Saturday, September 19, 2015

Te totum applica ad textum: rem totam applica ad te.

     Johann Albrecht Bengel, Praefatio to the octavo Greek Testament of 1734 (Η ΚΑΙΝΗ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ | NOVUM TESTAMENTUM GRÆCUM ita adornatum ut in textu medulla editionum probatarum retineatur . . . (Stuttgart:  Faber, 1734)), sec. XII.  See, for example, p. 11 of the printing of 1762.
     This is sometimes quoted as "Te totum applica ad textum, totum textum applica ad te."

"'her sobs in the night'"

     "Critics admire the aesthetic perfection of Vladimir[ Nabokov]'s novels but tend to neglect their moral and psychological genius.  Vladimir's two greatest books are warnings to himself, studies in the price he would have paid had he tried (somewhat as his cousin Nicolas had tried) to make real in his present-day life the vision of beauty he had seen long ago in Russia.  Lolita tells the story of a polyglot émigré who embraces what he takes to be an embodiment of his lost youthful vision in the person of an adolescent American girl.  As Humbert Humbert recalls only once (the point needs to be made only once), the result is 'her sobs in the nightevery night, every nightthe moment I feigned sleep.'"

     Edward Mendelson, "Lives & loves of the exile," The New York review of books 62, no. 14 (September 24, 2015), 47 (46-48).
     I have never read Lolita, and, so, must take Mendelson at his word.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

May the work of the sacrament have the prevenience

Of our minds and bodies may the operation of the heavenly gift take possession, O Lord, we pray, so that not what we perceive [(noster sensus)]but its effect [(eius . . . effectus)] may always come first in us.  Through.

"Mentes nostras et corpora possideat, 
quaesumus, Domine, doni caelestis operatio, ut non noster sensus in nobis, sed eius praeveniat semper effectus.  Per."

"May the working of this heavenly gift, O Lord, we pray, take possession of our minds and bodies, so that its effects, and not our own desires, may always prevail in us.  Through."

     Post-Communion, Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Roman Missal.  Substantially (with the exception of iugiter for semper) the early 8th-century Gelasian sacramentary (Corpus orationum no. 3335 (vol. 5, pp. 150-151), where there are variants; Bruylants II, 677 (p. 189)).  First translation mine.