let me know.]

We may well note that mere misogyny in Satire #6 passed readily through the editor’s filter: “From all the crowds of women, can you not find one who is decent?” Suppose she is beautiful, graceful, wealthy, fertile, and also has ancient ancestors dotting her hallway; suppose she is purer than any Sabine with streaming hair who stopped a war— a rare bird, as strange to the earth as a black swan; who could endure a wife who was such a paragon? Better, better, I say, a common slut than you, Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, if you combine with your massive virtues a disdainful expression, and count your triumphs as part of your dowry. Take your Hannibal, please; take your Syphax, who lost that battle in his camp; take all of Carthage; and then, take off!

The young scholar Thoreau was of course able to familiarize himself, unimpeded by any censorship, with Satire #10 and the prime importance of maintaining a mens sana in corpore sano. Still, that you may have something to ask for — some reason to offer the holy sausages and innards of a little white pig in a chapel-- you ought to pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body. Ask for a valiant heart which has banished the fear of death, which looks upon the length of days as one of the least of nature’s gifts; which is able to suffer every kind of hardship, is proof against anger, craves for nothing, and reckons the trials and grueling labors of Hercules as more desirable blessings than the amorous ease and the banquets and cushions of Sardanapallus. The things that I recommend you can grant to yourself; it is certain that the tranquil life can only be reached by the path of goodness. Lady Luck, if the truth were known, you possess no power; it is we who make you a goddess and give you a place in heaven.

The young scholar Thoreau was able to learn from the pages of this book, not only about the above impossibility (or actuality) of black swans,3 but also about the dangerous propensity of a democratic public for its panem et circenses: But what’s the reaction 2. This sort of thing would lead us toward Victorianism, which we now incorrectly presume to have been an age of inhibition — simply because their rule was that they never spoke of any of their unspeakable acts. We tend to think of this era as the era of prudery, in which they dressed up the legs of their pianos with prim skirts (but that happens to be an urban legend, and utterly unfounded). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

of Remus’s mob? It supports the winner, as always, and turns on whoever is condemned. […] Long ago, the people cast off its worries, when we stopped selling our votes. A body that used to confer commands, legions, rods, and everything else, has now narrowed its scope, and is eager and anxious for two things only: bread and circuses. “I hear that a lot are going to die.” “No question about it. The kitchen is sure to be hot.” “My friend Bruttidius looked a bit pale when I met him beside Mars’ altar. I’ve an awful feeling that the mortified Ajax may take revenge for being exposed to danger. So now, as he lies by the river, let’s all run and kick the man who was Caesar’s enemy. But check that our slaves are watching; then no one can say we didn’t, and drag his terrified master to court with his head in a noose.” Such were the whispers and the common gossip concerning Sejanus.

The young scholar Thoreau was able to learn from the pages of this book, of the reality of the always present political conundrum, quis custodiet ipsos custodes, who is going to protect us from the tender mercies of our protectors? You cannot, however, always trust [a eunuch]. Although he sets off his eyes with soot, and dresses in yellow and wears a hair-net, he’s still an adulterer. The more effeminate his voice, and the more he goes in for resting his hand on his rounded hip, the more you should have him watched. In bed he will prove most virile; there the ballet is forgotten. “Thais” puts off her mask to reveal the accomplished Triphallus. “Who are you fooling? Save the pretence, and lets have a wager. I bet you’re a genuine man; I bet you. Do you admit it? Or are the maids to be sent to the torturer’s stall? I know the advice my old friends give and their prudent recommendations: ‘Bolt the door and keep her in.’ But who is to guard the guards themselves? They are paid in kind for concealing the shady tricks of the naughty girl. Complicity promises silence. One’s wily wife anticipates this, and begins with them.”4

3. Juvenal’s rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno seems to be the literary source, by way of John Stuart Mill, for Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s THE BLACK SWAN. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

4. This volume would be the source for the article on Aulus Persius Flaccus that Thoreau would prepare for the July 1840 issue of THE DIAL, that would make its way into the “Thursday” chapter of A WEEK. THE DIAL, JULY 1840

“AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS”: The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, for he lives out of an eternity that includes all time. He is a child each moment, and reflects wisdom. The far darting thought of the child’s mind tarries not for the development of manhood; it lightens itself, and needs not draw down lightning from the clouds. When we bask in a single ray from ZOROASTER the mind of Zoroaster, we see how all subsequent time has been an idler, and has no apology for itself. But the cunning mind travels farther back than Zoroaster each instant, and comes quite down to the present with its revelation. All the thrift and industry of thinking give no man any stock in life; his credit with the inner world is no better, his capital no larger. He must try his fortune again to-day as yesterday. All questions rely on the present for their solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed, but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, let the occasion say it. From a real sympathy, all the world is forward to prompt him who gets up to live without his creed in his pocket.

A WEEK: The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time. The cunning mind travels further back than Zoroaster each ZOROASTER instant, and comes quite down to the present with its revelation. The utmost thrift and industry of thinking give no man any stock in life; his credit with the inner world is no better, his capital no larger. He must try his fortune again to-day as yesterday. All questions rely on the present for their solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed, but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, let the occasion say it. All the world is forward to prompt him who gets up to live without his creed in his pocket. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1833

Professor Cornelius Conway Felton prepared an edition of HOMER, using the illustrations prepared by John Flaxman (1755-1826). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

According to Professor Walter Roy Harding’s THE DAYS OF HENRY THOREAU (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966):

“A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

Chapter 3 (1833-1837) -David Henry Thoreau enters Harvard College (president Josiah Quincy), having barely squeezed by his entrance exams and rooming with Charles S. Wheeler Thoreau’s Harvard curriculum: Greek (8 terms under Felton and Dunkin)-composition, grammar, “Greek Antiquities,” Xenophon, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Sophocles, Euripides, Homer. Latin Grammar (8 terms under Beck and McKean)-composition, “Latin Antiquities,” Livy, Horace, , Seneca, Juvenal. Mathematics (7 terms under Pierce and [Joseph] Lovering) English (8 terms under ET Channing, Giles, W&G Simmons)-grammar, rhetoric, logic, forensics, criticism, elocution, declamations, themes. Mental Philosophy (under Giles) William Paley, Stewart. Natural Philosophy (under [Joseph] Lovering)-astronomy. Intellectual Philosophy (under Bowen) Locke, Say, Story. Theology (2 terms under H Ware)-Paley, Charles Butler, New Testament. Modern Languages (voluntary) Italian (5 terms under Bachi) French (4 terms under Surault) German (4 terms under Bokum) Spanish (2 terms under [Francis] Sales) Attended voluntary lectures on German and Northern literature (Longfellow), mineralogy (Webster), anatomy (Warren), natural history (Harris). Thoreau was an above average student who made mixed impressions upon his classmates. In the spring of ‘36 Thoreau withdrew due to illness -later taught for a brief period in Canton under the Rev. Orestes A. Brownson, a leading New England intellectual who Harding suggests profoundly influenced Thoreau. (Robert L. Lace, January-March 1986)

On a following screen is a list of textbooks that were to be used at Harvard for the school year 1833/1834, together with their list prices at the Brown, Shattuck, and Company bookstore, “Booksellers to the University.”

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

The People of A Week: Juvenal “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1844

The Episcopalian Reverend Clement Clarke Moore, Professor of Classics at the General Theological Seminary in New-York, author of A COMPENDIOUS LEXICON OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE, translator of the works of Juvenal into English, in this year wrote to the owner of the Troy NY Sentinel, to inquire whether anyone still at that news office knew anything about the authorship of the anonymous poem “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” that they had published in 1823, the one that in the interim two decades had become so inordinately famous as “The Night Before Christmas.” He must have supposed that we’d never find or figure out this letter of inquiry, for as soon as the Reverend learned that everyone who might know anything about the actual provenance of this poem was already deceased –as soon as he believed himself to be entirely safe in his little self-embellishment– he inserted this famous poem as just another item among many, in an anthology that he was currently having printed, entitled POEMS, of his own writings. He also included two poems by his wife for which he himself, in the preface, specifically claimed authorship, and some 35 other dubious pieces.5

Thus it is that we now have editions such as this one below:

However, this year wasn’t entirely a disaster year for poetry, as a real poet named Gerard Manley Hopkins was born.

5. He would proceed to copy out a number of holographs of the poem in his own handwriting, and these copies of the poem allegedly written by the Reverend Professor Clement Clarke Moore would eventually fetch, in 1997 in an auction at Christie’s, the grand sum of $211,000. — That’s not bad for a poem by Anon. that originally got published for free as a piece of newspaper filler! — One wonders how this $211,000 compares with the lifetime royalties of a poet such as Robert Frost or e.e. cummings. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1851

March 30, Sunday: It is clear from the content of Henry Thoreau’s journal that he has been reading in Thomas De Quincey’s THE CÆSARS (Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1851, one in an extended series of volumes of DE QUINCEY’S WRITINGS that would not to be complete for any number of years): THE CÆSARS

March 30: Spring is already upon us. I see the tortoises or rather I hear them drop from the bank into the brooks at my approach– The catkins of the alders have blossomed The pads are springing at the bottom of the water –the Pewee is heard & the lark.

“It is only the squalid savages and degraded boschmen of creation that have their feeble teeth and tiny stings steeped in venom, and so made formidable,” — ants, centipedes, and mosquitoes, spiders, wasps, and scorpions. – Hugh Miller. To attain to a true relation to one human creature is enough to make a year memorable. The man for whom law exists –the man of forms, the conservative– is a tame man. CARRYING OFF SIMS

A recent English writer (De Quincey), endeavoring to account for the atrocities of Caligula and Nero, their monstrous and anomalous cruelties, and the general servility and corruption which they imply, observes that it is difficult to believe that “the descendants of a people so severe in their habits” as the Romans had been “could thus rapidly “have degenerated and that, “in reality, the citizens of Rome were at this time a new race, brought together from every quarter of the world, but especially from Asia.” A vast “proportion of the ancient citizens had been cut off by the sword,” and such multitudes of emancipated slaves from Asia had been invested with the rights of citizens “that, in a single generation, Rome became almost transmuted into a baser metal.” As Juvenal complained, “the Orontes ... had mingled its impure waters with those of the Tiber.” And “probably, in the time of Nero, not one man in six was of pure Roman descent.” Instead of such, says another, “came Syrians, Cappadocians, Phrygians, and other enfranchised slaves.” “These in half a century had sunk so low, that Tiberius pronounced her [Rome’s] very senators to be homines ad servitutem natos, men born to be slaves.”

April 1, Tuesday: Aaron D. Stevens visited a recruiting depot in New-York where he met Major Charles May, who had been a dashing Dragoon hero in the war on Mexico.

circa April 1: “It is only the squalid savages and degraded boschmen of creation that have their feeble teeth & tiny stings steeped in venom, and so made formidable.” ants –centipedes, and mosquitos –spiders, wasps, and scorpions– Hugh Miller. To obtain to a true relation to one human creature is enough to make a year memorable. The man for whom law exists –the man of forms, the conservative, is a tame man. A recent English writer (De Quincey) endeavoring to account for the atrocities of Caligula and Nero –their monstrous & anomalous cruelties –and the general servility & corruption which they imply– Observes that it is difficult to believe that “the descendents of a people so severe in their habits” as the Romans, “could thus rapidly” have degenerated –that “in reality the citizens of Rome were at this time a new race brought together from every quarter of the world, but especially from Asia” A vast “proportion of the ancient citizens had been cut off by the sword and such multitudes of emancipated slaves from Asia had been invested with the rights of citizens, “that, in a single generation, Rome became almost transmuted into a baser metal.” As Juvenal complained– “the Orontes had mingled its impure waters with those of the Tiber.” & “Probably, in the time of Nero, not one man in six was of pure Roman descent.” Instead of such says another “came Syrians, Cappadocians, Phyrgians, and other enfranchised slaves” — “these HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

in half a century had sunk so low, that Tiberius pronounced her (Rome’s) very senators to be homines ad servitutem natos, men born to be slaves.” So one would say, in the absence of particular genealogical evidence, that the vast majority of the inhabitants of the City of Boston –even –those of senatorial dignity –the Curtises– Lunts –Woodbury’s and others –men not descendents of the men of the revolution the Hancocks –Adamses –Otises –but some “syrians Cappadocians & Phyrgians,” merely, homines ad servitutem natos men born to be slaves There is such an office if not such a man as the Governor of Massachusetts– What has he been about the last fortnight? He has probably had as much as he could do to keep on the fence during this moral earthquake. It seems to me that no such keen satire, no such cutting insult could be offered to that man, as the absence of all inquiry after him in this crisis. It appears to have been forgotten that there was such a man or such an office. Yet no doubt he has been filling the gubernatorial chair all6 the while– One Mr Boutwell –so named perchance because he goes about well to suit the prevailing wind In ’75 2 or 300s of the inhabitants of Concord assembled at one of the bridges with arms in their hands to assert the right of 3 millions to tax themselves, & have a voice in governing themselves– About a week ago the authorities of Boston, having the sympathy of many of the inhabitants of Concord assembled in the grey of the dawn, assisted by a still larger armed force –to send back a perfectly innocent man –and one whom they knew to be innocent into a slavery as complete as the world ever knew Of course it makes not the least difference I wish you to consider this who the man was –whether he was Jesus christ or another– for in as much as ye did it unto the least of these his brethen ye did it unto him Do you think he would have stayed here in liberty and let the black man go into slavery in his stead? They sent him back I say to live in slavery with other 3 millions mark that –whom the same slave power or slavish power north & south –holds in that condition. 3 millions who do not, like the first mentioned, assert the right to govern themselvs but simply to run away & stay away from their prison-house. Just a week afterward those inhabitants of this town who especially sympathize with the authorities of Boston in this their deed caused the bells to be rung & the cannons to be fired to celebrate the courage & the love of liberty of those men who assembled at the bridge. As if those 3 millions had fought for the right to be free themselves –but to hold in slavery 3 million others Why gentlemen even consistency though it is much abused is sometimes a virtue. Every humane & intelligent inhabitant of Concord when he or she heard those bells & those cannon thought not so much of the events of the 19th of April 1775 as of the events of the 12 of April 1851 I wish my townsmen to consider that whatever the human law may be neither an individual nor a nation can ever deliberately commit the least act of injustice without having to pay the penalty for it A government which deliberately enacts injustice –& persists in it! –it will become the laughing stock of the world. Much as has been said about American slavery, I think that commonly we do not yet realize what slavery is– If I were seriously to propose to congress to make mankind into sausages, I have no doubt that most would smile at my proposition and if any believed me to be in earnest they would think that I proposed something much worse than Congress had ever done. But gentlemen if any of you will tell me that to make a man into a sausage would be much worse (would be any worse), than to make him into a slave –than it was then to enact the fugitive-slave law –I shall here accuse him of foolishness –of intellectual incapacity –of making a distinction without a difference. The one is just as sensible a proposition as the other. When I read the account of the carrying back of the fugitive into slavery, which was read last sunday evening –and read also what was not read here that the man who made the prayer on the wharf was Daniel Foster of Concord I could not help feeling a slight degree of pride because of all the towns in the Commonwealth Concord was the only one distinctly named as being represented in that tea-party –and as she had a place in the first so would have a place in this the last & perhaps next most important chapter of the Hist of Mass. But my second feeling– when I reflected how short a time that gentleman has resided in this town –was one of doubt & shame –because the men of Concord in recent times have done nothing to entitle them to the honor of having their town named in such a connexion. I hear a good deal said about trampling this law under foot– Why one need not go out of his way to do that– This law lies not at the level of the head or the reason– Its natural habitat is in the dirt. It was bred & has its life only in the dust & mire –on a level with the feet & he who walks with freedom unless with a sort of quibbling & Hindoo mercy he avoids treading on every venomous reptile –will inevitably tread on it & so trample it under foot. It has come to this that the friends of liberty the friends of the slave have shuddered when they have understood, that his fate has been left to the legal tribunals so called of the country to be decided. The people have no faith 6. Since this governor’s full name was George Sewall Boutwell, we need to ask whether Henry Thoreau knew this, and whether he was any relation –or whether Thoreau thought he was any relation– to Ellen Devereux Sewall to whom Thoreau had proposed marriage. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

that justice will be awarded in such a case –the judge may decide this way or that, it is a kind of accident at best– It is evident that he is not a competent authority in so important a case. I would not trust the life of my friend to the judges of all the supreme Courts in the world put together –to be sacrificed or saved by precedent– I would much rather trust to the sentiment of the people, which would itself be a precedent to posterity– In their vote you would get something worth having at any rate, but in the other case only the trammelled judgment of an individual –of no significance be it which way it will. I think that recent events will be valuable as a criticism on the administration of justice in our midst –or rather as revealing what are the true sources of justice in any community. It is to some extent fatal to the Courts when the people are compelled to go behind the courts They learn that The courts are made for fair-weather & for very civil cases– {One leaf missing} let us entertain opinions of our own –let us be a town & not a suburb –as far from Boston in this sense as we were by the old Road which lead through Lexington –a place where tyranny may ever be met with firmness & driven back with defeat to its ships. Concord has several more bridges left of the same sort which she is taxed to maintain – Can she not raise men to defend them? As for measures to be adopted among others I would advise abolitionists to make as earnest and vigorous and persevering an assault on the Press, as they have already made and with effect too –on the Church– The Church has decidedly improved within a year or two.– aye even within a fortnight –but the press is almost without exception corrupt. I believe that in this country the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence than the Church We are not a religious people but we are a nation of politicians we do not much care for –we do not read the Bible –but we do care for & we do read the newspaper– It is a bible which we read every morning & every afternoon standing & sitting –riding & walking– It is a bible which lies on every table & counter which every man carries in his pocket which the mail & thousands of missionaries are continually dispersing– It is the only book which America has printed and is Capable of exerting an almost inconceivable influence for good or for bad. The editor is preacher whom you voluntarily support your tax is commonly one cent –& it costs nothing for pew-hire. But how many of these preachers preach the truth– I repeat the testimony of many an intelligent traveller as well as my own convictions when I say that probably no country was ever ruled by so mean a class of tyrants as are the editors of the periodical press in this country. Almost without exception the tone of the press is mercenary & servile– The Commonwealth & the Liberator are the only papers as far as I know which make themselves heard in condemnation of the cowardice & meanness of the authorities of Boston as lately exhibited. The other journals almost without exception –as the Advertiser the Transcript –the Journal –the Times –Bee –Herald –&c by their manner of referring to & speaking of the Fugitive-slave law or the carrying back of the slave– insult the common sense of the country And they do this for the most part because they think so to secure the approbation of their patrons & also one would think because they are not aware that a sounder sentiment prevails to any extent. But thank fortune this preacher can be more easily reached by the weapons of the Reformer than could the recreant Priest– the free men of New England have only to –refrain from purchasing & reading these sheets have only to withhold their cents to kill a score of them at once. Mahomet made his celestial journey in so short a time that “on his return he was able to prevent the complete overturn of a vase of water, which the angel Gabriel had struck with his wing on his departure.” When he took refuge in a cave near Mecca being on his flight (Hegira) to Medina. “By the time that the Koreishites [who were close behind] reached the mouth of the cavern, an acacia tree had sprung up before it, in the spreading branches of which a pigeon had made its nest, and laid its eggs, and over the whole a spider had woven its web.” He said of himself. “I am no king, but the son of a Koreishite woman, who ate flesh dried in the sun.” He exacted –“a tithe of the productions of the earth, where it was fertilized by brooks & rain; and a twentieth part where its fertility was the result of irrigation.”7

7. The poet W.H. Auden has in 1962 brought forward a snippet from this day’s entry as:

THE VIKING BOOK OF APHORISMS, A PERSONAL SELECTION BY W.H. AUDEN...

Pg Topic Aphorism Selected by Auden out of Thoreau

Politics and Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can 309 Power ever deliberately commit the least act of injustice without having to pay the penalty for it. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1863

July 10, Friday: Clement Clarke Moore died notorious, at his summer home in Newport, Rhode Island. In addition to translating the works of Juvenal into English, and editing his father’s sermons, and authoring polemical pamphlets against the subversion of religion by doubters, this scholar had been the author of the immortal “The Night Before Christmas” (NOT!)

The body would be interred in the Trinity Cemetery of the Church of the Intercession, on Upper Broadway at 155th Street in New-York.

A report from Walt Whitman: “Specimen Days”

Still the camp opposite — perhaps fifty or sixty tents. Some of the men are cleaning their sabres (pleasant to-day,) some brushing boots, some laying off, reading, writing — some cooking, some sleeping. On long temporary cross-sticks back of the tents are cavalry accoutrements — blankets and overcoats are hung out to air — there are the squads of horses tether’d, feeding, continually stamping and whisking their tails to keep off flies. I sit long in my third story window and look at the scene — a hundred little things going on — peculiar objects connected with the camp that could not be described, any one of them justly, without much minute drawing and coloring in words.

On this day and the following one, there was fighting on the coast of South Carolina at Fort Wagner / Morris Island. Union artillery on Folly Island together with Rear Admiral John Dahlgren’s fleet of ironclads opened fire on Confederate defenses of Morris Island. The bombardment provided cover for Brigadier General George C. Strong’s brigade, which crossed Light House Inlet and landed by boats on the southern tip of the island. Strong’s troops advanced, capturing several batteries, to within range of Confederate Fort Wagner. At dawn on July 11th, Strong attacked the fort. Soldiers of the 7th Connecticut reached the parapet but, unsupported, were thrown back.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FABULATION: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

The People of A Week: Juvenal “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: November 11, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.