From the florilegium, in re exam season.

May I joke for a moment, just to distract myself from the impending clades omnium rerum balefully signified by the next two days? I was walking home from the library and lamenting that the internet is totally and woefully inadequate for purposes of reviewing for my narrative theory exam when a line from Sallust popped into my head:

corpus patiens inediae algoris vigiliae, supra quam quoiquam credibile est. (Bel. Cat. 5.3)

His body was tolerant of hunger, cold, and sleepless nights? Even more than you'd think was humanly possible? Goodness me, I thought, Catiline should have given up the treason business and become a professional student. This caused me to page through my notebook for a few moments, only to find this:

iam pridem equidem nos vera vocabula rerum amisimus, (52.11)

which, let me tell you, seems too appropriate on a night when I'm trying to keep the distinction between an autodiegetic and a homodiegetic author straight--"we've long since lost track of the correct vocabulary for things," indeed.

And why am I in this position? Because as far as the last term is concerned, Sallust has my number:

sed multi mortales, dediti ventri atque somno, indocti incultique vitam sicuti peregrinantes transigere; quibus profecto contra naturam corpus voluptati, anima oneri fuit: (2.8)

But there are a great many men, interested in nothing but gluttony and sleep, who have gone about their lives disheveled and ignorant--as if they were just passing through; for them, unnatural as it is, the body was a thing to be pampered and the soul a burden.

It may not be totally fair, but ah, a two-inch-high Calvin sits on my heart of hearts, baneful and perceptive taskmaster though he is.

Well, praise the L-rd and pass the ammunition. If I don't pass that History exam I'll be polishing shoes in an airport before I know what's become of me, so I should hit the books; as for this, it was written in praise of Sallust and as a plaything for myself. ("Ha! Ha! I'm Gorgias of Leontini!")