[lit-ideas] Askesis Spartiatiké
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:26:36 EST
Gird up your loins! (or not?)
"Pray extend your Spartan jejunity to the length of a competent letter."
BENTLEY Epist., to S. Clarke 18 Nov., 1719
Perhaps a better word, to follow Pater, would be _ascesis_. And I'm glad the
OED quotes his Greek Studies:
"The sanity of soul and body..the perfecting of both by reasonable
exercise or ascésis."
1880 Greek Studies (1895) 267
I have checked with Dowling, "Hellenism in Victorian Oxford" (Cornell
Univ.), and while she considers Pater in detail, I don't think it's _there_ I
first
read about Pater's ascesis. Maybe then it was Jenkins, but it's not to hand
as I write this.
I read from amazon:
Richard Jenkyns is Professor of the Classical Tradition at the University of
Oxford and a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall. His books include The Victorians
and Ancient Greece and Dignity and Decadence: Victorian Art and the Classical
Inheritance.
--- The first book cited above is a good one --, and I thought superficial,
but I see Dowling considers it seriously. Jenkyns has an agenda to fight with,
and his criticism of Pater is not altogether honest.
(Jenkins and Dowling do refer to this Dorian 'ideal' which was popular (and
perhaps it still is) among the code of England's upper-class. But then one has
to be careful with codes. Usually the _existence_ of a code is to _inhibit_
a behaviour that is prevalent in a society and the coder wants _out_ (But
then cfr. the Ten Commandments -- don't you find it _sarcastic_ that Jehova
will
have to _descend_ from Heaven to tell us, "Thou shalt not kill". Surely that
makes little sense unless he has _seen_ people killing each other --
gratuitously? Oddly, "You shall fast" is no requirement in any code,
necessarily as
it would lead to death.
Pater's first quote is more ambiguous. Is from his Renaissance book,
The charm of ascesis, of the austere and serious
girding of the loins in youth.
but Geary must help me with my Greek here for 'girding of the loins'.
Webster has "to gird one's loins" = to prepare for action. But again, I'll
need to go OED.
(Greek or Hebrew, or both?)
to gird one's loins
lit:
1535 COVERDALE 2 Kings iv. 29
Girde vp thy loynes, and take my staffe in thy hande, and go thy waye. Luke
xii. 35 Let youre loynes be gerded aboute.
1810 SCOTT Lady of L. III. vii, He girt his loins and came.
1672 CAVE Prim. Chr. I. iii. (1673) 49 The mind is strengthened and girt
close by indigence and frugality.
So I suppose it's a good thing. As Helm reminded us, Spartan girls (and I'd
add boys or youth) were oiled toe to head and exercised (ascesis) naked. So I
suppose a little belt around the waist -- to hold a sword -- is just as well
-- PROVIDED you _prepare for action_ (= war). In peace, and that's the charm
of it, I'd say, _pace_ Pater, it's the ungirding of the loins (which is back
to Physis).
Perhaps Pater is clearer somewhere else. I cannot see how he can expand on
'ascesis' in the preface to the book on the Renaissance. These Victorian types
are too far-ranging for me!
That's for those entre nous who like to stick a notion, like _ascesis, and
I don't _need_ that, to a historical context. With _ascesis_ it's perhaps
advisable, since the word has strong Christian connotations -- and Jewish (see
quotes below) that it would seem reasonable to see what's Greek, what's
Spartan, and what not about this, apparently originally Greek (or is it
oriental)
notion? I note one quote relating fasting (jejunity) and ascesis.
Funny how _ascesis_ and jejunity remains in Spanish. Word for 'breakfast' in
Romance languages -- like "dejeneur" and "desayuno" -- are the strict
equivalent of 'break-the-fast'. So it's 'ayuno' in Spanish that carries all the
meaning of the Latin 'jejunum'.
It's not clear what the role of _ascesis_ in Spartan 'games' (or 'martial
arts') was. Plato constantly laughs at 'athletes' 'stuffing up' to win the
panthleton -- but that's _athletes_ or _gynmnastai_, not necessarily _milites_
who, if to win, must be _fit_, not stuffed up, and what best way that have them
'trained' in 'ascesis'?
Cheers,
JL
BA, A
---
ascesis: [ad. Gr. askesis exercise, training, f. askein, to exercise.]
[ad. Gr. adj., f. , f. - to exercise]
The practice of self-discipline.
1873 PATER Renaissance p. xii,
The charm of ascesis, of the austere and serious girding of the loins in
youth.
1880 Greek Studies (1895) 267
The sanity of soul and body..the perfecting of both by reasonable exercise
or ascésis.
1890 E. JOHNSON Rise Christendom 107
In the conduct of life they establish a strict ascesis..as a means of a
closer communion with the Divine.
1924 J. KELMAN Prophets of Yesterday i. 24
The Greek idea of askesis was but the habit of the athlete.
1944 AUDEN For Time Being (1945) 84 The vision That plain men can predict
through an Ascesis of their senses.
1646 SIR T. BROWNEPseud. Ep. viii. 126
This ascetic rule, which held that a saint was disgraced by the very society
which his mild Master sought and loved.
1682 Chr. Morals (1756) 97
The old Ascetick christians found a paradise in a desert.
1757 BURKE Abridgm. Eng. Hist. Wks. X. 276 A monastery which had acquired
great renown for..the severity of its ascetick discipline.
1850 TENNYSON In Mem. cix, High nature amorous of the good, But touch'd with
no ascetic gloom.
1822 BURROWES Cycl., Ascetic, the title of certain books on devout
exercises.
1868 PATTISON Academ. Org. §5. 122 The knowledge to be cultivated is not
ascetic divinity.
1673 CAVE Prim. Chr. III. ii. 253 One of the primitive Asceticks.
1776 GIBBON Decl. & F. xxxvii. (R.) The Ascetics, who obeyed and abused the
rigid precepts of the gospel.
1861 A. BERESFORD-HOPE Eng. Cathedr. 19th C. v. 165 The deserts of the
Thebaïd had been peopled by troops of sturdy and gaunt but God-fearing
ascetics.
1660 JER. TAYLOR Ductor Dubit. II. iii. 8. §4 The primitive Christians
were generally such ascetics in this instance of fasting.
1862 STANLEY Jewish Ch. (1877) I. i. 17
He is not an ascetic..but full of the affections and interests of family and
household.
1751 CHAMBERS Cycl. s.v., Books of spiritual exercises. As the ascetics, or
devout treatises of St. Basil.
a1617 BAYNE On Eph. (1866) 331 Hence it is that ascetical sermons..are not
in that request. 1697 tr. Dupin's Eccl. Hist. II. 145 The Ascetical Books
attributed to St. Basil.
1884 ADDIS & ARNOLD Cath. Dict. s.v., St. Francis of Sales and St. Alphonsus
Liguori may be mentioned as modern saints whose ascetical works are most
esteemed.
1836 HOR. SMITH Tin Trump. (1876) 161 Our English puritans with their
ascetical bigotry.
c1800 E. C. KNIGHT Autobiog. I. 82 The Duke of Parma used frequently to
clothe himself in a friar's robe, and live ascetically.
1842 J. H. NEWMAN Ch. of Fathers 367 Nor live ascetically for the sake of
them.
1646 SIR T. BROWNE Pseud. Ep. VIII. (1845) 126 Doomed to a life of
celibacy by the asceticism which had corrupted the simplicity of Christianity.
1859 MILL Liberty ii. 89 In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of
asceticism.
1850 W. HOWITT Year-bk. of Country iv. 106 Lent, with all its ascetism and
abstinence, and gloom, is over.
1870 Contemp. Rev. XIII. 391 The melodramatic ascetism upon which such
great store was then set.
1889 Macm. Mag. Jan. 236/1 There is certainly not a tinge in Shakespeare of
sympathy with Catholic ascetism.
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