Sadness

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 House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Dune Tells Mindy How He Lost His Penis Mindy, the documentary filmmaker, was standing in her room at the House of Holes Hotel, working on a jigsaw puzzle of marbles in a bowl and listening to “32 Flavors” by Ani DiFranco. There was a knock on her door. She opened it and saw a long-haired, dark-eyed man standing in the hallway, wearing a fringed suede jacket. He was wildly handsome, and he smelled like old cigarettes. “Hey, I’m Dune,” he said. “They took away my penis, and I wonder if you can help me.” “If I can I will,” said Mindy. “What happened?” “Well, they did a switcheroo on me,” Dune said. “I’ve got a vagina now, and it’s a hot one, but every day of my life I want my own tackle back. You’re Mindy, am I correct?” “I am,” said Mindy. “Would you mind if I set up a video camera and got your story? I’m making a film about this place.” “That’s what I heard.” Mindy kicked the tripod mounts out and got her camera running. “Should I sit here?” Dune sat down heavily. “Hoo, I’m wiped.” “Would you like something to eat? I could make you an omelet.” “I’d love an omelet,” said Dune. “I’ve been flying a pornsucker around Providence, Rhode Island and I ache all over, and frankly I need the attention of a good woman.” Mindy cooked him a three-egg omelet and he ate it. “That was fine food,” he said. “What’s your secret?” “Butter and salt.” “So simple. Butter and salt. I’ll be fried.” Mindy cleared the plate away and clipped a microphone to Dune’s lapel. “So how exactly did you lose your penis?” Dune told Mindy all about when he lost control on the midway and stuck his pinky into Shandee’s pussy. Mindy, nodding encouragingly, checked the sound levels to be sure she was getting all of it. “So then I went to Lila and she said, ‘Okay for you, Mr. Pussyfinger,’ and she called in this woman who said she needed her own penis and a pair of balls—the whole desk set. She got what she wanted, from me.” Dune looked down and laughed sadly. “Ah, Mindy, you don’t want to hear my problems. I’m just broke, and I don’t have money for smokes.” Mindy brightened. “I have a couple of those little Winchester cigars in my purse for emergencies, hold on,” she said. “I just quit smoking, that’s why I’m doing this jigsaw puzzle.” “Thanks.” Dune lit the cigar and took a long squinty drag. “Hm, a nice little Winchester. My dad smoked Winchesters. ‘A whole nother smoke.’ ” “Dune, do you think you could show me your genitals? I’d like to get that on video.” Dune tapped his cigar. “A week ago if you’d have asked me if I’d bare my crotch for you, I would have said, Sure thing, right away.

• From The City of God

  Chapter 17. --Of the Disasters Which Vexed the Roman Republic After the Inauguration of the Consulship, and of the Non-Intervention of the Gods of Rome. After this, when their fears were gradually diminished,--not because the wars ceased, but because they were not so furious,--that period in which things were "ordered with justice and moderation" drew to an end, and there followed that state of matters which Sallust thus briefly sketches:"Then began the patricians to oppress the people as slaves, to condemn them to death or scourging, as the kings had done, to drive them from their holdings, and to tyrannize over those who had no property to lose. The people, overwhelmed by these oppressive measures, and most of all by usury, and obliged to contribute both money and personal service to the constant wars, at length took arms and seceded to Mount Aventine and Mount Sacer, and thus secured for themselves tribunes and protective laws. But it was only the second Punic war that put an end on both sides to discord and strife. " [151] But why should I spend time in writing such things, or make others spend it in reading them? Let the terse summary of Sallust suffice to intimate the misery of the republic through all that long period till the second Punic war,--how it was distracted from without by unceasing wars, and torn with civil broils and dissensions. So that those victories they boast were not the substantial joys of the happy, but the empty comforts of wretched men, and seductive incitements to turbulent men to concoct disasters upon disasters. And let not the good and prudent Romans be angry at our saying this; and indeed we need neither deprecate nor denounce their anger, for we know they will harbor none. For we speak no more severely than their own authors, and much less elaborately and strikingly; yet they diligently read these authors, and compel their children to learn them. But they who are angry, what would they do to me were I to say what Sallust says? "Frequent mobs, seditions, and at last civil wars, became common, while a few leading men on whom the masses were dependent, affected supreme power under the seemly pretence of seeking the good of senate and people; citizens were judged good or bad without reference to their loyalty to the republic (for all were equally corrupt); but the wealthy and dangerously powerful were esteemed good citizens, because they maintained the existing state of things. "Now, if those historians judged that an honorable freedom of speech required that they should not be silent regarding the blemishes of their own state, which they have in many places loudly applauded in their ignorance of that other and true city in which citizenship is an everlasting dignity; what does it become us to do, whose liberty ought to be so much greater, as our hope in God is better and more assured, when they impute to our Christ the calamities of this age, in order that men of the less instructed and weaker sort may be alienated from that city in which alone eternal and blessed life can be enjoyed? Nor do we utter against their gods anything more horrible than their own authors do, whom they read and circulate. For, indeed, all that we have said we have derived from them, and there is much more to say of a worse kind which we are unable to say.

• From The City of God

  Chapter 26. --Of the Various Kinds of Wars Which Followed the Building of the Temple of Concord. But they supposed that, in erecting the temple of Concord within the view of the orators, as a memorial of the punishment and death of the Gracchi, they were raising an effectual obstacle to sedition. How much effect it had, is indicated by the still more deplorable wars that followed. For after this the orators endeavored not to avoid the example of the Gracchi, but to surpass their projects; as did Lucius Saturninus, a tribune of the people, and Caius Servilius the praetor, and some time after Marcus Drusus, all of whom stirred seditions which first of all occasioned bloodshed, and then the social wars by which Italy was grievously injured, and reduced to a piteously desolate and wasted condition. Then followed the servile war and the civil wars; and in them what battles were fought, and what blood was shed, so that almost all the peoples of Italy, which formed the main strength of the Roman empire, were conquered as if they were barbarians! Then even historians themselves find it difficult to explain how the servile war was begun by a very few, certainly less than seventy gladiators, what numbers of fierce and cruel men attached themselves to these, how many of the Roman generals this band defeated, and how it laid waste many districts and cities. And that was not the only servile war:the province of Macedonia, and subsequently Sicily and the sea-coast, were also depopulated by bands of slaves. And who can adequately describe either the horrible atrocities which the pirates first committed, or the wars they afterwards maintained against Rome?

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Dune Tells Mindy How He Lost His Peni s M indy, the documentary filmmaker, was standing in her room at the House of Holes Hotel, working on a jigsaw puzzle of marbles in a bowl and listening to “32 Flavors” by Ani DiFranco. There was a knock on her door. She opened it and saw a long-haired, dark-eyed man standing in the hallway, wearing a fringed suede jacket. He was wildly handsome, and he smelled like old cigarettes. “Hey, I’m Dune,” he said. “They took away my penis, and I wonder if you can help me.” “If I can I will,” said Mindy. “What happened?” “Well, they did a switcheroo on me,” Dune said. “I’ve got a vagina now, and it’s a hot one, but every day of my life I want my own tackle back. You’re Mindy, am I correct?” “I am,” said Mindy. “Would you mind if I set up a video camera and got your story? I’m making a film about this place.” “That’s what I heard. ” Mindy kicked the tripod mounts out and got her camera running. “Should I sit here?” Dune sat down heavily. “Hoo, I’m wiped.” “Would you like something to eat? I could make you an omelet.” “I’d love an omelet,” said Dune. “I’ve been flying a pornsucker around Providence, Rhode Island and I ache all over, and frankly I need the attention of a good woman.” Mindy cooked him a three-egg omelet and he ate it. “That was fine food,” he said. “What’s your secret?” “Butter and salt.” “So simple. Butter and salt. I’ll be fried.” Mindy cleared the plate away and clipped a microphone to Dune’s lapel. “So how exactly did you lose your penis?” Dune told Mindy all about when he lost control on the midway and stuck his pinky into Shandee’s pussy. Mindy, nodding encouragingly, checked the sound levels to be sure she was getting all of it. “So then I went to Lila and she said, ‘Okay for you, Mr. Pussyfinger,’ and she called in this woman who said she needed her own penis and a pair of balls—the whole desk set. She got what she wanted, from me.” Dune looked down and laughed sadly. “Ah, Mindy, you don’t want to hear my problems. I’m just broke, and I don’t have money for smokes.” Mindy brightened. “I have a couple of those little Winchester cigars in my purse for emergencies, hold on,” she said. “I just quit smoking, that’s why I’m doing this jigsaw puzzle.” “Thanks.” Dune lit the cigar and took a long squinty drag. “Hm, a nice little Winchester. My dad smoked Winchesters. ‘A whole nother smoke.’ ” “Dune, do you think you could show me your genitals? I’d like to get that on video.” Dune tapped his cigar. “A week ago if you’d have asked me if I’d bare my crotch for you, I would have said, Sure thing, right away. Now I’m a bit skittish.

• From The City of God

  Chapter 23. --Of the Internal Disasters Which Vexed the Roman Republic, and Followed a Portentous Madness Which Seized All the Domestic Animals. But let us now mention, as succinctly as possible, those disasters which were still more vexing, because nearer home; I mean those discords which are erroneously called civil, since they destroy civil interests. The seditions had now become urban wars, in which blood was freely shed, and in which parties raged against one another, not with wrangling and verbal contention, but with physical force and arms. What a sea of Roman blood was shed, what desolations and devastations were occasioned in Italy by wars social, wars servile, wars civil! Before the Latins began the social war against Rome, all the animals used in the service of man--dogs, horses, asses, oxen, and all the rest that are subject to man--suddenly grew wild, and forgot their domesticated tameness, forsook their stalls and wandered at large, and could not be closely approached either by strangers or their own masters without danger. If this was a portent, how serious a calamity must have been portended by a plague which, whether portent or no, was in itself a serious calamity! Had it happened in our day, the heathen would have been more rabid against us than their animals were against them. Chapter 24. --Of the Civil Dissension Occasioned by the Sedition of the Gracchi. The civil wars originated in the seditions which the Gracchi excited regarding the agrarian laws; for they were minded to divide among the people the lands which were wrongfully possessed by the nobility. But to reform an abuse of so long standing was an enterprise full of peril, or rather, as the event proved, of destruction. For what disasters accompanied the death of the older Gracchus! what slaughter ensued when, shortly after, the younger brother met the same fate! For noble and ignoble were indiscriminately massacred; and this not by legal authority and procedure, but by mobs and armed rioters. After the death of the younger Gracchus, the consul Lucius Opimius, who had given battle to him within the city, and had defeated and put to the sword both himself and his confederates, and had massacred many of the citizens, instituted a judicial examination of others, and is reported to have put to death as many as 3000 men. From this it may be gathered how many fell in the riotous encounters, when the result even of a judicial investigation was so bloody. The assassin of Gracchus himself sold his head to the consul for its weight in gold, such being the previous agreement. In this massacre, too, Marcus Fulvius, a man of consular rank, with all his children, was put to death.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  And now comes Wade and Crackers, what a team—look at her fist fly on that eye- popping pink dick—ah, out it tosses!” More applause and cheering, and several women who’d been splashed jumped up and down flashing peace signs. Then there was a trumpeting noise. “And, oh dear, there goes Friggley, our pornmonster. Yeek, I don’t even know what that was, pumped off by Rhumpa, the Pearloiner, Donna, and Polly, all together. Very good effort, women—not at all disgusting. Let’s hear it for these resourceful jerkoff artists!” Lila turned and held a hand out. “And now—ah!—a tremendous sideways splash of semen from handsome Ruzty’s banana dick. Has he, yes, he’s taken the lead with a long arching slider. Ruzty’s ahead now. But now, last but never least, here’s Marcela, our dazzling heavy-dicked ladyboy, stroked by Dune. She’s new to having a penis, and it’s a biggie, and she has obviously taken to it in a major way. But she’s almost out of time. Will she get there? Will she shoot? She’s working her hips, she’s almost—now”—suddenly an enormous “Graaaawh!” was ripped from Marcela’s throat—“blowing a—whoa, shit!—a glorious spunkbomb of Elmer’s goo from that prodigious transplasmic dick of hers! My gravy! Stroked by Dune, like the master cockjerking bad boy you are, Dune. Mwah, blow you both a kiss. An absolutely amazing cumshot by Marcela and Dune!” Zilka gave Lila a piece of paper with some numbers on it. “And the official results are in: I declare Marcela and Dune the winners of the Sherry Cobbler Handjob and Massive Cumshot Contest. But all you jizzblasters deserve a prize.” More cheering, whistles. Shandee applauded briefly and turned back toward her hotel. Sad about Ruzty, she thought. Maybe if she’d been stroking him he would have won. She got in bed and turned on a house-fix-up show and watched a man repair a screen door. She got Dave’s arm out and fed him and changed his liquid wastes, and they lay together and looked at the ceiling fan. Dave’s arm tweaked her nipple solicitously. She reached a moment of decision. “Come on, honey, let’s go,” she said. Dave Gets His Old Cock Back Shandee went to Dave’s room, number 434, and knocked. There was no answer. “Probably out carousing,” she said to Dave’s arm. “Would you feel comfortable writing him a note?” Dave’s hand took her pen and wrote this: Hey Dave, I’m not feeling too good. Shandee has been taking care of me and showing me some of her kind and loving ways, but I miss being attached to you and doing all the fun things we could do together. I want back on. Shandee will be in her room, 676, tonight after seven. Do not miss this opportunity. Signed, Your Arm. Shandee folded the note and held Dave’s arm as he slipped it under the door. They went back and took a nap together. At 7:15 there was a knock on the door.

• From The City of God

  [217] Jactantia. Chapter 18. --How Far Christians Ought to Be from Boasting, If They Have Done Anything for the Love of the Eternal Country, When the Romans Did Such Great Things for Human Glory and a Terrestrial City. What great thing, therefore, is it for that eternal and celestial city to despise all the charms of this world, however pleasant, if for the sake of this terrestrial city Brutus could even put to death his son,--a sacrifice which the heavenly city compels no one to make? But certainly it is more difficult to put to death one's sons, than to do what is required to be done for the heavenly country, even to distribute to the poor those things which were looked upon as things to be massed and laid up for one's children, or to let them go, if there arise any temptation which compels us to do so, for the sake of faith and righteousness. For it is not earthly riches which make us or our sons happy; for they must either be lost by us in our lifetime, or be possessed when we are dead, by whom we know not, or perhaps by whom we would not. But it is God who makes us happy, who is the true riches of minds. But of Brutus, even the poet who celebrates his praises testifies that it was the occasion of unhappiness to him that he slew his son, for he says, "And call his own rebellious seed For menaced liberty to bleed. Unhappy father! howsoe'er The deed be judged by after days. " [218] But in the following verse he consoles him in his unhappiness, saying, "His country's love shall all o'erbear. "

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  “Do you think we should dance for them?” said Donna. Polly, feeling a little giddy, started in with a Diane Birch song, “Rise Up,” and the three women danced and sang around the room. “Rise up, little sisters!” they sang—and soon they began to notice some changes in some of the wall toads. There was a new alertness about their attitude, no question about it. Several of them had started to do a little elongational leaning-forward sort of movement. “I think they like us!” said Polly. The penises were in fact becoming visibly semi-erect at the sound of voices. Golly, Polly thought, I had no idea that my simple presence in a room could do that. It was kind of interesting and exciting, but also a little sad, because those penises had no clue what Polly, Donna, and Saucie were all about as women—what they believed in, what their plans were. Near one corner, Polly came to an empty hole. She tried to peek in, but she couldn’t see anything. “What’s up?” she said into the hole. “Are you a little reserved today?” There was silence. Then she said, “I can wait.” She looked back over her shoulder and saw Saucie kneeling on the opposite wall. Polly suspected that Saucie was in front of her ex’s penis, but it wasn’t easy to keep track. Donna was really getting into it—she was kneeling on her cushion with both hands on a wall and she was passing her face and hair all over a large, attractive petard. Polly turned back to her empty hole and she said, “Can you tell me something about yourself?” Suddenly a tennis ball appeared in the opening. At least she thought it was a tennis ball. When it popped through and she caught it, she felt how heavy it was, and then she knew it was the kind of ball they use in real tennis, or royal tennis, the game Henry the Eighth played. “So you enjoy the sport of kings?” she said. “The old jeu de paume?” And then the end of a tennis racket came through the hole. She looked at the handle. It was very worn. He had really used that racket. She held it for a second and said, “Nice racket.” Then the handle disappeared, and a bunch of purple turnips came through the hole and dangled there, held by their green tops. Polly squeezed them and she said, “I bet you could get some good blood out of these roots, you crazy fucked-up vegetarian.”

• From The City of God

  In short, to say all in a word, what but disobedience was the punishment of disobedience in that sin? For what else is man's misery but his own disobedience to himself, so that in consequence of his not being willing to do what he could do, he now wills to do what he cannot? For though he could not do all things in Paradise before he sinned, yet he wished to do only what he could do, and therefore he could do all things he wished. But now, as we recognize in his offspring, and as divine Scripture testifies, "Man is like to vanity. " [739]For who can count how many things he wishes which he cannot do, so long as he is disobedient to himself, that is, so long as his mind and his flesh do not obey his will? For in spite of himself his mind is both frequently disturbed, and his flesh suffers, and grows old, and dies; and in spite of ourselves we suffer whatever else we suffer, and which we would not suffer if our nature absolutely and in all its parts obeyed our will. But is it not the infirmities of the flesh which hamper it in its service? Yet what does it matter how its service is hampered, so long as the fact remains, that by the just retribution of the sovereign God whom we refused to be subject to and serve, our flesh, which was subjected to us, now torments us by insubordination, although our disobedience brought trouble on ourselves, not upon God? For He is not in need of our service as we of our body's; and therefore what we did was no punishment to Him, but what we receive is so to us. And the pains which are called bodily are pains of the soul in and from the body. For what pain or desire can the flesh feel by itself and without the soul? But when the flesh is said to desire or to suffer, it is meant, as we have explained, that the man does so, or some part of the soul which is affected by the sensation of the flesh, whether a harsh sensation causing pain, or gentle, causing pleasure. But pain in the flesh is only a discomfort of the soul arising from the flesh, and a kind of shrinking from its suffering, as the pain of the soul which is called sadness is a shrinking from those things which have happened to us in spite of ourselves. But sadness is frequently preceded by fear, which is itself in the soul, not in the flesh; while bodily pain is not preceded by any kind of fear of the flesh, which can be felt in the flesh before the pain. But pleasure is preceded by a certain appetite which is felt in the flesh like a craving, as hunger and thirst and that generative appetite which is most commonly identified with the name" lust," though this is the generic word for all desires. For anger itself was defined by the ancients as nothing else than the lust of revenge; [740] although sometimes a man is angry even at inanimate objects which cannot feel his vengeance, as when one breaks a pen, or crushes a quill that writes badly. Yet even this, though less reasonable, is in its way a lust of revenge, and is, so to speak, a mysterious kind of shadow of [the great law of] retribution, that they who do evil should suffer evil. There is therefore a lust for revenge, which is called anger; there is a lust of money, which goes by the name of avarice; there is a lust of conquering, no matter by what means, which is called opinionativeness; there is a lust of applause, which is named boasting. There are many and various lusts, of which some have names of their own, while others have not. For who could readily give a name to the lust of ruling, which yet has a powerful influence in the soul of tyrants, as civil wars bear witness?

• From The City of God

  Chapter 14. --Of the Temporary Punishments of This Life to Which the Human Condition is Subject. Quite exceptional are those who are not punished in this life, but only afterwards. Yet that there have been some who have reached the decrepitude of age without experiencing even the slightest sickness, and who have had uninterrupted enjoyment of life, I know both from report and from my own observation. However, the very life we mortals lead is itself all punishment, for it is all temptation, as the Scriptures declare, where it is written, "Is not the life of man upon earth a temptation? " [1521]For ignorance is itself no slight punishment, or want of culture, which it is with justice thought so necessary to escape, that boys are compelled, under pain of severe punishment, to learn trades or letters; and the learning to which they are driven by punishment is itself so much of a punishment to them, that they sometimes prefer the pain that drives them to the pain to which they are driven by it. And who would not shrink from the alternative, and elect to die, if it were proposed to him either to suffer death or to be again an infant? Our infancy, indeed, introducing us to this life not with laughter but with tears, seems unconsciously to predict the ills we are to encounter. [1522] Zoroaster alone is said to have laughed when he was born, and that unnatural omen portended no good to him. For he is said to have been the inventor of magical arts, though indeed they were unable to secure to him even the poor felicity of this present life against the assaults of his enemies. For, himself king of the Bactrians, he was conquered by Ninus king of the Assyrians. In short, the words of Scripture, "An heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother's womb till the day that they return to the mother of all things," [1523] --these words so infallibly find fulfillment, that even the little ones, who by the layer of regeneration have been freed from the bond of original sin in which alone they were held, yet suffer many ills, and in some instances are even exposed to the assaults of evil spirits. But let us not for a moment suppose that this suffering is prejudicial to their future happiness, even though it has so increased as to sever soul from body, and to terminate their life in that early age. [1521] Job vii. 1. [1522] Compare Goldsmith's saying, "We begin life in tears, and every day tells us why. " [1523] Ecclus. xl. 1.

• From The City of God

  But if it be said that in the interval of time between the death of this body and that last day of judgment and retribution which shall follow the resurrection, the bodies of the dead shall be exposed to a fire of such a nature that it shall not affect those who have not in this life indulged in such pleasures and pursuits as shall be consumed like wood, hay, stubble, but shall affect those others who have carried with them structures of that kind; if it be said that such worldliness, being venial, shall be consumed in the fire of tribulation either here only, or here and hereafter both, or here that it may not be hereafter,--this I do not contradict, because possibly it is true. For perhaps even the death of the body is itself a part of this tribulation, for it results from the first transgression, so that the time which follows death takes its color in each case from the nature of the man's building. The persecutions, too, which have crowned the martyrs, and which Christians of all kinds suffer, try both buildings like a fire, consuming some, along with the builders themselves, if Christ is not found in them as their foundation, while others they consume without the builders, because Christ is found in them, and they are saved, though with loss; and other buildings still they do not consume, because such materials as abide for ever are found in them. In the end of the world there shall be in the time of Antichrist tribulation such as has never before been. How many edifices there shall then be, of gold or of hay, built on the best foundation, Christ Jesus, which that fire shall prove, bringing joy to some, loss to others, but without destroying either sort, because of this stable foundation! But whosoever prefers, I do not say his wife, with whom he lives for carnal pleasure, but any of those relatives who afford no delight of such a kind, and whom it is right to love,--whosoever prefers these to Christ, and loves them after a human and carnal fashion, has not Christ as a foundation, and will therefore not be saved by fire, nor indeed at all; for he shall not possibly dwell with the Saviour, who says very explicitly concerning this very matter, "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. " [1581] But he who loves his relations carnally, and yet so that he does not prefer them to Christ, but would rather want them than Christ if he were put to the proof, shall be saved by fire, because it is necessary that by the loss of these relations he suffer pain in proportion to his love. And he who loves father, mother, sons, daughters, according to Christ, so that he aids them in obtaining His kingdom and cleaving to Him, or loves them because they are members of Christ, God forbid that this love should be consumed as wood, hay, stubble, and not rather be reckoned a structure of gold, silver, precious stones. For how can a man love those more than Christ whom he loves only for Christ's sake?

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  λιβός, gen. of λίψ. λίβος [1], τό, 4f AIB, AciBw), =ArBas: in pl., tears, Aesch. Cho. 448; v. sub λίπος. II. the Lat. libum, Chrysipp. Tyan. ap. Ath. 647 D. λιβο-φοῖνιξ, ios, 6, -- λιβόνοτος, Arist. Mund. 4, 14. AtBpos, 4, dv, (λείβω) dripping, wet, Anth. P. 15. 253 cf. λιβη- pos. II. gloomy, dark, prob. taken from the clouds that threaten rain, νύξ E. M. 564. 49; used by Hipp. acc. to Erotian. p. 242, by Trag. acc. to Phot.: cf. λιμβρός. Λιβυαφι-γενής, és, (γενέσθαι) native of Libya, Ibyc. 56 (Mss. AeB-). Λιβύη, ἡ, Libya, the north part of Africa west of Egypt, Od. 4. 85. 14. 295, Hdt., εἴς. ; in later writers also for the whole Continent : proverb., det Λιβύη φέρει τι καινόν or κακόν Arist. H. A. 8. 28, 11, Paroemiogr. :—Adv. Λιβύηθεν from Libya, Dion. P. 46. 222; also ΔΛιβύηθε, Dor. -ἄθε, Nic. Al. 368, Theocr. 1. 24:—Adj., Λιβυκός, 7, ov, Hdt., etc.; A. ὄρνεον, i.e. a strange, foreign bird, Ar. Av. 65; A. λόγοι, a kind of fables resembling those of Aesop, Arist. Rhet. 2. 20, 2: cf. AiBus. λίβυον, τό, a wild lotus, Diosc. 4. 112. λιβυός, 6, an unknown kind of bird, Arist. H. A. 9. 1, 16. AvBupvot, of, the Liburnians, a people on the Adriatic coast below Istria, Strab. 315, etc. :—Adj. Διβυρνικός, 7, dv, Liburnian, Aesch. Fr. 3533; Λιβυρνικόν (sc. πλοῖον), τό, a light, swift vessel like a galley or felucca, such as was used by the Λιβυρνοί, Plut. Cat. Mi. 54; also ArBupvis (sc. ναῦς), (50s, ἡ, Id. Anton. 67, etc., cf. Horat. Epod. 1. 1. Λίβῦς [7], vos, 6, a Libyan, Hdt. 4. 181, al., Soph, El. 702, etc.; and as Adj.=ArBuxds, Eur. Alc. 346, etc.; A. καυλός -- σίλφιον, Antiph. Φιλ. 1. 13; fem. Δίβυσσα, Pind. P. 9. 181, Soph. Fr. 16; also AtBuo- τικός, 7, ὄν, Aesch. Eum. 292, Fr. 129, etc.; fem. also Λιβυστίς, ίδος, ἡ, Ap. Rh. 4. 1753: cf. Διβύη. II. a harmless kind of serpent, Nic. Th. 490. III. =Aovrpopédpos 2, Hesych. Λιβῦ-φοῖνιξ, 6,aLiby-Phoenician, 1.6. Carthaginian, Polyb. 3.33, 15, etc. Atya [1], Adv. of λιγύς, (cf. σάφα, τάχα, wea), in loud clear tone, ἀμφ᾽ αὐτῷ χυμένη λίγα κώκυε 1]. το. 284, cf. Od. 8. 527; Aly ἄειδεν in clear sweet tone, 10. 254, cf. Aleman 59; ζεφύρου A. κινυμένοιο Ap. Bh. 2- 837. II. to λιβανίζω ---- λιγυφωνέω. Atyatvw, (λιγύς) poét. Verb, to cry out with a loud clear voice, to ery aloud, of heralds, Il. 11. 685; of mourners, Aesch. Theb. 873; of shepherds, Mosch. 3. 82; also φόρμιγγι, σύριγγι A. to produce clear sounds on .., to play on .., Ap. Rh. 1.740, Anth. P. 9. 363: also c. acc. cogn., μέλος A. Bion 15. 1, cf. Mosch. 3. 127; in irony, τὸν ἐν δικαστηρίοις λόγον A. Dion, H. de Dem. 44: also in Med., Arat. Phaen. 1007. II. trans. to sing of, Anth. P. 9. 197. λιγγούριον, v. sub λυγκούριον.

• From The City of God

  For what flood of eloquence can suffice to detail the miseries of this life? Cicero, in the Consolation on the death of his daughter, has spent all his ability in lamentation; but how inadequate was even his ability here? For when, where, how, in this life can these primary objects of nature be possessed so that they may not be assailed by unforeseen accidents? Is the body of the wise man exempt from any pain which may dispel pleasure, from any disquietude which may banish repose? The amputation or decay of the members of the body puts an end to its integrity, deformity blights its beauty, weakness its health, lassitude its vigor, sleepiness or sluggishness its activity,--and which of these is it that may not assail the flesh of the wise man? Comely and fitting attitudes and movements of the body are numbered among the prime natural blessings; but what if some sickness makes the members tremble? what if a man suffers from curvature of the spine to such an extent that his hands reach the ground, and he goes upon all-fours like a quadruped? Does not this destroy all beauty and grace in the body, whether at rest or in motion? What shall I say of the fundamental blessings of the soul, sense and intellect, of which the one is given for the perception, and the other for the comprehension of truth? But what kind of sense is it that remains when a man becomes deaf and blind? where are reason and intellect when disease makes a man delirious? We can scarcely, or not at all, refrain from tears, when we think of or see the actions and words of such frantic persons, and consider how different from and even opposed to their own sober judgment and ordinary conduct their present demeanor is. And what shall I say of those who suffer from demoniacal possession? Where is their own intelligence hidden and buried while the malignant spirit is using their body and soul according to his own will? And who is quite sure that no such thing can happen to the wise man in this life? Then, as to the perception of truth, what can we hope for even in this way while in the body, as we read in the true book of Wisdom, "The corruptible body weigheth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle presseth down the mind that museth upon many things? " [1265]And eagerness, or desire of action, if this is the right meaning to put upon the Greek horme, is also reckoned among the primary advantages of nature; and yet is it not this which produces those pitiable movements of the insane, and those actions which we shudder to see, when sense is deceived and reason deranged?

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  Who were his first readers? We will meet a few of them as we go on, and most of them were unconvinced by the book. But it shouldn’t be missed that the book’s most pervasive bit of artifice makes mortal readers irrelevant. The whole book is addressed to god, written in the second-person singular, Augustine “gossiping,” as one skeptic put it, with his god. Human readers are not only disregarded, but seated in the balcony and ignored by the performer on stage. For no human reader was capable (Augustine thought) of telling whether he spoke true or not.142 Only if the divine all-knower intervened to place the same caritas in the hearts of author and reader could a book like this ever persuade. God always comes between Augustine and his fellow humans, even in this, his most intimate work. Few have expressed so well, though perhaps not consciously, the loss as well as the gain of the chosen celibate. AFTERMATH OF A CLASSIC The Confessions mark a turning point in Augustine’s life that cannot be mistaken. But the subtlest and most important turn often evades notice. The theoretical pretext for the Confessions, as scholars have long seen, was the upheaval in Augustine’s reading of Paul that occurred in the months that followed his ordination as bishop. His old mentor Simplicianus wrote to him from Milan with a few questions, leading questions, doubtless designed to provoke a reaction. They led Augustine into consideration of fundamental questions of Pauline interpretation, and his old optimism fell apart as he wrote his replies.143 Whatever you may think of Paul, when you read him as Augustine did, he does not point to a postconversion life of revolution and exaltation, but rather to a long, dark struggle in the soul itself. The life of the Christian is not immanent happiness but intensified promise. Promise, however, is not possession. The sense of loss and deferral that such a reading of Paul can beget was well matched to Augustine’s mood in his early days as bishop. His sense of his own unworthiness, his distaste for much of what his new job entailed, and the inability of his old version of Christianity to cope with the challenge of Donatism were all pressing him to accept the idea that the mystic peace that a Plotinus, or a newly baptized Augustine of 387, could hope for was slipping further and further away, never out of reach, but never within his grasp.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  The burden of his obsession with Pelagius weighs Augustine down. In order to attack and humiliate one or two charismatic and socially lionized rivals, Augustine found himself generalizing and making explicit ideas he had nurtured for years, nurtured without fully understanding where they had come from. Beliefs that had helped him to make sense of and give beautiful expression to the patterns of his own life proved harsh and self-defeating when he proclaimed them dogmatically. Worse, the controversy that ensued divided him from those he would have had as friends, made allies for him of some unsavory characters, and left him to spend his last years in a series of flame wars that pleased and impressed no one. Few could bring themselves to condemn him, but few could truly agree with him, and his intellectual heirs silently sidled away from him in the decades and centuries that came after. Anti-Pelagianism was of little concern at home in Hippo. It was a cause for big cities and fashionable churches, proclaimed in books and pamphlets sent back and forth across the Mediterranean. But the business of managing the home front—that fractious and venal clergy, that ever-volatile congregation—was at least as preoccupying for him. Augustine never managed his succession planning very well. In his first years in Africa, he and a few friends had seemed a force for reason, order, and cultural advance in his church, but those friends scattered to take up posts as bishops throughout Africa. Back at Hippo, they were replaced by nonentities, and none of them produced successors anything like themselves. Augustine chose and announced his own successor at Hippo, Eraclius, in a public ceremony, and he carefully kept a transcript of it in his files. Augustine had just returned from a sad trip to Milevis, where he installed the successor of his old and dear friend, the bishop Severus. Severus had not made his choice for a successor publicly known, and there had been awkwardness. Augustine in his turn wanted to avoid all ambiguity. He wanted also to transfer to Eraclius as much as possible of the administrative work of the church, to free himself to write and meditate on the scriptures. All we know of Eraclius’s earlier life is what we’ve already seen, that he had funded the construction of a chapel in the basilica at Hippo. No joy or lightheartedness animates Eraclius as he praises Augustine for combining eloquence with continence, authority with humility, and learning with patience. Eraclius describes his own sermon-making (and few have disagreed) as a cricket chirping in the presence of the swan, and he quickly vanished from the stage, perhaps dislodged or even killed in the upheaval after the barbarians captured Hippo.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  They go as they go and they weep as they sow. Why are they weeping? Because they are in the midst of unhappy people and they are themselves unhappy. It is better, my brothers, that no one be unhappy than for us to have to show pity. If somebody wished for others to be unhappy so that he could show pity on them, it would be a cruel pity—like a doctor wanting there to be a lot of sick people so he could practice his skill—that would be a cruel medicine. Better everyone should be healthy than that the doctor’s art have to prove itself. So it is better that all men, blessed, should reign in that homeland of ours than that there should be people in need of pity. But for as long as there are those to whom to give it, then we should not fail to sow the seeds of happiness in this troubled world. Even if we weep ourselves while we sow, we will in the end reap the harvest with joy. Each man at the resurrection of the dead will receive his sheaves of grain, that is, the fruit of this sowing, the crown of joy and exultation. Then there will be a triumph in rejoicing and an exulting over death. But why say rejoice? Because they are bringing in the sheaves. Because they went as they wept and they wept as they sowed. And why say wept as they sowed? Because those who sow in tears will reap rejoicing.264 The urban audience thinks of its future happiness in the contingent and unsure image of a successful harvest, where some seeds, some fields, and some seasons will be lost. NO PARTIES, PLEASE, WE’RE CHRISTIAN! Not long after becoming bishop, in his Confessions, Augustine made a point of telling a story about his mother’s religious practices. When she had lived in Africa, good Christian that she was, she would from time to time go out to the Christian burying grounds and participate in the rituals of eating and drinking that went on there in honor of the blessed dead.265 But when she came to Italy, she found that the austere Bishop Ambrose forbade such things, and people showing up at the graveyards with their picnic hampers were turned away. Augustine praised his mother’s willingness to take Ambrose’s direction in this matter and pitched the matter as a difference of custom between Africa and Italy. The custom was known in Italy as well, and it was the authority of the high-minded bishop that marked a difference. When Augustine returned to Africa, he found the practice widespread and sniffed at it again as “pagan,”266 though he had to notice that it was widespread among Christians of the Donatist community.

• From The City of God

  [1056] Ps. lxxxix. 38. [1057] Ps. lxxxix. 38. [1058] Ps. lxxxix. 39-45. Chapter 11. --Of the Substance of the People of God, Which Through His Assumption of Flesh is in Christ, Who Alone Had Power to Deliver His Own Soul from Hell. But after having prophesied these things, the prophet betakes him to praying to God; yet even the very prayer is prophecy:"How long, Lord, dost Thou turn away in the end? " [1059]"Thy face" is understood, as it is elsewhere said, "How long dost Thou turn away Thy face from me? " [1060]For therefore some copies have here not "dost," but "wilt Thou turn away;" although it could be understood, "Thou turnest away Thy mercy, which Thou didst promise to David. "But when he says, "in the end," what does it mean, except even to the end? By which end is to be understood the last time, when even that nation is to believe in Christ Jesus, before which end what He has just sorrowfully bewailed must come to pass. On account of which it is also added here, "Thy wrath shall burn like fire. Remember what is my substance. " [1061]This cannot be better understood than of Jesus Himself, the substance of His people, of whose nature His flesh is. "For not in vain," he says, "hast Thou made all the sons of men. " [1062]For unless the one Son of man had been the substance of Israel, through which Son of man many sons of men should be set free, all the sons of men would have been made wholly in vain. But now, indeed, all mankind through the fall of the first man has fallen from the truth into vanity; for which reason another psalm says, "Man is like to vanity:his days pass away as a shadow;" [1063] yet God has not made all the sons of men in vain, because He frees many from vanity through the Mediator Jesus, and those whom He did not foreknow as to be delivered, He made not wholly in vain in the most beautiful and most just ordination of the whole rational creation, for the use of those who were to be delivered, and for the comparison of the two cities by mutual contrast. Thereafter it follows, "Who is the man that shall live, and shall not see death? shall he snatch his soul from the hand of hell? " [1064]Who is this but that substance of Israel out of the seed of David, Christ Jesus, of whom the apostle says, that "rising from the dead He now dieth not, and death shall no more have dominion over Him? " [1065]For He shall so live and not see death, that yet He shall have been dead; but shall have delivered His soul from the hand of hell, whither He had descended in order to loose some from the chains of hell; but He hath delivered it by that power of which He says in the Gospel, "I have the power of laying down my life, and I have the power of taking it again. " [1066] [1059] Ps. lxxxix. 46. [1060] Ps. xiii. 1. [1061] Ps. lxxxix. 46, 47. [1062] Ps. lxxxix. 47. [1063] Ps. cxliv. 4. [1064] Ps. lxxxix. 48. [1065] Rom. vi. 9. [1066] John x. 18.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  So in these next few pages I propose to set out in the simplest possible terms the story Augustine did tell in the first nine books of the Confessions. I will tell that story without comment, as a point of reference for the other stories I will tell, and as one of the points of view that must be taken along with the others. Later pages of this book will be more meaningful because these pages are here. Augustine claims not to remember his infancy, but infers his own story from that of other infants he has seen and makes a point of including the inferred story at the outset of the remembered one. He does not quite remember learning to speak, but remembers the frustrations of schooldays and the beatings he received. His first specific anecdote is religious: when ill in childhood, having heard the name of Christ, he begged for baptism, only to be denied what he wished because he recovered health and evaded danger too quickly. He disliked school and really couldn’t stomach his Greek lessons, but at least he wept over the death of Dido in the Aeneid. Childhood yielded to adolescence and sexual temptation, described with great circumlocution. His pious and solicitous mother, Monnica, told him to stay away from married women; his philandering and status-conscious father, Patricius, saw him pubescent in the public baths and went home rejoicing that a first grandchild could not be far off. (He was right.) Schooling had taken Augustine from home (Tagaste, which he does not name in the story) to Madauros (which he does name), then home for a year of impecunious idleness, then off to study in Carthage, supported by the generosity of a rich friend of his father’s. An episode of adolescent self-assertion—the theft of some pears from a neighbor’s orchard by Augustine, in the company of a band of his mates—is recounted at puzzling length.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  But the image of god in man has gone bad. It needs to be fixed. Whatever is rare and strange and precious and unique about a given individual is probably an indication of the things that have gone wrong. Whatever is like god indicates what’s gone right. And it all dances in threes. To me, this belief is the most poignant thing about Augustine. He is criticized by many for undervaluing the human body, but in a profound way he undervalues the human personality, as we might understand it, in favor of a lifeless and unengaging notion of the soul. So take this text from Augustine’s scripture: Everything there is in the world consists of the hankerings of the flesh and the hankerings of the eyes and worldly ambition.113 That’s a pretty sobering way of talking about “everything there is in the world,” but Augustine is happy to take that text on its own terms. He’s looked around enough to have his own reading of what it means, and he is very explicit about this in the tenth book of the Confessions.114 Hankerings of the flesh are hankerings of the flesh: hunger and thirst and passion for fine music and a drifting pleasure in lovely smells, and especially sexual desire.115 “Hankerings of the eyes,” on the other hand, means for Augustine curiosity, the desire to know things you’re not supposed to know, especially in matters of religion and magic. Wanting to know about demons and false gods and ways of working wonders—that is what will get you into trouble. “Worldly ambition” is pretty straightforward: wanting the position in the world that makes you the envy of other men. Three temptations: the pattern should look familiar. The three masks of god are here again, each betrayed in a distinctive way. For “hankerings of the flesh” have to do with love—the wrong love, charity gone haywire, spiritual life turned fleshly, ethereal love turned sexual. “Hankerings of the eyes” have to do with knowing—wanting to know what you shouldn’t, not wanting to know what you should. And “worldly ambition” is about setting yourself up to rival your betters, to be what they cannot be. What were temptations to Augustine become life goals when moderns think of them as self-esteem, education, and sexual fulfillment.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Although throughout his life he would consistently credit Staupitz with having been his sole teacher and having “begun the matter,” there are indications in his letters that his attitude toward him was much more ambivalent. In 1516, when Luther heard that the Elector wanted to have Staupitz made bishop of Chiemsee, a plum posting, Luther had written to Spalatin refusing to have any part in the scheme. To be a bishop, he averred, means “to practice Greek ways, to sodomize and to live in a Roman manner,” and to amass personal property, “that is, the insatiable hell of avarice.” Although Luther was careful to point out that Staupitz was of course far removed from such vices, he asked Spalatin straight out: “do you want to be guarantor that when the opportunity is there…or when he is driven to it by necessity, this man will not be sucked into the maelstrom and raging storms of the courts of bishops?” 8 It seems that by this point Luther thought that Staupitz’s love of luxury—or perhaps his sexual inclinations (the verbs pergraecari, sodomari, romanari hint at homosexuality or pederasty)—outweighed his zeal for the Christian life. Now, in a letter of October 3, 1519, Luther castigated Staupitz for being too busy to write to him—usually it was the other way around, as Luther endlessly apologized to his correspondents for his failure to write. In one chatty letter sent to the older man in February of that year, packed with gossip about friends, he cheerfully said that the bishop of Brandenburg had taken to remarking, as he put logs on the fire, that he would not be able to have a good night’s sleep until Luther was thrown into the flames as well. Then in the October letter Luther lamented that his confessor was “deserting him too much,” making him feel, in the words of Psalm 131, “like a child weaned from its mother.” Luther continued: “I am empty of faith, full of other gifts, Christ knows how little I desire these, if I cannot serve him”—an appeal to his confessor who like no one else understood his Anfechtungen . Then in the letter’s final paragraph, he described a dream: “This night I had a dream about you, as if you wanted to retreat from me, but I wept bitterly and suffered; but you waved to me and said I should be calm, and that you would return to me. This certainly has come true this very day.” 9 Having not heard from Staupitz for some time, Luther was clearly suffering from what he felt to be his increasing coldness.