Noctes Atticae

That shame drives the blood outward, while fear checks it.

IN the Problems of the philosopher Aristotle is the following passage: [*](Frag. 243, Rose.)

Why do men who are ashamed turn red and those who fear grow pale; although these emotions are similar? Because the blood of those who feel shame flows from the heart to all parts of the body, and therefore comes to the surface; but the blood of those who fear rushes to the heart, and consequently leaves all the other parts of the body.

When I had read this at Athens with our friend

Taurus and had asked him what he thought about that reason which had been assigned, he answered:

He has told us properly and truly what happens when the blood is diffused or concentrated, but he has not told us why this takes place. For the question may still be asked why it is that shame diffuses the blood and fear contracts it, when shame is a kind of fear and is defined by the philosophers as 'the fear of just censure.' For they say: ai)sxu/nh e)sti\n fo/bos dikai/ou yo/gou.

The meaning of obesus and of some other early words.

THE poet Julius Paulus, a worthy man, very learned in early history and letters, inherited a small estate in the Vatican district. He often invited us there to visit him and entertained us very pleasantly and generously with vegetables and fruits. And so one mild day in autumn, when Julius Celsinus and I had dined with him, and after hearing the Alcestis of Laevius read at his table were returning to the city just before sunset, we were ruminating on the rhetorical figures and the new or striking use of words in that poem of Laevius', and as each word occurred that was worthy of notice with reference to its future use by ourselves, [*](This is characteristic of the archaistic period in which Gellius lived.) we committed it to memory.

Now the passages which then came to mind were of this sort: [*](Frag. 8, Bahrens.)

1. Of chest and body wasted (obeso) everywhere,
2. Of mind devoid of sense and slow of pace,
3. With age o'ercome.

Here we noticed that obesus is used, rather in its proper than in its common signification, to mean slender and lean; for the vulgar use obesus, a)ku/rws (improperly), or kata\ a)nti/frasin (by contraries), for uber (bulky) and pinguis (fat). We also observed [*](Frag. 9, Bährens.) that he spoke of an extinct race as oblittera instead of oblitterata, and that he characterized enemies who broke treaties as foedifragi, not foederifragi; that he called the blushing Aurora pudoricolor, or

shame-coloured

and Memnon, nocticolor, or

night-coloured

; also that he used forte for

hesitatingly,

and said silenta loca, or

silent places,

from the verb sileo; further, that he used pulverulenta for

dusty

and pestilenta for

pestilent,

the genitive case instead of the ablative with careo; magno impete, or

mighty onset,

instead of impetu; that he used fortescere for fortem fieri, or

become brave,

dolentia for dolor, or

sorrow,

avens for libens, or

desirous

; that he spoke of curae intolerantes, or

unendurable cares,

instead of intolerandae, manciolae tenellae, or

tender hands,

instead of manus, and quis tam siliceo for

who is of so flinty a heart?

He also says fiere inpendio infit, meaningfieri inpense incipit, or

the expense begins to be great,

and he used accipetret [*](A verb formed from accipiter, hawk, meaning to tear, as a hawk does its prey.) for laceret, or

rends.

We entertained ourselves on our way with these notes on Laevius' diction. But others we passed over as too poetic and unsuited to use in prose; for example, when he calls Nestor trisaeclisenex, or

an old man who had lived three generations

and dulciorelocus isle, or

that sweet-mouthed speaker,

when he calls great swelling waves multigruma, or

great-hillocked,

and says that rivers congealed by the cold have an onychinum tegimen, or

an onyx covering

; also his many humorous multiple compounds, as when he calls his detractors [*](Frag. 7, Bährens.) subductisupercilicarptores, or

carpers with raised eye-brows.