you brought it on yourself miss twiddle

From Elizabeth Asmis, Rhetoric and Reason in Lucretius:

…Lucretius continually anticipates doctrines which are proved later on in the sequence of arguments. While these would be viewed as logical disturbances in a purely logical tract, in the context of Lucretius' own rhetorical style of composition they are components of a whole, into which they fit perfectly logically. More precisely, Lucretius often lifts conclusions from a later context of argument in order to clarify and strengthen an earlier sequence of argument…

…Lucretius makes "anticipations" of doctrines that are yet to be proved; and this, I suggest, is a deliberate feature of Lucretius' rhetorical method of exposition, which no more implies logical carelessness than Lucretius' method of exposition as a whole.

This is how I write, actually, although I don't have the underlying rhetorical reasoning. I just find that everything starts to mush together and that I can't separate the arguments into a logical sequence. Everything depends on everything else. I need something like 17 dimensions to be happening in my writing. But it's nice to know that Lucretius does it the same way, sort of.

Speaking of which, I think I am going to write my music history paper on intellectual vs. sinful music and psalmody in the early church. Mainly because it will let me talk about Augustine's "Psalmus contra partem Donati." But it's very frustrating: not only is there NO TRANSLATION of it, there isn't even anything written about it other than a byline here and there. The most I've been able to find is Augustine's own discussion in Retractiones. Why don't more people care about ancient political protest songs early Catholic propaganda one of the earliest qualitative meter Latin poems written in quasi-vernacular Latin by one of the most brilliant theologians of all time? And in the form of a responsorial hymn about a church schism?

I, at least, have been interested in this thing ever since I discovered it, and now, at least, after two more years of Latin, I can read it pretty easily.

And truly, it is slightly crazy, particularly when one thinks of a congregation chanting it:



They tend to run circles around those who don't know Scripture:
For they hear "traitors," and don't know what happened before.
But if I should say, "prove it," they haven't got anything to say.
They say that they trust their own people, but I say they lied.
For we also trust our own, who say that you were the traitors.
You want to know who tells the truth? The ones who stay with the original [church].
You want to know who tells lies? The ones who aren't in unity [with it].
The former [law]suit is finished now. Why won't you rest in peace?


Those older than us have spoken, and they have written books about it,
Who understood the case, which they can prove anew.
There were certain traitors from the sacred law of the Book,
The bishops from Numidia, and some not-insignificant commoners.
When they came to Carthage to ordain a bishop,
They found Caecilianus ordained in his seat.
They were angry because they hadn't been able to ordain one themselves.
And there were other enemies of Caecilianus -- very unjust men,
Impious, insane, and proud, about who it is tedious to speak.
So all these joined have joined themselves to kindle a crime against him:
They say that his ordination betrayed the sacred Book.
Thus they break the nets of peace and stray now through the sea.*

Unfortunately, Augustine stuck to just writing pamphlets after this.
* Refers back to the first stanza, which is more or less a paraphrase of Matthew 13.

Sandor Veress seems to have set it, actually, and I really want to listen to it. The CD is about $15 on Amazon, but I don't know whether I should buy it. If it had his solo cello sonata on it, I definitely would.