Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

After writing my previous post about tattoos in ancient languages, a former student reminded me that I also helped her track down a Latin text she wanted to have inked.  She wanted to use the phrase found in one of Newton's letters to Hooke, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."  This is a funny phrase, one that gets repeated a lot and that has a number of variants. For example, Didacus Stella writes (In Luc. 10 tom. 2) 

Pygmaei Gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident

("Pygmies, placed on the shoulders of Giants, see further than the Giants themselves."  See footnote 20 of Alexandre Koyré's "An Unpublished Letter of Robert Hooke to Isaac Newton," Isis, Vol 43, No. 4 (Dec., 1952), pp312-33, U of Chicago Press.)

It's a funny phrase because it can be used both boastfully and self-deprecatingly.  Newton, in his letter to Hooke, for instance, seems to boast that he sees farther than Hooke, but that he does so as a dwarf.

It also appears in Bernard of Chartres, quoted by John of Salisbury in his Metalogicon.  One source I found has John saying this:

Dicebat Bernardus Carnotensis nos esse quasi nanos, gigantium humeris incidentes, ut possimus plura eis et remotiora videre, non utique proprii visus acumine, aut eminentia corporis, sed quia in altum subvehimur et extollimur magnitudine gigantea. Et his facile acquieverim, quia artis praeparatitia et multos articulos veritatis tradunt artium praeceptores, etiam in introductionibus suis, aeque bene antiquis, et forte commodius. 

("Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarves, incidentes on the shoulders of giants, so that we might see more than they, and things further off...")

That word incidentes bothered me, though, as did the genitive plural gigantium. Now, I am more of a Hellenist than a Latinist, so if you spot any errors in what I say here, I would be grateful for your corrections.  Gigas is a loan word from Greek, which might explain the two different genitive plurals, Gigantum being correct, but Gigantium appearing to follow the rules.  Incidentes just sounds funny, as though the dwarves had fallen upon the Giants - though it could indicate that the dwarves were fortunate enough to stumble upon the Giants; incido can have that meaning, after all.  But another text I have found has insidentes, which makes more sense to me, meaning "sitting upon" or "standing upon."

As I said in my previous post, I am reluctant to take the responsibility for others' tattoos, but I have tentatively suggested that

NANI GIGANTUM HUMERIS INSIDENTES  

might fit the bill for her, "Dwarves standing upon the shoulders of giants."  If your Latin is better than mine, I welcome your corrections, especially before she makes this a permanent part of her skin.

Written On The Skin

One of the peculiar things about teaching Greek and knowing several other ancient languages is that people often come to me seeking help with tattoos.

A few years ago a student named Brian came to me and asked "How do you say 'Suck Less' in Greek?"  Apparently this was a phrase that his running coach said to his team to inspire them to run better.

As crude as the phrase is, I was intrigued by the problem of translation.  "In order to translate the phrase I'd have to know what you mean by it," I replied. I spent a little while explaining how it would be possible to say, for instance, that an infant should nurse less; or that one should inhale less strongly.  Or, if you pursue the more colloquial usage of the verb "suck," you might decide that it refers to poor behavior or - ahem - to a kind of erotic pleasure-giving in which the giver is thought to be demeaned by the giving.

Eventually I made the case that if you want to say it in Classical Greek, it would make sense to say it in a way that attended to the use of words in that language, and pointed him to Plutarch's Sayings of Spartan Women as a source of pithy sayings about living and acting strenuously.  Ever since I took my first Greek class with Eve Adler at Middlebury College years ago, I've liked the phrase η ταν η επι τας, (at the link above, see #16 under "Other Spartan Women"; click on the Greek flag to see the full Greek text) which is often translated "Come back with your shield or upon it," meaning "Act virtuously in battle; either die with your weapons or win with your weapons, but do not throw them away in order to win your life at the expense of your virtue."  I like the Greek phrase for its Laconian pithiness.

Of course, that one didn't quite make sense for a runner, so I showed him another from the same collection, κατα βημα της αρετης μεμνησο, or "With every step, remember [your] virtue."  ("Virtue" is not a perfect translation; you could translate it as "excellence" also.)

Three years have passed since that conversation with Brian, but a few months ago he tracked me down and showed me his tattoo, which I rather like:

In a new twist, last year another student asked me to help him find the Greek verb "give thanks" as it appears in I Thessalonians 5.18.  He didn't tell me what he planned to do with it, but when I saw him later that year at a wedding he showed me this, which he has tattooed on his wrist:

The word you see is ευχαριστειτε, related to our word "Eucharist" and the modern Greek ευχαριστω, meaning "I thank you."

I say this is a "new twist" because at least one passage in the Hebrew scriptures (Leviticus 19.28) appears to prohibit tattooing one's skin. Getting a tattoo, and in particular getting a tattoo of scripture, offers a bit of insight into one's hermeneutics.  If the Gospels prohibited tattoos, I doubt many Christians would get them, but since the prohibition comes in the Hebrew scriptures, and since it seems to be tied to particular practices of worship or enslavement that no longer seem relevant, many young Christians are untroubled by it.

Recently one of my advisees showed me one of several tattoos she has recently acquired.  This one is a longer Biblical text, from the prophet Micah, chapter 6, verse 8.  I thought it interesting that she chose to get the Septuagint Greek rather than the Hebrew.  She knows and translates Biblical (Koine) Greek and so I suppose she felt closer to that language.  The text below means "...to do justice and to love mercy and to be ready/zealous to walk humbly with the Lord your God."

I like that verse quite a lot.  If you don't know it, it begins by saying that this is what God asks of people.  It's the sort of description that makes religion sound less like a burden and more like a description of a life well-lived.

I'm always reluctant to give advice about tattoos, because they're so permanent and so personal.  And when I do give advice, I always want to write footnotes about regional dialects and historical and textual variants, or about the difficulties of translation.  Quotes out of their native context so often seem lonely to me - such is my academic habit, of always seeing texts as living and moving and having their being* in nests and webs of other texts.  Perhaps that's why I've never been inked myself, and I doubt I ever will get a "tat."  I'm just not confident I've found words or an image that I'd want written on me forever.  Sometimes that feels virtuous because it's prudent; other times I wonder if that's not a moral failing on my part, like I should be willing to commit to something.  But I think for now I will remain uninked, and will continue to admire the commitments of my students.

*****

* For example: I am borrowing this phrase ("live and move and have their being") from St Paul in Acts 17.28; he, in turn, appears to be borrowing it from Epimenides, who writes Εν αυτω γαρ ζωμεν και κινουμεθα και εσμεν.  The phrase winds up being used in a number of other places, having been so eloquently translated into English by the King James Version of the Bible.  See, for example, its use in the Book of Common Prayer, and in the first line of the hymn "We Come O Christ To Thee."

*****

Update: a week or so after posting this I ran into the mother of one of the people whose tattoos are shown above.  She thanked me, though I am not sure whether she was thanking me for helping her son get a tattoo, or for helping him to get the grammar right. 

Joy Run

Yesterday we ran for joy.  About eighty people showed up to join me to run one-tenth of a marathon around the Augustana College campus. 

It started as a response to the attack on the Boston Marathon last week.  I decided to defy the preachers of fear by running for joy, and to honor those tens of thousands of runners who ran in Boston.  And I invited friends, because joy shared is joy amplified.

I didn't expect many people to join me, so I was surprised to find seventy or eighty runners - and a few walkers, and quite a few dogs - waiting for me when I arrived. Even more surprising were the TV cameras from all the local stations, and the reporter from the Argus Leader. Here are some links to their stories:  Argus, KDLT, KSFY.  And, of course, at our Augie news website.  I was pleased to talk with such intelligent and kind reporters who thought this was newsworthy.

Some of the Joy Runners

I was so swamped by the interviews before the race that I wasn't able to snap a photo of everyone beforehand, but here's a photo of some of the people who ran with me, at the finish line.  I'm grateful to live with such joyful people.

Several of those who ran with us also ran the Boston Marathon, including two who ran this year and two who ran in previous years.  We were honored by their presence.

It's better to live lives of joy, lives of neighborly care, lives full of what St John calls agape, or nurturing love, than to live lives constricted by fear.  My gratitude goes out to everyone who ran with me, and to the reporters who covered it, and to all people everywhere, who bring joy to the world.

Don't Worship The Monsters

On the God's Politics Blog at Sojourners, my latest attempt to answer the question of what to do when we are confronted with senseless violence.  My answer: don't worship the monsters.  An excerpt:

"Killing the bodies of our enemies does not make them disappear. We must also choose to forgive them, in a refusal to let their violence rule our hearts. The alternative is to cherish their violence, silently fondling it in our minds and enshrining it in policies founded on fear."

Last Advent I tried to say something similar, in a poem.

Better Walls?

It happens every time.  First the violence and the national non-stop news coverage, then the calls for increased security.  We need better walls!

Sometimes we act like we've just got a few holes in our walls, and if we could just plug those holes everything would be fine.  Then we'd be safe.

Safety is great, and as someone wise once said, good fences can make good neighbors.  We need good and prudent laws.  But we should remember that no one is ever permanently safe.  The quest for perfect safety is a quest that is guaranteed to fail.

We moderns congratulate ourselves for seeing how silly people once were for seeking the Holy Grail or the Fountain of Youth.  Our wisdom sees through old myths!  But we fail to recognize the same impulse in ourselves, the impulse to make our security permanent.

Just listen, and you will hear, in the weeks after the tragedy, the calls for heightened border security, for more watchmen at our gatherings, for more scrutiny of Those Who Are Not Like Us, for more restrictions on immigration.

Some of that will be good.  But more than the structures of security we need the cultivation of wisdom. The Spartans knew that the more you depend on walls to keep others out, the more those walls will become your prison.

Run For Joy

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, and as the Sioux Falls Argus Leader has reported, I am going for a run for the sake of joy this weekend, and you're invited to join me, here or wherever you are.

The prophets knew this thousands of years ago: we become like what we worship.  We might think we don't worship, but I'm here to tell you that the way you spend your life is the way you worship. We all worship.  Each of us ascribes worth to things by giving our time, our money, and our attention to them.

It's tempting to give our attention to monsters, to worship the devils that the news cameras follow breathlessly through the streets.  It is tempting to worship our fears, to let the things that could steal, or maim, or kill become the focus of our attention.  It is tempting to hold the horrors in our hearts until we form them into perfect idols.  If that weren't tempting, the news would look very different.

Avoiding idolatry - by which I mean worshiping things that are not worthy of our precious lives and attention - takes a conscious and sustained effort.

It requires us to remember not the horror but the joy.  It requires us to give up the cramped life of fear and to stretch ourselves in the exuberance of being alive, of having a body.

At their best, this is what marathons are about: exultation in the gift of living an embodied life.

So run with me.  Shake off the terrors, and feel your muscles, your bones, your sinewed vitality.  Wherever you are, get out there and feel a little of what the marathoners were feeling as they ran, the hard-earned joy of running, the joy of feeling alive with other people.  

 *****

I'm not collecting money, but I encourage you also to give a donation to an organization of your choosing that cares for those who suffer.  I'm going to give to the Red Cross and the United Way. Because I think that love for neighbor is a worthwhile thing to focus my attention on, and giving my money helps to focus my attention.

And while you're at it: turn off the news and think about this: what is bringing you joy today?  How are you bringing joy to others today?  As someone wise once said, "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

*****

Let me add that I'm not an accomplished runner, so don't expect me to lead the pack.  This will be a run, not a race.  If you want to walk with us, push a stroller, or whatever lets you feel the joy of being alive, come and join us.  Bring your joy.

I Am Afraid

I am afraid.

Not very afraid, just a little.  Mostly, I am afraid of using my days poorly.

But I'm not really afraid of death.  I'm not really afraid that my plane will fall from the sky, or that the economy will collapse.  Close calls from asteroids and comets don't worry me even a little bit.

There are a lot of things I don't want to lose - my job, my health, and especially my friends and loved ones - but I don't see the point of spending a lot of time worrying about that, especially since losing them is inevitable.

In his Ethics, Aristotle reminds us that courage is not the absence of fear.  (The absence of all fear is just another kind of foolishness.) Courage is being afraid of the right things.  Like living badly, or bringing shame and dishonor to oneself, to one's family and friends, to one's nation.

So I admit it: I'm a little afraid of wasting the time I'm given, of not living a life of love, of failing to live joyfully.  I'm a little afraid that today I'll squander time on things that don't matter while not giving myself to those I love.  I'm afraid of worshiping things that don't deserve my worship.

Thankfully, I'm not in charge of all time.  I'm only in charge of what I do right now.  Which means I have something positive I can do with that little fear of mine: I can fight it by doing something that matters.  Right now.

Run For My Life

Yesterday I went for a run.  I'm not much of a runner, but it seemed like a good response to the Boston Marathon.

The Boston Marathon is a huge gathering for the sake of doing something none of us needs to do.  It's a race, and yeah, someone will be fastest, but everyone who finishes it wins. A Marathon is an exuberance.  

When the bombs go off and the guns fire, we all duck for cover.  And we know what happens next: first the media run the same film loops dubbed with the same breathless commentary.  And then someone announces that we're taking new security measures.

I'm sure all that's good. We need media, and it's just prudent to take security measures. 

But it's not enough.  If our response to terrorism is to feel afraid, the terrorists have won.

Which is why I am going to respond with joy.  And more exuberance. 

So here is what I will do: this Sunday, I am going for a run - I'm calling it a Joy Run - and I'm inviting my friends to join me.  We'll run 2.62 miles (a tenth of a marathon - I'm not a great runner, so don't ask for more) and I'm going to ask them all to make a donation to the Red Cross or the United Way or another organization that exists to promote the public good and cares for people who are suffering.

If you know me, you'll know where to find me.  If not, rather than having you call me and ask if you can donate, let me just urge you to do the same thing wherever you are.

There will always be people who want to limit life, who say no to life, who mail suspicious packages and kill strangers.  I feel sorry for them; may God bless them by helping them learn to say yes to life, love, and wisdom.  Because they exist, we'll always need to be vigilant.

But because we exist, we should not forget to live.  Brightly, joyfully, exuberantly.

And so, this Sunday, inspired by those who ran exuberantly in the Boston Marathon, my friends and I are going to run.  For my life, and for theirs, and wishing life and joy to everyone, everywhere.