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.

Page 74 of 447 · 20 per page

• 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)

  I gave to the bulwarks of Rome, now, I hate them. My Gifts I repent! The same God who built up their dominion Shall bring down destruction upon it. In burning their manhood My heart shall delight and its blood-lust shall slake with their slaughter. Now Philippi’s field I can see strewn with dead of two battles And Thessaly’s funeral pyres and Iberia mourning. Already the clangor of arms thrills my ears, and rings loudly: Thou, Lybian Nile, I can see now thy barriers groaning And Actium’s gulf and Apollo’s darts quailing the warriors! Then, open thy thirsty dominions and summon fresh spirits; For scarce will the ferryman’s strength be sufficient to carry The souls of the dead in his skiff: ‘tis a fleet that is needed! Thou, Pallid Tisiphone, slake with wide ruin, thy thirsting And tear ghastly wounds: mangled earth sinks to hell and the spirits.’” CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SECOND. “But scarce had she finished, when trembled the clouds; and a gleaming Bright flash of Jove’s lightning transfixed them with flame and was gone. The Lord of the Shades blanched with fear, at this bolt of his brother’s, Sank back, and drew closely together the gorge in Earth’s bosom. By auspices straightway the slaughter of men and the evils Impending are shown by the gods. Here, the Titan unsightly Blood red, veils his face with a twilight; on strife fratricidal Already he gazed, thou hadst thought! There, silvery Cynthia Obscuring her face at the full, denied light to the outrage. The mountain crests riven by rock-slides roll thundering downward And wandering rivers, to rivulets shrunk, writhed no longer Familiar marges between. With the clangor of armor The heavens resound; from the stars wafts the thrill of a trumpet Sounding the call to arms. AEtna, now roused to eruption Unwonted, darts flashes of flame to the clouds. Flitting phantoms Appear midst the tombs and unburied bones, gibbering menace A comet, strange stars in its diadem, leads a procession And reddens the skies with its fire. Showers of blood fall from heaven These portents the Deity shortly fulfilled! For now Caesar Forsook vacillation and, spurred by the love of revenge, sheathed The Gallic sword; brandished the brand that proclaimed civil warfare. There, high in the Alps, where the crags, by a Greek god once trodden, Slope down and permit of approach, is a spot ever sacred To Hercules’ altar; the winter with frozen snow seals it And rears to the heavens a summit eternally hoary, As though the sky there had slipped down: no warmth from the sunbeams, No breath from the Springtime can soften the pile’s wintry rigor Nor slacken the frost chains that bind; and its menacing shoulders The weight of the world could sustain. With victorious legions These crests Caesar trod and selected a camp. Gazing downwards On Italy’s plains rolling far, from the top of the mountain, He lifted both hands to the heavens, his voice rose in prayer:

• From Satyricon (1)

  I gave to the bulwarks of Rome, now, I hate them. My Gifts I repent! The same God who built up their dominion Shall bring down destruction upon it. In burning their manhood My heart shall delight and its blood-lust shall slake with their slaughter. Now Philippi’s field I can see strewn with dead of two battles And Thessaly’s funeral pyres and Iberia mourning. Already the clangor of arms thrills my ears, and rings loudly: Thou, Lybian Nile, I can see now thy barriers groaning And Actium’s gulf and Apollo’s darts quailing the warriors! Then, open thy thirsty dominions and summon fresh spirits; For scarce will the ferryman’s strength be sufficient to carry The souls of the dead in his skiff: ‘tis a fleet that is needed! Thou, Pallid Tisiphone, slake with wide ruin, thy thirsting And tear ghastly wounds: mangled earth sinks to hell and the spirits.’” CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SECOND. “But scarce had she finished, when trembled the clouds; and a gleaming Bright flash of Jove’s lightning transfixed them with flame and was gone. The Lord of the Shades blanched with fear, at this bolt of his brother’s, Sank back, and drew closely together the gorge in Earth’s bosom. By auspices straightway the slaughter of men and the evils Impending are shown by the gods. Here, the Titan unsightly Blood red, veils his face with a twilight; on strife fratricidal Already he gazed, thou hadst thought! There, silvery Cynthia Obscuring her face at the full, denied light to the outrage. The mountain crests riven by rock-slides roll thundering downward And wandering rivers, to rivulets shrunk, writhed no longer Familiar marges between. With the clangor of armor The heavens resound; from the stars wafts the thrill of a trumpet Sounding the call to arms. AEtna, now roused to eruption Unwonted, darts flashes of flame to the clouds. Flitting phantoms Appear midst the tombs and unburied bones, gibbering menace A comet, strange stars in its diadem, leads a procession And reddens the skies with its fire. Showers of blood fall from heaven These portents the Deity shortly fulfilled! For now Caesar Forsook vacillation and, spurred by the love of revenge, sheathed The Gallic sword; brandished the brand that proclaimed civil warfare. There, high in the Alps, where the crags, by a Greek god once trodden, Slope down and permit of approach, is a spot ever sacred To Hercules’ altar; the winter with frozen snow seals it And rears to the heavens a summit eternally hoary, As though the sky there had slipped down: no warmth from the sunbeams, No breath from the Springtime can soften the pile’s wintry rigor Nor slacken the frost chains that bind; and its menacing shoulders The weight of the world could sustain. With victorious legions These crests Caesar trod and selected a camp. Gazing downwards On Italy’s plains rolling far, from the top of the mountain, He lifted both hands to the heavens, his voice rose in prayer:

• From Satyricon (1)

  But Ascyltos threw off all restraint and ridiculed everything; throwing up his hands, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. At last, one of Trimalchio’s fellow-freedmen, the one who had the place next to me, flew into a rage, “What’s the joke, sheep’s-head,” he bawled, “Don’t our host’s swell entertainment suit you? You’re richer than he is, I suppose, and used to dining better! As I hope the guardian spirit of this house will be on my side, I’d have stopped his bleating long ago if I’d been sitting next to him. He’s a peach, he is, laughing at others; some vagabond or other from who-knows-where, some night-pad who’s not worth his own piss: just let me piss a ring around him and he wouldn’t know where to run to! I ain’t easy riled, no, by Hercules, I ain’t, but worms breed in tender flesh. Look at him laugh! What the hell’s he got to laugh at? Is his family so damned fine-haired? So you’re a Roman knight! Well, I’m a king’s son! How’s it come that you’ve been a slave, you’ll ask because I put myself into service because I’d rather be a Roman citizen than a tax-paying provincial. And now I hope that my life will be such that no one can jeer at me. I’m a man among men! I take my stroll bareheaded and owe no man a copper cent. I never had a summons in my life and no one ever said to me, in the forum, pay me what you owe me. I’ve bought a few acres and saved up a few dollars and I feed twenty bellies and a dog. I ransomed my bedfellow so no one could wipe his hands on her bosom; a thousand dinars it cost me, too. I was chosen priest of Augustus without paying the fee, and I hope that I won’t need to blush in my grave after I’m dead. But you’re so busy that you can’t look behind you; you can spot a louse on someone else, all right, but you can’t see the tick on yourself. You’re the only one that thinks we’re so funny; look at your professor, he’s older than you are, and we’re good enough for him, but you’re only a brat with the milk still in your nose and all you can prattle is ‘ma’ or ‘mu,’ you’re only a clay pot, a piece of leather soaked in water, softer and slipperier, but none the better for that. You’ve got more coin than we have, have you? Then eat two breakfasts and two dinners a day. I’d rather have my reputation than riches, for my part, and before I make an end of this--who ever dunned me twice? In all the forty years I was in service, no one could tell whether I was free or a slave. I was only a long-haired boy when I came to this colony and the town house was not built then. I did my best to please my master and he was a digniferous and majestical gentleman whose nail-parings were worth more than your whole carcass. I had enemies in his house, too, who would have been glad to trip me up, but I swam the flood, thanks to his kindness. Those are the things that try your mettle, for it’s as easy to be born a gentleman as to say, ‘Come here.’ Well, what are you gaping at now, like a billy-goat in a vetch-field?”

• From Satyricon (1)

  But his passion for dancing was interrupted at this stage by a stenographer who read aloud, as if he were reading the public records, “On the seventh of the Kalends of July, on Trimalchio’s estates near Cumae, were born thirty boys and forty girls: five hundred pecks of wheat were taken from the threshing floors and stored in the granaries: five hundred oxen were put to yoke: the slave Mithridates was crucified on the same date for cursing the genius of our master, Gaius: on said date ten million sesterces were returned to the vaults as no sound investment could be found: on said date, a fire broke out in the gardens at Pompeii, said fire originating in the house of Nasta, the bailiff.” “What’s that?” demanded Trimalchio. “When were the gardens at Pompeii bought for me?” “Why, last year,” answered the stenographer, “for that reason the item has not appeared in the accounts.” Trimalchio flew into a rage at this. “If I’m not told within six months of any real estate that’s bought for me,” he shouted, “I forbid it’s being carried to my account at all!” Next, the edicts of his aediles were read aloud, and the wills of some of his foresters in which Trimalchio was disinherited by a codicil, then the names of his bailiffs, and that of a freedwoman who had been repudiated by a night watchman, after she had been caught in bed with a bath attendant, that of a porter banished to Baioe, a steward who was standing trial, and lastly the report of a decision rendered in the matter of a lawsuit, between some valets. When this was over with, some rope dancers came in and a very boresome fool stood holding a ladder, ordering his boy to dance from rung to rung, and finally at the top, all this to the music of popular airs; then the boy was compelled to jump through blazing hoops while grasping a huge wine jar with his teeth. Trimalchio was the only one who was much impressed by these tricks, remarking that it was a thankless calling and adding that in all the world there were just two things which could give him acute pleasure, rope-dancers and horn blowers; all other entertainments were nothing but nonsense. “I bought a company of comedians,” he went on, “but I preferred for them to put on Atellane farces, and I ordered my flute-player to play Latin airs only.” CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FOURTH.

• 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 Martin Luther (2016)

  The Nestorians insisted on the absolute separation of divine and human nature in the person of Jesus Christ. The sacramentarians’ starting point was that there was a fundamental division between things of the flesh and things of the spirit, hence their view that Christ's body could not be both in heaven and in the Host; but insisting that the sacrament was a spiritual event was not to deny the humanity of Christ. Luther was prepared to make the accusation because by this stage too sharp a distinction between flesh and spirit seemed to him to under- mine the Real Presence, a doctrine which was starting to take on the 354 MARTIN LUTHER status of a totemic truth. He went still further in his Admonition to Prayer Against the Turks in 1541, where he listed the followers of Mintzer and Zwingli and the Anabaptists in the same breath as ‘cursedly evil sects and heresies’. Then, in 1544, he lost all restraint in A Brief Confes- sion of Dr Martin Luther on the Holy Sacrament, in which he called Zwingli a ‘heathen’ who held beliefs about the sacrament which meant that ‘the salvation of his soul must be doubted’. The work began with Luther invoking his own impending death — ‘I, who am now going towards my grave’ — and it enshrined his insulting treatment of Zwingli within a major doctrinal writing, as his testament. The Zwinglians then published Luther’s confession alongside their own statement of faith concerning the sacrament, and so began another unseemly pamphlet war between the sacramentarians and the Lutherans.* By the time Luther died in 1546, it looked as if the Protestants were hope- lessly divided, their antagonisms more bitter than ever.* Luther kept on attacking the sacramentarian position despite the political need for their support because it struck at the heart of a theology that was slowly coalescing into a Church; he was no longer, it seemed, interested in reforming the whole of Christianity, but rather saw it in local terms only. As a result, he was less and less interested in compromise, and more determined to protect doctrinal purity in accordance with his own beliefs.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  16 The fact that the man who had conferred Luther’s doctoral degree on him now enthusiastically joined his junior colleague signaled a profound change in Luther’s position within the university and the order. “You know the brilliance of those who support us,” he wrote to Trutfetter; the whole university, he averred, was on his side. 17 The battle lines were now being drawn. The debate at Heidelberg was a turning point because it showed that Luther’s emerging theology was going beyond the criticism of indulgences. It had brought new followers, in particular Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito, who would promote his ideas beyond the Nuremberg network to the humanists of southern Germany. As a Dominican, Bucer was a particularly surprising convert. A student at the University of Heidelberg and a passionate follower of Erasmus, he took careful notes on the disputation and would eventually leave his order—deeply moved by what he had witnessed, he wrote to his friend the humanist Beatus Rhenanus, “as if in a dream.” 18 He became one of the most important theologians of the Reformation, and a powerful advocate of unity and compromise among the evangelicals. Capito, a Benedictine, was cathedral preacher and university professor at Basle, another important intellectual center; he was also a friend of Albrecht of Mainz. Other members of the audience at Heidelberg were Theobald Billican, Martin Frecht, and Johannes Brenz, who would all become future leaders of the Reformation in southern Germany. 19 The disputation made a huge impression on each of them, changing their lives forever, even if they would not agree with all of Luther’s later teachings. But once back in Wittenberg, the optimism of the spring quickly dissipated. Trutfetter had written, repeating what he had said at Erfurt, but his tone was now much more bitter, Luther told Lang, “than what you heard at the meeting of the chapter.” 20 Worse, Johannes Eck, one of Germany’s leading humanists and theologians, and a man whom Luther had counted a friend, had penned a refutation of the Ninety-five Theses. Luther had read Eck’s text, titled the “Obelisks” and circulating in manuscript, before his journey to Heidelberg. He had composed a reply he wittily named the “Asterisks,” but had put the matter aside to deal with until after his return. * Luther had evidently assumed that Eck was “one of us,” and he felt stabbed in the back, complaining that Eck should have followed the gospel and admonished his brother “in private.” 21 His letter to Eck, written in May when his temper had cooled somewhat, was a controlled expression of anger and hurt.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Nor did Luther like the way the younger man insisted on following his “authority” all the time: The cause was common and shared. 50 Yet the very next day Luther was already contradicting himself, writing that “it’s my cause and mine even more than yours.” 51 The reliance on the younger man was both frustrating and infuriating: “I don’t know what to say, I’m so attacked by the thoughts about your extremely evil and completely vacuous worries, since I know I’m talking to a deaf person.” He accused him of trusting in himself alone, and failing to trust others. “I have been in greater trouble than I hope you ever will be,” he admonished him. “So why don’t you believe us, who speak to you not out of flesh or the world but out of Holy Spirit?” 52 Whereas he had previously refused to reply, Luther now undertook a virtual letter-writing campaign. He told Jonas that Melanchthon’s problem was that he trusted in philosophy too much, and Johannes Brenz that Melanchthon should stop playing the martyr. 53 He even accused him of lacking manly courage: “At least if I were being killed by papists I would protect our successors bravely and I would take revenge.” 54 Brenz replied that Melanchthon was no coward; his tears were just spurring him on to pray, and how could one pray properly if the matter did not touch one’s conscience and feeling? 55 It is clear that Luther was trying to reassert control over a movement that he feared was slipping from his grasp. By first withholding advice and then attacking Melanchthon at his most vulnerable, Luther made him reliant on his pastoral direction. In reality, Melanchthon had been working around the clock, revising the Apology, the elaboration of the confession that was published in 1531, and simultaneously negotiating with all sides. It was he, not Luther, who had been responsible not only for the final draft of the major and lasting confessional document summarizing the Lutheran faith, but for its defense as well. Luther’s tiresome wrangling with Melanchthon confronted Luther with his own mortality, no doubt the result of the death of his father. “As I presume through weariness of old age and [bad] health and more truly of life that I think I won’t have to see and endure this accursed life for long,” he wrote. 56 He knew that his own death would raise the issue of succession. We cannot let Bugenhagen go, he mused to Melanchthon, as he contemplated his secondment to Lübeck; we need him in so many areas, in the schools, at Wittenberg; we will need others to take over after me. 57 Yet Bugenhagen was about the same age as Luther; Melanchthon, nearly fifteen years younger, would be his obvious successor.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Here Bucer explained that since they too held that the true body of Christ was present and eaten in Communion there really was no difference between their positions. 31 It was such an extraordinary concession that Melanchthon thought he was insincere, and Luther was outraged: “I won’t answer Martin Bucer’s letter. You know how I hate their games of dice and their slyness; they don’t please me. This is not what they have taught up to now, but they will neither recognize it nor do penance, rather they just continue to insist that there was no disagreement between us, so that we would have to admit that they taught truly but we had wrongly fought against them, or rather, that we were crazy.” 32 His response squandered the chance of a compromise that might have greatly strengthened the evangelical position. — L UTHER, alone in an isolated castle, complained bitterly that nobody wrote to him. He was exaggerating, but communication did thin when important negotiations were going on. To make things worse, ever since his father’s death he endured headaches that were like an uprising or tumult in his head, as if it were full of thunder, making him nearly faint. These were so severe that he was unable to write or read for days at a time, and he also developed toothache. 33 Stranded in Coburg—or Grobuk, as Luther, always a lover of anagrams, took to calling it—he had plenty of time to contemplate his physical ailments. Barely a letter went by without a mention of them, and discussion of illness became part of the currency of exchange between Melanchthon and Luther, as Luther worried about Melanchthon’s insomnia and Melanchthon scolded Luther for working too hard and not paying attention to his health. Luther saw a spiritual significance in these maladies, referring again to the “colaphizings” of the Devil, using St. Paul’s term for the beatings or buffetings around the head inflicted by the Devil, a term Luther had started to use in 1527. At that time, he had suffered from piles, and in 1528, in a letter to a fellow sufferer he gave an extraordinary description of the illness: “When emptying bowels the flesh around the border of the anal area was pushed out, swelling to about the size of a walnut, in which there was a mustard-seed-sized wounded spot. This spot was sorer the looser the bowels, and less painful the harder the poo. If it was mixed with blood, then there was a relief and almost pleasure in pooing, so that I was often inclined to defecate. And if it was touched with the finger, it itched pleasurably and the blood flowed.”

• From Satyricon (1)

  There was no torch to light the way for us, as we wandered around, nor did the silence of midnight give promise of our meeting any wayfarer with a light; in addition to this, we were drunk and unfamiliar with the district, which would confuse one, even in daylight, so for the best part of a mortal hour we dragged our bleeding feet over all the flints and pieces of broken tile, till we were extricated, at last, by Giton’s cleverness. This prudent youngster had been afraid of going astray on the day before, so he had taken care to mark all the pillars and columns with chalk. These marks stood out distinctly, even through the pitchy night, and by their brilliant whiteness pointed out the way for us as we wandered about. Nevertheless, we had no less cause for being in a sweat even when we came to our lodging, for the old woman herself had been sitting and swilling so long with her guests that even if one had set her afire, she would not have known it. We would have spent the night on the door-sill had not Trimalchio’s courier come up in state, with ten wagons; he hammered on the door for a short time, and then smashed it in, giving us an entrance through the same breach. (Hastening to the sleeping-chamber, I went to bed with my “brother” and, burning with passion as I was, after such a magnificent dinner, I surrendered myself wholly to sexual gratification.) Oh Goddesses and Gods, that purple night How soft the couch! And we, embracing tight; With every wandering kiss our souls would meet! Farewell all mortal woes, to die were sweet But my self-congratulation was premature, for I was overcome with wine, and when my unsteady hands relaxed their hold, Ascyltos, that never-failing well-spring of iniquity, stole the boy away from me in the night and carried him to his own bed, where he wallowed around without restraint with a “brother” not his own, while the latter, not noticing the fraud, or pretending not to notice it, went to sleep in a stranger’s arms, in defiance of all human rights. Awaking at last, I felt the bed over and found that it had been despoiled of its treasure: then, by all that lovers hold dear, I swear I was on the verge of transfixing them both with my sword and uniting their sleep with death. At last, however, I adopted a more rational plan; I spanked Giton into wakefulness, and, glaring at Ascyltos, “Since you have broken faith by this outrage,” I gritted out, with a savage frown, “and severed our friendship, you had better get your things together at once, and pick up some other bottom for your abominations!” He raised no objection to this, but after we had divided everything with scrupulous exactitude, “Come on now,” he demanded, “and we’ll divide the boy!” CHAPTER THE EIGHTIETH.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther had indeed been remarkably creative during his exile among the birds; he had finished the translation of the Old Testament, on which he had worked for twelve long years. But much of his creativity was powered by anger and hate. As Melanchthon sought to pacify, Luther poured out A Revocation of Purgatory—ironic, of course—the Letter to the Cardinal Archbishop of Mainz, and the Propositions Against the Whole School of Satan and All the Gates of Hell—all attacking Catholic theology and, when sold in Augsburg, giving him a voice at the Diet.84 In Warning to His Dear Germans (written in October but not printed until 1531), he laid into “the shameless mouth and bloodthirsty sophist,” his old enemy Dr. Eck, and excoriated the extravagance and splendor of the Diet “that would have shamed even Lord Envy and Mr. Liar.”85 But the very fluency of Luther’s pen sprang from the ease with which he articulated familiar rhetoric. He repeated arguments he had first developed ten years before, now clothed in bitter polemic. He was increasingly speaking to the converted, not to those wrestling with doubt. Indeed, he now risked becoming a parochial thinker. From the outset he had focused on his “dear Germans” in contrast to the hated welsch, or Latins, and this always limited his ability to think about the Church as a whole.86 This had been a strength, of course, for the Elector’s maneuvering had comprehensively excluded Zwingli and the sacramentarians from the Diet and allowed Luther’s supporters to negotiate without the need to take their opinions into account. But in the longer term it showed a fateful lack of vision, for as the sacramentarian cause was taken up and spread further by John Calvin, their exclusion from the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, just as they had been excluded in 1530, made that treaty utterly unworkable, contributing eventually to the Thirty Years’ War. [image "16. Consolidation" file=images/Rope_9780812996203_epub3_066_r1.jpg] [image "16. Consolidation" file=images/Rope_9780812996203_epub3_066_r1.jpg] THE DIET OF Augsburg appeared to have resulted in a complete political impasse. But in the years that followed, efforts to defend Protestantism, avoid war, and find a way forward continued. In February 1531, the Lutherans, under the leadership of electoral Saxony and Hesse, formed a defensive league, which became known as the League of Schmalkalden. It grew rapidly over the following years as more areas joined, and it soon became a major political force. Negotiations with the Catholics continued as well, now from a much stronger position; and in July 1532 the Peace of Nuremberg, signed by nine princes and twenty-four cities, secured a kind of informal toleration. The possessions of each side would be protected and the matter resolved at a future Church council, effectively lifting the Edict of Worms and its threatening provisions—and in practice recognizing that neither side could gain a complete victory, at least for the moment. Politics began to drive religion, and the process by which the empire would eventually become a chessboard of different denominations was under way.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther thundered from the sidelines, warning that “man is justified by faith apart from works of law….Let the Devil, Eck, Mainz, Heinz and anyone else rage against this. We shall see what they win.” 60 His lack of interest in the proceedings at Regensburg reflected his increasingly parochial understanding of the Church. At the meetings that resulted in the Wittenberg concord, Luther had acted out his role as “the father” of the movement, the title even the sacramentarians accorded him. 61 In reality, however, much of the leadership of the Reformation had long since been ceded to Melanchthon. When the English representatives of Henry VIII wanted to reach an accord with the Saxons, and when the French envoys of Francis I embarked on negotiations, it was to Melanchthon they wanted to speak, not Luther. 62 His ill health held the movement hostage, since negotiations had to be broken off or rescheduled because of his infirmities. Anger had always been allied to his greatest spurts of creativity, but now his irascibility made him a liability as a leader. Archives and Libraries Consulted Stadtarchiv Wittenberg Lutherhalle Wittenberg Evangelisches Predigerseminar Wittenberg Bibliothek Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar Landesarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt Abteilung Magdeburg, Standort Magdeburg Landesarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Standort Wernigerode Stadtarchiv Eisenach Stadtarchiv Eisleben Landesdenkmalamt Halle Marienbibliothek Halle Landesbibliothek Coburg Forschungsbibliothek Gotha Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel Primary Literature Acta et res gestae, D Martini Lvtheri [VD 16 ZV 61]. Adam, Melchior. The life and death of Dr. Martin Luther the passages whereof have bin taken out of his owne and other Godly and most learned, mens writings, who lived in his time. London, 1643. Agricola, Georg. De re metallica Libri XII. Basle, 1556 (repr. Wiesbaden, 2006). Ain löbliche ordnung der fürstlichen stat Wittemberg: Jm tausent fünf hundert vnd zway vnd zwaintzigsten jar auffgericht. Augsburg, 1522 [VD 16 W 3697]. Auerswald, Fabian von. Ringer kunst. Wittenberg, 1539 [VD 16 A 4051]. Aurifaber, Johannes, ed. Epistolae: continens scriptas ab anno Millesimo quingentesimo vigesimo usq[ue] ad annum vigesimum octauum. Vol. 2, 1594. Bavarus, Valentin. “Rapsodiae et Dicta quedam ex ore Doctoris Martini Lutheri.” Vol. 2, 1549. In Otto Scheel, ed., Dokumente zu Luthers Entwicklung. Vol. 1, Tübingen, 1929. Baylor, Michael, ed. and trans. Revelation and Revolution: Basic Writings of Thomas Müntzer. Bethlehem, PA, 1993. Best, Thomas W., ed. Eccius dedolatus: A Reformation Satire. Lexington, KY, 1971. Biering, Johann. Historische Beschreibung Des sehr alten und löblichen Mannßfeldischen Berg-Wercks Nach seinen Anfang, Fortgang, Fatis, Berg-Grentzen, Lehn-Briefen, Privilegiis, Zusammens. Leipzig and Eisleben, 1734. Bullinger, Heinrich. Warhaffte Bekanntnuß der Dieneren der Kirchen zuo Zürych, was sy uss Gottes Wort mit der heiligen allgemeinen christenlichen Kirchen gloubind und leerind, in Sonderheit aber von dem Nachtmal unsers Herren Jesu Christi: …mit zuogethoner kurtzer Bekenntniß D. Mart. Luthers vom heiligen Sacrament. Zurich, 1545 [VD 16 B 9770]. Büsser, Fritz, ed. Beschreibung des Abendmahlsstreites von Johann Stumpf. Auf Grund einer unbekannt gebliebenen Handschrift. Zurich, 1960. Capito, Wolfgang. Frohlockung eines christlichen Bruders von wegen der Vereinigung zwischen D.M.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Some of the rhetoric of To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation may echo what Luther might have heard at Mansfeld or at Eisenach as his parents’ generation grumbled about hard times in the mining industry. Some sections—on brothels, finance, and the law—reveal a man who looks over the monastery walls, who wants to intervene and change the secular world. This wider perspective may well have been won through the long journeys by foot he had made through central Germany on his way to Augsburg and Heidelberg, or through the men of influence he had met over the previous few years. It may also have been shaped by his discussions with Spalatin, well abreast of imperial as well as local politics. Luther now began to see it as his duty to take a stand on political matters: Lay society was no longer the world “outside,” which those who entered the monastery left behind once and for all.43 It was part of the parish for which Luther now had responsibility. —THEN, just a few months after To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, Luther published an even more radical treatise in October 1520, this time in Latin: De captivitate babylonica ecclesiae praeludium, or On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church.44 That month, he finally received his own official copy of the papal bull threatening excommunicaton and giving him sixty days to recant. The clock started ticking. The striking title of the treatise suggested that the Church was so corrupt that, like the Jews in Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, Christians were now in exile. When the emperor’s confessor read it, he was so shocked that he felt as if someone had “split him with a rod from head to toe.” He refused to believe that Luther had written it, because it lacked his former “skill.”45 But if he was the author, he mused, perhaps it had simply been written in a fit of rage in reaction to the bull. Had Luther simply fallen prey to anger, one of the seven deadly sins? His opponent Thomas Murner decided to translate the tract into German, because he was convinced that as soon as people read it, they would be appalled. He could hardly have made a bigger mistake. The translation appeared with what had now become the standard image of Luther—based on Cranach’s depiction of him as the pious monk—and, printed in Augsburg, it simply served to spread Luther’s teaching yet more widely.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Labor relations were therefore mediated, and when the miners rose up in protest against their conditions, as they did in 1507, they put their complaints to the counts in writing. The counts, for their part, knew not to try the patience of the miners too far: While they might have executed rebellious peasants, on this occasion they imposed whopping fines of a hundred guilders on the dozen or so ringleaders, but allowed them to pay by installment. 26 The authorities had to exert their power, but the highly skilled labor force was too precious to waste. Proud men who were aware of their skills, the miners did not give up and in 1511 they formed a brotherhood to advance their interests. 27 Court books from the period give some rare insight into what life was like in the world of mining. There were constant thefts of wood, ladders, and equipment from the shafts, and violence was never far away. 28 A man killed a prostitute in a brothel in nearby Hettstedt and was executed for it. Another slew a man and threw the body down a mine shaft—he too paid with his life—while a third attacked his own father, damaging his fist so seriously that he was unable to work. 29 Criminal law at the time mixed Roman law with older traditions that placed the emphasis on mediation. Thus murder could still be settled by paying the victim’s family compensation, though even so, between 1507 and 1509, at least three criminals were executed for murder. 30 There were constant quarrels between different groups of miners. The Haspeler, who wound the winches, hated the Sinker, who sank the shafts. The Sinker were mostly from Silesia and, scorning marriage, lived with girlfriends in houses near the mines where they also kept chickens and other livestock. 31 Mining was dangerous work. The tunnels that led off from the shafts were narrow, and miners had to work lying down on their bellies. There was little light. If the weather turned bad, the lamps would suddenly go out as sulfur gas accumulated in the mine shaft, poisoning any miners still below. It was believed that the gas was a product of the evil airs drawn from the brimstone and metals, rising in the tunnels and chilling men to death. 32 Mining was thirsty work, and as water was not drinkable, brewing was the town’s other major industry. Alcohol fueled quarrels, and since just about all men carried knives, fights tended to become bloody.

• From Satyricon (1)

  As the solemnities did not draw to a close until late at night, we could not reach Lycurgus’ country place, so he conducted us to a villa of his, situated near the halfway point of the journey, and, leaving us to sleep there until the next day, he set off for his estate for the purpose of transacting some business. Upon his arrival, he found Lycas and Tryphaena awaiting him, and they stated their case so diplomatically that they prevailed upon him to deliver us into their hands. Lycurgus, cruel by nature and incapable of keeping his word, was by this time striving to hit upon the best method of betraying us, and to that end, he persuaded Lycas to go for help, while he himself returned to the villa and had us put under guard. To the villa he came, and greeted us with a scowl as black as any Lycas himself had ever achieved, clenching his fists again and again, he charged us with having lied about Lycas, and, turning Ascyltos out, he gave orders that we were to be kept confined to the room in which we had retired to rest. Nor would he hear a word in our defense, from Ascyltos, but, taking the latter with him, he returned to his estate, reiterating his orders relative to our confinement, which was to last until his return. On the way back, Ascyltos vainly essayed to break down Lycurgus’ determination, but neither prayers nor caresses, nor even tears could move him. Thereupon my “brother” conceived the design of freeing us from our chains, and, antagonized by the stubbornness of Lycurgus, he positively refused to sleep with him, and through this he was in a better position to carry out the plan which he had thought out. When the entire household was buried in its first sleep, Ascyltos loaded our little packs upon his back and slipped out through a breach in the wall, which he had previously noted, arriving at the villa with the dawn. He gained entrance without opposition and found his way to our room, which the guards had taken the precaution to bar. It was easy to force an entrance, as the fastening was made of wood, which same he pried off with a piece of iron. The fall of the lock roused us, for we were snoring away, in spite of our unfortunate situation. On account of the long vigil, the guard was in such a deep sleep that we alone were wakened by the crashing fall of the lock, and Ascyltos, coming in, told us in a few words what he had done for us; but as far as that goes, not many were necessary. We were hurriedly dressing, when I was seized with the notion of killing the guard and stripping the place.

• From Shunned (2018)

  You’ve put him through a lot, and the only chance you have at forgiveness will be to eat some crow.” I stopped in my tracks, speechless. These comments came out of the blue. Did she think I’d come home to seek forgiveness from Ross, to reconcile with him? I searched my memory for some conversation—any conversation—that would have caused her to expect this and came up short. I’d never told my parents, or even Ross, the full nature of my intent in seeing him. He had a car title and other papers he wanted me to sign off on, and as far as he or anyone else knew, that was the main purpose of our meeting. After my initial shock wore off, I felt anger jump through me, a freight train of emotions that I caught in my throat—just in time. “Thanks, Mother,” I said, hearing, as I’m sure she did, the thinly veiled agitation in my voice. Forgiveness for what? For following my heart? For moving away from fearing the world to see instead a world of vibrant possibility? For this I must ask for forgiveness? It was too big to take on then and there. The weekend was just beginning, and I had an appointment to keep. This didn’t lessen my resolve, but it did make me dread my moment of truth, as I realized anew the full force of disappointment awaiting my mother. Ross was already seated at the table of my favorite breakfast spot in the city. I’d suggested this diner, an enclave for local writers and actors, because it was unlikely that we’d run into anyone we knew. I caught his eye and walked over to greet him. He smiled and stood, kissing me formally on the cheek. He looked as though he’d dropped a few pounds. “You look like you’ve lost weight,” he said. “I was just thinking the same thing about you,” I said, settling into the seat opposite his. “I owe it all to stress,” he said. “Me too.” “I already ordered you a latte,” he said, still familiar with some of my habits. The conversation was very ordinary, like one between two old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while. I asked about his job, his boss, his mom, and certain friends of ours. Things were easy between us. We ordered our usual meals, and then I pulled out a manila envelope stuffed with old photographs. “I thought you should have these,” I said. In the stress and confusion of our separation, I’d ended up with nine years’ worth of photos from our time together. In preparation for seeing him this last time, I’d gone through them all and pulled out things I knew Ross would like to have, pictures that were more his memories than mine. There were pictures of him at work, another of him with Ellen Kyte on the day of his baptism, another of he and his mom at the Portland Rose Garden.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther obeyed, and finished his doctoral studies in 1512, throwing a celebration to which he invited the entire monastery at Erfurt as well as guests from Wittenberg. Doctoral celebrations were major events, with processions through the town followed by a banquet—one fabled celebration involved a hundred guests and thirty-five guilders spent on the food alone, with drinking and dancing afterward attended by “honorable” women. Luther’s celebration would not have been in the same league, but the invitation to the Erfurt monks begins with the usual pieties, although it also opens with an unconventional excusing of his failure to make the customary statements about his unworthiness since this “would make him seem to be taking pride in or seeking praise for his humility.” He continues that “God knows, and my conscience also knows, how worthy and how suitable I am for this display of fame and honor,” by which he meant that God and his conscience knew how unworthy and unsuitable he truly was. Of course the remark can also be read literally to express his pride in what he himself described as his occasion of “pomp.”51 Staupitz had joked that getting a doctorate would give Luther work to do—a comment that was wonderfully ambiguous in German between “will give you a real job to do” and “will really cause you bother”—and he turned out to be right.52 The “real bother” was that several Erfurt Augustinians had been offended that he had pursued his studies at Wittenberg, and not Erfurt, where he had first matriculated. They tried to get the doctorate declared void and have him fined, on the grounds that he had broken the oath taken when he became a student at Erfurt that he would follow no other university. Luther replied that he had not actually sworn such an oath—it had been overlooked—but the damage had been done. What should have been a joyous occasion was marred by the envious attacks of men who had once been his teachers. Luther was particularly irritated by the fact that the assault was headed by Johannes Nathin, the man who had probably been his companion to Rome; this bitter betrayal may be another reason why his memories of Rome became so dark. Two years after the doctoral celebration, he was still complaining about his treatment, and objected in a letter to the Erfurt monastery to a new missive from Nathin, composed “as if in the name of you all,” that accused him of being a shameful perjurer. Luther insisted that he was neither a perjurer nor oath-breaker, and had good reason to be angry at the attack. But just as he had received undeserved blessings from the Lord, so now he wanted to set aside the bitterness his opponents deserved and accord them cordiality.53

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  As preparations began for another attempt to reconcile Catholics and Protestants at the Diet of Regensburg, Luther abandoned any residual willingness to compromise, and his polemic lost all restraint. In 1545 he produced the virulent, rambling Against the Roman Papacy an Institution of the Devil.3 The treatise lambastes Pope Paul III as a sodomite and transvestite, “the holy virgin, Madame Pope, St. Paula III,” and accuses all the popes through history of being “full of all the worst devils in hell—full, full, and so full that they can do nothing but vomit, throw, and blow out devils.” Using the rhetoric of oppositions that had characterized Melanchthon’s and Cranach’s Passional Christi und Antichristi in 1521, Luther contrasts Jesus’s refusal of the Devil’s offer of all the kingdoms of the world with the Pope’s lust for power: “Come here, Satan!” he has the Pope say. “And if you had more worlds than this, I would accept them all, and not only worship you, but also lick your behind.” Luther concluded, “All of this is sealed with the Devil’s own dirt, and written with the ass-pope’s farts.” A few extracts can barely give a flavor of the whole work: Even more extreme was the set of ten images intended to accompany this antipapal extravaganza, produced by the Cranach workshop, and designed by Luther himself.4 [image "62. Martin Luther, Ratschlag von der Kirchen , eins ausschus etlicher Cardinel , Bapst Paulo des namens dem dritten , auff seinen Befelh geschrieben vnd vberantwortet. Mit einer vorrede D. Mart. Luth., Wittenberg, 1538." file=images/Rope_9780812996203_epub3_074_r1.jpg] [image "62. Martin Luther, Ratschlag von der Kirchen , eins ausschus etlicher Cardinel , Bapst Paulo des namens dem dritten , auff seinen Befelh geschrieben vnd vberantwortet. Mit einer vorrede D. Mart. Luth., Wittenberg, 1538." file=images/Rope_9780812996203_epub3_074_r1.jpg] 62. Martin Luther, Ratschlag von der Kirchen, eins ausschus etlicher Cardinel, Bapst Paulo des namens dem dritten, auff seinen Befelh geschrieben vnd vberantwortet. Mit einer vorrede D. Mart. Luth., Wittenberg, 1538. Such works preached only to the converted—no Catholic would have been persuaded by these words and imagery of such violence—and Luther used every weapon at his disposal: scatology, images of demons and witches, sexual denigration, and animal imagery. Text and image were designed to create a sense of identity among the evangelical audience, united through hatred of the enemy. But it was also intended to provoke laughter, as Luther used coarse humor to destroy the papal aura of holiness. 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 I will be your death O Pope,” so often attached to images of the reformer, gave expression to this implacable hatred.5 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; the mutual hatred and incomprehension turned into images soured denominational relations for centuries to come, and made religious peace far harder to broker.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther began to discover a talent for mocking polemic. When the bishop of Meissen banned his Sermon on the Sacrament of the Body of Christ, he at once sat down and dashed off a reply in German. When the papal nuncio Karl von Miltitz read it, hot off the press and in the company of the bishop, he could not stop laughing—although the bishop did not join in. The author of the notice, Luther wrote, surely could not be the bishop of Meissen: Someone in his chancellery at Stolpen must have misused his seal. Playing on the word tolpisch, or “stupid,” he joked that the note will be viewed as more “tolpisch” than “stolpisch” (that is, from Stolpen), and advised the author to write in the “sober morning” and not when he’s “lost his brain up the Ketzberg mountain [vineyards]”—when he was drunk. The whole matter had been sparked by “Mr. Envy,” and what a shame it would have been had the “note” appeared at any time but carnival. But for all the jesting, Luther was serious, for the bishop himself must admit “that the whole sacrament consists in both kinds.” Catholic theology, Luther allowed, maintained that he who received only the bread “receives the whole Christ.” But, even so, Luther triumphantly concluded, he “receives only one part of the whole sacrament, that is, only one form of the two.”28 Once again Luther had pulled a fast one. He had not informed Spalatin before printing the sermon in 1519, although he was perfectly aware of the dynamite it contained. When he cheerily sent a copy to Spalatin, Luther knew it was too late for the courtier to ban it. Now, as he responded publicly to the bishop of Meissen, he again did not bother to check with Spalatin, who was furious when he read it. Luther reacted with splenetic indignation to Spalatin’s rebuke. I have written to you before, that you should not think this matter was conceived or done according to your or my understanding or indeed that of any man; for if it is of God, it will be accomplished far beyond, against, outside, above and below your and my comprehension….I beg you, if you understand the gospel rightly, don’t think that the matter can be done without revolt, offense and unrest. You can’t turn the sword into a feather, or make peace out of war: the Word of God is a sword. Moreover, he added in a postscript, Spalatin’s advice reached him late, when the booklet was “almost printed”—the “almost” clearly a slip, for if the book were indeed only almost printed, it could certainly have been withdrawn on Luther’s instructions.29