Archive for April 2008
Distinguo!
When the attackers approached the house they were not sure whether Gunnar was at home, and wanted someone to go right up to the house to find out. They sat down on the ground, while Thorgrim the Easterner climbed on to the roof. Gunnar caught sight of a red tunic at the window. He lunged out with his halberd and struck Thorgrim in the belly. Thorgrim dropped his shield, lost his footing, and toppled down from the roof. He strode over to where Gizur and the others were sitting.
Gizur looked up at him and asked, “Is Gunnar at home?”
“That’s for you to find out,” replied Thorgrim. “But I know that his halberd certainly is.”
And with that he fell dead.
– Njal’s saga (Magnusson/Pálsson translation)
Bergson on the Intellect
“Whether,” says Bergson, “it is a question of dealing with the life of the body or that of the mind, the intellect proceeds with the sharpness, the rigidity, and the brutality of a tool not designed for such use… Intellect exhibits a congenital lack of comprehension for life” (L’Evolution creatrice, 7th ed.; 1911, p. 179).
Quoted in Pöschl, The Art of Vergil
Mesopota’mia
The true “Mesopota’mia” ring (London Review)—i.e. something high-sounding and pleasing, but wholly past comprehension. The allusion is to the story of an old woman who told her pastor that she “found great support in that comfortable word Mesopotamia.”
E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
