Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Martin Luther (2016)

  It was a memorable sermon, lasting an hour and a half. Luther was at his most pugilistic and roundly attacked those who questioned the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He also condemned the radicals who insisted on removing all images from churches. Such people, Luther said, were driven by the spirit of Satan, and though they were few in number, their presence as sectaries was a sign that the Devil was raging.’ Jena was not territory hospitable to Luther, who was on a Visitation of the Saxon churches. Karlstadt now had his own parish in the small nearby town of Orlamiinde, where he had begun to introduce the kind of Reformation he had failed to establish in Wittenberg. His ally Martin Reinhard was the preacher at Jena, where the local printing press had also been publishing Karlstadt’s work. In fact, Karlstadt himself was among the congregation at Jena that morning, disguised as a peasant under a felt hat. He was convinced that Luther’s tirade against the ‘crazies’ was directed against him. After the sermon, he dashed off a letter to Luther proposing a meeting. Luther replied that he had no objections. A few hours later, Karlstadt — accompanied by Reinhard and Karlstadt’s brother-in-law and fellow preacher Dr Gerhard Westerburg — arrived at the Black Bear Inn where Luther was staying with his retinue of Saxon court officials? When the visitors entered the parlour, Luther motioned Karlstadt to a chair opposite him, insisting that their exchange take place in public. Karlstadt, facing the crowd of assembled dignitaries, began by objecting that Luther had attacked him in the same breath as the ‘riotous murdering spirits’ who were followers of Thomas Mintzer. 242 MARTIN LUTHER 42. In this hostile pamphlet from 1524, Luther, identified by his initials above him on the wall, is shown in league with the Devil, who is handing him a booklet. The Devil’s claw foot makes him instantly recognisable, and his felt hat is marked ‘S’ for Satan. The Devil is dressed in peasant garb and the image insinuates that Luther is part of an unholy alliance with peasants. Miintzer, whom we will meet again later, had originally been inspired by Luther’s ideas, but developed a radical theology that called for social as well as religious change; he was starting to worry the Saxon authorities and had recently been forced to leave the town of Allstedt. Luther’s charge, Karlstadt insisted, was unjust, for although he held different views on the sacrament from Luther, he did not agree with Mintzer. ‘He who wants to . . . put me in the same pot with such murdering spirits ascribes that to me without truth and not as an honest man’, Karlstadt declared.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Reflecting on the events in 1538 shortly before he died, Eck wondered why it had all been so unpleasant: his later debates with the Swiss and south German evangelicals had been nowhere near as hostile.* Johannes Cochlaeus, writing about the disputation years later, repeatedly drew attention to Luther’s anger. When he did not get his way over who was to judge the disputation, Luther’s face was ‘wrathful’, and he was ‘overcome by anger’; and when Eck accused him of being a supporter of Hus, Luther ‘exclaimed angrily, in German, that this was a lie’.” To slip into German during an academic debate was bad form. Even Mosellanus remarked on Luther's tendency to refute his opponent ‘a little too uncaringly and more bitingly’ than was appropriate for a theologian, probably because he had come to learning late in life - a comment which may betray how much of an intellectual outsider Luther still was, and how unformed his public persona. He did not know how to look the part: Johannes Rubius described seeing him in the main square at Leipzig, clutching a posy of flowers, as if he were awaiting a lover or clutching a victory wreath.* When the debate finally ended in mid-July, Luther and Karlstadt quietly slipped out of town while Eck stayed on to relish his triumph, before leisurely returning to Ingolstadt. His only error of judgement had been to pena letter commenting on Leipzig’s ‘women of pleasure’ which, once it had been passed from hand to hand, suggested to his 138 MARTIN LUTHER enemies that his acquaintance with the ladies of Leipzig was not platonic. The universities of Paris and Erfurt were meant to judge the outcome of the debate, and all publication on the proceedings was banned until they reached their decision. Unsurprisingly, both univer- sities dragged their feet, Erfurt finally declining to give a decision at all. Paris did not reach a judgement until April 1521, when it commented not on the debate itself but on the heretical nature of all of Luther's writings.” By then it was an irrelevance. Both Eck and Luther had long since resorted to print to get their side of the story across. Luther republished his positions as he had set them out before the debate, prefacing them with his account of the proceedings.

• From Satyricon (1)

  (“Lycas,” said he, “these unfortunates upon whom you intend to wreak your vengeance, implore your compassion and) have chosen me for this task. I believe that I am a man, by no means unknown, and they desire that, somehow, I will effect a reconciliation between them and their former friends. Surely you do not imagine that these young men fell into such a snare by accident, when the very first thing that concerns every prospective passenger is the name of the captain to whom he intrusts his safety! Be reasonable, then; forego your revenge and permit free men to proceed to their destination without injury. When penitence manages to lead their fugitives back, harsh and implacable masters restrain their cruelty, and we are merciful to enemies who have surrendered. What could you ask, or wish for, more? These well-born and respectable young men be suppliant before your eyes and, what ought to move you more strongly still, were once bound to you by the ties of friendship. If they had embezzled your money or repaid your faith in them with treachery, by Hercules, you have ample satisfaction from the punishment already inflicted! Look! Can you read slavery on their foreheads, and see upon the faces of free men the brand-marks of a punishment which was self-inflicted!” Lycas broke in upon this plea for mercy, “Don’t try to confuse the issue,” he said, “let every detail have its proper attention and first of all, why did they strip all the hair off their heads, if they came of their own free will? A man meditates deceit, not satisfaction, when he changes his features! Then again, if they sought reconciliation through a mediator, why did you do your best to conceal them while employed in their behalf? It is easily seen that the scoundrels fell into the toils by chance and that you are seeking some device by which you could sidestep the effects of our resentment. And be careful that you do not spoil your case by over-confidence when you attempt to sow prejudice among us by calling them well-born and respectable! What should the injured parties do when the guilty run into their own punishment? And inasmuch as they were our friends, by that, they deserve more drastic punishment still, for whoever commits an assault upon a stranger, is termed a robber; but whoever assaults a friend, is little better than a parricide!” “I am well aware,” Eumolpus replied, to rebut this damning harangue, “that nothing can look blacker against these poor young men than their cutting off their hair at night. On this evidence, they would seem to have come aboard by accident, not voluntarily. Oh how I wish that the explanation could come to your ears just as candidly as the thing itself happened! They wanted to relieve their heads of that annoying and useless weight before they came aboard, but the unexpected springing up of the wind prevented the carrying out of their wishes, and they did not imagine that it mattered where they began what they had decided to do, because they were unacquainted with either the omens or the law of seafaring men.” “But why should they shave themselves like suppliants?” demanded Lycas, “unless, of course, they expected to arouse more sympathy as bald-pates. What’s the use of seeking information through a third person, anyway? You scoundrel, what have you to say for yourself? What salamander singed off your eyebrows? You poisoner, what god did you vow your hair to? Answer!”

• From Satyricon (1)

  And break the voluptuous slumber in which she is sunken? Or must it be fury and war and the blood-lust of daggers?” CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH. “Three chieftains did fortune bring forth, whom the fury of battles Destroyed; and interred, each one under a mountain of weapons; The Parthian has Crassus, Pompeius the Great by the waters Of Egypt lies. Julius, ungrateful Rome stained with his life blood. And earth has divided their ashes, unable to suffer The weight of so many tombs. These are the wages of glory! There lies between Naples and Great Puteoli, a chasm Deep cloven, and Cocytus churns there his current; the vapor In fury escapes from the gorge with that lethal spray laden. No green in the aututun is there, no grass gladdens the meadow, The supple twigs never resound with the twittering singing Of birds in the Springtime. But chaos, volcanic black boulders Of pumice lie Happy within their drear setting of cypress. Amidst these infernal surroundings the ruler of Hades Uplifted his head by the funeral flames silhouetted And sprinkled with white from the ashes of corpses; and challenged Winged Fortune in words such as these: ‘Oh thou fickle controller Of things upon earth and in heaven, security’s foeman, Oh Chance! Oh thou lover eternally faithful to change, and Possession’s betrayer, dost own thyself crushed by the power Of Rome? Canst not raise up the tottering mass to its downfall Its strength the young manhood of Rome now despises, and staggers In bearing the booty heaped up by its efforts: behold how They lavish their spoils! Wealth run mad now brings down their destruction. They build out of gold and their palaces reach to the heavens; The sea is expelled by their moles and their pastures are oceans; They war against Nature in changing the state of creation. They threaten my kingdom! Earth yawns with their tunnels deep driven To furnish the stone for their madmen’s foundations; already The mountains are hollowed and now but re-echoing caverns; While man quarries marble to serve his vainglorious purpose The spirits infernal confess that they hope to win Heaven! Arise, then, O Chance, change thy countenance peaceful to warlike And harry the Romans, consign to my kingdom the fallen. Ah, long is it now since my lips were with blood cooled and moistened, Nor has my Tisiphone bathed her blood-lusting body Since Sulla’s sword drank to repletion and earth’s bristling harvest Grew ripe upon blood and thrust up to the light of the sunshine!’” CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIRST. “He spake ... and attempted to clasp the right hand of Fortuna, But ruptured the crust of the earth, deeply cloven, asunder. Then from her capricious heart Fortune made answer: ‘O father Whom Cocytus’ deepest abysses obey, if to forecast The future I may, without fear, thy petition shall prosper; For no less consuming the anger that wars in this bosom, The flame no less poignant, that burns to my marrow All favors

• From Satyricon (1)

  “Happy the mother,” cried Eumolpus, “who bore such a son as you! May your fortune be in keeping with your merit! Beauty and wisdom are rarely found mixed! And that you may not think that all your words are wasted, know that you have found a lover! I will fill my verses with your praise! I will act as your guardian and your tutor, following you even when you bid me stay behind! Nor can Encolpius take offense, he loves another.” The soldier who took my sword from me did Eumolpus a good turn, too; otherwise, the rage which I had felt against Ascyltos would have been quenched in the blood of Eumolpus. Seeing what was in the wind, Giton slipped out of the room, pretending he was going after water, and by this diplomatic retreat he put an end to my fury. Then, as my anger cooled, little by little, “Eumolpus,” I said, “rather than have you entertain designs of such a nature, I would even prefer to have you spouting poetry! I am hot-tempered and you are lecherous; see how uncongenial two such dispositions must be! Take me for a maniac, humor my malady: in other words, get out quick!” Taken completely aback by this onslaught, Eumolpus crossed the threshold of the room without stopping to ask the reason for my wrath, and immediately slammed the door shut, penning me in, as I was not looking for any move of that kind then, having quickly removed the key, he hurried away in search of Giton. Finding that I was locked in, I decided to hang myself, and had already fastened my belt to the bedstead which stood alongside of the wall, and was engaged in fastening the noose around my neck, when the doors were unlocked and Eumolpus came in with Giton, recalling me to light when I was just about to turn the fatal goal-post! Giton was greatly wrought up and his grief turned to fury: seizing me with both hands, he threw me upon the bed. “If you think, Encolpius,” he shrieked, “that you can contrive to die before I do, you’re wrong! I thought of suicide first. I hunted for a sword in Ascyltos’ house: I would have thrown myself from a precipice if I had not found you! You know that Death is never far from those who seek him, so take your turn and witness the spectacle you wished to see!” So saying, he snatched a razor from Eumolpus’ servant, slashed his throat, once, twice, and fell down at our feet! I uttered a loud cry, rushed to him as he fell, and sought the road to death by the same steel; Giton, however, showed not the faintest trace of any wound, nor was I conscious of feeling any pain. The razor, it turned out, was untempered and dull and was used to imbue boy apprentices with the confidence of the experienced barber. Hence it was in a sheath and, for the reason given above, the servant was not alarmed when the blade was snatched nor did Eumolpus break in upon this farcical death scene.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The last came to a climax in 1529 when he encountered the Swiss at the colloquy of Marburg, arranged by Philip of Hesse, but there was no meeting of minds.* Luther wrote “This is my body’ in chalk 320 MARTIN LUTHER on the table where the debaters sat, and covered it over with the velvet tablecloth — as if protecting a relic — only to reveal it dramatically during the debate, to underline the importance of the biblical words. Insisting that the words “This is my body’ meant exactly what they said, he added ‘here is our text. You haven't yet managed to wring it from us, as you said you would, and we need no other.’** Where Oecolampadius and Zwingli insisted on the importance of John 6 and ‘spiritual eating’, repeating their stock phrase that the ‘flesh availeth nothing’,® Luther replied that physical eating was essential too. ‘My dearest gentlemen, because the text of my lord Jesus Christ clearly states: “Hoc est corpus meum”, truly I cannot get around it, but must confess and believe that the body of Christ is present therein’, he expostulated to Zwingli, breaking out of the Latin of debate into German (although still using Latin for the words of consecration).* When Zwingli, who to Luther’s great irritation frequently used Greek in the debate, accused him of restoring the sacrifice of the Mass yet again, Luther insisted, as at Worms, that he was ‘bound and held captive by the words of the Lord’.” As it became clear that the two sides could not agree, Luther washed his hands of them, consigning them to the judgement of God ‘who will certainly decide who is right’, at which Zwingli burst into tears.* At the end of the meeting, Oecolampadius and Zwingli, pleased that at least they had all now met in person, wanted to embrace their opponents as brothers and allow all of them to take Communion with each other; but Luther bitterly refused.» He was, however, shattered by the debate, and the ‘angel of Satan, or whoever the angel of Death is’ was attacking him so severely that he worried he might not reach home alive.® Luther’s intransigence in dealing with his opponents, and the toll it took on him, had settled into a pattern both grim and unrelenting.

• From Satyricon (1)

  “Lest longer mute tongue stays that In festal jest, from Fescennine, Nor yet deny their nuts to boys, He-Concubine! who learns in fine His lordling’s love is fled. Throw nuts to boys thou idle all He-Concubine! wast fain full long With nuts to play: now pleased as thrall Be thou to swell Talasios’ throng He-Concubine throw nuts. Wont thou as peasant-girls to jape He-whore! Thy Lord’s delight the while: Now shall hair-curling chattel scrape Thy cheeks: poor wretch, ah’ poor and vile:-- He-Concubine, throw nuts.” and further on, addressing the husband: “‘Tis said from smooth-faced ingle train (Anointed bridegroom!) hardly fain Hast e’er refrained; now do refrain! O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus! We know that naught save licit rites Be known to thee, but wedded wights No more deem lawful such delights. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus.” (LXI. Burton, tr.) The Christian religion strongly prohibits this love; the theologians put it among the sins which directly offend against the Holy Ghost. I have not the honor of knowing just why this thing arouses his anger so much more than anything else; doubtless there are reasons. But the wrath of this honest person has not prevented the Christians from having their “pathici,” just as they have in countries where they are authorized by the reigning deities. We have even noticed that they are the priests of the Lord and especially the monks who practice this profession most generally amongst us. The children of Loyola have acquired well-merited renown in this matter: when they painted “Pleasure” they never failed to represent him wearing trousers. Those disciples of Joseph Calasanz who took their places in the education of children, followed their footsteps with zeal and fervor. Lastly, the cardinals, who have a close acquaintance with the Holy Ghost, are so prejudiced in favor of Greek love that they have made it the fashion in the Holy City of Rome; this leads me to wonder whether the Holy Ghost has changed His mind in regard to this matter and is no longer shocked by it; or whether the theologians were not mistaken in assuming an aversion against sodomy which He never had. The cardinals who are on such familiar terms with him would know better than to give all their days over to this pleasure if He really objected to it. I shall terminate this over-long note with an extract from a violent diatribe against this love which Lucian puts into the mouth of Charicles. He is addressing Callicratidas, a passionate lover of young boys, with whom he had gone to visit the temple of Venus at Cnidus.

• From Satyricon (1)

  Those who are brought up on such a diet can no more attain to wisdom than a kitchen scullion can attain to a keen sense of smell or avoid stinking of the grease. With your indulgence, I will speak out: you--teachers --are chiefly responsible for the decay of oratory. With your well modulated and empty tones you have so labored for rhetorical effect that the body of your speech has lost its vigor and died. Young men did not learn set speeches in the days when Sophocles and Euripides were searching for words in which to express themselves. In the days when Pindar and the nine lyric poets feared to attempt Homeric verse there was no private tutor to stifle budding genius. I need not cite the poets for evidence, for I do not find that either Plato or Demosthenes was given to this kind of exercise. A dignified and, if I may say it, a chaste, style, is neither elaborate nor loaded with ornament; it rises supreme by its own natural purity. This windy and high-sounding bombast, a recent immigrant to Athens, from Asia, touched with its breath the aspiring minds of youth, with the effect of some pestilential planet, and as soon as the tradition of the past was broken, eloquence halted and was stricken dumb. Since that, who has attained to the sublimity of Thucydides, who rivalled the fame of Hyperides? Not a single poem has glowed with a healthy color, but all of them, as though nourished on the same diet, lacked the strength to live to old age. Painting also suffered the same fate when the presumption of the Egyptians “commercialized” that incomparable art. (I was holding forth along these lines one day, when Agamemnon came up to us and scanned with a curious eye a person to whom the audience was listening so closely.) CHAPTER THE THIRD.

• From Satyricon (1)

  He had not ceased speaking when a cock crowed! Alarmed at this omen, Trimalchio ordered wine thrown under the table and told them to sprinkle the lamps with it; and he even went so far as to change his ring from his left hand to his right. “That trumpeter did not sound off without a reason,” he remarked; “there’s either a fire in the neighborhood, or else someone’s going to give up the ghost. I hope it’s none of us! Whoever brings that Jonah in shall have a present.” He had no sooner made this promise, than a cock was brought in from somewhere in the neighborhood and Trimalchio ordered the cook to prepare it for the pot. That same versatile genius who had but a short time before made birds and fish out of a hog, cut it up; it was then consigned to the kettle, and while Daedalus was taking a long hot drink, Fortunata ground pepper in a boxwood mill. When these delicacies had been consumed, Trimalchio looked the slaves over. “You haven’t had anything to eat yet, have you?” he asked. “Get out and let another relay come on duty.” Thereupon a second relay came in. “Farewell, Gaius,” cried those going off duty, and “Hail, Gaius,” cried those coming on. Our hilarity was somewhat dampened soon after, for a boy, who was by no means bad looking, came in among the fresh slaves. Trimalchio seized him and kissed him lingeringly, whereupon Fortunata, asserting her rights in the house, began to rail at Trimalchio, styling him an abomination who set no limits to his lechery, finally ending by calling him a dog. Trimalchio flew into a rage at her abuse and threw a wine cup at her head, whereupon she screeched, as if she had had an eye knocked out and covered her face with her trembling hands. Scintilla was frightened, too, and shielded the shuddering woman with her garment. An officious slave presently held a cold water pitcher to her cheek and Fortunata bent over it, sobbing and moaning. But as for Trimalchio, “What the hell’s next?” he gritted out, “this Syrian dancing-whore don’t remember anything! I took her off the auction block and made her a woman among her equals, didn’t I? And here she puffs herself up like a frog and pukes in her own nest; she’s a blockhead, all right, not a woman. But that’s the way it is, if you’re born in an attic you can’t sleep in a palace I’ll see that this booted Cassandra’s tamed, so help me my Genius, I will! And I could have married ten million, even if I did only have two cents: you know I’m not lying! ‘Let me give you a tip,’ said Agatho, the perfumer to the lady next door, when he pulled me aside: ‘don’t let your line die out!’ And here I’ve stuck the ax into my own leg because I was a damned fool and didn’t want to seem fickle. I’ll see to it that you’re more careful how you claw me up, sure as you’re born, I will! That you may realize how seriously I take what you’ve done to me--Habinnas, I don’t want you to put her statue on my tomb for fear I’ll be nagged even after I’m dead! And furthermore, that she may know I can repay a bad turn, I won’t have her kissing me when I’m laid out!”

• From Satyricon (1)

  CHAPTER THE FIFTY-EIGHTH. Giton, who had been standing at my feet, and who had for some time been holding in his laughter, burst into an uproarious guffaw, at this last figure of speech, and when Ascyltos’ adversary heard it, he turned his abuse upon the boy. “What’s so funny, you curly-headed onion,” he bellowed, “are the Saturnalia here, I’d like to know? Is it December now? “When did you pay your twentieth? What’s this to you, you gallows-bird, you crow’s meat? I’ll call the anger of Jupiter down on you and that master of yours, who don’t keep you in better order. If I didn’t respect my fellow-freedmen, I’d give you what is coming to you right here on the spot, as I hope to get my belly full of bread, I would. We’ll get along well enough, but those that can’t control you are fools; like master like man’s a true saying. I can hardly hold myself in and I’m not hot-headed by nature, but once let me get a start and I don’t care two cents for my own mother. All right, I’ll catch you in the street, you rat, you toadstool. May I never grow an inch up or down if I don’t push your master into a dunghill, and I’ll give you the same medicine, I will, by Hercules, I will, no matter if you call down Olympian Jupiter himself! I’ll take care of your eight inch ringlets and your two cent master into the bargain. I’ll have my teeth into you, either you’ll cut out the laughing, or I don’t know myself. Yes, even if you had a golden beard. I’ll bring the wrath of Minerva down on you and on the fellow that first made a come-here out of you. No, I never learned geometry or criticism or other foolishness like that, but I know my capital letters and I can divide any figure by a hundred, be it in asses, pounds or sesterces. Let’s have a show-down, you and I will make a little bet, here’s my coin; you’ll soon find out that your father’s money was wasted on your education, even if you do know a little rhetoric. How’s this--what part of us am I? I come far, I come wide, now guess me! I’ll give you another. What part of us runs but never moves from its place? What part of us grows but always grows less? But you scurry around and are as flustered and fidgeted as a mouse in a piss-pot. Shut up and don’t annoy your betters, who don’t even know that you’ve been born. Don’t think that I’m impressed by those boxwood armlets that you did your mistress out of. Occupo will back me! Let’s go into the forum and borrow money, then you’ll see whether this iron ring means credit! Bah! A draggled fox is a fine sight, ain’t it’? I hope I never get rich and die decently so that the people will swear by my death, if I don’t hound you everywhere with my toga turned inside out. And the fellow that taught you such manners did a good job too, a chattering ape, all right, no schoolmaster. We were better taught. ‘Is everything in its place?’ the master would ask; go straight home and don’t stop and stare at everything and don’t be impudent to your elders. Don’t loiter along looking in at the shops. No second raters came out of that school. I’m what you see me and I thank the gods it’s all due to my own cleverness.”

• From Satyricon (1)

  CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTH. In a towering passion, Lycas leaped forward, “Oh you silly woman,” he shouted, “as if those scars were made by the letters on the branding-iron! If only they had really blotched up their foreheads with those inscriptions, it would be some satisfaction to us, at least; but as it is, we are being imposed upon by an actor’s tricks, and hoaxed by a fake inscription!” Tryphaena was disposed to mercy, as all was not lost for her pleasures, but Lycas remembered the seduction of his wife and the insults to which he had been subjected in the portico of the temple of Hercules: “Tryphaena,” he gritted out, his face convulsed with savage passion, “you are aware, I believe, that the immortal gods have a hand in human affairs: what did they do but lead these scoundrels aboard this ship in ignorance of the owner and then warn each of us alike, by a coincidence of dreams, of what they had done? Can you then see how it would be possible to let off those whom a god has, himself, delivered up to punishment? I am not a cruel man; what moves me is this: I am afraid I shall have to endure myself whatever I remit to them!” At this superstitious plea Tryphaena veered around; denying that she would plead for quarter, she was even anxious to help along the fulfillment of this retribution, so entirely just: she had herself suffered an insult no less poignant than had Lycas, for her chastity had been called in question before a crowd. Primeval Fear created Gods on earth when from the sky The lightning-flashes rent with flame the ramparts of the world, And smitten Athos blazed! Then, Phoebus, sinking to the earth, His course complete, and waning Luna, offerings received. The changing seasons of the year the superstition spread Throughout the world; and Ignorance and Awe, the toiling boor, To Ceres, from his harvest, the first fruits compelled to yield And Bacchus with the fruitful vine to crown. Then Pales came Into her own, the shepherd’s gains to share. Beneath the waves Of every sea swims Neptune. Pallas guards the shops, And those impelled by Avarice or Guilt, create new Gods! (Lycas, as he perceived that Tryphaena was as eager as himself for revenge, gave orders for our punishment to be renewed and made more drastic, whereupon Eumolpus endeavored to appease him as follows,) CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTH.

• From Satyricon (1)

  (After having tramped nearly all over the city,) I caught sight of Giton, as though through a fog, standing at the end of the street, (on the very threshold of the inn,) and I hastened to the same place. When I inquired whether my “brother” had prepared anything for breakfast, the boy sat down upon the bed and wiped away the trickling tears with his thumb. I was greatly disturbed by such conduct on the part of my “brother,” and demanded to be told what had happened. After I had mingled threats with entreaties, he answered slowly and against his will, “That brother or comrade of yours rushed into the room a little while ago and commenced to attempt my virtue by force. When I screamed, he pulled out his tool and gritted out--If you’re a Lucretia, you’ve found your Tarquin!” When I heard this, I shook my fists in Ascyltos’ face, “What have you to say for yourself,” I snarled, “you rutting pathic harlot, whose very breath is infected?” Ascyltos pretended to bristle up and, shaking his fists more boldly still, he roared: “Won’t you keep quiet, you filthy gladiator, you who escaped from the criminal’s cage in the amphitheatre to which you were condemned (for the murder of your host?) Won’t you hold your tongue, you nocturnal assassin, who, even when you swived it bravely, never entered the lists with a decent woman in your life? Was I not a ‘brother’ to you in the pleasure-garden, in the same sense as that in which this boy now is in this lodging-house?” “You sneaked away from the master’s lecture,” I objected.

• From Satyricon (1)

  “Happy the mother,” cried Eumolpus, “who bore such a son as you! May your fortune be in keeping with your merit! Beauty and wisdom are rarely found mixed! And that you may not think that all your words are wasted, know that you have found a lover! I will fill my verses with your praise! I will act as your guardian and your tutor, following you even when you bid me stay behind! Nor can Encolpius take offense, he loves another.” The soldier who took my sword from me did Eumolpus a good turn, too; otherwise, the rage which I had felt against Ascyltos would have been quenched in the blood of Eumolpus. Seeing what was in the wind, Giton slipped out of the room, pretending he was going after water, and by this diplomatic retreat he put an end to my fury. Then, as my anger cooled, little by little, “Eumolpus,” I said, “rather than have you entertain designs of such a nature, I would even prefer to have you spouting poetry! I am hot-tempered and you are lecherous; see how uncongenial two such dispositions must be! Take me for a maniac, humor my malady: in other words, get out quick!” Taken completely aback by this onslaught, Eumolpus crossed the threshold of the room without stopping to ask the reason for my wrath, and immediately slammed the door shut, penning me in, as I was not looking for any move of that kind then, having quickly removed the key, he hurried away in search of Giton. Finding that I was locked in, I decided to hang myself, and had already fastened my belt to the bedstead which stood alongside of the wall, and was engaged in fastening the noose around my neck, when the doors were unlocked and Eumolpus came in with Giton, recalling me to light when I was just about to turn the fatal goal-post! Giton was greatly wrought up and his grief turned to fury: seizing me with both hands, he threw me upon the bed. “If you think, Encolpius,” he shrieked, “that you can contrive to die before I do, you’re wrong! I thought of suicide first. I hunted for a sword in Ascyltos’ house: I would have thrown myself from a precipice if I had not found you! You know that Death is never far from those who seek him, so take your turn and witness the spectacle you wished to see!” So saying, he snatched a razor from Eumolpus’ servant, slashed his throat, once, twice, and fell down at our feet! I uttered a loud cry, rushed to him as he fell, and sought the road to death by the same steel; Giton, however, showed not the faintest trace of any wound, nor was I conscious of feeling any pain. The razor, it turned out, was untempered and dull and was used to imbue boy apprentices with the confidence of the experienced barber. Hence it was in a sheath and, for the reason given above, the servant was not alarmed when the blade was snatched nor did Eumolpus break in upon this farcical death scene.

• From Satyricon (1)

  Until Tryphaena and Doris were awake and out of bed, our flight remained undiscovered, for we paid them the homage of a daily attendance at the morning toilette. When our unwonted absence was noted, Lycas sent out runners to comb the sea-shore, for he suspected that we had been to the wreck, but he was still unaware of the robbery, which was yet unknown because the stern of the wreck was lying away from the beach, and the master had not, as yet, gone back aboard. Lycas flew into a towering rage when our flight was established for certain, and railed bitterly at Doris, whom he considered as the moving factor in it. Of the hard words and the beating he gave her I will say nothing, for the particulars are not known to me, but I will affirm that Tryphaena, who was the sole cause of the unpleasantness, persuaded Lycas to hunt for his fugitives in the house of Lycurgus, which was our most probable sanctuary. She volunteered to accompany him in person, so that she could load us with the abuse which we deserved at her hands. They set out on the following day and arrived at the estate of Lycurgus, but we were not there, for he had taken us to a neighboring town to attend the feast of Hercules, which was there being celebrated. As soon as they found out about this, they hastened to take to the road and ran right into us in the portico of the temple. At sight of them, we were greatly put out, and Lycas held forth violently to Lycurgus, upon the subject of our flight, but he was met with raised eyebrows and such a scowling forehead that I plucked up courage and, in a loud voice, passed judgment upon his lewd and base attempts and assaults upon me, not in the house of Lycurgus alone, but even under his own roof: and as for the meddling Tryphaena, she received her just deserts, for, at great length, I described her moral turpitude to the crowd, our altercation had caused a mob to collect, and, to give weight to my argument, I pointed to limber-hamed Giton, drained dry, as it were, and to myself, reduced almost to skin and bones by the raging lust of that nymphomaniac harlot. So humiliated were our enemies by the guffaws of the mob, that in gloomy ill-humor they beat a retreat to plot revenge. As they perceived that we had prepossessed the mind of Lycurgus in our favor, they decided to await his return, at his estate, in order that they might wean him away from his misapprehension.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  On the left hangs Judas; on the right the Pope. Bags bulging with money decorate the papal shield, indicating that, like Judas, the Pope had sold Christ for money.’ He even went so far as to describe this work as his ‘testament’, and after his death the catchphrase ‘Living I was your plague, dying | will be your death O Pope’, so often attached to images of the reformer, gave expression to this implacable hatred.* Luther’s prophecy was fulfilled, for the scurrilous images became an important part of his legacy. They were adapted and reprinted for the next hundred years and beyond, and the mutual hatred and incomprehension turned into images soured denominational relations for centuries to come, and made religious peace far harder to broker. Luther was a grand hater, but not all of his enmities were of the same kind. His attitude to the Turks, for example, was surprisingly nuanced even though the threat from the Ottoman Empire became ever greater as it conquered parts of Hungary and besieged Vienna. Throughout his life he consistently rejected the idea of a crusade, insisting that the Turks should not be attacked because of their faith.” During the early years of 384 MARTIN LUTHER 64. The Birth of the Pope and Cardinals. These prints could be bought singly or as a set, and they could then be coloured. Decorated with verses in Latin, and full of classical allusions, they were intended for an educated audience. Here the Pope is shown being suckled by a hag and surrounded by Furies with snake-like hair. the Reformation, he does not seem to have been particularly exercised by the issue: Christians, he argued, should improve their own lives and fight the Pope rather than attack the Turks. Indeed, by refusing to iden- tify the Antichrist as the Turk, as was usual — he reserved that title for the Pope — he also downplayed the threat. This did not pass unnoticed: as Luther later reminisced, the bull of 1520 also condemned him for the stance he took on the Turks. There may have been a simple reason for his position: like many of his contemporaries, Luther seems to have regarded calls for a crusade as attempts by the papacy to manipulate the emperor and the princes; the Saxon Elector also resisted such calls. By 1529, however, the Turks had seized large parts of Hungary, and Luther, like his contemporaries, was forced to confront the question HATREDS 385 of Islam intellectually.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  1543. StadtA Witt, Bc 38 [49], fo. roo. In a letter to Georg Buchholzer of 1 September 1543, Luther praised Buchholzer for preaching vigorously against the Jews, and argued that Agricola could not have made the sayings attrib- uted to him in protection of the Jews. But if he had, then he would not be the Elector’s preacher ‘but a true devil, letting his sayings be so shamefully misused to the damnation of all those who associate with Jews’ (WB Io, 3909, 389:24-6). Von den Jiiden appeared in January 1543, Vom Schem Hamphoras in March that year, and shortly after, Von den letzten Worten Davids, a third work against the Jews was published; Kaufmann, Luthers Juden, 136. Written in German, they addressed a wide lay public. Luther, Von den Jiiden vnd jren Liigen. Vom Schem Hamphoras, Leipzig 1577 [VD 16 L 7155]; Luther, Drey Christliche/ In Gottes Wort wolgegriindte Tractat Der Erste Von dem hohen vermeynten Jiidischen Geheymnuf/ dem Schem-Hamphoras . . ., Frankfurt, 1617 [VD 17 3:306053V] WB 1, 7 [Feb. 1514]; see, however, WB 1, 61, 22 Feb. 1518; Zika, Reuchlin; Zika, ‘Reuchlin’s De Verbo Mirifico and the Magic Debate of the late fifteenth century’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 39, 1976, 104-38. See Jonathan Sheehan, ‘Sacred and Profane: Idolatry, Antiquarianism and the Polemics of Distinction in the Seventeenth Century’, Past and Present 192, 2006, 35-66. See StadtA Witt, 9 [Bb 6], ‘Rabini Schemham- phoras’ for a seventeenth-century crude single-leaf woodcut of the relief accompanied by a poem. 38. 39. 4O. 4I. 43. NOTES TO PAGES 391-397 533 WS 53, 587:2-4;21-3; 636:33-637:5. WS 53, 542:5-7. Kaufmann, Luthers Juden, 109-11, 119, 136. He also discussed the progress of his writings in letters to Jonas; Greschat, Bucer, 156-8. Scott Hendrix, “Toleration of the Jews in the German Reformation: Urbanus Rhegius and Braunschweig 1535-1540’ in Hendrix, Tradition and Authority, 193-201. Osiander, Ob es war un[d] glablich sey. Osiander, who was an outstanding Hebrew scholar, distanced himself from Luther's Vom Schem Hamphoras in a letter in Hebrew to Elias Levita; when this became public, Melanchthon sought to prevent Luther from hearing about it, fearing his reaction; Kaufmann, Luthers Juden, 138; Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism, 265. Johannes Eck, Ains Juden biiechlins verlegung darin ain Christ, gantzer Christenhait zu schmach, will es geschehe den Juden vnrecht in bezichtigung der Christen kinder mordt . . . ; hierin findst auch vil histori, was iibels vnd biicherey die Juden in allem teiitschen Land, vnd dndern Kiinigreichen gestift haben, Ingolstadt, 1541 [VD 16 E 383]. Like Luther, he also drew on Der gantz Jiidisch glaub (The Entire Jewish Faith), written by the converted Jew Anton Margaritha and published at Augsburg in 1530. It was one of the chief sources for Luther’s On the Jews and their Lies. LW 47, 219; WS 53, 483:34-5- WS 53, 614:3I-2; 615:1-2.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  This breezy indifference to formalities is one of Luther’s most appealing characteristics. A brilliant, engaging personal correspondent, he had a sure sense of what would make his recipient laugh. He inquired about illness with genuine interest, but he also knew exactly how to cut to the chase, confronting a correspondent’s anguish with directness. More than anything else, the letters give us a sense of the charisma he must have radiated, and the sheer delight his correspondents must have experienced in being his friends. It was Luther’s vivid friendships and enmities that convinced me that he had to be understood through his relationships, and not as the lone hero of Reformation myth. Luther’s theology was formed in dialogue and debate with others—and it is no accident that the disputation, the form in which he proposed the Ninety-five Theses, remained an intellectual tool he cherished right up to his death. This book also presents an unfamiliar picture of Luther’s theology. We are used to regarding him as the advocate of “salvation by grace alone,” the man who insisted on sola scriptura, the principle that the Bible is sole authority on matters of doctrine. But just as important to Luther himself was his insistence on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This is probably the issue many modern Protestants, suspicious of ritual and of the idea that the divine can be manifest in objects, find most alien. Yet the question dominated Luther’s later years and mobilized his deepest energies; it also split the Reformation. It was here that Luther was at his most original as a thinker, refusing to make the easy distinction between sign and signified, and insisting that Christ really was present in the Eucharist, which truly was the body and blood of Christ. Though he was an intellectual, Luther mistrusted “reason, the whore,” as he called it.20 His position on the Eucharist was at one with his striking ease with physicality, a trait that modern biographies find it hard to come to terms with. A deeply anti-ascetic thinker, Luther constantly undermined and subverted the distinction between flesh and spirit, and this aspect of his thought is among his most compelling legacies. This is also why his theology has to be understood in relation to Luther the man. Luther’s Reformation unleashed passionate emotions: anger, fear, and hatred as well as joy and excitement. Luther himself was a deeply emotional individual, yet much of the history of the Reformation edits those emotions out, as unbecoming or irrelevant to the development of his theology. It is hard for historians and theologians to tackle what now seems so alien, his disturbing obsession with the Devil, virulent anti-Semitism, and crude polemic. Exploring his inner world, however, and the context into which his ideas and passions flooded, opens up a new vision of the Reformation.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  This was a stinging rebuke, for in a society which depended on people giving their word, to insult someone as dishonest was to attack their manhood and respectability. Karlstadt THE BLACK BEAR INN 243 also accused Luther of stopping him from preaching and publishing. In words that evoked Christ’s flagellation, he said: “Was I not bound and struck when you alone wrote, printed and preached against me and arranged that my books were taken from the press and that I was forbidden to write and preach?” The two men argued for a long time, sometimes falling silent. They knew each other well, and their jibes hit home. You ‘go about in a grandiose fashion, boast grandly, and want only yourself to be exalted and noticed’, Luther told Karlstadt. “You must always speak in such a way that you maintain your reputation and stir up hatred for other people’, Karlstadt replied. In the midst of these highly emotional exchanges, Karlstadt turned to the audience and declared: ‘Dear brothers, I pray you, don’t pay attention to my harsh speech. Such harsh speech is a matter of my complexion but my heart is not on that account wicked or angry.’ With anger being a deadly sin, Karlstadt here drew on the theory of the humours to explain that he was a choleric individual, but his ‘heart’ was not therefore full of anger, nor was it wicked.* Luther taunted Karlstadt with not daring to attack him in public; Karlstadt retorted that it was Luther who was preventing him from doing so. Then, taking a coin from his pocket, Luther announced: ‘If you do, I will present you with a guilder for it.’ Karlstadt accepted the challenge, took the coin, ‘showed it to all bystanders’ and declared: ‘Dear brothers, this is a pledge, a sign, that I have authority to write against Dr Luther.’ Karlstadt bent the guilder and put it in his purse. The two men shook hands and Luther drank a toast to Karlstadt. Then they parted.’ It was a momentous meeting. By bending the coin, Karlstadt took it out of circulation and marked it forever as a token. This was common sixteenth-century practice: binding marriages could be concluded by giving a coin as a token, while commercial contracts, agreed without paper records, were given force by rituals like the handshake and the drink. Yet the meaning of this ritual was not clear. Luther regarded it as a declaration of enmity, a formal initiation of feud; Karlstadt, as his right to publish. Martin Reinhard published a pamphlet describing the event, so for once Luther did not have control of the propaganda.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  3 The Leipzig Debate had originated in Karlstadt’s reply to Eck’s refutation of the Ninety-five Theses, the “Obelisks,” in late spring 1518. Eck had tried to prevent a debate on the grounds that his “Obelisks” were intended for private discussion only, but by then Karlstadt’s 406 theses had already been printed. The Elector issued Karlstadt with a safe conduct to engage Eck in disputation. In the meantime, insults had begun to fly—Luther predicted that Karlstadt would leave Eck “a dead lion”—and the temperature of the discussion became unusually heated. 4 In January 1519, Karlstadt teamed up with Lucas Cranach to produce a giant satirical cartoon that soon became known as Karlstadt’s Wagon, depicting Eck driving a wagon all the way into the fires of hell. The cartoon was published first in Latin, and then, in a sign of the times, in German. As visual propaganda, it was not exactly a success. So many words litter the drawing that the viewer can hardly discern the image: Even the figure of God the Father is hidden by text. Indeed, even Karlstadt’s supporters told him that they could not understand its message. In response, the intellectual Karlstadt produced more words, writing a fifty-five-page treatise of explanation. 5 Still, the cartoon had some impact: It was one of Eck’s major complaints to the Elector. The humanist theologian was particularly insulted by the fact that his likeness had been labeled “own will,” mocking his belief in the role of the individual in reaching salvation as though he were just determined to have his own way. 22. Lucas Cranach the Elder, Karlstadt’s Wagon . Divided horizontally into two halves, the woodcut shows a wagon driven by an old man in a beard, the true Christian, leading to the Cross. Behind it stands the “hidden God,” Christ in suffering, an idea Luther had been developing in the Ninety-five Theses and in the Heidelberg Debate. Below, a wagon driven by Eck leads to hell. Only faith in Christ, the cartoon argues, can lead the believer to truth. In the lower part of the picture, devils nuzzle up to Eck and cluster around the corners of the image as the wagon descends inexorably toward the fires of hell, while Eck and his Thomist allies repeat the old formulae of scholastic theology. Detail left Detail right Eck, however, wanted to tangle with the master himself, and had suggested such a possibility when he met Luther in Augsburg.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  He wondered if they wanted to go to bed themselves. He then walked into the next room, presumably the privy, and as he crossed the threshold, he spoke the words “Into your hand I commend my spirit, You have redeemed me, God of truth.” Returning to bed, he shook each person’s hand and wished them good night, telling them to pray for God and his gospel, “because the Council of Trent”—the meeting of the council of the Catholic Church that initiated the Counter-Reformation had finally begun in December 1545—“and the evil Pope fights bitterly with him.” 15 Jonas, Luther’s two sons Martin and Paul, his servant Ambrosius, and other servants kept watch by the bed. Around one in the morning he awoke, complaining again of cold and pain in the chest. “I think I will stay here at Eisleben where I was born and baptized,” he told Jonas with his usual wry humor. Again he walked into the privy unaided, repeating the same words as before. 16 Johann Aurifaber, Coelius, two doctors, the owner of the house, and a clutch of local dignitaries and their wives had joined those looking after him, and he was again rubbed and given warmed cushions. 17 He did not receive the last rites, in line with his conviction that extreme unction was not a sacrament: He trusted instead in his baptism. Luther spoke his final prayer, thanking God “that you revealed to me your dear Son Jesus Christ, in whom I believe, whom I have preached and proclaimed [and] whom the accursed Pope and all the godless shame, persecute and blaspheme against.” Even at the last, Luther balanced his love with his anger. 18 Another valuable medicine was tried, but Luther said, “I am traveling hence, I will relinquish my spirit.” Again he repeated three times very quickly, in Latin, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit, You have redeemed me, God of Truth,” after which he fell silent. Jonas and Coelius now asked him, “Reverend Father, will you die faithful to Christ and to the doctrine you have preached?” “Yes,” Luther replied clearly, so that all those around could hear him. He fell asleep again and, after a quarter of an hour, he gave up his spirit “in stillness and great patience.” Jonas and Coelius, who wrote the account, noted that “no one could discern (to this we bear witnesses before God on our consciences) any unrest or discomfort of his body, or pains of death.” 19 Luther died, as he had lived, in public.