Selections from Erasmus: Principally from his Epistles Part 9

PATRIAM] Holland.

64. CONVICTU] Evidently it had been proposed that Erasmus should come and live with Lord Mountjoy in Paris as his tutor.

IV

[An extract from a letter to an Italian friend domiciled in France.

Erasmus was probably writing from Bedwell in Hertfordshire, where Sir William Say, Lord Mountjoy's father-in-law, had a country-house. For the practice which Erasmus playfully describes in the second paragraph, see an additional note on p. 157.[*]]

[* See ADDITIONAL NOTES, first note, at the end of this text.

Transcriptor.]

4. INVITA MINERVA] 'refragante ingenio, repugnante natura, non favente coelo.' Erasmus, _Adagia_. Minerva was the G.o.ddess of wisdom.

6. MERDAS] It has been well pointed out that the use of so coa.r.s.e a word is foreign to Erasmus, whose writings, though often free, are marked by a delicacy unusual in his age; and that he is therefore probably alluding to the compositions of his correspondent, who knew no such restrictions, e.g. in his _Querela Parrhisiensis pavimenti_.

7. UT ... PEREAT] A wish.

9. ALATIS] Like Mercury, the messenger of the G.o.ds, who for his journeys attached winged sandals to his feet.

10. Daedalus was a mythical artificer who constructed the labyrinth for Minos, king of Crete; but being detained there against his will, he made wings for himself and his son Icarus and flew away to Sicily.

21. Solon (c. 638-558), the Athenian lawgiver, is said to have bound the people with an oath to observe his laws until he returned; and then to have absented himself from Athens for ten years.

23. PROPEDIEM] Erasmus was expecting to return to Paris in the summer of 1499. His visit to Oxford was only undertaken to fill an interval during which he was detained in England.

V

[This incident occurred in the autumn of 1499. Erasmus was staying on an estate belonging to Lord Mountjoy at Greenwich, and was visited one day by Thomas More with a friend Arnold from London. In the course of a walk they came to Eltham Palace ('a castle situated between two parks,' as it is described by two amba.s.sadors in 1514), the splendid banqueting hall of which is still standing, and there paid their respects to the royal children with their tutor, John Skelton, the poet. Arthur, Prince of Wales, was then absent with his father: but the young Prince Henry, afterwards Henry VIII, received the friends gracefully. They stayed to dine in the hall, but apparently not at the 'high table'. The narrative is found in a Catalogue of Erasmus' writings composed in 1523.]

7. ANIMI CAUSA] Relaxation to the mind rather than exercise for the body was the object of the walk.

12. NOVEM] Henry was little more than 8, having been born on 2 June 1491; Margaret was born on 29 Nov. 1489 and was therefore not yet 11. The other ages given are correct. Inaccuracy in such trifling matters need not surprise us, seeing that Erasmus was writing more than twenty years after the visit.

16. IACOBO] James IV of Scotland, who was killed at Flodden, 9 Sept.

1513.

17. Mary afterwards became Queen of France by her marriage with Louis XII in 1514.

26. _vel_ here intensifies the word that follows. It is often so used with superlatives.

VI

[A letter written to Lord Mountjoy, who had intended to join Erasmus in Oxford, but had been prevented by a summons to attend in Westminster Hall on 21 Nov. 1499, for the trial of the Earl of Warwick in connexion with the rising of Perkin Warbeck.]

6. John Colet (c. 1466-1519) was now lecturing in Oxford. For his influence on Erasmus see X; and Mr. Seebohm's _Oxford Reformers_.

Richard Charnock was Prior of St. Mary's College in Oxford; the Augustinian house, in which Erasmus was living. It is now practically demolished.

9. HORATIUS] _Ep_. 2. 1. 63:

Interdum vulgus r.e.c.t.u.m videt, est ubi peccat.

11. CUIUS] _sc_. vulgi.

12, 3. nostro illo ingressu] Erasmus' arrival at Oxford; which for some reason seems to have been discouraging.

35. TUM ... TUM] A post-Augustan construction, for which Cicero uses _c.u.m ... tum_.

VII

[A letter written to describe a dinner-party in a College hall in Oxford; possibly at Magdalen, to which Colet, who was presiding, is thought to have belonged. With the exception of Charnock, the other guests mentioned have not been identified. The letter is to be dated in Nov. 1499; Sixtin, to whom it is addressed, was a Dutchman resident in Oxford. The ma.n.u.script in which Erasmus pretended to have found this story of Cain is, of course, fict.i.tious.]

t.i.t. DOMINO] The t.i.tle of a Bachelor of Arts.

2. CONVIVIO] 'Bene maiores nostri accubitionem epularem amicorum, quia vitae coniunctionem haberet, convivium nominarunt, melius quam Graeci qui hoc idem compotationem (symposium) vocant.' Cic. _Sen_. 13, 45.

6. Epicurus (342-270) was a Greek philosopher, who is traditionally but wrongly regarded as having taught that pleasure is the end of life.

7. CONDITUM] _condi[*]tum_, not _condi[*]tum_.

[* i.e. long 'i', not short. Transcriptor.]

Pythagoras (sixth cent. B.C.) was one of the greatest Greek philosophers.

20, 1. LAEVUM LATUS CLAUSIMUS] The left side was regarded as more exposed to attack than the right, which had the sword-arm. It was therefore a compliment to place oneself to the left of a friend, as though to protect him in case of need. Here nothing more is meant than that Erasmus sat on the Theologian's left.

25. POCULENTUM] connected with the wine-cups.

36. ALIUD] _sc_. quam solebat.

37. MAIORQUE] cf. Verg. _Aen_. 6. 49-51, of the Sibyl:

maiorque videri, Nec mortale sonans, adflata est numine quando Iam propiore dei.'

53. LEGERE] When the narrator is an eyewitness, the present infinitive is usual, even of past time.

80. RHOMPHAEA] a sword; the Septuagint word.