Shame

Passages

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

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• From Martin Luther (2016)

  This is one aspect of his thinking that is difficult to understand today and where the gulf that separates our world from his seems at its greatest. In this book I have tried to show why it mattered. Luther’s theological legacy was a view of human nature that escaped the split between flesh and spirit that has dogged so much of the history of Christianity, and has given rise to a profound suspicion of sexuality and an unbending moralism. Not so with Luther: Whatever else he was, he was no killjoy. He saw sexuality as sinful but only in the way that all our actions are sinful, and this perspective freed him to be remarkably positive about the body and physical experience. His religiosity had nothing saccharine about it. His relationship with God was not that of a believer cheerfully confident of having been “saved.” It was wrested from his Anfechtungen and it engaged all his intellectual and emotional capacities. He would pray for hours a day, conversing with God, but this never gave him happy assurance: For Luther, doubt always accompanied faith. Melanchthon described how, in one debate, Luther suddenly became unsure that he was right, and he left the room, falling on his bed and praying. 49 This was not how one would expect a university professor to behave: He was utterly engaged in the subject under discussion, and shaken to the core by the thought that he might have been mistaken. Luther’s extraordinary openness, his honest willingness to put everything on the line, and his capacity to accept God’s grace as a gift he did not merit are his most attractive characteristics. Luther is a difficult hero, nonetheless. His writings can be full of hatred, and his predilection for scatological rhetoric and humor is not to modern taste. He could be authoritarian, bullying, overconfident; his domineering ways overshadowed his children’s lives and alienated many of his followers. His intransigent capacity to demonize his opponents was more than a psychological flaw because it meant that Protestantism split very early, weakening it permanently and leading to centuries of war. His anti-Semitism was more visceral than that of many of his contemporaries, and it was also intrinsic to his religiosity and his understanding of the relation between the Old and the New Testament. It cannot just be excused as the prejudice of his day. His greatest intellectual gift was his ability to simplify, to cut to the heart of an issue—but this also made it difficult for him to compromise or see nuance. And yet only someone with an utter inability to see anyone else’s point of view could have had the courage to take on the papacy, to act like a “blinkered horse” looking neither to right nor left, but treading relentlessly onward regardless of the consequences.

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

  ὀφλισκάνω Soph. Ant. 470, Eur., ΡΙαΐ.: impf. ὠφλίσκανον Dem. 864: fut. ὀφλήσω Soph. O.T. 511, Eur., Plat.: pf. ὥφληκα Ar. Nub. 34, etc. : aor. ὥφλησα Lys. 136.1 (where perh. however ὠφείλησεν should be restored, as in Ar. Av. 115), Walz Rhett. 8. 243, (mpoo—) Alciphr. 3. 26; in correct writers the aor. in use is ὦφλον, inf. ὀφλεῖν, part. ὀφλών, —sometimes wrongly written ὄφλειν, ὄφλων, as if there were an Att. pres. ὄφλω ; but this pres., though quoted by Gramm. (Arcad. 158. 26, E. M. 232.9), only occurs in late writers as Dio Chr., Aristid., Alciphro, Eust., etc., and prob. originated in the error of writing ὄφλειν, ὄφλων for ὀφλεῖν, ὀφλών, as in Eur, Bacch. 854, Plat. Apol. 39 B, ν. Elmsl. Ach. 689, Heracl. 985 :---ὀφλέω is prob. a still later form ; for in Hesych. ὀφλεῖ should be corrected ὄφλει ; ὥφλεε in Hdt. 8. 26 is an error for ὦφλε (which is given by some Mss.): a pres. ὀφλίσκω is cited by Suid. ; ὀφλάνω by Phot. and Hesych. (From same Root as ὀφείλω, 4. ν.) To owe, properly of one condemned to pay a fine, Zo be liable to pay, ζημίαν Eur. Med. 581, etc.; χρήματα Lys. 159.17; πέντε τά- Aayta Ar. Pax 172; χιλίας δραχμάς Plat. Apol. 36 A; εἴκοσι μνᾶς Xen. An. 5. 8,1; τὴν ἐπωβελίαν Isocr. 373 C. 2. δίκην ὀφλεῖν to be cast in a suit, lose one’s cause; ὠφληκέναι δίκην Ar. Nub. 34, Av. 1457 ; ἣν τις ὄφλῃ παρὰ τοῖς ἄρχουσι δίκην Tw Id. Eccl. 655; so, ὀφλεῖν δίαιταν to lose in an arbitration, Isae. 111. 7, Dem. 862. 2, εἴς. ; ἐρήμην da. τὴν δίκην to let judgment go against one by default, Antipho 131.1; Opa. ἐξούλης Andoc. 10. 15; κλοπῆς ἕνεκα τὰς εὐθύνας ὀφλ. Aeschin. 55.17. 3. absol. to be cast, to be the losing party, μέλλων ὀφλή- σειν Ar. Nub. 777; Kar’ ὀφλὼν ἀπέρχεται Id. Ach. 689, cf. Thuc. 3. 70, Plat. Legg. 745 A; ὀφλεῖν τῷ δημοσίῳ ἐπί τινι for an offence, Dem. 998. 23. 4. c. gen. criminis, ὀφλὼν ἁρπαγῆς Te καὶ κλοπῆς δίκην Aesch. Ag. 534 (cf. ἐκτίνων) ; then often without δίκην, ὠφληκὼς φόνου Sound guilty of murder, Plat. Legg. 873 Β 54.; ὀφλ. τραύματος éx προ- νοίας Ib. 877 B; ὀφλ. κλοπῆς, δώρων Andoc. το. 20; ἀστρατείας, ἀπο- στασίου Dem. 732. 23., 790.2: but also, Ὁ. c. gen. poenae, θανάτου δίκην ὀφλ. Plat. Apol. 39 B, Legg. 856 Ὁ. II. generally, of any- thing which one deserves or brings on oneself, αἰσχύνην, βλάβην Opa. to bring infamy, loss on oneself, incur them, Eur. Hel. 67, Andr. 188 ; Opa. γέλωτα to be laughed at, Id. Med. 403, Ar. Nub. 1035; Tue by one, Eur. Bacch. 854; παρά τινι, πρός τινα Plat. Phaedo 117 A, Hipp. Ma. 282 A. 2. δειλίαν ὀφλ. (much like ὀφλ. δίκην δειλίας), to incur a charge of cowardice, get a character for cowardice, δειλίην ὥφλεε πρὸς βασιλῆος he drew upon himself the reproach of cowardice from the king, Hdt. 8. 26, cf. Eur. Heracl. 985; so, μώρῳ μωρίαν ὀφλι- σκάνω Soph, Ant. 470, cf. Eur. Med. 1227, etc.; αὐθαδία τοι σκαιότητ᾽ Opa. Soph. Ant. 1028; ἀπ᾽ ἐμᾶς φρενὸς οὔποτ᾽ ὀφλήσει Eur. Hec. 327, Ion 443; ἄνοιαν Dem. 16. 24; αἰσχύνην 18. 26.

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

  ὄνειδος, τό, (said to mean originally axy report of one, one’s reputa- tion, character, like κλέος, κλῃδών, Lat fama, Eust. 88. 15., 647. 36; but the passages he cites—tovr’ ὄν. οὐ καλόν Soph. Ph. 477; Θήβαις κάλλιστον ὄν. Eur. Phoen. 821 ; καλὸν ὄν. Id. Med. 514.1. A. 305,—are plainly ironical; indeed the sense of reproach lay in the Root, v. infr.): I. onl Hom. downwards, reproach, rebuke, censure, blame, esp. by word, ὀνείδεα μυθήσασθαι, λέγειν, βάζειν Il. 1. 201. 2. 222, Od. 17. 461, εἴς. ; αἱ δὴ ἐμῇ κεφαλῇ κατ᾽ ὀνείδεα χεῦαν 22. 463: ὄνειδος ἔχειν to be in disgrace, Hat. 9. 713 ὀνείδη κλύειν Aesch. Pers. 7573 ὄν. ὀνειδίζειν Soph. Ph. 523; ὄν. λιπεῖν τινι Eur. Heracl. 301; ὄν. φέρει it brings reproach, Plat. Rep. 500 Ὁ ; ὄνειδός [ἐστι], c. inf., Eur. Andr. 410; ὄνειδός τινι περιθεῖναι Antipho 131. 313 “περιάπτειν Lys. 164.13; ὀνειδῶν καὶ κακῶν μεστούς Dem. 603.6; ws ἐν ὀνείδει by way of reproach, Plat. Gorg. 512 Ὁ, cf. Rep. 431 A, Symp. 180 E; ὀνείδει ἐνέχεσθαι, συν- έχεσθαι Legg. 808 E, 944E :—pl., κολάζειν ὀνείδεσι with censures, Ib. 847 A; ὀνείδη ἔχειν τὰ μέγιστα Rep. 344 B; ὄν. ἐπιφέρειν Arist. Eth. Ν, 4.2, 22. 2. matter of reproach, a reproach, disgrace, σοὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ. - κατηφείη καὶ ὄνειδος Il. τό. 498; gol μὲν δὴ .. κατηφείη καὶ ov., εἰ... 17.556, cf. Hdt. 2. 36; c. gen., τὸ... πόλεως OV. the reproach of the city, Aesch. Theb. 5395 αὑτῆς ὄν. Soph, O.C. 984; ὄν. Ἑλλάνων Id. Aj. 1191 ; τὸ λύσιον ὄν. Plat. Phaedr. 277 A; so, Oedipus calls his daughters τοιαῦτ᾽ ὀνείδη, Soph. O. T. 1494, cf. Ar. Ach. 855, Dem. 458. 5. (The Skt. Root seems to be nid (vituperare, spernere) ; cf. Goth. ga-naitjain (ἀτιμᾶν), nait-eins (βλασφημία); so that ὁ-- must be euphon. ) ὀνεῖον, τό, an ass-stable, Suid. ὄνειος, a, ov, of an ass, Ar. Eq. 1300: ὄν. γάλα ass’s milk, Dem. ap. Phylarch. 65, Arist. H. A. 3. 20, 13; Ov. doxds an ass’s skin, Polyb. 8. 23, 33 Tas ὀνείας ᾿ματτύας a hash of ass’s flesh, Sophil. Παρακατ. 1. 5. ὄνειος, Ion. ὀνήϊος, ον, (ὀνίνη μι) useful, Nic. ΑἹ. 548, Hesych. ; later 1055 in Tzetz. Lyc. 621, Suid. :—lIon. Sup. ὀνήιστος, ἡ, ov, the most useful, serviceable, Anaxag. 4, Pythag. ap. Diog. L. 8. 49, Heraclit. ib. 9. 2, Phoenix Coloph. ap. Ath. 495 D, Aretae. Cur. M. Ac. 1. 4, etc.; ὀνήιστον πονέεσθε exert yourselves to the utmost, Ap. Rh. 2. 335; ὕδρωπος ὀνήιστα the most effectual remedy for the dropsy, Aretae. Cur. M. Diut. 2. 2. ὀνειράξομαι, Dep. to be given to dreaming, Eccl. ὄνειραρ, ν. sub ὄνειρος. ὀνειράτιον, τό, Dim. of ὄνειρος, Schol. Ap. Rh. 2. 197. ὀνείρειος, a, ον, dreamy, of dreams, ἐν ὀνειρεΐῃσι πύλῃσι at the gates of dreams, Od. 4. 809; ἐν πύλαις, ὀνειρείαις, Babr. 30. 8. ὀνειρήεις, εσσα, ev,=foreg., Orph. H. 85. 14. ὀνειρο-γενής, és, born of a dream, Heliod. 9. 25.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  This is one story I've never told before. Not to anyone. Not to my parents, not to my brother or sister, not even to my wife. To go into it, I've always thought, would only cause embarrassment for all of us, a sudden need to be elsewhere, which is the natural response to a confession. Even now, I'll admit, the story makes me squirm. For more than twenty years I've had to live with it, feeling the shame, trying to push it away, and so by this act of remembrance, by putting the facts down on paper, I'm hoping to relieve at least some of the pressure on my dreams. Still, it's a hard story to tell. All of us, I suppose, like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth, bravely and forthrightly, without thought of personal loss or discredit. Certainly that was my conviction back in the summer of 1968. Tim O'Brien: a secret hero. The Lone Ranger. If the stakes ever became high enough—f the evil were evil enough, if the good were good enough—I would simply tap a secret reservoir of courage that had been accumulating inside me over the years. Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in finite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing it away and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation for that day when the account must be drawn down. It was a comforting theory. It dispensed with all those bothersome little acts of daily courage; it offered hope and grace to the repetitive coward; it justified the past while amortizing the future. In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong. Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression? Who started it, and when, and why? What really happened to the USS Maddox on that dark night in the Gulf of Tonkin? Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist savior, or both, or neither? What about the Geneva Accords? What about SEATO and the Cold War? What about dominoes? America was divided on these and a thousand other issues, and the debate had spilled out across the

• From Shunned (2018)

  But I was still in the clutches of a certain way of thinking, responding to the experience of being evaluated. I adapted my exit to the religion’s terms, believing that was the only way to be decent and noble. While I’d made huge strides in expanding my point of view about life and the world, I hadn’t fully developed my capacity for independent thinking and still slipped into my pattern of “being good.” I had waited about twenty minutes when Ray came out to get me. I followed him back into the library, where Jeremy was now standing, leaning against one of the bookshelves with his arms folded at his chest. There was a solemn mood about the room. I sensed there was a protocol, so I sat and waited. Ray spoke first. “As a judicial elder body, we’ve made the decision to expel you from the true Christian congregation. The charge is adultery. The biblical grounds for this ruling can be found in many places in the Scriptures. I’ll read just one of them.” His Bible was already opened to the passage he now read from. “First Corinthians 5:11–13: ‘But now I am writing you to quit mixing in company with anyone called a brother that is a fornicator or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.’ “You have openly confessed your sins and we, regrettably, see no sign of remorse or repentance. Therefore, it is our responsibility to keep the rest of the congregation spiritually clean.” He turned to another Scripture. “Second Thessalonians 3:14. ‘But if anyone is not obedient to our word through this letter keep this one marked, stop associating with him, that he may become ashamed.’” Potter broke in now, raising his opened Bible. “And 1 Timothy 1:20 says to ‘reprove before all onlookers persons who practice sin, that the rest also may have fear.’ For this reason, Linda, to cultivate a healthy fear of sin within the congregation, we will publicly announce your disfellowshipping in one week, from the stage, at the beginning of the service meeting.” I remembered times gone by when I’d sat in those meetings and heard similar announcements. They were brief and stated with a lot of gravity and always made me sad for the person who had so clearly lost their way. It was tantamount to hearing a death sentence, since the person was no longer guaranteed life. It was not outside the bounds of kindness to offer sympathy to the family members still in The Truth.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  "So tell me," his father would have said. Slowly then, circling the lake, Norman Bowker would have started by describing the Song Tra Bong. "A river," he would've said, "this slow flat muddy river." He would've explained how during the dry season it was exactly like any other river, nothing special, but how in October the monsoons began and the whole situation changed. For a solid week the rains never stopped, not once, and so after a few days the Song Tra Bong overflowed its banks and the land turned into a deep, thick muck for a quarter mile on either side. Just muck—no other word for it. Like quicksand, almost, except the stink was incredible. "You couldn't even sleep," he'd tell his father. "At night you'd find a high spot, and you'd doze off, but then later you'd wake up because you'd be buried in all that slime. You'd just sink in. You'd feel it ooze up over your body and sort of suck you down. And the whole time there was that constant rain. I mean, it never stopped, not ever." "Sounds pretty wet," his father would've said, pausing briefly. "So what happened?" "You really want to hear this?" "Hey, I'm your father." Norman Bowker smiled. He looked out across the lake and imagined the feel of his tongue against the truth. "Well, this one time, this one night out by the river ... I wasn't very brave." "You have seven medals." "Sure." "Seven. Count 'em. You weren't a coward either." "Well, maybe not. But I had the chance and I blew it. The stink, that's what got to me. I couldn't take that goddamn awful smel//." "If you don't want to say more—" "I do want to." "All right then. Slow and sweet, take your time." The road descended into the outskirts of town, turning northwest past the junior college and the tennis courts, then past Chautauqua Park, where the picnic tables were spread with sheets of colored plastic and where picnickers sat in lawn chairs and listened to the high school band playing Sousa marches under the band shell. The music faded after a few blocks. He drove beneath a canopy of elms, then along a stretch of open shore, then past the municipal docks, where a woman in pedal pushers stood casting for bullheads. There were no other fish in the lake except for perch and a few worthless carp. It was a bad lake for swimming and fishing both. He drove slowly. No hurry, nowhere to go. Inside the Chevy the air was cool and oily-smelling, and he took pleasure in the steady sounds of the engine and air-conditioning. A tour bus feeling, in a way, except the town

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  Over the next few weeks Linda wore her new red cap to school every day. She never took it off, not even in the classroom, and so it was inevitable that she took some teasing about it. Most of it came from a kid named Nick Veenhof. Out on the playground, during recess, Nick would creep up behind her and make a grab for the cap, almost yanking it off, then scampering away. It went on like that for weeks: the girls giggling, the guys egging him on. Naturally I wanted to do something about it, but it just wasn't possible. I had my reputation to think about. I had my pride. And there was also the problem of Nick Veenhof. So I stood off to the side, just a spectator, wishing I could do things I couldn't do. I watched Linda clamp down the cap with the palm of her hand, holding it there, smiling over in Nick's direction as if none of it really mattered. For me, though, it did matter. It still does. I should've stepped in; fourth grade is no excuse. Besides, it doesn't get easier with time, and twelve years later, when Vietnam presented much harder choices, some practice at being brave might've helped a little. Also, too, I might've stopped what happened next. Maybe not, but at least it's possible. Most of the details I've forgotten, or maybe blocked out, but I know it was an afternoon in late spring, and we were taking a spelling test, and halfway into the test Nick Veenhof held up his hand and asked to use the pencil sharpener. Right away a couple of kids laughed. No doubt he'd broken the pencil on purpose, but it wasn't something you could prove, and so the teacher nodded and told him to hustle it up. Which was a mistake. Out of nowhere Nick developed a terrible limp. He moved in slow motion, dragging himself up to the pencil sharpener and carefully slipping in his pencil and then grinding away forever. At the time, I suppose, it was funny. But on the way back to his seat Nick took a short detour. He squeezed between two desks, turned sharply right, and moved up the aisle toward Linda. I saw him grin at one of his pals. In a way, I already knew what was coming. As he passed Linda's desk, he dropped the pencil and squatted down to get it. When he came up, his left hand slipped behind her back. There was a half-second hesitation. Maybe he was trying to stop himself; maybe then, just briefly, he felt some small approximation of guilt. But it wasn't enough. He took hold of the white tassel, stood up, and gently lifted off her cap. Somebody must've laughed. I remember a short, tinny echo. I remember Nick Veenhof trying to smile. Somewhere behind me, a girl said, "Uh," or a sound like that. Linda didn't move.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  and it was no longer a question that could be decided by an act of pure reason. Intellect had come up against emotion. My conscience told me to run, but some irrational and powerful force was resisting, like a weight pushing me toward the war. What it came down to, stupidly, was a sense of shame. Hot, stupid shame. I did not want people to think badly of me. Not my parents, not my brother and sister, not even the folks down at the Gobbler Café. I was ashamed to be there at the Tip Top Lodge. I was ashamed of my conscience, ashamed to be doing the right thing. Some of this Elroy must've understood. Not the details, of course, but the plain fact of crisis. Although the old man never confronted me about it, there was one occasion when he came close to forcing the whole thing out into the open. It was early evening, and we'd just finished supper, and over coffee and dessert I asked him about my bill, how much I owed so far. For a long while the old man squinted down at the tablecloth. "Well, the basic rate," he said, "is fifty bucks a night. Not counting meals. This makes four nights, right?" I nodded. I had three hundred and twelve dollars in my wallet. Elroy kept his eyes on the tablecloth. "Now that's an on-season price. To be fair, I suppose we should knock it down a peg or two." He leaned back in his chair. "What's a reasonable number, you figure?" "I don't know," I said. "Forty?" "Forty's good. Forty a night. Then we tack on food—say another hundred? Two hundred sixty total?" "I guess." He raised his eyebrows. "Too much?" "No, that's fair. It's fine. Tomorrow, though ... I think I'd better take off tomorrow." Elroy shrugged and began clearing the table. For a time he fussed with the dishes, whistling to himself as if the subject had been settled. After a second he slapped his hands together. "You know what we forgot?" he said. "We forgot wages. Those odd jobs you done. What we have to do, we have to figure out what your time's worth. Your last job—how much did you pull in an hour?" "Not enough," I said. "A bad one?" "Yes. Pretty bad." Slowly then, without intending any long sermon, I told him about my days at the pig plant. It began as a straight recitation of the facts, but before I could stop myself I was talking about the blood clots and the water gun and how the smell had soaked into my skin and how I couldn't wash it away. I went on for a long time. I told him about wild hogs squealing in my dreams, the sounds of butchery, slaughterhouse sounds, and how I'd sometimes wake up with that greasy pig-stink in my throat. When I was finished, Elroy nodded at me.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  the smokestacks, the canneries, the arsenals at Hartford, the Minnesota forests, the machine shops, the vast fields of corn and wheat—they carried like freight trains; they carried it on their backs and shoulders—and for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry. After the chopper took Lavender away, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross led his men into the village of Than Khe. They burned everything. They shot chickens and dogs, they trashed the village well, they called in artillery and watched the wreckage, then they marched for several hours through the hot afternoon, and then at dusk, while Kiowa explained how Lavender died, Lieutenant Cross found himself trembling. He tried not to cry. With his entrenching tool, which weighed 5 pounds, he began digging a hole in the earth. He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war. All he could do was dig. He used his entrenching tool like an ax, slashing, feeling both love and hate, and then later, when it was full dark, he sat at the bottom of his foxhole and wept. It went on for a long while. In part, he was grieving for Ted Lavender, but mostly it was for Martha, and for himself, because she belonged to another world, which was not quite real, and because she was a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey, a poet and a virgin and uninvolved, and because he realized she did not love him and never would. Like cement, Kiowa whispered in the dark. I swear to God—boom, down. Not a word. I've heard this, said Norman Bowker. A pisser, you know? Still zipping himself up. Zapped while zipping. All right, fine. That's enough. Yeah, but you had to see it, the guy just— I heard, man. Cement. So why not shut the fuck up? Kiowa shook his head sadly and glanced over at the hole where Lieutenant Jimmy Cross sat watching the night. The air was thick and wet. A warm dense fog had settled over the paddies and there was the stillness that precedes rain. After a time Kiowa sighed. One thing for sure, he said. The lieutenant's in some deep hurt. I mean that crying jag—the way he was carrying on—it wasn't fake or anything, it was real heavy-duty hurt. The man cares. Sure, Norman Bowker said. Say what you want, the man does care. We all got problems. Not Lavender. No, I guess not, Bowker said. Do me a favor, though. Shut up? That's a smart Indian. Shut up.

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

  Set clear, part, ob ῥᾳδίως ἀπελύοντο Thuc. 1. 49: generally, to be sepa- rated or detached, ἀλλήλων or ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων Arist. Metaph. 6. 6, 5, Phys. I. 2,6; ἀπ. τὰ wd τῆς ὑστέρας Id. G, A. 3. 3, 7, al.; ἀπολελυμένος, absol., detached, αἰδοῖα, γλῶττα, ὄρχεις Id.H.A. 2.1, 41., 4. 8,7.» 4.9, 23 τὴν γλῶτταν ἀπ. having its tongue detached, Id. Fr. 300, al. 2. to depart, ἔθανες, ἀπελύθης Soph. Ant. 1268, and freq. in Polyb. and Lxx; cf. B. IV. III. of a child, to be brought forth, Hipp. 261. 49, sq., cf. 262. 39, Arist. G. A. 2.6, 54: but also of the mother, fo be delivered, Hipp. 1013 E. IV. to be annulled, Arist. Eth. N. 8. 3, 3. ἍΜ: ἀπολελυμένος, ἡ, ον, absolute, ἐξουσία Eus. H.E. το. 5. 7; cf. ἀπόλυτος. ἀ-πολυώρητος, ov, not highly esteemed, Philodem. 61. 9, Gottl. ἀπολωβάω, to dishonour, Soph. Aj. 217, in aor. pass. ἀπελωβήθη. ἀπολωπίζω, (λῶπος) -- λωποδυτέω, Soph. Fr. 844 (acc. to Poll. 7. 44; but cf. ἐκλωπίζω). ἀπολωτίζω, -- ἀπανθίζω, to pluck off flowers: generally, to pluck off, κόμας Eur. 1. A. 793; ἀπ. νέους to cut off the young, Id. Supp. 449. ἀπολωφάω, Ion. --ἔω, to appease, Hipp. 1280. fin. (in Pass.), Ap. Rh. 4. 1418, in tmesi:—hence Subst. ἀπολώφησις, ἡ, a lightening, relief, An, Ox. 3. 188. ἀπομαγδαλία or -τά, 7, (ἀπομάσσωλν the crumb or inside of the loaf, on which the Greeks wiped their hands at dinner, and then threw it to the dogs, hence dog’s meat, Ar. Eq. 415, Alciphro 3. 44, Plut. Lyc. 12. In Eust. 1857. 11, ἀπομαγδαλίς, idos, ἡ. ἀπόμαγμα, τό, (ἀπομάσσω) anything used for wiping or cleaning, Hipp. 19. 47. 2. like κάθαρμα, the dirt washed off, Soph. Fr. 32. II. the impression of a seal, Theophr. C. P.6.19,5, Id. Lap.67. ἀπομἄδάω, of the hair, to fall off, Arist. Mirab. 78. ἀπομᾶδίζω, fut. iow, to make quite bald, Schol. Ar. Eq. 372; also ἀπομαδαρίζω, Eccl. ἀπομάξιος, (μαζός) taken from the breast, Opp. C. 4. 93. ἀπομάθημα, τό, a thing unlearnt: an unlearning, Hipp. Fract. 767. Gtropatvopar, Pass., fut. μᾶνήσομαι, pf. 2 act. μέμηνα :—to rave out and be done with it, or to rage to the uttermost, Luc. D. D. 12. 1. ἀπομακρύνομαι, Pass. to be far removed, Tov ἡλίου Arist. Plant. 2. 6, 2, Chara tT, 17: ἀπομακτής, οὔ, 6, one who wipes, rubs, or cleans, Soph. Fr. 32, A. B. 431; esp. in magical rites, Poll. 7. 188, where also fem. -μάκτρια. ἀπόμακτρον, τό, a strickle, Ar. Fr. 586, ubi v. Dind.; in Hesych. also ἀπομάκτρα, 77. ἀπομᾶλακίζομαι, Pass. to be weak or cowardly, shew weakness, πρός τι in a thing, Arist. H. A. 9. 7, 4, cf. Plut. Lyc. Io. ἀπομαλθακίζομαι, Pass. =foreg., Plut. 2.62 A, and prob, |. (for --όομαι), Id. Pelop. 21. ἀπομανθάνω, fut. --μᾶθήσομαι, to unlearn, Lat. dediscere, ταῦτα, ἃ πρὸ Tov φόμην εἰδέναι Plat. Phaedo οὔ C, cf. Prot. 342 Ὁ, Xen. Cyr. 4. 3, 143 c. inf, Plut. Lyc. 11. ἀπομαντεύομαι, Dep.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  The road curved west, where the sun had now dipped low. He figured it was close to five o'clock—twenty after, he guessed. The war had taught him to tell time without clocks, and even at night, waking from sleep, he could usually place it within ten minutes either way. What he should do, he thought, is stop at Sally's house and impress her with this new time-telling trick of his. They'd talk for a while, catching up on things, and then he'd say, "Well, better hit the road, it's five thirty-four," and she'd glance at her wrist-watch and say, "Hey! How'd you do that?" and he'd give a casual shrug and tell her it was just one of those things you pick up. He'd keep it light. He wouldn't say anything about anything. "How's it being married?" he might ask, and he'd nod at whatever she answered with, and he would not say a word about how he'd almost won the Silver Star for valor. He drove past Slater Park and across the causeway and past Sunset Park. The radio announcer sounded tired. The temperature in Des Moines was eighty-one degrees, and the time was five thirty-five, and "All you on the road, drive extra careful now on this fine Fourth of July." If Sally had not been married, or if his father were not such a baseball fan, 1t would have been a good time to talk. "The Silver Star?" his father might have said. "Yes, but I didn't get it. Almost, but not quite." And his father would have nodded, knowing full well that many brave men do not win medals for their bravery, and that others win medals for doing nothing. As a starting point, maybe, Norman Bowker might then have listed the seven medals he did win: the Combat Infantryman's Badge, the Air Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart, though his wound was minor and did not leave a scar and did not hurt and never had. He would've explained to his father that none of these decorations was for uncommon valor. They were for common valor. The routine, daily stuff —yjust humping, just enduring—but that was worth something, wasn't it? Yes, it was. Worth plenty. The ribbons looked good on the uniform in his closet, and if his father were to ask, he would've explained what each signified and how he was proud of all of them, especially the Combat Infantryman's Badge, because it meant he had been there as a real soldier and had done all the things soldiers do, and therefore it wasn't such a big deal that he could not bring himself to be uncommonly brave. And then he would have talked about the medal he did not win and why he did not win it. "T almost won the Silver Star," he would have said. "How's that?" "Just a story."

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  All those eyes on me—the town, the whole universe—and I couldn't risk the embarrassment. It was as if there were an audience to my life, that swirl of faces along the river, and in my head I could hear people screaming at me. Traitor! they yelled. Turncoat! Pussy! I felt myself blush. I couldn't tolerate it. I couldn't endure the mockery, or the disgrace, or the patriotic ridicule. Even in my imagination, the shore just twenty yards away, I couldn't make myself be brave. It had nothing to do with morality. Embarrassment, that's all it was. And right then I submitted. I would go to the war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to. That was the sad thing. And so I sat in the bow of the boat and cried. It was loud now. Loud, hard crying. Elroy Berdahl remained quiet. He kept fishing. He worked his line with the tips of his fingers, patiently, squinting out at his red and white bobber on the Rainy River. His eyes were flat and impassive. He didn't speak. He was simply there, like the river and the late-summer sun. And yet by his presence, his mute watchfulness, he made it real. He was the true audience. He was a witness, like God, or like the gods, who look on in absolute silence as we live our lives, as we make our choices or fail to make them. "Ain't biting,” he said. Then after a time the old man pulled in his line and turned the boat back toward Minnesota. I don't remember saying goodbye. That last night we had dinner together, and I went to bed early, and in the morning Elroy fixed breakfast for me. When I told him I'd be leaving, the old man nodded as if he already knew. He looked down at the table and smiled. At some point later in the morning it's possible that we shook hands—I just don't remember—but I do know that by the time I'd finished packing the old man had disappeared. Around noon, when I took my suitcase out to the car, I noticed that his old black pickup truck was no longer parked in front of the main lodge. I went inside and waited for a while, but I felt a bone certainty that he wouldn't be back. In a way, I thought, it was appropriate. I washed up the breakfast dishes, left his two hundred dollars on the kitchen counter, got into the car, and drove south toward home. The day was cloudy. I passed through towns with familiar names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie, and then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and then home again. I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war. Enemies

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Before we head to the park, I tuck two more beer bottles in my coat pocket, plus one in my purse alongside a juice box. Coming home at dusk, I find smoke billowing from the stove door’s edges, the alarm screaming. I yank out the forgotten roast, black and unidentifiable as any roadkill. Mary’s pot-roast recipe? Drink a six-pack then ring the fire department. And rather than call for pizza while congratulating myself that Dev was king of the monkey bars in an arctic gale, I pile a hungry boy into the car for a rush-hour lope through the store for another pot roast, since I’d idly mentioned to my husband a pot roast was forthcoming. Thus ignoring the fact that Warren would forgo roast to find a cheerful spouse and a slice or two of pepperoni. In the store, I trot through the aisles behind a veering cart, thinking, Isn’t Warren a demanding dick to insist on pot roast? My blood-alcohol level is waning, and as my near-starved toddler holds out his arms toward a sugary cereal, his whine revs up till he’s baying like a sick calf to be liberated from the cart. I look at his quite prominent—is that his pulse throbbing?—blue horn as the strangers fix me in their sights. ( What a mean, awful mother! ) Dev is hoisted out while he thrashes and arches his back like he’s being abducted. We abandon our sundries. Outside, I strap him into his car seat while he flails, and I shout at him—Goddammit, Dev, you’re gonna make me nuts—and tears fill his blue eyes. He covers his face with his hands. While grocery carts veer alongside us, I catch in the rearview Dev’s face all quiet and big eyed. So I heft him out of the car seat and smother his face in kisses, gushing regret. Back home, still there is no pot roast. I scramble eggs while uncorking a new wine, the sweet squeak of the cork releasing the aroma of ferment, and I tell myself, Who wouldn’t drink? This is the last bottle. I’ll finish it, then start fresh tomorrow. In a sneaky, insidious process, it’s all I really look forward to, and I’d bare my teeth at anybody approaching the glass in my hand with a mind toward taking it. That night Warren comes in at ten-thirty, failing to thank me for the noodley casserole glop I slap in a bowl. Ditzy with wine and holding a boulder of guilt, I confess to Warren about snapping at Dev in the store. He blinks. You can’t do that. Easy for you to say, you’re not here all day. But Warren faces me with the piety of a natural parent. Trained to rein in a thoroughbred or wrest a slipper from a teething pooch, he’s disinclined to lose his cool.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  How lucky is that? I say, and I mold my features into the unwilled smile of a store-bought doll . As part of my program to look like a model inmate, I organize something I call Health and Beauty Day. Joan has been called to the West Coast to nurse her father in hospice. But Deb and Liz bring in meditation tapes patients can listen to while lying on the dayroom floor in the morning. I also arrange for staff to take us on a long walk around the campus and to the gym, where we idly thwap around basketballs. Before dinner, we make facial masks from yogurt and honey and lie supine on mats in the kitchen with cucumber slices on our eyes and mayo slathered on our hair—homemade spa treatments I clipped from a magazine. Pam jokes that we should have a fashion show involving the papery nightgowns that show our flubbery asses. After dinner, Betty invites me to her room so I can borrow some petal-pink polish for my toenails. She nicks into the bathroom to slip into her pajamas. Coming out, she pulls a daffodil-yellow sweatshirt from a drawer, and as it slips over her head, I catch a glimpse of burn marks up one arm above the elbow—a line of festering sores of varying depths. I grab her wrist, and she jerks away. What did you do? I say. Nothing, she says. It’s none of your business. How did you even do that? I ask. Leave it alone. It’s been there a long time. Those were fresh. You’ve been here three months. How did you find a way to burn yourself? You think you know about everything, Betty says in a hissed whisper. Betty— Miss High and Mighty. Miss Harvard Everything. —you gotta tell your doctor about this. All you’ve done since you got here is get fat! You’re disgusting. And your son is fat! He’s fat because you’re mean to him. You’re crazy! Your husband should take him to protect him from you. I’m gonna testify for him too if you mess with me. Get out of here. Get out of my room. You came in here to make a pass at me. You’re sick! You’re a fat, sick perverted lesbian! She runs back into the bathroom and slams the door. What’s going on in here? says a nurse, sticking her head in. Nothing, I say. Betty’s worried about her complexion, I think. In the dayroom the next day, Tina’s sketching a design for her wreath as I whisper what I’ve found out. She shrugs. You’ve gotta stay out of that. Some of those sores look infected, I say. She tilts her head to the door, and I follow her toward the phone booth. She sits on the wooden stool under the pay phone while I stand in the hall. She glances past me to be sure the coast is clear, then pulls up her ankle-length nightgown.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Thomas Jefferson. Surely they recognize my native intellect. At some point Mrs. Whitbread says casually, What religion does your family practice, Mary? Which I take as interest in my strangely compelling history. I think of my mother, who studied every faith and—with her husbands—committed to none. We’re not anything, really, I say. But I find myself dredging up a few childhood visits to the Presbyterian church, for I know a joke punch line about Episcopalians being Presbyterians with trust funds. But I catch Mrs. Whitbread’s unmet glance toward Warren, and it dawns on me that had he brought home his classmate Caroline Kennedy, her being a Catholic might have been a mark against her. In a mind shift, I’m a schoolgirl again in summer, and my half-Indian daddy has just come in the back door at dawn with grime under his nails from a double shift. How carefully he draws five one-dollar bills from his weathered billfold to give Mother for two pairs of school shoes—one for me, one for Lecia. While I wait for her to bring the car around, he slips off his shirt, showing a chest pale as paper where his worker’s tan runs out. He steps out of his khakis, and jutting through his baggy boxers, his legs are knobby and thin. One thigh’s pronounced hunk of shrapnel is royal blue. The long scar up his right shinbone where a horse he was breaking threw and dragged him looks freshly scabby. He sits down on the bed’s edge, staring at his brown forearms. Daddy, I whisper, and that greedy call for him snaps the connection to the past. The voltage drops, and he’s gone, reabsorbed into the shriveled form in my mother’s house, tended days by a male nurse we can’t afford, nights by Mother, who resents it. In an instant I’m back in the Whitbreads’ library, and Daddy lies uninsured, half paralyzed. On the mantle, sits a recent Christmas snapshot with all the siblings before the fireplace, glossy-haired and tidy. They actually match like the gorgeous silverware. Not resemblance but precise replication. I think, Tiger One, Tiger Two...(I’ll come to believe that the WASP genetic code imperially squashes the other parent’s contributing DNA in offspring. My own son, blond and blue-eyed, will bear so little of me that ladies in the park will think I’ve been hired to push his stroller.) Just as we’re saying good night, Mr. Whitbread inquires whether, as a Texan, my father’s in oil, and I tell him he was, adding—wittily, I think—up to his elbows twelve hours a day. Which fact they take with a preoccupied air. I could speculate on what they thought, but they’re unreadable as granite. That night, lying in Warren’s narrow bed, where I’ve sneaked from his sister’s flowery boudoir to make love, I ask him, How’d I do? He cups my face. I love you, he says. Leafy shadows move over us. (How young we were.) Do you think they heard us just now?

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  In the sunlit study of a couples’ counselor, huge potted plants are thriving—ficus and mother-in-law tongue and wandering Jew with shoots sending out small explosions of streaky green. Across from us, the therapist smiles from a moon-shaped face. In the next room, one of her bespectacled kids saws through violin scales. This doctor—in her loose muslin dress and Birkenstock sandals, her long wavy hair dragged into a bun with a pen stuck through it—appears to have cobbled together what I want: a happy family. I tell her about snapping at Dev and making him cry—the reason we’re here. She tries to reassure me that Dev’s childhood, however shadowed by our scratching at each other, doesn’t mirror my own. You’re both very worried about Dev’s feelings, she says, but he’s in no way neglected. (In some ways, true enough. But having your parents circle each other—I still contend—splits a child in two.) Warren’s just a better parent, I say. Is that true? she asks him. His long legs in khakis bend and unbend, mantislike. He says, Mary’s very loving, very good about seeing he plays with other kids all the time… He trails off, and she says, But? She gets very overwhelmed and snappish, he finishes. He’s perfectly patient with Dev, I say. Well, probably, she tells me with that smile, if Warren was up all night like you, he might be less perfect. I doubt that, I say. She asks me to say more, and I outline Warren’s steadiness. How his devotion to poetry has inspired me to strive for a higher bar in my work. I praise his integrity and self-discipline, saying, I wanted a solid family. That’s part of why I married him, for the stability he offered. She leads me on, but now the stabilization feels… Stultifying, I say. She eventually turns to Warren. Why’d you marry Mary? It seemed like time, he says. We’d been together three years. We loved each other—health insurance and so forth. She very much wanted a family. I stare at him, awaiting some of his former warmth for me to squeeze through the stone, but he ticks off what might be qualities in a personals ad—attractive, athletic, smart. She’s much more social than I, he adds, very loyal, a very devoted mother… Whoever you married would have those qualities, she says. I think he married me—I interrupt—to rebuke his upbringing. Now he resents my absorption with the baby or that his father chips in my rent! (These pet theories conveniently skim over my own—at this point—innately repellent disposition.) That’s so damned unfair, he says. It’s Warren’s turn, the therapist says levelly. Toward the end, when she asks how much I’m drinking, I halve it. Still she suggests I try out an evening support group for people trying to give up booze. She turns to Warren, Do you think she’s an alcoholic?

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  The next instant a gray-haired lady in pearls smiles at me, and I turn away, thinking, I’m not like you, lady.... Nonetheless, I raise my hand a few inches, but when I don’t get called on, I yank it down and start sitting on it again. How far I’ve fallen from the hand-flapping freshman, how saturated in shame. That flip-flop keeps going on inside, as if opposing inner judo masters take turns body-slamming each other. One minute I’m thinking, They’re not all that strange. The next, their laughter bounces off me like bullets from a Kevlar vest. I go outside to smoke. In the common across from me, the bare trees are twisted into agonized forms. The bronze cannons seem aimed straight at my sternum. I look back at the lighted windows and hear a woman’s unintelligible voice. The door opens a crack, and in the spilled, triangular glow, a tall kid wearing a red bandana over his streaming brown hair slips out. He stops six feet away and bends slightly forward—almost a butler’s bow—saying, Excuse me, Miss Karr. Mind if I join you? Who is he? With his formal demeanor and gold granny glasses, he could be a student—some Ivy League suck-up. Join away, I say, adding as I flash my wedding ring, I’m a miz. My goodness gracious, ma’am, he says, those are some seriously blinding stones you’re flaunting. We met before... And we had. David was a Harvard Ph.D. candidate in philosophy I’d once been introduced to at the back of a reading by mutual pals. Some kind of genius, David’s meant to be, though his red bandana is the flag of gangster or biker, ditto the unlaced Timberland work boots. I ask him how long he’s been coming, and he says not hardly any time, and I say it’s my first go, and he asks if I get it, and I say if I got it, I wouldn’t be out here smoking. He says same with him, adding while he drank a lot, he mostly did marijuana, which can’t be so bad because it’s natural. I say—cleverly, I think—Strychnine’s natural. He concedes that’s true but also points out how, since the average pot smoker doesn’t tend to steal your TV, people don’t frown on it like they do, say, smoking crack, then plowing over the crossing guard. We stare at the cannons facing us, both agreeing we really have better places to be as we grind our cigarettes with our boot heels. Climbing the steps back to the lighted doorway, he holds the door, bowing as he says from his scruffily bearded face (this is the pre-scruff U.S.A.), After you, Miz Karr. It brings me up short—his outlaw wardrobe paired with the obsequious ma’am thing—and I say testily, Are you fucking with me? No ma’am, he says, his hands flying to his T-shirted chest.

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

  καυτήρ, pos, 6, a burner, Pind. P. 1. 185. a branding iron, Hipp. 894 A, Galen. Gloss. καυτηριάζω, fut. dow, to cauterise, Strab. 215 (ubi olim male καταστ--); metaph. in Pass., κεκαυτηριασμένοι τὴν συνείδησιν τ Ep. Tim. 4. 2:— verb. Adj. καυτηριαστέον, Theophan. Nonn. 2. p. 338. καυτήριον, τό, a branding iron, Luc. Pisc. 52 (vulg. καυστ--), Apol. 2: metaph., καυτήρια ταῖς ψυχαῖς προσάγειν Diod. 20. 54:—also καυτηρ- ίδιον, Galen. Gloss. II. a burnt mark, brand. kavTns, ov, δ, =Kavorns, καυτήρ, Anth. Ἐν 2. 51. καυτός, ἧ, ὄν, ν. sub καυστός. καὐτός, by crasis for καὶ αὐτός, Eur. 1. A. 1349, Anth. P.6. 57. καυχάομαι, 2 sing. καυχᾶσαι in late Gr., as Ep. Rom. 2. 17, 23, etc.: fut. ἤσομαι Hdt., Epicr. Ἔμπορ. I: aor. ἐκαυχησάμην Eupol. AnH. 31, Arist. Pol. 5. 10, 16 : pf. κεκαύχημαι 2 Ep. Cor.7.14. (Akin to αὐχέω, εὔχομαι.) To speak loud, be loud-tongued, Pind. O. 9. 58 Eupol. Any. 31, etc.: to boast or vaunt oneself, ἐπ᾽ αἰζηοῖσι κ. μέγα Cratin. Λάκων. 1, cf. Lycurg. in A. B. 275; εἴς τι Arist. Pol. 5. 10, 16 :—e. acc. et inf. to boast that .., Hdt. 7. 39, Epicr. l.c., etc. ;—c. part. Zo boast of doing or being, Menand. Monost. 616:—c. acc. ¢o boast of, Philem. Incert. 18, 2 Ep. Cor. g. 2 Not found in the best Att. Prose. καύχη, ἣ, τε 54.» καῦχαι ἐπέων, of heroic verse, Pind. N. 2 15. καύχημα, τό, a boast, vaunt, Pind. I. 5 (4). 65. 2. a subject of boasting, Lesbonax 173. 18, Ep. Rom. 4. 2. καυχημᾶτίας, ov, 6, a boaster, brag gart, Schol. Il. 13. 373, E. M. καυχήμων, ov, boastful, Babr. 5. τὸ. καύχησις, €ws, ἡ, reason to boast, Vol. Hercul. τ. p.16, Ep. Rom. 15.117. καυχητής, ov, 6, a boaster, Schol. Hom., cf, Lob. Paral. 440. καυχητιάω, to boast aloud, E. M. 206. 22, Schol. Ar. Pl. 572. Kaos, Ξ κάπος, E.M. καφουρά, 7, camphor, ν. Ducang. Gloss. καφώρη, 7, a she fox, also σκαφώρη, Schneid. Ael.N. A. 7.47. κἄχάζω, Dor. fut. καχαξῶ Theocr. 5. 142:—(prob. onomatop., like καγχαλάω, Lat. cachinnor). To laugh aloud, Ar. Eccl. 849, Anacreont. 34. 29, Luc. Ὁ. Meretr. 6.3; ἐπί τινι at one, Eubul. Aap. 1, Luc. Amor. 22.) μέγα κατά τινος Theocr. 1. ο.: hence with a sense of scorn or mockery, ἁπάντων καχαζόντων ἡ ΕΣ Soph. Aj. 199. —The Mss. often II. like καυτήριον, καυσαλώνης ---- Kea ἰζω. 337 A), and this form is required by the metre in Babr. 99. 8, λύκος: δ᾽ ἐπ’ αὐτῷ καγχάσας, as in Anth.P.5. 230., 6.74; but the old Att. form was καχάζω, as required by the metre in Soph. and Ar. ll. c., cf. καχασμός. κἄχασμός, ὃ, τε καγχασμός (ᾳ ν.). Αγ. Nub. 1073, acc. to Rav. Ms. κἄχεκτέω, to be in a bad habit of body, be unwell, Polyb. 29. 6,143 κ. ψυχῇ to be ill-disposed, disaffected, Id. 20. 7, 43 of the condition of a State, Ib. 4.1.

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

  αἰσχύνω [Ὁ] : Ion. impf. αἰσχύνεσκε (κατ--) Q. Sm. I4. 531: fut. -tv@ Eur. Hipp. 719, Ion. -vvéw Hdt. 9. 53 : aor. ἤσχῦνα 1]., Att.: pf. ἤσχυγκα Dio Ὁ. 58. 16, ἤσχῦκα Draco 12:—Pass., fut. αἰσχύνοῦμαι Aesch. Ag. 856, Ar. Fr. 21, Plat., rarely αἰσχυνθήσομαι v. sub fin.: aor. ἠσχύνθην Hdt. and Att., poét. inf. αἰσχυνθήμεν Pind. N. 9. 64: pf. ἤσχυμμαι (v. infr. Β. 1) :—cf. ἀπ--, ἐπ-αισχύνομαι, κατ-αισχύνω. To make ugly, disfigure, mar, πρόσωπον, κόμην 1]. 18. 24, 27; αἰσχ. τὸν ἵππον to give the horse a bad form, Xen. Eq. 1, 12. 2. mostly in moral sense, to dishonour, tarnish, μηδὲ γένος πατέρων αἰσχυνέμεν Il. 6. 209, cf. 23. 271; τὴν Σπάρτην Hdt. g. 53; freq. in Att., as αἰσχ. ξενίαν τράπεζαν Aesch. Ag. 401; τοὺς πρὸς αἵματος Soph. Aj. 13053 τοὺς πατέρας Plat. Menex. 246 D. b. esp. to dishonour a woman, Eur. El. 44, etc.; αἰσχ. εὐνήν Aesch. Ag. 1626 ;—for Soph. Ant. 528, v. sub αἱματόεις. 8. to dishonour, disdain, ἐπιχώρια Pind. P. 3. 38. B. Pass. to be dishonoured, Lat. contumelia affici, νέκυς ἡσχυμ- μένος, of Patroclus, Il. 18. 180; εἰς τὸ σῶμα aigy. Arist. Pol. 5. Io. ΤΣ: II. to be ashamed, feel shame, absol., Od. 7. 305., 18. 12, Hdt. 1. το, Eur. Hipp. 1291. 2. more commonly ¢o be ashamed at a thing, c. acc. rei, αἰσχυνόμενοι φάτιν ἀνδρῶν Od. 21. 323; τὴν δυσγένειαν THY ἐμὴν aicx. Soph. O. T. 1079; also c. dat. rei, Ar. Nub. 992, Lys. 97. 12, εἴς. ; and with Preps., αἰσχ. ἐπί τινι Xen. Mem. 2. 2, 8; ἔν τινι Thuc. 2. 43; ὑπέρ τινος Lys. 142. 24, Dem., etc. b. c. part. to be ashamed at doing a thing (which however one does), Aesch. Pr. 642, Soph. Ant. 540, Ar. Fr. 21, Plat., etc.; but c. c. inf. to be ashamed to do a thing (and therefore not to do it), Hdt. τ. 42 82, Aesch. Ag. 856, Cho. 917, Plat. Rep. 414 E, Phaedr. 257 D, etc. ; though this condition must not be pressed absolutely, v. Apol. 22 B. d. foll. by a relat. clause, αἰσχύνεσθαι εἰ or ἤν... to be ashamed that .., Soph. El. 254, Andoc. 34. 31, Plat., etc.; αἰσχ- μὴ... Plat. Theaet. 183 E. 3. c. acc. pers. to feel shame before one, Eur. lon 933, 1074, Pherecr. Air. 1. 6, Plat. Symp. 216 B; τόν ye μηδὲν etdor αἰσχυνθήσεται Philem. Incert. 51 D; c. acc. et inf., Eur. Hel. 415; ἠσχύνθημεν θεοὺς... προδοῦναι αὐτόν Xen. An. 2. 3, 22:—also, αἰσχ. πρός τινα Arist. Rhet. 2. 6, 1. b. to reverence, Aeschin. 25. 30. αἰσχύνωμα, atos, τό, -- τὸ αἰδοῖον. LXX. Αἰσωπο-ποίητος, ov, made by Aesop, Quintil. Inst. 5. 11.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  I find myself cornered by a drunk writer of substantial reputation at a party. His expectant leer scares me out the door. At the car, I have keys in my hand but no purse. Where’s my purse? I find myself squatting in the bedroom closet with two incongruent bottles, whiskey and Listerine—the latter with accompanying spit bowl. Despite the dark, it feels safe in here, leaning against the back wall with clothes before my face. On one of Warren’s school nights, friends I once taught with ring my doorbell holding a twelve-pack, the ambush making me giddy as a prom queen. They pore over my shoe box of Dev’s baby pictures while regaling me with their new projects—a play at Yale, a book of short stories. But even as I giggle and suck down beers, I know Warren’s headlights are gonna swipe the house silent again. Sure enough, he comes in the back door and stops in the living room to shake hands before excusing himself. About eleven, he calls from upstairs, and I find him on the landing, shirtless in boxers. He whispers, I can’t sleep from the noise. If you don’t ask them to leave, I’ll have to. I hiss at him, You’re such a control freak. He says, You knew I was like this when you married me. The righteous cry of married men everywhere, for it’s a cliché that every woman signs up thinking her husband will change, while every husband signs up believing his wife won’t: both dead wrong. So I send them home, then stay up nearly all night drinking and staring past the edges of the yard like a rabbit through chicken wire. What happened to those great poems I was going to set the world weeping with? Tomorrow! How sweet its prospects for a drunkard the night before. There is no better word. Before the earth hurls itself into sunshine, nothing is not possible. Tomorrow, I will rise at three A.M. and log two hours writing before Dev stumps out. I’ll take a five-mile jog, start a cheap but nutritious stew, submit a query letter to The American Scholar for an essay. If only I could be left alone for a few days to drink like I want to, I could get my papers graded. Every mom trails undone chores—dishes in the sink, laundry going wrinkly in the dryer. I lug from room to office to playground reams of ungraded essays. With one hand, I use a fork to fiddle with chicken in a skillet. With the other, my red pen marks comma blunders on the counter. The papers I hand back sport grease stains and grass stains and smudges of homemade applesauce.