Oppian of Corycus, Halieutica 2.106: "They knew not hastening their death"

Pseudo-Oppianos, Kynegetica

(Poem on Hunting)

Cod. gr. 479, fol. 59 r

(Image from Art for Everyone)

The above image is from an 11th-century illuminated Byzantine manuscript of Kynegetica, by Pseudo-Oppianos, not from Halieutica, by Oppian of Corycus, who lived during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (121-180), but since I find the color blue lovely in this image and since Oppian's poem is about fishing, I decided to go with this anyway. According to the Art for Everyone website, the image shows "[t]hree fishers fishing with . . . nets at night," adding that "a lamp is used to attract the fish."

I was looking for something on Oppian of Corycus because his poem on the art of fishing, or Halieutica, makes use of the Greek nominative participle after a verb of knowing, as I discovered from re-checking the note to Book 9.792 ("And knew not eating death") in Alastair Fowler's 1998 annotated edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost:

Oppian, Halieutica ii 106, σπεύδοντες ὄλεθρον, 'knew not hastening their death.' (Fowler, Paradise Lost, Second Edition, London and New York: Longman, 1998, page 516)

Fowler doesn't say how he found that Oppian had used this participle, but I believe that I've located his source:

The Poetical Works of John Milton: With Notes of Various Authors, by Henry John Todd (London: Law and Gilbert, 1809)

The first printing was 1801, but I have no access to that issue. Anyway, here's what Mr. Todd has to say on page 79 about Paradise Lost 9.792, "And knew not eating death":

It is a Greek phrase, used often by the Latins too. Oppian, Halieut. ii. 106.

---------- οὐδ᾽ ἐνόησαν ἑὸν σπεύδοντες ὄλεθρον.

They knew not hastening their death. Eating the fruit which brought death, was eating death, as being virtually contained in it.

Richardson

I presume that "Richardson" refers to "Mr. R. Richardson, of Clare-Hall, Cambridge," whom Todd calls "the earliest vindicator of Milton from the invidious charges of Lauder." The "Mr. R. Richardson" would be Richard Richardson, the "Lauder" would be William Lauder, and the "invidious charges" would be Lauder's accusation that Milton had plagiarized, as I learn from Dawn Shawcross ("Richardson against Lauder's allegations (1747)," John Milton: 1732-1801, Routledge, 1996).

Concerning the Greek offered above, for those who wish a closer look at the diacritical marks, the line in Mr. Todd's text can be enlarged. And for those whose Greek is better than my own, here's a link to a Greek edition of Halieutica (just click and then scroll down to ii. 106). Perhaps someone with the requisite Greek skills can explain the context to this clause, "They knew not hastening their death" (οὐδ᾽ ἐνόησαν ἑὸν σπεύδοντες ὄλεθρον). Whose death? What hastened it?

As readers may recall, I'm looking into Milton's reason for using the awkward expression in PL 9.792, "And knew not eating death," and the search is taking me many places.

John Milton's Paradise Lost: "With tract oblique"?

Satan Contemplates Serpent

(Image from All Art)

In the image above, Satan contemplates his malicious intentions and deplores having to incarnate his spiritual substance within the serpent (PL 9.163-167), but he does so, of course, or there would be no story, and goes forth to approach Eve:

. . . With tract oblique
At first, as one who sought access, but feard
To interrupt, side-long he works his way. (PL 9.510-512)

As we noted yesterday, Satan likes "his oblique way" (PL 3.564) of motion, and we see from today's passage above that his motions can be termed oblique even when he is far from the ecliptic. Concerning yesterday's passages, then, his motion from Libra to Aries in approaching the sun is "hard to tell" (PL 3.575). Upon reflection, I think that since Satan is described as moving past planets, he must be on the ecliptic, but perhaps the ecliptic is still located upon the celestial equator, as Alastair Fowler maintains. Satan's "oblique way" might then refer to his fallen manner of approaching any of his aims. Conversely, the planets might be on an oblique ecliptic but the sun simply upon the celestial equator. That the sun cannot be moving along an oblique ecliptic is certain from what we have previously seen in Book 10, where the sun's annual motion, or apparent annual motion, is made oblique to account for the excessive summer heat and the dire winter cold. But if the sun is not moving along the ecliptic, why call it an ecliptic?

Adam himself wonders about such questions, and poses them to the angel Raphael, who says:

To ask or search I blame thee not, for Heav'n
Is as the Book of God before thee set,
Wherein to read his wondrous Works, and learne
His Seasons, Hours, or Dayes, or Months, or Yeares: (PL 8.66-69)

Asking about the celestial motions is therefore not forbidden . . . and yet:

This to attain, whether Heav'n move or Earth, [ 70 ]
Imports not, if thou reck'n right, the rest
From Man or Angel the great Architect
Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge
His secrets to be scann'd by them who ought
Rather admire; (PL 8.70-75)

Asking is okay, but searching too deeply becomes problematic. Here, Milton seems to hearken back to the long tradition of Western debate over the legitimacy of curiosity that Hans Blumenberg has analyzed so well. Milton would appear to share Augustine's concern, for he has Raphael conclude his discourse over the celestial motions with the following advice:

. . . Heav'n is for thee too high
To know what passes there; be lowlie wise:
Think onely what concernes thee and thy being;
Dream not of other Worlds, what Creatures there [ 175 ]
Live, in what state, condition or degree,
Contented that thus farr hath been reveal'd
Not of Earth onely but of highest Heav'n. (PL 8.172-178)

[Thomas H. Luxon, ed. The Milton Reading Room, January 2009]

Like Augustine, Milton would seem to think that a busybody curiosity leads one astray from what has been revealed as proper to mankind and distracts one from concern with one's soul, if I might extrapolate from Raphael's words.

Considered from a different perspective, Milton is admitting ignorance of the prelapsarian celestial motions, and probably also the postlapsarian ones, so the reader should not be surprised to find that movement "up or downe / By center, or eccentric, hard to tell" (PL 3.574-575).

John Milton's Paradise Lost: Satan Winding "his oblique way"

Ecliptic Plane

(Image from HyperPhysics)

Despite forays into realms more rectitudinal -- such as rule of law and ruse of cow -- I'm sticking close to the oblique ecliptic, somewhat as does that fallen angel Satan in his descent towards the sun as described in Book 3 of Paradise Lost, though he first surveys the scene from where he has positioned himself, at the primum mobile (outermost sphere of the cosmos) and in the constellation of Libra, diametrically opposite the constellation of Aries ("the fleecie Starr"), where the sun is located:

Round he surveys, and well might, where he stood [ 555 ]
So high above the circling Canopie
Of Nights extended shade; from Eastern Point
Of Libra to the fleecie Starr that bears
Andromeda farr off Atlantic Seas
Beyond th' Horizon; then from Pole to Pole [ 560 ]
He views in bredth, and without longer pause
Down right into the Worlds first Region throws
His flight precipitant, and windes with ease
Through the pure marble Air his oblique way
Amongst innumerable Starrs, that shon [ 565 ]
Stars distant, but nigh hand seemd other Worlds,
Or other Worlds they seemd, or happy Iles,
Like those Hesperian Gardens fam'd of old,
Fortunate Fields, and Groves and flourie Vales,
Thrice happy Iles, but who dwelt happy there [ 570 ]
He stayd not to enquire: above them all
The golden Sun in splendor likest Heaven
Allur'd his eye: Thither his course he bends
Through the calm Firmament; but up or downe
By center, or eccentric, hard to tell, [ 575 ]
Or Longitude, where the great Luminarie
Alooff the vulgar Constellations thick,
That from his Lordly eye keep distance due,
Dispenses Light from farr; they as they move
Thir Starry dance in numbers that compute [ 580 ]
Days, months, & years, towards his all-chearing Lamp
Turn swift thir various motions, or are turnd
By his Magnetic beam, that gently warms
The Univers, and to each inward part
With gentle penetration, though unseen, [ 585 ]
Shoots invisible vertue even to the deep: (PL 3.555-586)

[Thomas H. Luxon, ed. The Milton Reading Room, January 2009]

Recall that Satan is later speeding "Down from th' Ecliptic" (PL 3.740) when he leaves the sun after speaking with Uriel, as reported in a recent blog entry. In fact, we see from the above lines that Satan was descending from the outermost sphere, the primum mobile, by way of the eclipic, for he is described as starting from Libra and winding his way down past the planets ("Stars distant, but nigh hand seemd other Worlds"), though whether "By center, or eccentric" orbits is "hard to tell." Or perhaps one should describe Satan's course by "Longitude," which Alastair Fowler explains is "distance measured by degrees of arc along the ecliptic" (Fowler, John Milton: Paradise Lost, Second Edition (New York: Longman, 1998), page 204, note 576).

Given that Satan is descending by way of the ecliptic, then Milton's description of Satan's flight, namely, that he "windes with ease / Through the pure marble Air his oblique way," is significant, for the term "oblique" could indicate that the ecliptic is already oblique to the celestial equator. But this would be rather problematic since that would put the sun and planets already on the obliquity . . . if I'm reading the above passage correctly.

I'll have to return to this tomorrow.

John Milton's Prelapsarian Cosmos: Sun Forever in Aries?

Celestial Equator and Ecliptic

(Image from Wikipedia)

In a recent post on the Milton List, I noted that Alastair Fowler, in the "Introduction" to his annotated edition of Paradise Lost (1998), offers the following observations about Milton's prelapsarian cosmos:

[Milton's] premise, that the ecliptic and equatorial planes coincide, has not been true since the fall. So he has to work out its implications with ingenuity reminiscent of science fiction (e.g. iii 555-61; iv 209-16, 354f; v 18-25; x 328f) . . . . The geometry of Milton's invented unfallen world is elegantly simple -- and exhilaratingly easy to visualize. Its day and night are always equal, its sun remains constantly in the same sign, and the positions of its constellations are easily determined without astrolabe or planisphere. There are no variations in solar declination, no equinoctial points, no precession, no difference between sidereal, natural, and civil days. (Alastair Fowler, John Milton: Paradise Lost, Second Edition (New York: Longman, 1998), page 35)

In response to this passage from Fowler, I posed some questions to the Milton List:

Some of this is obvious, and other of it is easy to derive. But some of it is not clear to me. How does Fowler know that the "sun remains constantly in the same sign"? Is this an inference, or does Milton state this somewhere? PL 10.329 notes that "the sun in Aries rose," but would it have always remained there in an unfallen world? If so, why?

In a geocentric cosmos, I can see why, based on simplicity, this would likely be the case (everything moving around the earth at the same angular momentum), but in a heliocentric cosmos, an extra motion would need to be imparted to the starry sphere to keep the sun in the same sign as the earth revolves around the sun. Or is the earth not revolving at all?

Since posting those questions, I've come to conclude that Fowler was likely wrong, and I posted my developing views at the Milton List:

I've been looking around and found no substantive support for Fowler's statement that the sun would always be in [the same sign, i.e., Aries,] . . . and am ready to conclude that Fowler was inferring this from the fact that springtime reigns eternal in the prelapsarian world. In fact, however, spring and autumn dance eternally in Paradise -- or would have if not for the Fall. Each 24-hour period is 'equinoctial' and could just as easily be considered the autumnal as well as the vernal equinox.

I suspect that Milton thought that the sun did move annually through the 'ecliptic' -- at least in appearance, depending on whether his cosmos is geo- or heliocentric -- such that it entered every zodiacal sign, albeit without seasonal change, for we do have these previously cited lines concerning God's creative act:

Again th' Almightie spake: Let there be Lights
High in th' expanse of Heaven to divide
The Day from Night; and let them be for Signes,
For Seasons, and for Dayes, and circling Years,
And let them be for Lights as I ordaine
Thir Office in the Firmament of Heav'n
To give Light on the Earth; and it was so. (PL 7.339-345)

[Thomas H. Luxon, ed. The Milton Reading Room, January 2009]

In short, within a prelapsarian world, in which celestial equator and ecliptic coincide, there can be "Seasons . . . and circling Years" even without seasonal change. I think that Fowler was incorrect in his inference . . . unless somebody can demonstrate evidence to the contrary.

Such are my thoughts. Of course from Milton's perspective, we readers -- like the poet himself -- live in a postlapsarian world, a cosmos in which the ecliptic has an obliquity of about 23.5 degrees to the celestial equator, precisely as depicted in the image above.

"Do ye ken it?"

Ozark Mountains

"Do ye ken it?"

(Image from Wikipedia)

In a comment to my post on "Strange, overlapping loops," one of my regular readers, JK, noted the continued use of the word "ken" in the Arkansas Ozarks up until the time of my own childhood there:

In the hills the lexicon still contained a few words not much heard today. You'uns, we'uns. But one perhaps most revealing in this context was "ken."

My grandfather occasionally used it when he was giving me a life lesson. One of my most memorable times with him occurred when he took me fishing on Southfork [River]. I don't recall the exact lesson that day but I asked him just what ken meant.

"It's a bit like understand, but there's more to it" he said. He slapped his head and said "you know it here." He placed his hands on his chest and said, "you know and feel it here." He made an arm's wide gesture and said, "and you can use it to feel the world around you."

If memory serves, and perhaps your English commentor [Eshuneutics] might give a more accurate lesson, my memory seems to tell me that "ken" was of Scots origin.

Now, I have to own up to never hearing this word myself when I was a kid. It must have passed out of people's active vocabularies, but I've no doubt that the old folks would have known it. I wish that I could ask Grandma Shell (born 1877) or Grandpa Perryman (born 1895) -- or even better, my Grandma Hodges (born 1895) or 'Grandpa' Archie (born 1899), who lived on an isolated farm southwest of Viola, Arkansas at the end of 6 miles of dirt road and who still spoke like oldtimers. 'Grandpa' Archie was still living in the mid-1990s -- long enough for Sun-Ae to meet him -- and could have told me if I'd known to ask about the word "ken." But, of course, asking about this word never occurred to me because I didn't know that "ken" had lasted until my own Ozark childhood.

JK's anecdotal remembrance of his grandfather's explanation of what "ken" meant is striking for me because of what it suggests about people's nonacademic understanding of their own language. Let me get at my meaning this way. If I -- in my academic way -- wanted to know what "ken" meant, I'd check a dictionary. Let's try the online free dictionary as a first approximation:

noun: 1. Perception; understanding: complex issues well beyond our ken. 2. a. Range of vision. b. View; sight.

verb: kenned or kent (kĕnt), ken·ning, kens Scots

transitive verb: 1. To know (a person or thing). 2. To recognize.

intransitive verb: To have knowledge or an understanding.

We can immediately see that JK's grandfather's use of "ken" fits within this range of meaning. Two things, however, strike me as missing in the dictionary -- the old man's emphasis upon feeling as a way of knowing and his way of uniting the word's three uses rather than dividing them. Recall his own words:

"It's a bit like understand, but there's more to it" he said. He slapped his head and said "you know it here." He placed his hands on his chest and said, "you know and feel it here." He made an arm's wide gesture and said, "and you can use it to feel the world around you."

Rather than distinguish meanings, JK's grandfather joined them, emphasizing "there's more to it." I particularly like the way that he joined "ken" in its senses of know (mental), feel (emotional), and perceive (sensational) -- as though all three can operate simultaneously.

And that leads me to rethink my earlier reading of these lines in Milton's Paradise Lost, which describe Satan awakening in Hell after his expulsion from heaven and growing aware of his dismal circumstances:

Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night [50]
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew
Lay vanquisht, rowling in the fiery Gulfe
Confounded though immortal: But his doom
Reserv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain [55]
Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes
That witness'd huge affliction and dismay
Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate:
At once as far as Angels kenn he views
The dismal Situation waste and wilde, [60]
A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv'd onely to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace [65]
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery Deluge, fed
With ever-burning Sulphur unconsum'd: (PL 1.50-69)

I focus here upon lines 59-60: "At once as far as Angels kenn he views / The dismal Situation waste and wilde." Alastair Fowler notes that "kenn" may have verbal force here (Fowler, ed., John Milton: Paradise Lost, 2nd edition (1998), page 63, note 59).

If I may extrapolate from the old man's explanation of "ken" in the early 1960s back to Milton's use of the word some 300 years earlier in his 1674 edition of Paradise Lost, then I should understand "kenn" to mean more than merely "range of vision" (a meaning that goes back to at least 1205 in its verbal sense, according to my OED, page 671). I should understand "kenn" to mean that Satan not only "sees" but also feels his situation in perceiving it and knowing it. Certainly the emotional force of his dismal situation would be powerfully perceived, known, and felt all at once.

Now, this may seem like a minor point, but it's an important matter for interpretation and translation. If I am working with a Middle English text such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and encounter the word "ken," then I will need to consider that the word may combine its meanings rather than distinguish them, for with such a text, I am forced to translate its archaic and even dialectical English into a more modern, mainstream form, so I need to understand what meaning needs to be preserved in doing that.

I'll have to give this point some more thought and perhaps seek out a few examples, especially since I'm scheduled to present a paper at a Medieval conference on translation this autumn...