Misellaneous Translations John Bartlett


1
Absolutism tempered by assassination. 1
2
A Cadmean victory. 2
3
After us the deluge. 3
4
All is lost save honour. 4
5
Appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. 5
6
Architecture is frozen music. 6
7
Beginning of the end. 7
8
Boldness, again boldness, and ever boldness. 8
9
Dead on the field of honour. 9
10
Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies. 10



11
Extremes meet. 11
12
Hell is full of good intentions. 12
13
History repeats itself. 13
14
I am here: I shall remain here. 14
15
I am the state. 15
16
It is magnificent, but it is not war. 16
17
Leave no stone unturned. 17
18
Let it be. Let it pass. 18
19
Medicine for the soul. 19
20
Nothing is changed in France; there is only one Frenchman more. 20
21
Order reigns in Warsaw. 21
22
Ossa on Pelion. 22
23
Scylla and Charybdis. 23
24
Sinew of war. 24
25
Talk of nothing but business, and despatch that business quickly. 25
26
The empire is peace. 26
27
The guard dies, but never surrenders. 27
28
The king reigns, but does not govern. 28
29
The style is the man himself. 29
30
“There is no other royal path which leads to geometry,” said Euclid to Ptolemy I. 30
31
There is nothing new except what is forgotten. 31
32
They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. 32
33
We are dancing on a volcano. 33
34
Who does not love wine, women, and song Remains a fool his whole life long. 34
35
God is on the side of the strongest battalions. 35
36
Terrible he rode alone, With his Yemen sword for aid; Ornament it carried none But the notches on the blade.
The Death Feud. An Arab War-song. 36

Note 1.
Count Münster, Hanoverian envoy at St. Petersburg, discovered that Russian civilization is “merely artificial,” and first published to Europe the short description of the Russian Constitution,—that it is “absolutism tempered by assassination.” [back]

Note 2.
A Greek proverb. A Cadmean victory was one in which the victors suffered as much as their enemies.

[greek]—Herodotus: i. 166.

Where two discourse, if the one’s anger rise,
The man who lets the contest fall is wise.
Euripides: Fragment 656. Protesilaus. [back]

Note 3.
On the authority of Madame de Hausset (“Mémoires,” p. 19), this phrase is ascribed to Madame de Pompadour. Larouse (“Fleurs Historiques”) attributes it to Louis XV. [back]

Note 4.
It was from the imperial camp near Pavia that Francis I., before leaving for Pizzighettone, wrote to his mother the memorable letter which, thanks to tradition, has become altered to the form of this sublime laconism: “Madame, tout est perdu fors l’honneur.”

The true expression is, “Madame, pour vous faire savoir comme se porte le reste de mon infortune, de toutes choses ne m’est demeuré que l’honneur et la vie qui est sauvé.”—Martin: Histoire de France, tome viii.

The correction of this expression was first made by Sismondi, vol. xvi. pp. 241, 242. The letter itself is printed entire in Dulaure’s “Histoire de Paris”: “Pour vous avertir comment se porte le ressort de mon infortune, de toutes choses ne m’est demeuré que l’honneur et la vie,—qui est sauvé.” [back]

Note 5.
Inserit se tantis viris mulier alienigeni sanguinis: quæ a Philippo rege temulento immerenter damnata, Provocarem ad Philippum, inquit, sed sobrium.—Valerius Maximus: Lib. vi. c. 2. [back]

Note 6.
Since it [architecture] is music in space, as it were a frozen music…. If architecture in general is frozen music.—Schelling: Philosophie der Kunst, pp. 576, 593.

La vue d’un tel monument est comme une musique continuelle et fixée.—Madame de Staël: Corinne, livre iv. chap. 3. [back]

Note 7.
Fournier asserts, on the written authority of Talleyrand’s brother, that the only breviary used by the ex-bishop was “L’Improvisateur Français,” a compilation of anecdotes and bon-mots, in twenty-one duodecimo volumes. Whenever a good thing was wandering about in search of a parent, he adopted it; amongst others, “C’est le commencement de la fin.”

See Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Quotation 29. [back]

Note 8.
De l’audace, encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace—Danton: Speech in the Legislative Assembly, 1792.

See Spenser, Quotation 5. [back]

Note 9.
This was the answer given in the roll-call of La Tour d’Auvergne’s regiment after his death. [back]

Note 10.
See Canning, Quotation 5. [back]

Note 11.
Les extrêmes se touchent.—Mercier: Tableaux de Paris (1782), vol. iv. title of chap. 348. [back]

Note 12.
See Johnson, Quotation 76. [back]

Note 13.
See Plutarch, Quotation 30. [back]

Note 14.
The reply of Marshal MacMahon, in the trenches before the Malakoff, in the siege of Sebastopol, September, 1855, to the commander-in-chief, who had sent him word to beware of an explosion which might follow the retreat of the Russians. [back]

Note 15.
Dulaure (History of Paris, 1863, p. 387) asserts that Louis XIV. interrupted a judge who used the expression, “The king and the state,” by saying, “I am the state.” [back]

Note 16.
Said by General Pierre Bosquet of the charge of the Light Brigade at the battle of Balaklava. [back]

Note 17.
Euripides: Heracleidæ, 1002.

This may be traced to a response of the Delphic oracle given to Polycrates, as the best means of finding a treasure buried by Xerxes’ general, Mardonius, on the field of Platæa. The oracle replied, [greek], “Turn every stone.”—Leutsch and Schneidewin: Corpus Paræmiographorum Græcorum, vol. i. p. 146. [back]

Note 18.
This phrase, “Laissez faire, laissez passer!” is attributed to Gournay, Minister of Commerce at Paris, 1751; also to Quesnay, the writer on political economy. It is quoted by Adam Smith in the “Wealth of Nations.” [back]

Note 19.
Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes.—Diodorus Siculus: i. 49, 3. [back]

Note 20.
According to the “Contemporary Review,” February, 1854, this phrase formed the opening of an address composed in the name of Comte d’Artois by Count Beugnot, and published in the “Moniteur,” April 12, 1814. [back]

Note 21.
General Sebastiani announced the fall of Warsaw in the Chamber of Deputies, Sept. 16, 1831: “Des lettres que je reçois de Pologne m’annoncent que la tranquillité règne à Varsovie.”—Dumas: Mémoires, Second Series, vol. iv. chap. iii. [back]

Note 22.
See Ovid, Quotation 3.

They were setting on
Ossa upon Olympus, and upon
Steep Ossa leavy Pelius.
George Chapman: Homer’s Odyssey, book xi. 426.

Heav’d on Olympus tott’ring Ossa stood;
On Ossa Pelion nods with all his wood.
Alexander Pope: Odyssey, book xi. 387.

Ossa on Olympus heave, on Ossa roll
Pelion with all his woods; so scale the starry pole.
Sotheby: Odyssey, book xi. 315.

To the Olympian summit they essay’d
To heave up Ossa, and to Ossa’s crown
Branch-waving Pelion.
William Cowper Odyssey, book xi. 379.

They on Olympus Ossa fain would roll;
On Ossa Pelion’s leaf-quivering hill.
Worsley: Odyssey, book xi. 414.

To fling
Ossa upon Olympus, and to pile.
Pelion with all its growth of leafy woods
On Ossa.
Bryant: Odyssey, book xi. 390.

Ossa they pressed down with Pelion’s weight,
And on them both impos’d Olympus’ hill.
Fitz-Geffrey: The Life and Death of Sir Francis Drake, stanza 99 (1596).

Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam.—Virgil: Georgics, i. 281. [back]

Note 23.
See Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Quotation 61. [back]

Note 24.
See Rabelais, Quotation 13.

Æschines (Adv. Ctesiphon, c. 53) ascribes to Demosthenes the expression [greek], “The sinews of affairs are cut.” Diogenes Laertius, in his Life of Bion (lib. iv. c. 7, sect. 3), represents that philosopher as saying, [greek],—“Riches were the sinews of business,” or, as the phrase may mean, “of the state.” Referring perhaps to this maxim of Bion, Plutarch says in his Life of Cleomenes (c. 27), “He who first called money the sinews of the state seems to have said this with special reference to war.” Accordingly we find money called expressly [greek], “the sinews of war,” in Libanius, Orat. xlvi. (vol. ii. p. 477, ed. Reiske), and by the scholiast on Pindar, Olymp. i. 4 (compare Photius, Lex. s. v. [greek]). So Cicero, Philipp. v. 2, “nervos belli, infinitam pecuniam.” [back]

Note 25.
A placard of Aldus on the door of his printing-office.—Dibdin: Introduction, vol. i. p. 436. [back]

Note 26.
This saying occurs in Louis Napoleon’s speech to the Chamber of Commerce in Bordeaux, Oct. 9, 1852. [back]

Note 27.
Words engraved upon the monument erected to Cambronne at Nantes.

This phrase, attributed to Cambronne, who was made prisoner at Waterloo, was vehemently denied by him. It was invented by Rougemont, a prolific author of mots, two days after the battle, in the “Indépendant.”—Fournier: L’Esprit dans l’Histoire. [back]

Note 28.
A motto adopted by Thiers for the “Nationale,” July 1, 1803. In the beginning of the seventeenth century Jan Zamoyski in the Polish parliament said, “The king reigns, but does not govern.” [back]

Note 29.
Buffon: Diacours de Reception (Recueil de l’Académie, 1753).

See Burton, Quotation 6. [back]

Note 30.
Proclus: Commentary on Euclid’s Elements, book ii. chap. iv. [back]

Note 31.
Attributed to Mademoiselle Bertin, milliner to Marie Antoinette.

”There is nothing new except that which has become antiquated,”—motto of the “Revue Rétrospective.” [back]

Note 32.
This saving is attributed to Talleyrand. In a letter of the Chevalier de Panat to Mallet du Pan, January, 1796, it occurs almost literally,—“No one is right; no one could forget anything, nor learn anything.” [back]

Note 33.
Words uttered by Comte de Salvandy (1796–1856) at a fete given by the Duke of Orleans to the King of Naples, 1830. [back]

Note 34.
Attributed to Luther, but more probably a saying of J. H. Voss (1751–1826), according to Redlich, “Die poetischen Beiträge zum Waudsbecker Bothen,” Hamburg, 1871, p. 67.—King: Classical and Foreign Quotations (1887). [back]

Note 35.
See Gibbon, Quotation 6.

Napoleon said, “Providence is always on the side of the last reserve.” [back]

Note 36.
Anonymous translation from “Tait’s Magazine,” July, 1850. The poem is of an age earlier than that of Mahomet. [back]

Contents -AUTHOR INDEX -CONCORDANCE INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD