[lit-ideas] Re: Diogenes, the Kynical "Kyneges"

  • From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 16:16:53 -0600

You made me so indignant that I misspelled "faith".  And just as well, for I 
can never have faith in anything any more.


Mike Geary
robbed of his favorite saying
feeling violated
feeling cheated
feeling like getting my AK 47 out of the closet and shutting down the whole 
goddamn world --  lucky for you I can't find my ammo.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mike Geary 
  To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 4:08 PM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Diogenes, the Kynical "Kyneges" 


  How dare you destroy a boy's fath in his Diogenes!!!!!



    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx 
    To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
    Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 2:39 PM
    Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Diogenes, the Kynical "Kyneges" 


    Geary:

    "Speaking 
    of Diogenes -- I don't know no Laertius, just him of Sinope who said my 
    favorite saying: "In a rich man's house there's no place to spit but in his 
    face."  God, that warms for my Speranzific Communist soul."

    Well, the anecdote is indeed retold by Diog. Laertius:

    "Eisagagóntos tinós autón 

    eis oíkon polutelé kai kolúontos ptúsai

    epeidé ekhrémapsato, 

    eis ten ópsin autoú éptusen, 

    eipón kheírona tópon me eurekénai."

    So we see the 'pragmatics' of the scenario are slightly different,

    "In a rich man's house there's no place to spit but in his face." 

    runs Geary's version. Apparently, it was not a generalisation, and the rude 
action (and possibly remark) was certainly _motivated_ by the person's previous 
comment.


    "Eisagagóntos tinós autón 

    Someone took Diogenes 


    eis oíkon polutelé kai kolúontos ptúsai

    into a magnificent house and warned him *not to expectorate*, [rude even to 
suggest. JLS]

    epeidé ekhrémapsato, 

    whereupon having cleared his throat, 

    eis ten ópsin autoú éptusen, 

    Diogenes discharged the phlegm into the man's face,

    eipón kheírona tópon me eurekénai."

    being unable, he _said_, to find a meaner receptacle. 

    --- I notice that Diogenes was found of hunting, and that he would hunt 
with his students -- upon making him learn his own aphorisms by heart. The verb 
for hunting here is indeed, "kunegesia". 

    Cheers,

    JL







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