Nota Bene

Vol. 14 No. 1 Sp e c i a l Me m o r i a l Iss u e Fall 2008

Is a a c Ja c o b Me y e r s February 2, 1979 – March 17, 2008 IN MEMORIAM: ISAAC JACOB MEYERS

varied as the Res Gestae and the At Hillel, and in the Classics De- Book of Mormon. This was a chal- partment, his friendship was greatly lenging trio of assignments, but their cherished by many, students and difficulty would not have entered faculty alike. His abstracted manner into Isaac’s calculations; he studied suited the quintessential scholar; and what he studied for its intrinsic in- yet, he was not in the least remote terest, and he derived great joy from from the practicalities of graduate the enquiry. student life, serving as graduate rep- Isaac was a delight, in the pur- resentative to the Department of the est and most fundamental sense of Classics as soon as he arrived. His that word. He was entirely happy in scholarly precision and linguistic what he was doing, and his engage- expertise earned him an appointment ment was infectious. His capacious as proofreader of Greek, Latin, and intellect ranged far and wide. The modern languages for The American small and simple details gave him Journal of Philology, a task that as much pleasure as the grandest he acquitted with great distinction, edifices of the past: the clumsy Latin catching errors that had eluded au- saac Meyers entered the gradu- of a semi-literate subject on the thors and editor alike. His own writ- ate program in Classical Philol- fringes of the Roman Empire, trying ing was marked by unpretentious ogy at Harvard in Fall 2004, to express himself in an inscription, elegance, every word chosen with havingI completed the degrees of BA would make Isaac’s eyes widen with such sensitivity that it seemed the ut- in Classics (Latin) at Yale in 2001 pleasure, and he would nod appre- terly natural and mellifluous choice, and MSt in Jewish Studies at St. ciatively as he gazed at the text and expressing precisely and memorably Peter’s College, Oxford, in 2004. grasped its author’s intentions across just what he wanted to say. At the time of his death, in a traffic the centuries. What he studied was Isaac’s tragic death, at the age of accident in Cambridge on March 17, of a piece with what he taught: he twenty-nine, has robbed the world 2008, he was about to embark on saw no hierarchical divisions in of a true scholar and a most lovable his dissertation, having completed learning, and he delighted in bring- person. We extend our deepest sym- his Special Exams in a distinguished ing his students in beginners’ Latin pathy to his parents, William Meyers performance in January. The areas extra material, such as a grammati- and Nahma Sandrow, his sister, Han- he chose for his Specials reflect the cal solecism from an inscription, to nah, and his beloved fiancée, Margot range and depth of his scholarly engage their interest and stimulate Lurie. We are the richer for his years interests: for his Greek author, he their imagination. among us, and deeply saddened by studied the fragments of the Greek Isaac was a faithful member of his passing. historians in Jacoby’s monumental Harvard Hillel, and a devoted stu- edition; for his Latin author, Cicero; dent of Jewish texts, which he read Kathleen Coleman, Harvard Univer- and for his field, Translation and with great intensity, focusing on the sity, Director of Graduate Studies Bilingualism, ranging over texts as nuances of every word and phrase. 2002–05, 2006–07

February 2, 1979 ­­– March 17, 2008

2 above: July 2005; center: with Hannah and Margot, October 2007

below, left: Jerash, Jordan, July 2000; below, right: with Margot in Jerusalem, summer 2006

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The following remembrances were tant.” to realize. part of the funeral service for Isaac If one person could form this Isaac also had a gentle strength at Ansche Chesed Synagogue in impression of Isaac from just one about him. His inner sense of self, New York City on March 19, 2008. evening, how much more do those and of right and wrong, was so of us who have known him for many powerful that he never cared so Andrew years have to say about him? much about what people thought i, I’m Andrew Koss and this We would like to share just a few of him, yet always wanted to make is my wife, Alison. We’ve of these things. people happy and to do the right known Isaac since our First and foremost, Isaac was thing. freshmanH year at Yale (1998), and he kind. Many of you who knew Isaac Of course, this inner sense of right was our best friend. from Yale remember how he walked and wrong did not always lead to When we were sitting together to the Jewish Old Age Home every happiness in others, particularly last night, trying to piece together Shabbos morning to help make a editors of those news wires and what to say here today, we realized minyan and lead the services. In ad- newspapers that had, unfortunately that we couldn’t possibly summarize dition, he would wake up extra early for them, run stories Isaac found Isaac’s life or what he meant to us, to pick up the rabbi, who was in a preposterous, despicable, irrespon- and that to even try would be futile wheelchair, and push him to the Old sible, or simply false. In response to and reductionistic. Age Home. a particularly inflammatory article So instead we’d like to share a Beyond that, Isaac encouraged about the so-labeled “massacre” of few things in a way that Isaac would and inspired others to come with Jenin, in which the author made al- probably find way too diffuse and him and help out and to really get to legations about the actions of the Is- highly disorganized, in the hope that know the Home’s residents. raeli army that he justified by saying we will be able to share and com- This was so typical of so many he “smelled something fishy,” Isaac municate just a few of the wonder- things he did. wrote a lengthy and mocking letter ful things he was and will always I am sure that many of the young- to the editor entirely focused upon represent. er people here also had the pleasure the awesomeness of the writer’s Yesterday afternoon, we received of attending an Isaac Jacob Meyers omniscient and omnipotent olfac- an e-mail from a friend of Alison’s BBQ or, for those of us who were tory sense, including a line about who only knew Isaac for a few especially lucky, an Isaac Jacob how all should hail the author’s hours. Isaac came with us to visit Meyers Latke BBQ (which some- great nose. Woe to the news bureau her, her husband, and their three how never quite coincided with that did not do its homework when children on a summer evening sev- Chanukah, and sometimes wasn’t Isaac was on the warpath. eral years ago. I’d like to read you even in December). part of what she said. Isaac loved bringing people to- Alison “Even though we spent just a few gether, and making them happy, and Isaac saw beauty in so many hours together, I really got a sense feeding them oily yet delicious food. places—in lilting poetic verse and of the very special person he was. Isaac really treasured these get- meter, in ancient inscriptions in He was so amazingly brilliant and togethers. Alison and I have in obscure languages, in so many dif- ambitious, yet so incredibly down our e-mail inboxes pictures from ferent kinds of music (and espe- to earth, funny, and full of life. I re- various parties thrown in Oxford, cially in anything he produced with member how impressed my husband Cambridge, New York, and New his much-beloved ukulele), and, was, and how crazy the kids were Haven—each person, many of of course, in the people he daily over him, especially Dovid” (who whom we have never met and only encountered. was nine at the time). “Isaac was heard of through his stories, care- As many of you know, Isaac really able to get down to Dovid’s fully labeled and lovingly described. was very interested in translations level, and made every person feel People were so important to him. and translating. He loved playing that everything they said was impor- More than he sometimes gave them with words, and the challenge of

4 FUNERAL SERVICE expressing one thought in another Ali …” We will miss those sighs. got to play a sacrificial lamb.) We language’s vocabulary, as well as Isaac also has the distinction of have at least three or so years’ worth the reasons why this was sometimes being the only person to have read in our inboxes, Shpiels he was so impossible. I also think, though, both our senior essays, along with a excited about that he sent them to that maybe he saw translations as a vast majority of the papers we wrote us so we could share in some of the means of bringing a form of beauty for our graduate and law school faraway merriment. Isaac was so accessible only to a small group of courses. His edits were, without fail, enthusiastic about doing something people to a much larger group. invaluable. to bring together the communi- Isaac was also quirky, in all the Of course, Isaac was not only an ties he was a part of and was so best ways. He often wore a treasured amazing friend; he was a loving son enthralled with the idea of mak- pocket watch, which he always and brother and boyfriend. He was ing people laugh. He was also an seemed to be taking to the jeweler’s so close with his sister Hannah, and amazing megilah reader; his whiny to get fixed. Early in his academic adored her so much and spoke about Vashti interpretation will likely go career, he dreamed of majoring in her all the time. Before I met her, I unmatched. As many of you know, zoology, despite the fact that there already felt like I knew her. Isaac so Purim is tomorrow night. One of was no such major at Yale, or prob- admired her creativity, her intel- the commandments for this holiday ably at any Western university in the ligence, and her amazing capacity is that Jews should be happy for its past one hundred years. He had a for life, and often repeated jokes she duration. We don’t know how we jaunty way of wearing his scarves had made the last time they spoke. are supposed to be happy this Pu- that we have never seen replicated, My last conversation with him, rim. It is the kind of thing we would even by French men. And he really which of course took place at some have loved to discuss with Isaac, loved corduroy pants. ungodly hour of the morning, was all who loved philosophical questions, He once arranged to take me for about how excited he was about the especially Jewish ones. a night on the town when Andrew graduate programs to which Hannah But maybe if each of us takes at was away, complete with a steak had been accepted, and how unsur- least some joy in these memories, dinner and a leisurely stroll through prised he was that she had been so or in the many, many others that Midtown—Isaac loved walking in successful with her applications. He lie in all our hearts and thoughts, Manhattan—and then showed up spoke of her, as always, with pride Isaac will have given us many more at my door in a three-piece yellow and admiration. He greatly admired Purims. tweed suit, which he was incredibly her opinion and approval; the idea proud of and couldn’t stop talking of sharing things with her—news Andrew Koss and Alison Hornstein about. He looked a little like a curly- articles, song lyrics, experiences— Koss, Yale University classmates headed Sherlock Holmes. informed so much of how he looked And of course he loved writing at the world. They had a powerful lyrics for his Jewish-themed pop connection. n the face of it, you might group, the Rothschilds, including We know this is getting long, but not have been able to pre- such clear hits as “Sara Is A Law- there is just one more thing we want dict that Isaac and I would yer” and “Shidduch Date Gone to share today. haveO been friends. He was a very Bad.” observant Jew; I barely go to shul. Isaac was an amazing friend. He Andrew He was politically conservative; I was also unfailingly honest. When Isaac loved Purim. am quite liberal. He studied his- we needed advice or guidance about Just about every year that we tory and Classics; I studied science a difficult situation, or an ethical knew him, Isaac would write a Pu- and the latest technology. He wrote dilemma or judgment call, he was rim Shpiel—a humorous play—and poetry in ancient forms; I built solar always the first person we would go cajole members of whatever com- cars. He was in Magevet; I was in to. His advice would always be- munity he was a part of into putting the Klezmer Band. gin with a loving sigh, then “Well, it on and acting it out. (One year I But we shared a love of ethnic

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folk music—all sorts of music: exploration. I sent out an e-mail to ever understood how this New York African, Eastern European, gypsy, my friends with a life update and a Jew had become fast friends with a Latin—and a curiosity about the rough itinerary, suggesting a rendez- Bulgarian, a Romanian, and some world and its people. He lent me vous if anyone would be in that part of their classmates, but we got to recordings for my world music radio of the world. The e-mail included swap stories with them about school show in college. We bonded over some thoughts on where I might like and life in an impromptu cultural foreign records and instruments with to live when I returned to the U.S., exchange. funny names. a desire to avoid a “big smelly city” We turned out to be perfectly We took playwriting together, and, and a mention of “eventual plans for matched traveling companions. In surrounded by overachievers, stood world domination.” Isaac replied: the weeks prior I had learned to read out in striving to write things more “I’m going to be in Bulgaria Au- Cyrillic and had spent time living intricate and complicated than our gust 27–Sept. 10 or thereabouts. We with Bulgarians, when I learned meager training would allow. We have to meet up. some basics of the language. It was each became completely entangled “I’m thinking of living in Queens enough to get us on the right buses, in our creations while both loving next year. That’s sort of rural. Has to the youth hostels, and fed. But and cursing every minute of trying to it occurred to you that all things when we got to the ancient Bulgari- meet the semester-imposed deadline. considered, big cities are less likely an ruins in Veliko Tornevo, built out When we reviewed each other’s to be smelly than little ones which of even more ancient Greek grave- semi-tamed thickets of characters are full of trees and pigs and things? stones and other various inscrip- and ideas, it was affirmation that NYC used to be full of pigs in the tions, Isaac’s background in Classics we were kindred spirits—impatient, 1800s but I notice that we’ve gotten couldn’t have been more useful. He striving for greatness, trying to rid of ours, while I can’t vouch for was able to explain the stuff to me vastly exceed whatever reasonable Burlington, for instance. The excep- beyond what any tour guide could levels of achievement others might tions to this rule are San Francisco, do, no matter how proficient in Eng- set for us. where they consider public defeca- lish he or she was. For a city kid, Isaac had an inex- tion the next civil rights frontier; We found a poster for a musical plicable love of barbecuing. In the and DC, which the entire world can spectacle in Plovdiv—was it Bulgar- Branford courtyard, on the Slifka smell, believe me. ian? Greek? Macedonian? We had Center patio, and then, in post-col- “See you round world domination no idea. But we had to go. We got lege life, in various greenish spots on headquarters. Isaac.” to the outdoor amphitheater at the the Upper West Side. Spring would In classic Isaac style, he addressed appointed time, but there was no roll around, and inevitably a cheery every point in the e-mail I had sent sign of the show. Somehow we were e-mail from Isaac would pop up into out, adding his own thoughts and able to ascertain that it had been my inbox inviting me to a barbecue. wit. moved indoors due to threat of rain. I missed too many of those in the In September, we met up in Sofia, We bolted for the concert hall. Our recent years. Bulgaria. He was thin and pale reward was a bombastic evening of He had a thing for pointing out the because he could hardly find suf- post-Soviet cultural revelry—dozens use of “bcc” in mass e-mails, receiv- ficient Kosher nourishment, but still of singers and dancers and flashing ing untold enjoyment from the fact vivacious. We found some Chabad- lights, traditional Bulgarian bag- that messages would arrive delivered niks who gave him matzoh, canned pipes and electronic guitars, aging to “undisclosed recipients,” so much olives, and other Israeli delicacies. rock stars, and Bulgarian women’s so that he addressed us, his minions, It wasn’t hearty, but it kept him choirs in full Slavic garb. We both as “Dear Undisclosed Recipients,” going for the next few days as we sat there, jaws dropped, 110% with e-mail titles like “Still undis- schlepped around to other cities. amused and supremely happy. And closed after all these years …” We met up with the multinational I know that he enjoyed the record- In 2002, I took a trip to Eastern friends he’d made at one of the ing I made of the concert for years Europe—a sort of klezmo-cultural large universities—I’m not sure I afterward.

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We spent Rosh Hashanah together place, and developed in accordance Isaac: “No, I’m not.”); his knack for back in Sofia. He made friends with with its ways and its rhythms—the disagreeing, strongly, without taking the rabbi at the synagogue. We went graduate student lounge. This was a or giving offense, with no rancor to a small service, all in a Sephardic very particular place, usually clut- in his heart; above all, his ability incantation that was completely tered, occasionally moth-infested, to detect distress in others and to foreign to my ears and absolutely and always populated by smart do what he could to remedy it. But beautiful. Fully entrenched in ethno- and opinionated and intellectually now I see that a common thread musicologist mode, I snuck in a little passionate people. It was a place ran through these parts of him; audio recorder under my tallit and to discuss anything, to argue the that his kindness was a part of his recorded it. Isaac looked the other world, to go from Sophocles and intelligence. Isaac’s great scholarly way. Cicero to Paul Simon and Ali G via interest was the theory and practice I think it was after we shared God and the movie Ghostbusters. of translation. He was fascinated by Bulgaria together that I really got This had been my place—I arrived translation, by the possibility, and to know his family. As everyone in the Department five years before the difficulty, of conveying across knows, they are some of the most Isaac—and Isaac made it his, and languages and times that which is loving, warm, welcoming, and won- I like to think it was ours together, common, shared, human. He chose derful people, inviting me to Shab- that we were like-minded coregents his field well; he knew it, he was bos dinner sometimes when Isaac of a little cosmos designed by a good at it. The vulgar saying is that wasn’t even around. It was clearly crazy person. poetry is what gets lost in transla- from them that he learned hospitality You couldn’t—and more than one tion—Isaac found poetry in transla- and general awesomeness. person has said this to me—you tion, Isaac put poetry in translation. We continued to meet sporadi- couldn’t walk into that place and His empathy for others was itself an cally. A random phone call generally not be gladdened he was there. Most act of translation—he saw, through meant he was in town and good for of my colleagues knew better, but I differences of every kind, the com- a Kosher Chinese meal on the Upper largely wrote my dissertation in that mon beat of humanity in people so West Side. When I was in Boston, room, late at night, when he worked little like him, in people so much he would show me where to get the too. I would leave the house at nine, less than him. And, he didn’t just good falafel. I’d run into him and maybe, or ten. When I left, my wife see, and understand, and translate Hannah at the Central Park Summer- would give me a wry look and say, the humanity of others into Isaac; stage. And he was always ready with with perfect justice, “Yer just gonna he translated little, beautiful, pieces a smile, some witty anecdote about talk to Isaac for four hours.” She of Isaac into us, into me. My pride something he’d seen or heard or was right—I talked to Isaac to hide in possessing these pieces, I cannot read, and an ear open for whatever out from my work, and I hid from tell you. was on my mind. my work to talk to Isaac. I am, now, I want to mention one in particu- Looks like things in this life are incredibly grateful for my paltry lar. A year ago, on Isaac’s birthday, going to be lonelier around world self-discipline. my daughter Maddie was born. domination headquarters. In conveying the Isaac I knew, I Isaac, you were so sweet with her! thought I would pass lightly over his It is a small connection she has with Jeff Perlman, Yale University class- brilliant intellect—everyone knows him, but it is for me an immense mate that about him, and anyway it was comfort, to know that, for as long as his less remarkable feature, com- she is and I am, February the second pared to his humanity—how he was will make new in my heart Isaac’s y name is John Schafer. I liked by all who knew him slightly incomparable memory. knew Isaac from Harvard, and loved by all who knew him May it be for a blessing. from the Classics Depart- well; how his humor was irresistible, ment.M Our friendship, I think it’s while utterly free of malice (me: John Schafer, Harvard University fair to say, sprang from a particular “Isaac, you’re just being contrary.” classmate (PhD ’07)

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met Isaac through the Old politics, religion, Yiddish, Latin, the members of the shul. Those of Broadway Synagogue five or and history. The last conversation you who know the people will know six years ago. I have no idea I had with him is perhaps a good what I mean. When Igor Gantz howI he found his way up to 126th example. I had just visited the refused to play Esther, Isaac, in a Street and Old Broadway, but he new Greek and Roman galleries at moment of casting genius, gave the did. I had my first inkling that he the Met and I pointed out that the role to the long-bearded Herschel was someone special when I asked earlier statues, that is, those from Manischewitz, whose deep rab- at Shacharis if he could come back the Roman Republic, were more binic knowledge often saved us in for Minchah that Shabbos afternoon, lifelike, while the later statues, from a pinch, and who played the part and he did. And this was despite the the Roman Empire, were more styl- for all it was worth. Avi Terry, who, fact that he had to walk two miles ized. Isaac, rather typically, said that as many of you know, mediates to get to Old Broadway. Once he it was actually a lot more compli- between many worlds, was given started coming regularly and even cated because there were a number the role of Mordechai. It was a after he moved out of New York, he of additional factors that impact the wildly funny Purim Shpiel, in large was always willing to put his excel- stylization of these classical works. part because it lovingly revealed a lent Jewish education to good use. From there we went off on a con- certain reality that was going on at “Isaac, can you daven Shacharis?” versation about the periodization of Old Broadway at the time. Modestly, he’d say, “Okay.” “Isaac, Roman history. A phrase from the megilah that we can you do the haftarah?” “Sure.” As much as Isaac enjoyed an use quite a bit at this time around At that point, Isaac was working academic conversation, he had an Purim and also throughout the year at the Jewish Theological Semi- almost childlike sense of wonder, is le-yehudim hayitah orah ve sim- nary Library and living at home, and he also profoundly loved chil- chah ve-sassaon ve-yekar. “For the and he would make it his business dren. Isaac and his family invited Jews there was light, happiness, joy, to come to as many services as he my family several times to their and honor.” This beautiful phrase could, often bringing his father and apartment to join them for a Shab- relates to Isaac as well. sometimes his mother. During this bos or holiday meal. Isaac regaled In Pirkei Avot, Ben Zoma teaches, time, we had an opportunity to get us with his lizard and his comic “Who is honored? The one who to know Isaac’s parents, Bill and books. He also brought out toys honors others.” In the warm, lov- Nahma, and Isaac’s sister, Hannah. for my children and showed them ing way that Isaac related to the Later we got to know Margot. All of all how they worked and he really people he knew, he treated them them are wonderful, talented people, spent time with them. At shul, in my with kavod, with yakar, with honor. and you could see where Isaac got apartment, in his apartment, with Through his acute sense of humor, his love of language, his love of his- children, as with adults, Isaac was Isaac gave us simchah ve-sasson, tory, his curiosity, and his creativity. gentle and caring. happiness and joy. And with his Yet to have all these qualities in one For me, above all of Isaac’s many brilliant intellect and with his open person is really something special. great qualities was his phenomenal heart, Isaac gave us orah, light. Le- After that year at JTS, Isaac spent sense of humor. He deployed his yehudim hayitah orah ve-simchah a year in Oxford, spent time in humor with tremendous economy: ve-sasson ve-yakar. From Isaac, we Israel, and then went on to Harvard. the way he raised his eyebrows, or had light, and happiness, and joy, Still, he would come home for the in the mildly sarcastic way he said and honor. holidays and would join us at Old “right.” He never put anyone down It is our job to remember him with Broadway. When other people went but put everyone at ease. these qualities, so that even though away, he would be there. Sleepy, but He could also be very funny. One his light has dimmed, it will con- otherwise a warm, familiar face. year, he wrote a Purim Shpiel that tinue to shine forever. Walking home from shul with made us all cry with laughter. In the Isaac was always a treat. We had Purim Shpiel, he parodied not only Dr. Paul Radensky, Old Broadway fascinating conversations about the megilah, but also a number of Synagogue, New York City

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The following remembrances were sometimes in other languages, such by the fact that goals and ends defined part of the memorial service for as Latin, Armenian, Syriac, or Arabic. in any conventional way didn’t re- Isaac in Memorial Church, Harvard Between the 1920s and the 1950s, ally figure in his thinking about his University, on May 7, 2008. Felix Jacoby, a German philologist, projects, such as his PhD and where it collected and edited these fragments, might take him, and I mean this in an agreed “in principle” to do a sorting them into broad categories of entirely positive way. He had a total Special with Isaac on Jacoby’s “testimony,” that is, statements about intellectual integrity that one doesn’t fragments of Greek historians the author, and “fragment,” and then encounter very much: all his rigor and monthsI before I signed my contract seeking to distinguish gloss from ver- creativity were focused on engaging with Harvard in the fall of 2006. I told batim quotation. The commentary was with the project in hand, and not at all him that I wasn’t at all sure I was the left unfinished at the time of Jacoby’s with what he might gain from it, in right person; I said, “Isaac, I’m a Ro- death, but the collection is in the pro- terms of grades, prizes or, ultimately, man historian!” But, as always, he was cess of being completed, revised, and jobs. I wouldn’t have dreamed of try- quietly persuasive and made it sound updated by a large international team ing to label Isaac (you couldn’t and easy. “We’ll just read texts together,” of scholars. you just wouldn’t), and describing his he said, “and you like ethnographies, We had our work cut out for us. We interests as interdisciplinary doesn’t and you like local histories, so we’ll roughed out a list of authors that we get close to his exceptional curiosity just read lots of those.” frequently revised, because it was too and the connections he made between Special Examinations, in my view, long and because we became inter- cultures and modes of thought. thoroughly deserve the adjective ested in new questions that required Thinking about Isaac and talking “special” and are definitely the part us to take detours. But the central about Isaac so much, so intensively of the Harvard Classics graduate cur- questions remained: the ways in which over the past weeks, I have felt riculum that I would have most liked “non-Greeks,” such as Egyptians, humbled by how little I knew about to do myself. After General Exams Phoenicians, and Jews, were repre- someone who was and did so many at the end of the second year, the sented and represented themselves; things, seemingly all at once. It’s been students identify three areas, each of the ways in which authors invoked a chastening experience to try to write which might be an author, a genre, or authority: foreign sacred texts, or a about Isaac after spending a year with a theme, and they identify a faculty source of improbable antiquity; and, him working out the criteria for a member appropriate for each. Like above all, how reliably we can dis- genuine fragment, and which bits of Albert Henrichs and Ben Tipping, I tinguish direct quotation from gloss, testimonies were nothing more than was lucky enough to work with Isaac testimony from fragment; the whole projections of later authors onto their on a Special over a period of a year. knotty issue of what the author doing subjects. Specials can be highly individual, and the glossing or quoting or testimony But one way in which Specials are in Isaac’s case they most certainly might be up to; and, let’s face it, what special is that the intellectual and the were. They are a chance to craft out Jacoby might be up to in making his personal spill a little into each other. from scratch a curriculum that makes editorial choices. I used to worry because we’d meet at intellectual sense, and that also fits Daunting as this project was at 1 or 2 or even 3 or 4 p.m., and Isaac perfectly the interests of the student, times, I think in many ways it was wouldn’t have eaten. There wasn’t looking ahead to the original disserta- perfect for Isaac, as an exercise for his much that he could eat in Harvard tion that will follow the Specials. extraordinary linguistic facility, in the Square, but he was good at find- Jacoby’s fragments of Greek his- perspectives it offered on interfaces ing something he could eat, so we torians is a formidable collection of between different ancient cultures, and settled into a routine of going round 856 authors whose writings survive between authors and editors of wholly the corner to Finale. Little things only in fragments, that is, quotations different chronological periods and so- like Saranac Root Beer, “brewed in or glosses of parts of the works, or cieties, and above all in its sheer open- Utica, New York, since 1888,” and statements about the authors made endedness. As I talked to him over the Sun Chips, occasioned total delight, by later writers, often in Greek, but course of the year, I was often struck and the root beer and chips somehow

9 ISAAC JACOB MEYERS

helped us to get a bit further with the family. I have had the constant feeling solutions. Time and again, he would fragments. of conversations interrupted, and just return to the question of being a On the way to Finale and back recently the occasional experience good Jew in a Gentile court. again, there were plenty of other of starting to pick up the threads, of For Isaac, the philhellenic Jew, things to talk about, and one theme continuing them somehow, however there was no divide between his that ran through many of our con- changed, updating them and seeing studies in Classics and his reli- versations was human individuality, where they go. gious life. I’m sure that many of us something one finds plenty of at Har- remember Isaac’s Chanukah party vard and in the scholarly world more Emma Dench, Professor of the invitations. His most recent opened, generally. We talked a lot about the Classics and of History in typical Isaac humor, “Soon we overlap between lives and works. It will celebrate the holiday that our wasn’t gossip, and Isaac was never ancestors should have called, but cruel about or dismissive of anyone, y name is Paul Kosmin. I did not, ta Latkepoieia, the festival but he was genuinely fascinated by am one of Isaac’s friends of making the potato pancake or the quirks that distinguish us, and and colleagues from the latke. In ancient times, our ances- by complicated lives and intellectual ClassicsM Department. tors would use special latke-making interests. There was a natural flow in Mr. and Mrs. Meyers, Hannah, implements, latketêres, to craft our conversation between, say, Ctesias Margot. myriads of latkes. Hoards of these of Cnidus or Philo of Byblos, and To speak to you today about my latkes are still being discovered the German Jewish Oxford Latinist friend Isaac truly is a great honor, around the eastern Mediterranean. Eduard Fraenkel, or Frank Snowden, before which I feel humbled and Once sufficient latkes were fried, author of two pioneering books on inadequate. I can only hope to give the women, ululating, would fling ancient views of black people, or Jo- some small indication of the ways them at small children and animals, seph Smith, founder of the Mormon in which Isaac touched my life. also ululating, while the Levites Church. Isaac was one of the most gentle, played silver banjos. And the cry Weeks after Isaac died, I still catch kind, and genuine people I have would rise up: ‘Latkepoieia!’” myself looking out for him in the ever met. An unusual, very funny, We all know Isaac’s devotion computer lab, in the seat just by the generous and sometimes critical to Judaism—a love that was as door, in his cap and scarf, between friend. Isaac was his own man. natural and unforced as it was places. I was often looking for him Emma has spoken about Isaac’s uncompromising and rigorous. when he was alive, not least because scholarship. I shared with Isaac a This was an area of his life he and I think he ran on a unique system of love for the fragmentary and little- Margot generously shared with me. time, Isaac Time, and even when I studied Greek-Jewish texts of the I remember with great tenderness thought we had fixed a date in our Hellenistic Age. Coming across one Isaac and Margot’s Shabbos meals calendars the timing of our meetings another in the Yard, in the Depart- or Rosh Hashanah picnic lunches or was always a surprise. I still think I ment’s lounge or computer room, Wednesday dinners at Cheap Eats, can hear his melodic voice and the or at Hillel’s Cheap Eats, we would where Isaac would know everyone, beautiful ways in which he expressed easily divert ourselves into hours of introduce everyone, listen, debate, himself, even when we were talking debating the Letter of Aristeas, Hek- tell anecdotes, and share. about the weather. “We shiver through ataios on the Jews, or the tragedy of From time to time, I would meet May” is one poetic expression that Ezekiel. As anyone who witnessed with Isaac by the river: we would stays with me; I think this is a genuine would affirm, these discussions read part of the Parasha together, fragment. I miss never quite knowing were long and loudly argued, as first in Greek and Latin, and then what would come next, and the con- Isaac’s probing intelligence would Isaac would correct my Hebrew and versations continued over days or in hammer away at an issue—for Isaac guide me through the Aramaic. It inboxes, drawing in or invoking col- was easy to persuade that a question was at those times that I got a sense leagues, and friends, and Margot, and was interesting, but resistant to easy of what a brilliant teacher Isaac

10 MEMORIAL SERVICE was: his gentleness and patience, his excitement at my faltering progress, and his sensitivity to nuance and Psalm 23 beauty. A Psalm of David Isaac’s was not only a life of academic brilliance. For as long as I The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. knew him, Margot lay at its center. Sweet, loving Margot, who fitted He makes me lie down in green pastures; Isaac, rounded him off, softened He leads me beside still waters; him. The Californian and the New Yorker. He leads me in right paths for His name’s sake. Margot, I recall Isaac’s pride as Even though I walk through the darkest valley, he told me several times in one I fear no evil; day about your acceptances into the creative writing programs you For You are with me; wanted. Or how anxious he could Your rod and Your staff—they comfort me. be until you arrived somewhere, and You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; how calm when you sat by his side. Yours was a love that shone out, You anoint my head with oil; total and complete. My cup overflows. Isaac has been snatched from us. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, I have no words of my own for the anguish we feel in our hearts, but I And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. will read in English translation, and then in Hebrew, the wiser, better words of the twenty-third psalm.

Paul Kosmin (G4) Psalm 23, Mizmor leDavid

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11 ISAAC JACOB MEYERS

Catullus 101

Through many countries and across the sea, I’ve come, brother, to perform these rites, To do you one last service, And talk to unhearing, unreplying ash, Since fortune stole the real you from me, Oh brother, poor brother, unjustly taken. But for now, these gifts, which by custom Are given to the dead— Take them. I’m sorry they’re wet. Brother, this is it: hail and farewell.

Multas per gentes et multa per aequora uectus aduenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias, ut te postremo donarem munere mortis et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem, quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum, heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi. nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias, accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu, atque in perpetuum, frater, aue atque uale.

Translated and read by John Schafer (PhD ’07)

Photo credits: Front cover: William Meyers (The British Museum, June 1997); Page 2: Alison Hornstein Koss and An- drew Koss (October 2007); Page 3, top left and right, and bottom left: William Meyers; Page 3, center: Alison Hornstein Koss and Andrew Koss; Page 3, bottom right: Isaac Meyers; Page 11: Alison Hornstein Koss and Andrew Koss (October 2007); Page 15: Alison Hornstein Koss and Andrew Koss (February 2006); Back cover: William Meyers (July 2005). Nota Bene is the biannual newsletter of Harvard’s Department of the Classics. Contributions are welcome and should be sent to Lenore Parker, Nota Bene Editor, 204 Boylston Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, or [email protected]. A special thanks to Isaac’s family, friends, students, and colleagues for their contributions and help with this issue.

12 MEMORIAL SERVICE

saac was very special to me, never shared a private moment in indeed problematic from a classi- both as a person and as a the ordinary sense. The last time we cal point of view: “Modern Hebrew student. I found him fascinat- talked to each other, a few weeks translations and Classical texts.” He Iing. He had an almost ineffable before his tragic death, he was still didn’t elaborate, and we didn’t ask quality—a rare combination of mulling over possible dissertation him to. It was a non-topic, but he gentleness, curiosity, self-absorp- topics, but he never told me what got in anyway. tion, hilarity, wit, and wisdom. His they were. I have no doubt that his In early June of 2006, a few presence was a sheer delight, but thesis would have been a study weeks after he had passed his it also mystified me. There were mo- of the philological acumen and General Exams, I received the fol- ments when he appeared vulnerable cultural ambience of ancient Bible lowing e-mail from him: “I still and evanescent, to the point that I translations, either from Greek into haven’t decided about my specials was more than a little bit worried Latin or from Hebrew into Greek, and I know it’s coming down to the about him. Even during our closest or both, and I have a feeling that he wire. I am sorry to sound vague, but encounters, in the spring of 2007, he would have asked me to serve on I was hoping you would be willing struck me as a very private per- his committee. In fact I was looking to direct one of my special courses; son who was focused on his work forward to it. But alas, it was not to the problem is, I don’t exactly know and his faith. He did not speak to be. which one. As you know, what I’d me about his personal life, except He came to Harvard from Oxford like to do ultimately is write on once, when the prolonged infesta- and Yale highly recommended. ancient translation—probably cen- tion of his apartment by bed bugs The greatest scholar in the Yale tering on the Vulgate. My original hit him hard and almost derailed Classics Department, now an intention was to learn ancient schol- him. Isaac’s plight reminded me emeritus, described Isaac as the best arship with Francesca Schironi, but of the similar plight of Strepsiades student he had had in forty years as you know, Professor Schironi will (also caused by bed bugs) in Aristo- “in general knowledge, linguistic be on leave next year. I would then phanes’ Clouds. I was very sympa- ability, the ability to write clearly have asked you for advice on which thetic, even though I did not fully and forcefully.” How very true. He Greek author to study. But now the understand why he was convinced was one of the last applicants for range of possibilities is even wider. that the bugs came from Eastern the PhD program in Classics to be Do you have advice for me? I’ve Europe and why it took so long to interviewed by this Department thought about proposing a special eradicate them. before he was admitted. I partici- on translation per se that might The saga of the critters made Isaac pated in the interview and still have include anything from the LXX and even more vulnerable, and more pri- my notes from February 27, 2004. Ezekiel the tragedian, to Roman vate, in my eyes. This explains why Here are a few tidbits: “Very nice comedy, to the Res Gestae, to the I find it hard to talk about him. I feel guy—thoughtful, wise.” “Shy, but a Hexapla, etc. I’m not sure whether as if I were intruding on his privacy. cheerful communicator.” “Strange that’s been done before. I certainly Our contact over the two years that comments on the ‘low’ style of Vir- would be very excited to do it. But we worked together was strictly gil’s Eclogues.” “Not satisfied to do most of all I would like your advice academic, from a Hellenistic poetry just literature.” This last admission, as, now that generals are over, I am course in the spring of 2006 to his in combination with the dissertation feeling quite at a loss. If you have Special Exams in January 2008. topic he announced in the course of any suggestions, not just about a The only place where we met was the interview, made us reluctant to special course you might teach, but Boylston Hall. We never went out take him, not because he was not about any others, I would be very for coffee or lunch, not once. This good enough—far from it—but be- eager to hear them.” would have doubtless happened had cause he was different from the rest Well, this is how we bonded, he lived. We shared a deep respect of us, from the mainstream of the over translation literature, bilingual and love for the Greek and Latin Department. The dissertation topic inscriptions, sacred texts, and two texts we studied together, but we that he mentioned was unorthodox, religions, one ancient and one mod-

13 ISAAC JACOB MEYERS

ern, that started as sects and became otherwise unattested language—into temple in Belmont, with a close-up mainstream, namely Manichaeism American English. of the golden Moroni statue on top and Mormonism. Between Decem- We met about a dozen times over of it. “Wow, and it’s beautiful,” was ber 2006 and May 2007, we scruti- six months. For each session, Isaac his reaction. In passing I mentioned nized the Aristeas letter that tells the prepared lengthy pages of talking the Mormon temple in Manhattan, story of how the Septuagint came points that he often e-mailed to me but he e-mailed me back saying that about at Alexandria in the early ahead of time. The precision of he was sure no likeness of Moroni Ptolemaic period. We looked at the these notes is as amazing as their crowned it. In response, I e-mailed earliest papyri with Greek transla- erudition. There was plenty of mate- him a picture of the Manhattan tions of the Hebrew Bible, copies rial for more than one dissertation. Temple cum Moroni. Here is his from the late Hellenistic period in On a more personal note, Isaac’s reply, from last January, which re- which the name of Yahweh still interests coincided with the earlier solves the mystery, and suggests that appears in four Hebrew letters (the Patristic and Manichaean phases in we were both right: “The Manhat- tetragrammaton) in an otherwise my academic career, which tended tan statue was placed there a month completely Greek context. Jerome’s to confirm my belief that the found- after I moved to Cambridge. I’m Bible translations and Augustine’s er of the Eliot Chair of Greek Litera- glad it’s there, since the building is writings on biblical translation ture was right when he stipulated in otherwise very drab, as you can see, literature came next, and I will be 1814 that future occupants of that especially for a Mormon temple.” eternally grateful to Isaac for the chair should be versed in Septuagint Indeed, before the building was things I learned from him. He was and New Testament Greek. Fa- converted to a temple, it served as a true expert in these matters. Next miliarity with both surely came in an office building. we compared the Latin text of the handy in my meetings with Isaac. This was not the end of our Mor- Res Gestae of the emperor Augus- Isaac was an observant Jew and mon dialogue. When I expressed tus with its Greek translation, and I was raised in a Catholic environ- reservations about the secrecy that read the Greek version of Virgil’s ment that predated the Second Vati- surrounds Mormon temples, which Fourth Eclogue against the Latin can Council. For different religious are not accessible to non-Mormons original while reading Eduard Nor- reasons, he and I shared a strong once they have been consecrated, den’s Die Geburt des Kindes on the interest in sacred writ and in ritual, he chastised me, and rightly so. side. Turning from Rome to Egypt, along with a deep respect for people What I said was—and I regret say- we studied the bilingual Rosetta of faith. This shared sympathy ing it—that “I find the secrecy that Stone and the Decree of Canopus. may help to explain our last e-mail surrounds Mormon temples strange, Next we took a close look at the so- exchange this past January, shortly even offensive.” He replied: “I called Isis aretalogies and discussed after his Specials, which he passed don’t think it’s any more offensive the two conflicting theories of a with distinction in the area that for Mormons to restrict attendance Greek or an Egyptian original. Isaac was closest to his heart, translation in their own temples, than for the read through the Cologne Mani Co- literature and bilingualism in Greek Classics Dept. to write the guest list dex in preparation for an in-depth and Roman antiquity. In the course for its own parties.” True enough. I discussion of multilingualism as a of his Special Examinations we stood corrected, and when I asked missionary tool in Manichaeism. talked about the Book of Mormon him about access to the Second And finally, arriving in the modern and the angel Moroni. He seemed Jewish Temple before its destruction age, we looked at Joseph Smith, perplexed when I reminded him that in 70 CE, he regaled me, as he had the founder of the Mormon Church, a golden statue of Moroni could be done on numerous other occasions, and at his claim that he received the seen topping the steeple of every with a remarkable disquisition on Book of Mormon from the angel Mormon Temple. No, he insisted, Jewish lore and with a piece of his Moroni and translated the original only on the original temple in Salt mind regarding the status of Jerusa- gold tablets with this sacred text Lake City. The next day I e-mailed lem and today’s conflicting politics from “reformed Egyptian”—an him pictures of the fairly recent of the Temple Mount.

14 MEMORIAL SERVICE

“I don’t doubt that the concept He goes on: “Separating the his heart, and from the heart of his of restricted Temples is borrowed Azara from a large forecourt was a faith. from Judaism. The Temple was fence called the Soreg that excluded Let me conclude with a ritual organized in concentric rings of non-Jews and the unclean on pain phrase of commemoration and bless- sanctity, with the Holy of Holies in of death. Several fragments from it ing in the language that he loved so the very center. The land of Israel have been discovered with warn- much and that he revered above all itself, while necessarily open to all, ings in Greek and Latin.” At this others: zichrono livracha—“may his had (and has) a different legal status point, Isaac cross-referenced a web- memory be for a blessing.” Indeed, and higher level of sanctity than site where a photo of the so-called all of us here have been blessed by the rest of the world; Jerusalem and Soreg inscription with the complete Isaac’s life, by his companionship, Mt. Moriah were similarly open but Greek text of the prohibition can by his words of wisdom. May we even higher in sanctity; the Tem- be found (http://www.bible-history. continue to be blessed by remember- ple’s outer courtyard (Azara), how- com/gentile_court/TEMPLE- ing him, each in our own way, not ever, could be entered only by Jews COURTSoreg_Inscription.htm). only now during this commemora- in ritual purity; the inner courtyard Discovered on the Temple Mount tive hour, but in years to come. Let was reserved for priests and male in 1871, it reads as follows (OGIS us pledge here and now that we will sacrificers; the vestibule of the 598 = CIJ 2.1400, 1st century CE; always remember him, and never Hekhal (Temple proper) only for cf. Josephus, The Jewish War 5.194, forget how special and dear he was. priests; and the High Priest alone Jewish Antiquities 15.417): I deeply miss him, and I will never could enter the Holy of Holies, know the full extent of what he μηθένα ἀλλογενῆ and that only once a year, on Yom εἰσπο|ρεύεσθαι ἐντὸς τοῦ could have taught me. I often felt Kippur. There was nothing in the πε|ρὶ τὸ ἱερὸν τρυφάκτου καὶ like the disciple during our sessions; Holy of Holies but the Ark of the | περιβόλου. ὃς δ᾿ ἂν λη|φθῇ, he was the true teacher. Covenant, and after the first exile, ἑαυτῶι αἴτιος ἔσ|ται διὰ τὸ not even that: it was an empty room ἐξακολου|θεῖν θάνατον. Albert Henrichs, Eliot Professor of that God’s presence would some- “No outsider shall enter the Greek Literature times fill, according to the Talmud partition and enclosure around the and Josephus (who says that Titus sanctuary. Whoever is caught will found a Torah scroll there). Even have himself to blame for the ensu- though the contents of the Holy of ing death.” Holies were not a secret, it was still Isaac continues: “It is worth too sacred a space to enter. This pointing out that at this point it is allowed libels like the one about the Jews, or rather non-Muslims, the ass’s head (sometimes a golden who are excluded from all parts of ass’s head) that is found in Tacitus the Temple Mount. Most of the Or- and discussed in Contra Apionem. thodox are unwilling to risk walk- I’m sure it is still alive and float- ing accidentally into the places of ing around the internet. I saw an holiness. But of course a more im- Ethiopian church in Jerusalem that mediate danger is violence from the had a Holy of Holies, which only Muslims. Meanwhile the Waqf has the priests (in black robes, wearing been excavating, in fact destroying, sunglasses) were allowed to enter; I as much of the pre-Islamic archae- think Orthodox Christian churches ology of the Mount as possible. have them too—which is a little This is the reason the Southern Wall ironic, since Jewish synagogues is on the point of collapse. I find don’t. The Salt Lake Temple has that offensive, but not strange.” one; why not?” This is Isaac’s voice, speaking from

15 ISAAC JACOB MEYERS

The following remembrances are Discussion with Isaac was no was just incredibly kind. But also from Isaac’s friends and colleagues mere time-filler. For all his unfussy pragmatic, ironic, and unassuming in the Department of the Classics, demeanor, there was nothing casual to the point of camouflaging what he Harvard University. about the working of his mind. I was doing. quickly learned after our first couple Besides his generosity and kind- of exchanges not to take anything ness, I found his wit, quirkiness, saac, your peaceful, dreamy for granted in conversation with and rigorous intellect tremendously smile along with your warm Isaac, other than his readiness to tell enriching. In the summer and fall we words and kooky sense of hu- me when I had, and that I was per- were the late-nighters in the Depart- morI will stay with us forever. Rest haps wrong to do so. He was tireless ment and spent many hours chatting in peace. We miss you. Emily when we seized on a subject, with- in the graduate lounge. Our discus- out a hint of the fear that stalks all sions were always memorable. We Emily Allen (G6) of us lest we reveal how much we talked about the purpose of studying don’t yet know. Ironically, perhaps, Classics, about writing—academic it was this intellectual honesty that vs. other more literary forms (he e always struck me as at once disarmed you and drew you was skeptical about the former and constitutionally incapable of out. Maybe that is why so many of singing the praise of the latter)—and disingenuousness. Always us recall feeling as though talking about racism in antiquity. He always carefulH about the significance of with him meant learning. I have no had strong feelings and a completely words in life (from which, I suspect, apt words to describe the conse- unconventional perspective, which his philological acumen issued and quence for all those who knew him, made one think hard about things not, as sometimes happens in our and the many who never will, of that previously had seemed simple. field, the other way around), Isaac getting by without his singular way If something interested or bothered would not have called me a “friend.” in this world. him, he would keep talking about We shared no formal academic it until his energy on the topic was relationship. Our encounters these Emmanuel Bourbouhakis (PhD ’06) spent or he became frustrated with last two years were occasioned by the discussion. I don’t ever remem- chance and the geography of the ber an occasion when he would cut campus. And until his wrenching only really got to know Isaac short a conversation for the sake of death and the profile in eulogies in the past year or so because sleep or any other practical con- which followed, I could not have of his and Margot’s extraor- straint. Isaac’s lack of interest in told you anything precise about his Idinary kindness in helping me conventions of any kind was one academic focus, or indeed much through a difficult time in my life. of the most refreshing things about else about him. Save for this. Isaac He was so unusual, and his sense of him. never said, “Hi, how are you?” in humor was so clever and offbeat, I suppose I never knew quite what that clipped tempo designed to ward that it took me a long time to figure to expect from him. Sometimes it off any reply which might delay out what a rare and generous soul was just hilarious. I think he enjoyed either of us with an earnest answer. he was, and that he was doing all teasing me and knew that I quite Ι sometimes wondered after one of these little things behind the scenes enjoyed it as well. (I think he had our spontaneous conversations how to help me. It seems almost unbe- given up on my ever understanding it was he never had to be some- lievable, first (perhaps less so), that his jokes.) He was also extremely where. Recently I learned from his I could take so long to realize it, and persuasive. Once, when I was fast friends the phrase “Isaac time” and second, that someone who had noth- asleep on the big couch in the I smiled as I noted the explanation ing to gain from it could go to such lounge, he woke me up and made for his improvised availability, an lengths for the sake of someone me move to the little one, because uncommon thing in a place such as else. But apparently that was Isaac’s he couldn’t fit on it. I can’t remem- this. way. It was never sentimental. It ber how many times I encountered

16 REMEMBRANCES his sleeping form there. He also successes in applying to creative once called Isaac a always seemed to be hungry and was writing programs, and we had “Burkean.” We were argu- profoundly grateful for donations of talked about the possibilities of life ing about politics in the kosher pretzels. Once he got very in Iowa and New York. I so often graduateI student lounge—where excited about a granola bar which I thought how blessed they were to else?—late one night. As was usual, was eating for my tea, and managed have found one another. I was losing and had decided the to persuade me to surrender half of Until March I had never en- way to claim a victory was to give it. In exchange for the nourishment, countered in any serious way the a pat label to Isaac’s position. Isaac he introduced me to some indepen- workings of blind chance in life. I rather took the wind out of my sail dent rock groups which he was lis- suppose I didn’t really believe in by saying, “Am I?” He had turned tening to on YouTube. I think he was it. Certainly I never believed that my strategy around and pushed me trying to educate me, but without a so much hope, beauty, joy, and to really think about the terms I was great deal of hope in the cause—I richness could be ripped away so ­using. That was Isaac—intellectu- owe to Isaac my acquaintance with tragically and so gratuitously. I feel ally searching, a wonderful debater, latkes, zombies, and the ukulele, to tremendously privileged to have and adamant about his politics. I say nothing of Caddyshack. known Isaac. I suppose I don’t re- have many similar memories of him I also encountered a more vul- ally believe he has vanished. I think in the Department, in the lounge, nerable side to him, which I found of his soul hovering somewhere in and as a classmate in a Catullus tremendously humble and sensitive. the ether like a bat making hilarious seminar, and outside, at parties and He talked about the challenges he observations in a deadpan tone of at dinner in Hillel and the Chabad had faced in teaching and on one voice and warning me with a grin House (truly an education!). The occasion, when I was feeling disil- against the dangers of surrendering Classics Department can be a dif- lusioned about an application which my soul to Hades-of-Smyth. I miss ficult place for a first-year graduate hadn’t worked out, he listed a whole you, Isaac. Thank you for every- student, in a new place geographi- array of things which he had tried thing. cally, academically, and personally, for but which hadn’t worked out. and one needs guides to help with Given his gifts, I found this aston- Sarah Burges Watson (G9) those first baby steps. I came to ishing, but I also greatly valued the consider Isaac as one of those peo- honesty and humanity of his telling ple. I hope he realized that he made me. relished any chance for a the Classics Department a better I was always struck by the great conversation with Isaac. place to be for me, and many oth- affection with which he would speak Meeting Isaac in Boylston or ers. It deeply saddens me that I only of his family. He was tremendously WidenerI meant ten minutes—or two knew Isaac for seven short months. proud of his sister, Hannah’s, recent hours—of lively but relaxed back- I cannot imagine the magnitude of successes in applying to grad school. and-forth. It could be about religion the loss that his family and those He seemed to derive enormous in Josephus, Fraenkel’s Horace, or who knew him longer have suf- strength from his family and, of the lesser-known songs of Warren fered. My most sincere condolences course, from Margot. I was always Zevon. Isaac had a lot to say about go to them. amazed at how Margot would come a lot of things—and all of it refresh- and sit with him in the Department ing, honest, and with good humor. I Duncan MacRae (G2) while he was grading. I often com- miss but will long remember these mented to him on how lovely she conversations. was, and he would smile, say slowly, few of my memories of “Yes, she is, she really is,” and nod Timothy Joseph (PhD ’07) Isaac: his witty responses knowingly as if he was in posses- during exchanges in the sion of some wonderful secret. Isaac computerA room; his quiet, smooth had proudly told me about all her voice (which I continue to hear in

17 ISAAC JACOB MEYERS

my head); the smiles—the friendly member a more grievous loss to the in obvious places. He had a puffy, and the arch; Margot; the funny life and spirit of the Classics com- one-size-fits-all winter coat that he e-mails; the bed bugs; the egg nog; munity than his being taken away would attempt to throw onto the encountering Isaac some months from us so abruptly. While I did not hook but rarely would succeed. back lying down for a rest in the know him well, I shall cherish his His voice had a slippery quality, lobby of Robinson Hall and the spirit and his memory always. not in a deceptive sense, but it was conversation we had then about his almost feline. It was warm. upcoming Specials and about current David Mitten, James Loeb Profes- Isaac knew his Latin very well Department happenings; looking sor of Classical Art & Archaeology and wanted to make sure we did, out into the audience of a Sackler too. He had a way of picking you Gallery talk in January and seeing for the question you least wanted to Isaac’s and Margot’s friendly faces had Isaac for only one se- answer, and even when you had got- and then talking about epigraphy mester, but that was enough ten it wrong the first time, he didn’t and various other topics afterwards; for me to gain a great friend. let you off the hook but forced you running into Isaac on the street. Col- I would like to impart what it was to get it right. It may have been lectively my memories are a mass of like to be one of Isaac’s pupils. excruciating, but, in the end, we fondness, wonder, and respect. I will start off with the way our learned our Latin. He was a stickler Added to those memories now are class started off. He was always for correct pronunciation, some- the shock and horror of a spring day late. Early in the semester, he would thing that few of us had, and so, as that was not supposed to have been regularly come in ten or fifteen we would read over a sentence, he tragic, and thoughts of recent and minutes late, and the best part is would read it almost right behind us, upcoming events where he should that, while we were able to see this loudly pointing out our flaws. have and would have been pres- as a habit, Isaac saw each individual As much as it may seem that he ent. There is also sadness and some tardy as unique and unrelated to was all business, he had a lighter regret, as my mind often turns to him. Every time, we were greeted side that he showed to us as well. missed opportunities to spend time with a new excuse that we never His random stories were often with Isaac, and how it never oc- really believed, but we always told strange and comical and lightened curred to me that there would not be him it was all right. As if to make the mood on any of the four days we more time to do so in the future. up for his tardiness he would do met for class. everything from that point on much Perhaps my favorite time with Dreya Mihaloew (G6) faster, quickly throwing his coat Isaac was the last day of class before on its hook, grabbing a stray piece winter break. It was a rainy day, and of chalk, and writing something in in that rain we trudged over from he tragic, needless death of Latin on the board. Robinson Hall to Memorial Hall, Isaac has stayed with me as On one occasion we sat wait- and Isaac led a reading of the Latin a bitter grief ever since he ing in the classroom for thirty-five inscriptions written on the wall. He wasT taken away from us. Think- minutes, when he burst in with a brought to life the words that I had ing of what he could have become new and exciting excuse. He was always glossed over, giving us tips as a great scholar, a great classicist so sorry that we had missed such a along the way and helping us get and Judaicist, is almost too much to large portion of class that he offered to a finished product that had some bear. But even more, the absence of to teach well past our allotted time. semblance of an English sentence. his shining personality, gentle and Almost simultaneously we all found One day, three of us brought in ba- loving nature, and brilliant intel- a reason that prevented us from gels and cream cheese and, although lect leaves an irreparable gap in the staying longer, much to his dismay. none were eaten by anyone else, hearts of his innumerable friends Isaac’s dress was always appro- Isaac was very appreciative and en- and colleagues in the Department, at priate for a TF, but he had a habit of joyed his “everything” bagel. From Hillel, and far beyond. I cannot re- wearing wool sweaters with holes then on he referred to our gift-giving

18 REMEMBRANCES trio as “the rufies” for our red hair. very time I walk into the ton on the No. 1 bus on a Sunday Once, while I was prying a frozen Classics Department, I morning. A young Israeli woman five-dollar bill from the ice, Isaac remember something differ- sat in the seat next to me with her spotted me and, clearly not pleased entE about Isaac. Sometimes I think baby and husband. I struck up a with my behavior, demanded that I of him and Chris and me in our tiny conversation with them and asked rush off to class. proseminar, or the celebratory trip to if they were Orthodox Jewish. In February, right around the four- Grendel’s after the General Exams (They were.) When I learned that teenth, two of us sent him a singing that only he and I took. Sometimes the woman’s husband was a gradu- Valentine from an a cappella group. I think of Heroes grading meetings, ate student at Harvard, I asked if he Though he appeared embarrassed, where Isaac’s meticulous atten- attended Hillel services. (He did.) I he showed his appreciation with a tion to student papers was matched then asked if he had known Isaac. long, meaningful thank-you note only by his care for the struggling He nodded sadly, and we commiser- written, of course, in Latin. students who failed to submit one. ated together about his death. I will always remember his Sometimes I think of Isaac late at A young man interrupted us at slightly held-back smile, show- night in Boylston 234 trying dif- that point and said that he couldn’t ing some of his teeth, with a little ferent Latin translations of “How help overhearing our conversation, crinkling on the side of his stubbled would you like me to sock it to you” and that he had been an undergradu- mouth. His glasses were always that on the board. Sometimes I think of ate classmate of Isaac’s at Yale! color between clear and inky black. him stopping by Happy Hour on How like Isaac, in death as in life, He always seemed at ease teach- his way to Friday night services, bringing all sorts of people together ing, exuding confidence at the head carrying his pocket edition of the in the most serendipitous way. of our little table, and I will never Septuagint like the Jews of Alex- I miss his daily presence with us. forget those classes, or Isaac. andria. Mostly, though, I think of conversations—about New York, Lenore Parker, Nota Bene Editor Marcel Moran (’11) about religion, about music, about bilingualism in Roman North Africa. I think of the humor and humility s a teacher, Isaac always have the fondest memories that accompanied his wide learning. believed in his students. He of working with Isaac in the Every day for almost four years, I believed, for example, that courses he took from me. looked forward to seeing Isaac. I weA could get to class at five instead HeI had such a delightful sense of miss him very much. of seven minutes past the hour, and humor. I think back wistfully to wasn’t afraid to tell us so. He often my dialogues with him about pas- Peter O’Connell (G5) said things that were surprising in sages dear to his heart, including their reason and directness, things Lucian’s humorous fantasy about no other teaching fellow had ever interviewing Homer, who takes such s Assistant to the Director pointed out, and always with a dash a dim view of Homeric editors like of Graduate Studies, I had of Isaac humor. He also passed on Zenodotus and Aristarchus. Lucian’s the privilege to get to know his love of Latin to all his students. exquisite whimsy appealed to Isaac, IsaacA on a personal as well as an He wanted us to examine, absorb, and it suited him. Those whimsical academic level during his four years and love every aspect of the lan- dialogues with Isaac will live on in the Department. Our conversa- guage. While helping us become forever in my sad old heart. tions were always touched with his better classicists, Isaac was always special sense of humor and human- patient and always gave second Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Pro- ity, and they left an indelible impres- chances. He really was an extraordi- fessor of Classical Greek Litera- sion on me. nary teacher. ture and Professor of Comparative Recently I was riding back to Literature Cambridge from downtown Bos- Emily Pickering (’08)

19 ISAAC JACOB MEYERS

n a seminar on Ancient Land- t is easy for me to single out to hear and bitter tears to shed.” scapes, we spoke of Poets in the my strongest, sharpest, dearest From the moment I heard our own Landscape and discussed the memory of Isaac, for it is a bitter news, that became Isaac’s differencesI between “turbid” and memoryI of the last time I was to see song, and so it will remain in my “turgid.” Isaac wrote a brilliant pa- him. own memory. per on Sperlonga. His contributions Isaac was taking my seminar on to that class were great throughout, Catullus, and on March 13, four Richard Thomas, Director of Gradu- and my notes from his presentations days before he was taken from ate Studies and Professor of Greek have already helped me improve its us, the seminar had two reports and Latin second season, as they will again. on Catullus and Callimachus, one on Poetic Ideologies, the other on Betsey Robinson, Assistant Professor Translation, a topic dear to Isaac’s lthough Isaac and I arrived of the Classics and of History of Art heart, as everyone who knew him at Harvard more or less and Architecture knows. At some point during the simultaneously, in Fall Term second part, we got sidetracked onto 2004,A we did not meet properly until Virgil’s adaptation of Callimachus Spring Term 2006, when he re- aro Isaac, grazie per i tuoi and Catullus in Eclogue 9, the quested that I supervise his reading sorrisi e il tuo calore nel di- famous, moving lines where the of Cicero’s prose. I am less familiar partimento. Ora vorrei che il old shepherd Moeris remembers with and less fond of that author Cmio congedo non ci avesse impedito his boyhood putting the sun to than I ought to be, but, as I might di lavorare insieme. Avrei imparato bed with song: saepe ego longos have predicted had I known Isaac molto da te. Con affetto, Francesca | cantando puerum memini me better, my pleas and protestations condere soles. We didn’t have a of ignorance and prejudice proved Francesca Schironi, Assistant Pro- copy of Callimachus’ Epigrams unpersuasive. Faute de mieux, I fessor of the Classics but Isaac and I did a passable job proposed that Isaac help me inter- of reconstructing from our own pret the De officiis, a text to which I memory the famous Callimachean have occasionally turned in the hope remember how cheerful Isaac source of Virgil’s lines: of finding out how to be Roman. My was when he ran into me in strongest and happiest recollection the graduate lounge or the Εἶπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν from our subsequent meetings is of hallwaysI of the Department. One μόρον, ἐς δέ με δάκρυ rediscovering a mode of intellectual day, at the beginning of the spring of ἤγαγεν· ἐμνήσθην δ’ ὁσσάκις exchange that, at best, is small-scale, my second and his third year, he de- ἀμφότεροι wide-ranging, and free from the cided we should inaugurate “Ariane ἥλιον ἐν λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν. inhibitions and hierarchies of lecture and Isaac appreciation days” since ἀλλὰ σὺ μέν που, and classroom. As far as possible, I ξεῖν’ Ἁλικαρνησεῦ, τετράπαλαι we saw each other in class on certain limited discussion of the De officiis σποδιή, days of the week that semester. For αἱ δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδόνες, to obiter dicta, yet, to my amaze- the rest of term, whenever I would ᾗσιν ὁ πάντων ment and immense gratification, in see him on a Tuesday and he would ἁρπακτὴς Ἀΐδης οὐκ ἐπὶ χεῖρα Fall Term 2006 Isaac sought from see me on a Thursday, we would βαλεῖ. me supervision for a rather more exclaim, “It’s your appreciation formal and extensive, albeit again day!” It’s that sort of thing that Isaac There is also a famous—infamous, “Cicero-centric,” study of ancient always did because he wanted to see even—Victorian translation by rhetorical theory. a smile on your face no matter the William Johnson Cory, whose I am even now disposed rather circumstances of the day. beginning goes, “They told me, to wonder at Antony’s patience Heraclitus, they told me you were than to lament his brutality, but am Ariane Schwartz (G4) dead; | They brought me bitter news also, of course, indebted to Cicero,

20 REMEMBRANCES inasmuch as he afforded me the op- from various Brookline shops: been composed, for example, by a portunity to enjoy Isaac’s company pickled fish and smoked fish and native Greek speaker. for at least one or two hours a week breads and knishes. He liked pre- As the semester progressed, I over a period of nine months. (Some paring feasts for others, and often came to know and admire Isaac would say that the ancient world in his enthusiasm he would begin more and more, not just for his facil- is valuable less as lieu de mémoire the preparations so far in advance ity with language, but for his kind- than as locus for imagination.) Dur- that some of the food would have ness and his whole-hearted dedica- ing that time, and subsequently, I spoiled by the time he brought it out tion to his students. Many times he flatter myself that Isaac became as to eat. So we had to throw away the would say to Professor Coleman: much my friend as my student: in knishes that night and, on another “I might be a bit late next time. My part, because he taught me far more occasion, half the spinach for a students are taking an exam, and I about ethics, rhetoric, language, salad Niçoise. But the meals were want to make sure they have enough literature, and graphic novels than I always delicious. time to finish.” He willingly sac- could ever have taught him; in part, The last evening we spent with rificed his own classroom time to and more importantly, because he Isaac and Margot was at a Balkan ensure that his students had enough brought me Hamantaschen, fed me music festival in Concord, Massa- for themselves, and his passion for latkes, and, as we sat down to Seder, chusetts. We had arranged to meet learning—both his own and that of announced not only to our Yiddish- at his place. It was raining quite others—was obvious. speaking hosts but also to me that I dramatically that evening, and when Isaac was truly a gifted scholar should be posing the ritual questions Anna, Marianne, and I pulled up in and a natural teacher, and his in Latin. front of his building on Magazine friends, colleagues, and students I am inexpressibly grateful to Street, we saw Isaac standing in will miss him dearly. Isaac for sharing with me his intel- the doorway with a towel. This was lect and his humanity. May his for Margot, who was on her way Katherine Van Schaik (’08) memory be a blessing to all who and who he knew would be wet were fortunate enough to know him, from her walk. At the concert, after however briefly. a brief nap on Margot’s shoulder, ear Isaac always had a Isaac got up with her and danced a special way to connect with Ben Tipping, Assistant Professor of Syrto. This is one of the last images people. Our connection the Classics I have of him. We miss Isaac every wasD through music. He always had day. a song in his head and in his heart. He would sing this said song loudly saac would often drop by our Daniel Tober (MA ’08) and proudly and in the key of Isaac. house on his way to and from We bonded over semi-obscure indie campus. He sometimes brought bands from the early 90s. He’d men- thingsI for Balthazar, who loved hile taking Professor tion a band and often times I’d own these impromptu visits. This past Coleman’s Epigraphy their entire catalog. I have a stack Chanukah, Isaac came equipped class in the fall of 2007, of CDs on my desk that I lent to with potatoes and helped Balthi IW noticed that there was one student Isaac. Whenever he returned a CD, carve from them a menorah, which in the class who possessed a re- he made sure to share his opinion they proudly set in the window. markable knowledge of languages. of the music. He was never vague. Sometimes he came with goodies He seemed to know everything, and Now, whenever I look at the CDs for the adults, a John Wayne movie his sensitivity to the intricacies of and listen to them I think of Isaac. I to watch and a box of malt balls, for language made him one of the most miss him. example. Or it would be the Marx adept in the class at interpreting a Brothers and jelly beans. Once he Latin inscription that was not writ- Teresa Wu, Administrator, Depart- brought an entire feast assembled ten in standard Latin because it had ment of the Classics

21 22 Yale’s Tricentennial Commencement, May 2001

IVY ODE

Ter iam annos nobis centum Twice one hundred years, and then Congregamus in conventum One hundred more have passed. We band Stirpium situm recentum. Of faithful scholars take in hand The shoots of living vine again. Ecce in campos quos amamus Hederam libet feramus. In well-loved fields we make our way Dum gaudemus, haec precamus: In our solemnity. Tradition Mandates this be our commission, Numina nunc sunt oranda; That we rejoice, and meanwhile pray. Ite turpia et nefanda Ac negotia agitanda! For divinity must be addressed: Now every sort of toil or shame Procul, Mars, abes, portaque Or petty bickering, or blame Tecum proelia; pax quaque Must be rejected and repressed. Labat, Venus, i firmaque! And War be far from us, along Alma mater Venus bona, With you your quarrels! but where Peace Grata si probaris dona Is wavering, may Love not cease Nos ut augeas, patrona! To go to her and make her strong.

Laeta et his emolumentis O mother, Alma Mater, Love, Grandescas plus iam tricentis This gift we bear, we bear for you, Hederatis monumentis. O grant us what our gift is due— To live, to flourish, to improve.

And if our prayer be not in vain, And if you look on us with pleasure, You shall receive this ivy treasure Thrice one hundred years again.

Isaac Jacob Meyers

The Ivy Ode is traditionally read aloud while senior class representatives plant ivy as part of Yale’s Class Day celebration. The Ode typically describes a symbolic connection between the growth of the ivy vine and the flourishing of the graduating class.

23 “Grazing in the Ruins”

here has always been bucolic poetry. Anyone How seriously Virgil wants us to believe this can be gath- who has read the Song of Songs understands how ered from the references that the shepherds make to Man- ancient and vital is the connection between song tua and its local river, to Augustus and to Julius Caesar, andT the shepherd’s life, and anyone who has heard Arab to the consulate and other uniquely Roman, not Greek, boys play the flute as they herd their goats (or, for that institutions. The Greek is there because Theocritus’ Idylls matter, the cowboy poetry that NPR broadcasts every so were written in Greek, and the names thus became part of often) can attest that the tradition lives on to this day. In the form; the Greek touches lend the Eclogues legitimacy Greece and the Italian rus of ancient times, shepherds and dignity. and drovers composed tunes and verses in their heads and played them on their pipes—the word “bucolic” de- Although the influence of theEclogues on Western poetry rives from Greek boukólos, meaning “cowherd.” When, has been great, they have found few actual imitators. in their lonely rambles over fields and mountains, they Only one other Latin poet, Calpurnius Siculus, wrote happened upon each other, they seized the opportunity eclogues that have come down to us. Almost nothing is to swap songs and hold competitions in which they im- known about this Calpurnius—he may not even have provised couplets and traded comic insults in verse. been Sicilian—but that he worked during the reign of Virgil’s Bucolica, known in English as the Eclogues, Nero is obvious from the craven flattery of that emperor in many ways resemble these songs. The bucolic life that burdens his poetry. He modeled himself carefully on is featured prominently, the speakers are for the most Virgil, who had died approximately fifty years before, but part shepherds, and the poems claim to be intended his eclogues show the deterioration of style that is com- for accompaniment on the modest reed pipe. Presum- mon to Silver Age poetry, and the sly, dazzling referenti- ably Virgil knew what true shepherd music sounded ality that sometimes compensates for the decline is lack- like, since he was a provincial, from Mantua—not that ing in Calpurnius’ labored verses. Shepherds also appear Rome itself was so far from the rus. But Virgil, unlike in later Latin poetry, but nothing more is heard from real some of his contemporaries, was no folklorist. These pastoral until the Renaissance. are no Fescennine verses—crude, mocking songs in The literature of English-speaking countries (all of rough accentual meter, which Horace identifies as the which are famous for their pasturage) boasts a long original Italian poesy, and which a real shepherd might tradition of poetry with pastoral traits, but little that improvise. A sort of pastoral illusion is conjured up in directly imitates the Eclogues. What there is, is largely the Eclogues, but it is not complete and not meant to be. Elizabethan, most notably in Sidney and Spenser, later in So, for instance, although the characters in the Eclogues Marvell, and, later still, in Pope. Milton’s “Lycidas” and are simple rustics, they do not, except for a few phrases Shelley’s “Adonais” are both clearly influenced by Virgil, and mannerisms, speak a simple, rustic Latin, but rather but are not strictly eclogues. When it comes to English an elevated and elegant literary Latin, delivered in the translations of Virgil, the Aeneid and even the Georgics same perfect dactylic hexameter (a meter adapted from have been tackled far more frequently than the Eclogues. the Greek by the first great Roman poet, Ennius) that The translations have trickled out, a few per century, Virgil uses also for the Georgics and the Aeneid. never garnering much fame in their own right. Often they The real model for the Eclogues is not folk music but come from poets who, having covered the major classical the Idylls of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. On these bases, take a sort of victory lap with the Bucolica. Not poems, which introduced Arcadia (a real district of that their efforts are worthless—far from it. For instance, Greece imagined as a rustic fantasyland), was founded a Thomas Creech’s 1684 version of Eclogue II has the new literary genre of “illiterate” poetry. Virgil’s debt to lovely lines: Theocritus in the Eclogues is incalculable, and certain of the poems (notably numbers II, III, V, VIII and IX) Hast thou not pitty! Must I dye for Love? are closely modeled on Theocritan originals. The shep- Just now the Flocks pursue the shades and cool, herds in the Eclogues are ostensibly not even Italians, And every Lizzard creeps into his hole: but Greeks living in Arcadia, with Greek names, such as Brown Thestylis the weary Reapers seeks, Meliboeus and Tityrus, that are found in Theocritus too. And brings their Meat, their Onions and their Leeks:

24 A Review of The Eclogues of Virgil: A Translation

And whilst I trace thy steps in every Tree On this side of the river, on a bench near the water, And every Bush, poor Insects sigh with me. A young man is peaceably stroking the arm of a girl. He is dreaming of eating a peach. Somebody’s rowing, And Dryden’s 1697 version of the same poem has: Somebody’s running over the bridge that goes over Come to my longing Arms, my lovely care, The highway beyond the river. The river is blue, And take the Presents that the Nymphs prepare. The river is moving along, taking it easy. White Lillies in full Canisters they bring With all the Glories of the Purple Spring: A breeze has come up, and somewhere a dog is The daughters of the Flood have searched the Mead barking, For violets pale, and cropt the Poppy’s Head, Acknowledging the stirring of the breeze. The short Narcissus and pale Daffodil, Nobody knows whose dog. The river is moving, Pancies to please the Sight, and Cassia sweet to smell: And set soft Hyacinths with Iron blue The boats are moving with it or else against it. To shade marsh Marigolds of shining Hue, People beside the river are watching the boats. Some bound in Order, others loosely strow’d, Along the pathway on this side of the river To dress thy Bow’r, and trim thy new Abode. Somebody’s running, looking good in the sunshine, Other notable translations of the Eclogues include an Everything going along with everything else, odd business by Vita Sackville-West. Why more poets Moving along in participial rhythm, haven’t tried their hands at them is hard to explain; it could be that the Aeneid is so prestigious that it over- Flowing, enjoying, taking its own sweet time. shadows Virgil’s other works and steals, as it were, their On the other side of the river somebody else, fair share of translators. One expects the translator who A man or a woman, is painting the scene I’m part of. chooses the Eclogues to have some special affinity for the bucolic Virgil. A brilliantly clear diminutive figure works At a tiny easel, and as a result my soul The latest to venture a translation of the Eclogues is the Lives on forever in somebody’s heavenly picture. poet David Ferry, the author of several books of origi- nal poems, as well as translations of the Sumerian epic, In short, Ferry, to judge by his own work, hardly Gilgamesh, and of the Odes and Epistles of Horace. seems like the kind of poet to be drawn to epic. Were he Most of Ferry’s poems are not only short but small— required to translate an epic, the one that would seem intentionally so. They treat of small things—a license best suited to his sensibility is probably Lucretius’ De re- plate, a chair, a lawn, a dinner—in a quiet world. Nor do rum natura, a six-book meditation on Epicurean philoso- these small things often seem to gesture toward, as small phy that examines and reexamines pain and entropy, and things in poems are wont to do, a larger significance; proclaims the ultimate triumph of death over men. they make light repercussions. Ferry’s poems tend to be Instead Ferry turned, for his first translation, toGil - like tiny ponds: He has tossed in a stone and is watching gamesh, an epic that details a man’s triumph over death. the ripples spread and fade away, with no greater conse- (The poem tells of how the eponymous Sumerian hero, quence than to disturb the water-striders. As an illustra- a warrior of Herculean strength and size, storms the un- tion of this, consider an appropriately aquatic poem, derworld to rescue his companion, the wild man Enkidu, “Down by the River”: who has been poisoned by the gods in revenge for the slaying of the Bull of Heaven.) This in itself is surpris- The page is green. Like water words are drifting ing enough, but what’s more astonishing is the degree Across the notebook page on a day in June to which Ferry succeeds. His Gilgamesh has become a Of irresistible good weather, Everything’s easy. standard classroom text, and this acceptance seems to me completely warranted. True, my opinion may not go

25 “Grazing in the Ruins”

for much, since I do not know Sumerian, Akkadian, or have done an amazing job of deciphering the cuneiform, Hittite (all languages in which various parts of the epic but no one will ever know, not even approximately, how have been found), but I have read John Gardner’s and these words sounded in the ear. Similarly, despite the John Maier’s version, which is itself excellent. Ferry’s progress that archaeologists and historians have made, translation seems just as conscientious, if less scholarly, the cultures that produced Gilgamesh remain shadowy. and it is better poetry: Sumerians, Babylonians, and Akkadians may have heard in the poem resonances—particularly of a religious Enkidu dreamed that the gods had met in council: nature—at which we can hardly guess. Naturally we Anu said: “They have killed the Bull of Heaven cannot expect the translator to take these into account. Second, Gilgamesh was not written by one person, but and killed Huwawa. One of them must die, rather accumulated over time, and so the translator need the one of them who felled the tallest cedar.” not worry about capturing the distinctive voice of the author; the poem’s terse and all-knowing narrative voice Then Enlil said that Enkidu must die is certainly distinctive, but it has no particular personal- but Gilgamesh, the gifted, must not die. ity. Third, while the spirit of Gilgamesh is not what we’d expect from Ferry, its sound is not too far from his own. And Shamash said: “The two of them went together, Unfortunately, what works to Ferry’s advantage with companions on my errand into the Forest. Gilgamesh, either works against him with the Eclogues, or does not figure at all. He has none of the leeway here Why then should Enkidu, who went, companion, that he had with the Sumerian epic. We know a lot—not into the Cedar Forest on my errand, everything, but a lot—about Virgil’s milieu. He lived not in the mythical past but in a well-documented time and why should he die?” Angry Enlil said: place. We even know a fair amount about the circum- “You went with them as if you were companion, stances in which each of his major poems was written. Virgil is no amalgam of numberless bards, priests, and day after day as they went upon their journey editors; he was a single person, with both a full under- to violate the Forest and kill the guardian.” standing of his models and his own poetic program. Virgil wanted himself to be apparent in his work, and he . . . undeniably is. And so it was that Enkidu fell sick. At the same time Virgil is a representative, in fact the epitome, of the classical style. His diction is clean and Isn’t this how an epic from the dawn of time should perfectly balanced; his thought is marked by clarity, sound? Cuneiform captured the poem like a prehistoric objectivity, and authority; and everything is informed bug in amber—big and odd and fierce-looking, but by a consistent seriousness of thought and purpose. His frozen and perfectly preserved. Ferry knows how to put entire oeuvre contains not a single diffident word. He can these qualities into English. He tilts his phrasing toward be lightly humorous, homely and colloquial, as when he the Anglo-Saxon—as opposed to the Latinate—side of writes “cuium pecus? an Meliboei?” (“Whose flock? It the language, which gives it a slightly archaic feel. And isn’t Meliboeus’s, is it?”), which, with its non-standard the words fall out in a common, natural English rhythm, form cuium, is a colloquialism so daring that it prompted roughly iambic, strongly accented, with simple enjamb- the parodist Numitorius, in his Antibucolica, to write ment. The couplet form is unobtrusive because the “cuium pecus? an Latinum?” (“Whose flock? It isn’t a thoughts expressed seem to be two-line thoughts. Latin one, is it?”). But with Virgil, even a funny, private Ferry’s translation is conscientious, beautiful, and poem is to some extent a serious, public poem. full of life. It is impossible and unnecessary to explain Ferry, in other words, does not seem to have any great this success away. Nevertheless we ought to note that affinity for Virgil. At least he has chosen to translate the any translator of Gilgamesh enjoys certain advantages. least obviously public of Virgil’s major works. Pastoral is For one thing, very little is known about it. Philologists a form whose tropes have to do with the humility of the

26 A Review of The Eclogues of Virgil: A Translation countryside. Its characters are simple illiterate shep- these lines, with their almost aggressively ungraceful en- herds who know little about the world of politics. Their jambments, have a decidedly prosy air about them. The concerns are, first and foremost, sheep. After that come last two lines seem to be left to carry the poetic weight love, song, and fun. Their gods are rural gods, like Pan, of the passage. They are not really of a piece with what or gods with a rural aspect, like Apollo and Diana. has come before; they lilt and take a curtsey, and seem Superficially, then, the Eclogues would seem to be in to have been snipped from some pseudo-border ballad: line with Ferry’s modest view of things. Yet underneath Close the sluices, laddies-o. As though in a rush to prove they have a stone-cut and monumental quality, a classi- that the passage has been poetic all along, Ferry foists cal quality, which is incompatible with Ferry’s diffidence on us that last phrase, “The fields have drunk their fill of and looseness. Consider the following: song.” Nothing in the language has prepared the way for a fanciful, Romantic, thoughtlessly poetic turn of phrase Non nostrum inter uos tantas componere lites: like “drunk their fill of song,” unless “the sweet and Et uitula tu dignus et hic, et quisquis amores bitter of love”—but that at least is justified by the Latin, Aut metuet dulcis aut experietur amaros. whereas “drunk their fill of song” is not. Claudite iam riuos, pueri; sat prata biberunt. This passage would not merit such close attention were it not typical of the whole. So many fine lines I don’t know how to arbitrate this great from Virgil have been made needlessly arrhythmic and Debate between you two. You both deserve unpicturesque in Ferry’s English. If this were a consis- To win the prize, and so do all who have tent policy it would be bad enough, but it is worsened by Experienced the sweet and bitter of love. unevenness. Every so often something self-consciously But the time has come to close the sluices, boys, poetic will pop up without (one might say) rhyme or For now the fields have drunk their fill of song. reason. Take this stanza in Eclogue VII:

Never mind that “non nostrum ... componere lites” We’ve juniper trees and chestnut trees, and such doesn’t mean that Palaemon doesn’t know how to arbi- Abundance that the ground is covered with trate, but rather that he doesn’t dare pick between two What falls from the loaded boughs; a smiling scene; such fine singers. This is a volume whose advance-praise But if Alexis should desert these hills, sheet reads, “‘English translators of Virgil traditionally The flowing streams would shrivel and run dry. prize what they call ‘accuracy’ over preserving the text’s elegance and readability.’” As a matter of fact I call it Note the awkward contrast between “we’ve” and the cir- accuracy too, since that’s what it is. But let’s look to the cumlocution “covered with / What falls from the loaded text’s elegance instead. “This great / debate”—why the boughs.” (Virgil simply says “strata ... sua quaeque sub enjambment? The greatness is important only in relation arbore poma,” “fruit scattered, each under its own tree.”) to Palaemon’s unwillingness to judge. We are not being Again, note the discrepancy between that prosaic, wordy told directly that Menalcas’ and Damoetas’ verses were phrase and “a smiling scene,” vague, compact and great; we know this already. Virgil found no reason to poetic. Finally comes, as in the earlier passage, a closing emphasize tantas, “so great,” in the Latin. And even if couplet that attempts to rise to a greater dignity than the word “great” were important, in its current, en- Ferry’s own translation has provided for it. jambed position it carries too much force and not enough meaning. When in the next line we learn what is great— The Eclogues fall into two main categories: conversa- namely the debate—it is a bit anticlimactic. To make tion/epigram eclogues, where two or more characters matters worse, Ferry saddles the lines with a pointless speak with one another or compete in alternating stan- and heavy-handed double rhyme, “arbitrate this great / zas, and long songs sung by a single voice (in some cas- debate.” Ennius’ phrase “splendet et horret” was anath- es with occasional interruptions). The examples already ematized by all his ancient commentators; a fortiori, we quoted are of the former variety, but we should consider should do the same to “arbitrate this great / debate.” Ferry’s treatment of the latter too. These generally are Except for their strange jingle and loose pentameter, better, if not much. At least the enjambment tends to be

27 “Grazing in the Ruins”

more sensible, as in this passage from Eclogue VI (in This may not be as pretty as Dryden’s version, quoted which Tityrus is singing Silenus’ mythological songs): above, but it is graceful enough. And at the beginning of Eclogue VIII, Ferry captures the magic that Virgil works He told the story of Scylla, Nisus’s daughter, with foreign personal and place names: The story often told, about how she With yelling monsters whirling around her hips The Muse of the shepherds Alphesiboeus and Damon Harassed the wallowing ships of Ithaca, At whose contending songs the very cattle And oh! Her sea-hounds tore to bits and pieces Were spellbound in the field, forgetting to graze— The bodies of hysterical Ithacan sailors The lynx was spellbound too, hearing the music— Pulled down and whelmed in that devouring vortex. And the rivers, spellbound, stood still listening— I sing the Muse of Damon and Alphesiboeus. While the tone here maintains itself better than in the Whether it be you are passing by epigrammatic eclogues, this only serves to underscore The great rocks at the mouth of the river Timavus that it is precisely Virgil’s tone that gives Ferry the most Or sailing homeward along the Illyrian coast, trouble. To offer “hysterical Ithacan sailors” “whelmed” I long for the day when I shall be able to sing in a “devouring vortex” is to reach for the higher regis- In celebration of your victories, ters but fall woefully short. This is probably the worst And celebrate to all the world as well case; Ferry does much better in the fourth (or “Messi- Your Sophoclean songs. anic”) Eclogue, especially at the end: A great deal of grace and dignity resides in these lines; So, little baby, may your first smile be it is a pity and a puzzlement that Ferry does not gather When you first recognize your mother, whose these qualities into his entire translation. Long nine-months travail brought you into the world. To read this translation is similar to visiting the ruins of That child who has not smiled thus for his parents a Roman temple, with its feeling of enduring greatness, No gods will welcome at their festive table and proportional sense of loss. Though the Eclogues are Nor any goddess to her amorous bower. not the Aeneid—they don’t have the massive marble weight of a Pantheon—their rustic shrine was neverthe- Also in lists of flora, which are a staple of Latin po- less built by the same architect, out of the same fine, hard etry about the countryside, Virgil excels at combining stone. Walk around inside, and you will find the same tongue-pleasing names, and Ferry gets this quite nicely grace and dignity. Who would expect such a building to in Eclogue II: last till today? If one capital in ten had survived the mil- lennia, that would be a reason for gratitude; and however tibi lilia plenis much of the real Bucolica survives in the English, that ecce ferunt Nymphae calathis; tibi candida Nais, much we should be thankful for. Yet since Ferry’s book pallentis uiolas et summa papauera carpens, is a facing-page translation, you can stroll over to the narcissum et florem iungit bene olentis anethi; versos and find yourself in the shrine almost exactly as it tum casia atque aliis intexens suauibus herbis looked two thousand years ago. Or else investigate other mollia luteola pingit uaccinia calta. translations and rebuild the original in your mind.

The Nymphs are bringing you baskets full of lilies, See, the lovely Naiad makes a bouquet Isaac J. Meyers, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Vol. 26, Of palest violets and scarlet poppies for you, No. 1, 2001 Flower of fennel, narcissus blossoms also, With yellow marigold and hyacinth, And bound together with twine of cassia And other fragrant herbs.

28 For my sister, who has trouble sleeping You are deepening Like a downstream river, rushing; It is keeping You awake, and pushing Through your sleep. You blush With many unsounded questions That come tapping, And your closed eyes show confusion. Golden resolutions Will spring from that fertile ground, Ripe for reaping In the morning. But understand That the skirring sound Of every individual cricket And the creeping Of the tide up each inlet Are a consummate secret That the complicated river keeps. Dear, sleep on; The river also sleeps. March 11, 2002

It may seem strange, but I was really solemn And couldn’t even manage a decent smirk Except the others wanted it to work; Myself, I swear to God, I felt like Gollum And couldn’t understand what all the doubt And ironic carrying on were all about. I wanted justice; viz. I wanted violence. Although … some nights in winter, Harkness Tower Cut into the copper moon, a shard of black, And I could not bear to breathe to break the silence, And so I stood and looked for half an hour Because I could not bear to turn my back. December 23, 2002

29 The First Five Letters

!!! is inaudible and everywhere ! it grants others to speak and indicates ! Myself, “I will.” !First and first of “last” it is. !I began there; who will end ! there? I will. !!

" the house the world awakes in, !the letter from which essays ! the word whose consequent !is creation. God’s abode, !apple of the eye. !!

# the camel is !ill at ease in Eden ! and could be the first ! slightly resentful letter !from the way it grunts.!!

$ Adam’s first innovation! is a door, which remains open; !Till very much later he notices !(As he’s rudely spurred by a flaming sword)! That the same door also closes.

!!% the window, extraneous !late addition to Eve’s house,! an intimation of privacy, ! which, violated, came to be, !predominates the hidden Name: ! Look through it into mystery.

August 4, 2002

30 “The Prophet’s Song for the Choirmaster”

(This article is an explication of his personal downfall, because in glory but in terror; at Sinai he the haftarah reading for the sec- the better he speaks God’s words, thunders as he gives the law, and ond day of the Jewish holiday of the more fiercely they burn the in Habakkuk’s prophecies he thun- Shavuot.) speaker. They quickly burn Habak- ders for the sake of that law, which kuk into silence: “But the Lord is we, inevitably, have perverted. If in his holy sanctuary; let all the we can for one moment imagine HABAKKUK 2:20–3:19. earth hush before him” (2:20). that we ourselves were at Mount Habakkuk is left much reduced and Sinai (and the Midrash says we hortly before the Baby- weak; the fury of God’s word has were there), we can well under- lonian Exile in 587 BCE, driven his self out of the text. Here stand Habakkuk when he writes, Habakkuk in his workshop his prophecy ends; he can bear no “I heard, and my stomach roiled, meditatesS on the visions he has more. at the sound my lips quivered; seen: Babylonian soldiers storming But later he wrote a song, which rottenness entered my bones, and I westward toward the Kingdom of was appended to the two prophetic tremble where I stand …” (3:16). Judah, driven by the wrath of God chapters, and this is something Rashi reads verse 3:2, “Lord, I himself; a human flood as massive very different. This chapter, Ha- have heard the report of thee, and and grave as Noah’s—an unan- bakkuk 3, is a beautiful and unified am afraid,” as a cry of dismay in swerable judgment on the Jewish psalm that testifies to human power the face of God’s justice; it was a nation’s unforgivable sins. It is to speak with God and yet live, cry that began at Mount Sinai. Habakkuk who has provoked the to submit to the divine and stay Yet, amazingly, 3:18 surges into burden of his prophecy. Addressing sane—sane and even creative. It joyful song—“But I will be glad in God, he demands, “How long will begins with a prayer for mercy, the Lord, I will rejoice in the God I cry, and you not hear …? The then describes God’s might, not of my salvation”—and continues law is slacked …!” (1:2–4). God is just as displayed in the preceding into 3:19: “The Lord God is my not long to answer: “Behold, I will prophecies, but in a dazzling theo- strength and makes my feet like raise up the Babylonians … who phany: God as a warrior, striding deer, and He will make me walk shall march through the breadth over the earth, riding over the sea, on my high places …” And lastly, of the land, to possess dwelling- bringing retribution and salvation. nothing could express simple, places that are not theirs” (1:6). Habakkuk is a composer, and he stubborn confidence in the future Again Habakkuk presses God, does not hesitate to score his psalm better than Habakkuk’s final brief this time to know the punishment with musical directions—selah—in professional note, “For the Choir- the Babylonians will themselves the body of the text. master. With my string-music” receive. But for the remainder of We read this song as the haftarah (3:19). After all that—after the this dialogue, God speaks and the (additional reading) on the sec- threatening promise of the Torah, prophet takes dictation: “Write ond day of Shavuot, zman matan the terrible and true signs—can he the vision, and make it plain upon Torateinu, the commemoration of still live with his faith, and even, tables …” (2:2). Eighteen of the fi- the giving of the Torah. Ezekiel 3, in full knowledge of that horrific eriest verses of rebuke in the entire like the haftarah of the first day of wave of destruction gathering Bible follow: “For the stone shall Shavuot, features a theophany like force to bear down from the East, cry out of the wall, and the beam the one on Sinai. These formal and continue in his work? His answer out of the timber shall answer it. thematic links justify well enough is yes, of course. Of course he Woe to him that builds a town the placement of the haftarah. can; that is his weakness and his with blood, and establishes a city But I see a broader and more strength; he is human. with iniquity!” (2:11–12). Habak- psychological connection between kuk now learns that a prophet’s Habakkuk 3 and matan Torah. In Isaac Meyers, The Forward, eloquence, his mental clarity, is both cases God appears not just June 6, 2003

31 Horae Cantabrigenses

IV

Among the college buildings’ walls rubbed raw And red by winter wind and setting sun I walk, and suddenly I feel Timid weak and vulnerable Motherless and brotherless, like one Who unlike me has known no love nor law.

In all the years filled up with nights and days In all the ways and places of this earth, How small a heart beats in my chest, And these and you, O God, how vast, That constantly prevail; yet I from birth Have shied or offered apprehensive praise.

January 1, 2008