Democritus redivivus

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Democritus redivivus (1815)

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As the title explains: seu selecta iocorum, salium atque facetiarum exempla, ad recreandum animum, vel sanandam melancholiam exhibita. There are all kinds of stories, anecdotes and bon mots here, short and long, new and old. Here's a typical example: 32. Pedes in lingua. Alphonsus Rex rogatus aliquando cur, qui podagra laborarent, essent ut plurimum loquacissimi: Nihil mirum, inquit, quoniam celeritas, quae antea in pedibus consistebat, vi morbi pulsa se recepit in linguam, ita, cum pedibus non possunt, lingua deinceps ambulant.



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Florilegium epigrammaticum recens

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Florilegium epigrammaticum recens (1823)

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As the full title explains "Florilegium epigrammaticum recens, sive nonnullorum poetarum superioris aevi celebrium epigrammata, carmina, aliaque jocosa." Unfortunately, the book gives no indication as to the sources of the poems, but it is fun to read through nonetheless. I recognize a lot of Owen epigrams here!



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Stephanus: Comicorum Graecorum sententiae

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Comicorum Graecorum sententiae by Henricus Stephanus (1569)

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As the full title explains: Comicorum Graecorum sententiae, id est gnomai latinis versibus ab Henr. Stephano redditae et annotationibus illustratae. Don't be put off by the first few pages of the scan; most of the book is very readable and nicely laid out, with the Greek verses, the Latin, with some brief but useful Latin annotations.



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Voigt: Florilegium Gottingense

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Florilegium Gottingense ed. by Ernst Voigt, in Romanische Forschungen (1887)

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Voigt's edition of the delightful Florilegium Gottingense collection of proverbs begins on p. 281. It contains over 300 proverbs, along with an index of sources.


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Ottmar: Ioci ac sales mire festivi

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Ioci ac sales mire festivi by Ottmar Luscinius (1524)

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As the title explains, these are Ioci ac sales mire festivi, ab Ottomaro Luscinio Argentino partim selecti ex bonorum utriusque linguae authorum mundo, partim longis peregrinationibus visi et auditi, ac in Centurias duas digesti. The two languages are Latin and Greek. Ottmar Luscinius (also known as Othmar or Otmar Nachtgall) was a humanist scholar, b. 1487 in Strasbourg, and d. 1537 in Freiburg.



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Andrelinus: Disticha

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Disticha by Publius Faustus Andrelinus (1539)

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Each of the little distichs in the "hecatodistichon" is accompanied by a brief essay.



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Klauserwiz: Seria mixta iocis

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Seria mixta iocis by Nicolaus Klauserwiz (1737)

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You will find three books of epigrams here, including a few distichs, too! The epigrams are on a variety of topics, including some religious subjects - as in this distich, for example:
O Virgo Sacrata! Iacob tu Scala vocaris,
Ad superos veram da mihi, quaeso! viam.


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Moker: Decalogus metricus et paraenetica disticha

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Decalogus metricus et paraenetica disticha by Anton Moker (1573)

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This is wonderful collection of distichs in both Latin and in German, organizing according to the Biblical Ten Commandments. For example, on the theme of "non occides," there is this distich: Non hominem quemquam debes occidere namque / qui necat ense fero, rursus is ense perit.



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Barlandus: Iocorum Libri III

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Iocorum veterum ac recentium libri III by Adrianus Cornelius Barlandus (1529)

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Barlandus cites the sources for his jokes, which are taken from both ancient sources and Renaissance sources, too. The third book contains epigrams from Martial, along with Barlandus's notes on the epigrams.



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Oudin: Silva distichorum moralium

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Silva distichorum moralium by François Oudin (1719)

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The book is organized by various uplifting themes - agenda quotidie, de libris et studio, de cultu corporis et munditie, etc.



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Dornavius: Amphitheatrum Sapientiae

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Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Socraticae Ioco-Seriae by Caspar Dornavius (1619)

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As the full title explains: Amphitheatrum sapientiae Socraticae joco-seriae, hoc est, Encomia et commentaria autorum, qua veterum, qua recentiorum prope omnium: quibus res, aut pro vilibus vulgo aut damnosis habitae, styli patrocinio vindicantur, exornantur: opus ad mysteria naturae discenda, ad omnem amoenitatem, sapientiam, virtutem, publice privatimque utilissimum. This book is an astounding anthology, as you can see from looking at the "syllabus" of authors and natural history topics in the first volume. For Greek authors, a facing Greek-Latin text presentation is used. What a treasure trove!



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Melander: Iocorum atque seriorum centuriae

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Iocorum atque seriorum centuriae by Otho Melander (1643)

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Here is the full title of the book: irresistible! Jocorum atque seriorum, tum novorum, tum selectorum atque memorabilium centuriae aliquot iucundae, suaves et amoenae, nec non utiles, et festivae, lectuque et maximopere dignae, nunc denuo auctae, et in hac portatili forma pro hominibus salium et facetiarum amantibus ad delectationem ipsorum ultimum editae. The selections are in both prose and poetry, and there are brief indications as to the source for each story. For example, I was delighted to find this version of the story of the astrologer, Thales, falling into a ditch, put into elegiac verse:

Ardua forte Thales caeli dum sidera lustrat,
In foveam gressu praecipitante ruit:
Hunc anus ut quaedam delapsum rustica vidit,
Quae vitreo liquidas fonte petebat aquas.
Sic super illudens cum pervenisset ad ipsum,
Alloquitur quatiens voce tremente caput,
"Astra quid inspectas caeli sublimia, Stulte,
Nec tibi quae prosint inferiora vides?
Dumque futura studes aliis praedicere fata,
Cernere quae iacent, non potes, ante pedes."



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Tünger: Facetiae

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Facetiae by Augustin Tünger (1874)

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This book contains 54 Latin anecdotes, with German translations, along with a subject index. The original text dates to 1486; this modern edition is edited by Adelbert von Keller. You can find a digitized version at the Intratext website (via the Latin Library).



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Brusoni: Facetiae

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Facetiarum libri VII by Lucio D. Brusoni (1560)

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This book contains excerpts from Greek and Latin sources with historical anecdotes and witty sayings. The stories and sayings are organized by topic, De Avaritia, De Amore, De Amicitia et Amicis, etc., with an alphabetical list of topics in the back. It's a treasure-trove of fun things to read! In the section on "Mala sibi apportans" I found the story of the Carpathian and the rabbit, one of my favorites! Carpathiorum in insula lepores non erant, importarunt accolae aliunde, sed tanta mox leporum multitudo excrevit, ut insulae fruges omnes sint populati.



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The Facetiae or Jocose Tales of Poggio

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The Facetiae or Jocose Tales of Poggio (1879) - volume 2.

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The name of the translator (translators?) is not provided, alas, and I am very frustrated to not find volume 1 at Google Books. Meanwhile, the Internet Archive likewise has only volume 2 from Google Books (although it is not listed as volume 2 there; very confusing). If anyone has suggestions about where volume 1 of this book can be found online, I would be very grateful!



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Leigh: The Comic Latin Grammar

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The Comic Latin Grammar by Percival Leigh (1840)

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As the full title explains, this is "a new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue." This is a charming little book; to give you a sense of its style, here is how it describes the parts of speech: "The reason, says the fool in King Lear, why the seven stars are no more than seven - is a pretty reason - because they are not eigh. This is a fool's reason; but we (like many other commentators) cannot give a better one, why the Parts of Speech are no more than either - because they are not nine. They are as follows: Noun, Pronoun, Verb, Participle, declined; Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction, Interjection, undeclined. Most schoolboys would like to decline them altogether." Ha!



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Facetiae Heinrici Bebelii

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Facetiae Heinrici Bebelii ed. by Nicolas Bassée (1590)

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The title of this book says it all: Facetiae Heinrici Bebelii, superiorum aetatum dicta iocosa & facta ridicula continentes: in libros tres digestae, una cum Prognostico perpetuo: accesserunt illustrium virorum ioci et apophthegmata ex Macrobii, Pogii, Erasmi, Camerarii & aliorum monumentis collecta; aucta quoque est haec novissima editio aliquot lepidis & iocosis, veris tamen historiis, quae lucem hactenus non viderunt; adiecto indice copiosissimo. So, in addition to Bebelius, there are some fine ioci et apophthegmata from other sources too! :-)


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Schreger: Studiosus jovialis

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Studiosus jovialis by Odilo Schreger (1751)

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Here is the full title: Studiosus jovialis, seu Auxilia ad jocose et honeste discurrendum in gratiam et usum studiosorum iuvenum, aliorumque litteratorum virorum, honestae recreationis amantium. The variety of materials in this book is delightful indeed! The book begins with listings of Latin proverbs and sayings, with German translations. I am delighted because there are all kinds of rhyming materials here! There is also a list of famous people, with brief biographies for each, along with their mottos (Latin symbola). Next, there is a section of Latin anagrams - like corpus and porcus, ha ha. Or, on a more serious note, Ignatius de Loiola = O ignis illatus a Deo. There are some palindroms, too.

Next, there is a long listing of "problemata varia" reflecting both early modern scientific knowledge as well as classical and medieval sources (for example, in response to the question as to why women get more headaches than men (?), the answer is that it is caused by menstrual periods! ha!).

There then follows a great list of "firsts" - prima vestis, primus pastor et agricola, primus latro, etc., along with a timeline of world history. There's even a section on the first heretics, starting with the "Simoniaci" who "proveniunt a Simone Mago."

Next, there is a section of "aenigmata" (riddles) and I love the section of apophthegmata! For example, here is one about Saint Augustine: "S. Augustinus, cum male de ipso sentiret Secundinus haereticus, respondit: Senti de Augustino guod libet, dummodo conscientia me non accuset." There is also a set of international stereotypes - for example, "In Moribus: Germanus serius, Anglus suavius, Galus ostentator, Italus facetus, Hispanus gravis."

What a fun book!



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Noel: Poggii Florentini Facetiarum

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Poggii Florentini Facetiarum by François Noel (1798)

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This is a two-volume edition of Poggio's Facetiae - as the subtitle explains: Notulis imitatores indicantibus et nonnullis sive Latinis, sive Gallicis imitationibus illustratus, simul ad fidem optimarum editionum emendatus. It also includes a life of Poggio, Vita Poggii. The imitations are in both verse and prose (mostly in verse), in Latin and also in French - all kinds of delights here!



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Frischlin: Facetiae selectiores

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Facetiae selectiores by Nicodemus Frischlin (1603)

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This book is an anthology of facetiae from Bebelius, Poggio and other sources. Here's a Renaissance scholar who's run out of money, for example: De quodam Studioso. Quidam literarum studiosus cum magnos sumptus fecisset, quorum rationem patri reddere non poterat, domum literas mittit, quibus se mortuum esse scribit, et patrem orat, ut certam sibi pecuniae summam mittat, quo honeste sepeliri possit. And here's some scatalogical humor: Crepitus ventris excusatus. Emiserat quidam ingentem ventris crepitum in densa hominum turba. Obiurgatus ob hanc rem ab amico, per Iovem, inquit, meum podex iamdudum loqui desiderat, sed nihil illi deest, praeter linguam tuam.



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Bebelius: Facetiae

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Facetiarum Libri Tres by Henricus Bebelius (1542)

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There are all kinds of funny stories in here, ranging from very short to longer stories - here's a very short one: De Histrione. Histrio quidam cum noctu quosdam fures in domo sua depehendisset, ait ad illos: Nescio quid vos nocte hic invenire velitis, cum sereno die ego nihil invenire possim.



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Poggio Bracciolini: Facetiae

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Facetiarum Liber by Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (1592)

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In addition to Poggio's Facetiae, it also contains a Latin translation the Greek Asinus attributed to Lucianus (Lucius); the facetiae go from pp. 1-168, and the Asinus goes from pp. 169-206. Although you can find Poggio's Facetiae online (for example, at the Latin Library), I haven't seen the Asinus digitized.



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Mirabelli: Polyanthea

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Polyanthea by Domenico Nani Mirabelli (1512)

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There is an impressive list of authors cited at the beginning of the book (a mixture of both classical and Christian authors), along with an alphabetical table of the sayings. The Polyanthea was a very popular book and, with over 25 editions in the 16th and 17th centuries, it was a source for both Latin and Greek learning throughout Europe.





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Collins: La Fontaine and Other French Fabulists

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La Fontaine and Other French Fabulists by William Lucas Collins (1882)

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The book contains a biography of La Fontaine along with a chapter about his fables, plus a discussion of de la Motte, Richer, Desbillons, Aubert, and Florian, among others, with selections from their fables.


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Pirckheimer: Sententiae morales (Nilus)

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Sententiae morales by Willibald Pirckheimer (1518)

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As the title explains, these are "Sententiae morales e greco in latinum versae, Bilibaldo Pircheinero interprete." That would be Willibald Pirckheimer (1470-1530), a Renaissance humanist who lived and worked in Nuremberg, and who was a close friend of Albrecht Durer. The book provides Latin translations of the saying of the Greek bishop and martyr, Nilus of Sinai. Here is a portrait of Pirckheimer by Durer:



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Esope en trois langues

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Esope en trois langues, introduced by B. Morin (1816)

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This wonderful book contains a collection of Aesop's fables in Greek, Latin, and French, drawing on a wide range of Aesopic authors, including Phaedrus, Faernus, Desbillons, Lebeau, La Fontaine and Richer, among other French fabulists, with an alphabetical index in the back of the book, which is almost 500 pages in length.



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Crusius: Symbolotheca docta

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Symbolotheca docta sive gnomae symbolicae by Theodor Crusius (1721)

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The full title of the book explains: Symbolotheca docta, sive gnomae symbolicae, celeberrimorum in omnibus facultatibus eruditorum clarorumque virorum. The "symbols" or "gnomae" referred to here are what we would call mottoes; the book contains a list of famous figures, listed alphabetically, with their respective mottoes, most (but not all) of them in Latin. For example, a poet whom I like, Caspar Barthius, has as his motto: Christi beneficio. Ioachimus Camerarius, one of my favorite neo-Latin authors, has a Greek motto: Ἐφήμερος ὁ βίος, which is rendered in Latin, Vita diurna mea est.



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Chatto: Origin and History of Playing Cards

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Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards by William Andrew Chatto (1848)

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I posted about this book at Google+ here: Google+ post.


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Witkowski: The Evil That Has Been Said of Doctors

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The Evil That Has Been Said of Doctors by S. J. Witkowski, translated by T.C. Minor (1889)

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I posted about this book at Google+ here: Google+ post.



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Finding Google Books

In response to a query yesterday from a friend of mine who was finding it a bit frustrating to look for books at Google Books, I thought I would share here some of the ways that I find books at Google Books.

1. Searching for text strings. Since I am usually collecting proverbs and fables and short poems, I find it very productive to search for text strings. To search on a string, just put quotation marks around the string. When I find an unusual proverb, for example, I search for a few words at Google Books, and often find some amazing books that also contain the proverb. Here's an example: "magna nocet, medicina docet" (the full saying: Cena brevis, vel cena levis, fit rara molesta; / Magna nocet, medicina docet, res est manifesta). When searching for text strings it is important to avoid word initial i/j and u/v ambiguities, along with other characters that are variable in Latin orthography and/or characters which cause special trouble for optical character recognition software. For example, the "ae" diphthong was often printed with æ, which the usual OCR software cannot read. So, avoid those ambiguities in your search terms.

2. Searching for title words. Although Google Books has an interface where you can do advanced searches, it's usually easier just to do this on your own. For example, to search on a word or phrase in the title of a book, just add intitle:word or intitle:"word phrase" to your search parameters. Remember that Google does not compensate for Latin morphology, so if you are looking for emblem books, you might do separate searches for the various forms of emblem you might find in a Latin book title: emblemata, emblematibus, emblematum, emblematica, emblematicis, etc.

3. Searching for author names. Just like intitle:term, you can add inauthor:name to your search. Remember that Latin authors are sometimes cataloged under their Latin name and sometimes under their name in their native language, e.g. Rollenhagen v. Rollenhagius. Also, Google Books conveniently turns the author's name in the "About This Book" page into an active link, so you can just click on the author's name in blue to get a search based on the author's name.

4. Filter your search for just free Google Books. Unless you want to torture yourself with search results that will not lead you to an actual online book (I am constantly tortured, for example, by references to Samuel Singer's Thesaurus proverbiorum medii aevi... SIGH: just $250 per volume), then you can limit your search to just free books by selecting the "Free Google eBooks" filter option in the left-hand column.

5. Save books to your Google Books Library. I'm not super-happy with how the Google Books Library Bookshelves work (I want my old tags back...) - but it is really useful to save books to one of your Google Bookshelves, any shelf at all. That way, if/when the book shows up again in your search results, you'll know that this is a book you have already saved because it will display as already being "in your library."

6. Save books to Zotero also. Since the Google Books Library Bookshelves are so frustrating to work with, I also save my Google Books to Zotero. Google Books is one of the sites that Zotero responds to really nicely, so if you install Zotero for your browser, you will see a little Zotero icon in the browser bar allowing you to save the Google Book to Zotero. Since I can update and correct the bibliographical errors in the Google Book listings (sadly, there are lots of errors), Zotero is incredibly useful for me in managing my Google Books Library.

7. Multivolume works. In my experience, the single biggest problem I have at Google Books is the way multivolume works are handled. At least in Latin, Google Books does not seem to understand multivolume works because of the way the different volumes are referred to in Latin on the title page. Here's a good trick: if you are looking for a given volume in a multivolume work, try checking the "More Editions" option - often Google Books considers those different volumes just as more editions of the same work. Not good at all, but maybe that is something that Google Books will start letting us curate in the future; all that machine intelligence could use with a good dose of human intelligence, too! :-)

Finally, the best advice I can give for enjoying Google Books is to approach it with a sense of adventure. Yes, in some ways the Latin works at Google Books really are a big mess... but a mess that is positively full of absolutely amazing delights! If anyone else is keeping track of Google Book discoveries, esp. of Latin or other Classics-related books, in the form of a blog like this one, let me know so I can add it to my blog roll.

(image source)

Democritus Ridens

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Democritus Ridens by Johann Peter Lange (1655)

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Another great book description: Democritus ridens: sive campus recreationum honestarum cum exorcismo melancholiae. Everybody needs to exorcise their melancholy, of course! The book consists of prose anecdotes, some classical and some contemporary, some humorous and some thought-provoking, often with a bon mot of some kind for the punchline. Here's a typical one:

Solitarius. Cleanthes conspicatus quemdan ex amicis solum obambulare, et nescio quid intra se mussitare, accessit hominem, interrogavitque cum quo loqueretur? mecum, inquit alter. Tum Cleanthes: vide, ait, ne cum homine improbo loquaris.

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Nugae Venales

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Nugae Venales (1741)

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What an irresistible book description: Nugae Venales, sive Thesaurus ridendi & jocandi ad gravissimos severissimosque viros: patres melancholicorum conscriptos. Even more irresistible, the book opens with this address: Festive lector! The book was published in London in 1720, but no author is indicated. The book is full of jokes and humorous little essays along with poetry, too. There's even a portrait of Publius Porcius Poeta, the author of Pugna Porcorum!




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Graecae Sententiae

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Graecae Sententiae (1830)

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As the title page explains, this book is "a delectus of maxims, sentiments and precepts, selected from the Greek profane writers and the New Testament; to which are added the ΧΡΥΣΑ ΕΠΗ of Pythagoras and Bion's Epitaph on Adonis, with short notes, a vocabulary and other helps calculated to facilitate the early study of Greek." The author is not identified, although the book's preface is signed "W.T."



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