Posts filed under “Books & Literature”
From DR. BOLI’S UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY.
Jejune (noun).—The memonth after Memay and bebefore Jejuly.
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF CARDINAL DE RETZ.
THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE is newly translated from Book 2 of the Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz; it describes his crisis of conscience, so to speak, when he finds himself made coadjutor archbishop of Paris. A standard translation exists in English and can be found at Project Gutenberg; but that translation is so freely paraphrastic, and so readily drops entire phrases of considerable importance to the Cardinal’s meaning, that it gives but a poor impression of the original, which in fact is one of the most extraordinary passages in all literature. And if you ask why Dr. Boli should present this quotation now, the answer is that it has some bearing on a very interesting five-volume novel due to be published in the next year.
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As I was obliged to take orders, I made a retreat at Saint-Lazare, where externally I put on all the usual appearances. My internal occupation was a great and profound reflection on the manner in which I should conduct myself. It was very difficult. I found the archbishopric of Paris degraded in the eyes of the world by the basenesses of my uncle, and in the eyes of God by his negligence and incapacity. I foresaw infinite obstacles to its reestablishment; and I was not so blind as not to understand that the greatest and most insurmountable obstacle was within myself. It did not escape me how necessary regular morals are to a bishop. I felt that the scandalous disorder of those of my uncle made the necessity even stricter and more indispensable for me than for others; and I felt, at the same time, that I was not capable of it, and that all the obstacles of both conscience and honor that I could oppose to my failings would be only very shaky barriers.
After six days of reflection, I decided to do evil by design—which is without comparison the more criminal course before God, but which is without doubt the wiser before the world: both because in doing so one always puts precautions in place to cover part of it, and because by this means one avoids the most dangerous ridicule that can be encountered in our profession, which is that of mixing sin with devotion at just the wrong time.
This is the holy disposition with which I left Saint-Lazare.
ASK DR. BOLI.
Edmund Spenser, whose touching tribute to his former teacher is often quoted.
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Dear Dr. Boli: What’s all this I hear about “Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled”? I thought his name was Jeff. —Sincerely, W. W. Skeat.
Dear Sir: You are thinking of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who died in 1400. Daniel Chaucer taught creative writing at the Merchant Taylors’ School in London in the middle 1500s. He was reputed to be rather pedantic on questions of English usage.
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This article is printed in honor of the four hundredth birthday of Dr. Boli’s folio copy of Spenser’s works. When a book reaches the four-century mark, Dr. Boli believes it has earned a birthday tribute.
From DR. BOLI’S UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY.
Distaff (noun).—In music, the treble clef in a score for keyboard instruments (see figure below).
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
THINGS WE SIMPLY CANNOT IMPROVE.
Ajax His Speech to the Grecian Knabbs, from Ovid’s Metam. Lib. XIII. Attempted in broad Buchans. To which are added a Journal to Portsmouth, and a Shop-Bill, in the same dialect. With a key. By R—— F—— Gent. Glasgow, 1755. It must have taken a certain uncommonly brilliant species of genius to attempt the translation of Ovid into contemporary Scots dialect. The result is at least as funny as you expect, as when Ajax says of Ulysses,
At threeps I am na’ sae perquire,
Nor auld-sarren as he,
Bat at banes-brakin, it’s well kent,
He has na’ maughts like me.For as far as I him excel
In toulzies fierce an’ strong,
As far in chaft-taak he exceeds
Me, wi’ his sleeked tongue.
The Latin text is printed at the bottom of each page, so that you may judge the accuracy of the translation for yourself. For comparison, here is Dryden’s translation of the same passage:
By diff’rent Methods we maintain our Right,
Nor am I made to Talk nor he to Fight.
In bloody Fields I labour to be great;
His Arms are a smooth Tongue and soft Deceit…
Dr. Boli is of the opinion that the real Ajax would be less likely to say “In bloody fields I labor to be great,” and more likely to boast of his own skill at “banes-brakin.”
Because you are not likely to discover this book unless someone points it out to you, Dr. Boli gladly shares his discovery, and heaps praises on the ingenuity of R—— F—— Gent.
ANNOUNCEMENT.
UPDATE: Since this article was written many years ago, the Eclectic Library has grown quite a bit, and the books themselves are more accessible. Many of the books in the collection are hosted by the Internet Archive or HathiTrust, and Google Books is much less restrictive than it was when it was young.
SINCE THE INCEPTION of the Google Books service, Dr. Boli has been making his own catalogue of certain books he has found useful or amusing. Google Books is a project with the potential to change the way we interact with the world’s literature; but at present its indexing system is in a primitive state. Anyone who has ever tried to use Google Books to find all the volumes of a multiple-volume set will appreciate the need for some better high-level catalogue.
It seemed to Dr. Boli that the best way to organize his own research was as a series of HTML pages; and, since what he had created was, practically speaking, an off-line Web site, there seemed to be no reason not to put it on line where other people with peculiar tastes might find it useful as well.
Thus the bibliophiles among his readers are invited to visit Boli’s Eclectic Library, where, as time goes on, more and more curious volumes will be made easily accessible to equally curious readers. Only a few pages are up now, but already the Classical section hints at what might be accomplished in the future.
Dr. Boli regrets that, at present, the site may be nearly useless for readers outside the United States, where Google still blocks access to much of its public-domain collection.
If you should happen to visit and find the site “under review,” do not despair. The Web host on which the site resides is kind enough to provide the server space gratis, but begins to get suspicious if people from the unwashed Internet actually visit any of the sites it hosts. The review is usually completed in about a day.
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Do you find that ordinary books contain entirely too much information? Misinformation is what you need.
EXTRAORDINARY LITERARY EVENT.
NOW AVAILABLE
Dr. Boli’s Encyclopedia of Misinformation
in a handy one-volume edition.
DID YOU KNOW that “apricot” is merely an inferior grade of peach? That the judge at the first Westminster Kennel Club show narrowly avoided being crushed by the paw of a giant schnauzer? That Pertinax was the first Roman emperor to hop on one foot for more than three hours straight?
If you did not know these important facts, then you have not been reliably misinformed.
Do not despair! Help is at hand. Now, for the very first time, Dr. Boli has gathered all the misinformation in the known universe and compressed it between the covers of one handy portable volume. Read it, and you can be as completely misinformed as the most powerful politicians and professors on earth.
No expense has been spared in the production of this lavishly illustrated volume. The paper is first-rate, the binding meets the most stringent federal safety standards, and the type has been painstakingly designed, letter by letter, by none other than Dr. Boli himself.
Yet the expense to you, the sagacious reader, is negligible. You can have Dr. Boli’s Encyclopedia of Misinformation for less than 1/150 the cost of a standard encyclopedia—a work which, being filled with mere information, has almost no practical application in the real world of today.
It is certainly not necessary to enlarge upon the potential benefits of this publication to the educated population at large. If you had been stymied in your search for the perfect Christmas gift, be stymied no longer. A suitable number of copies will take care of all your Christmas shopping at once. You may also wish to donate copies to your local library, school, and homeless shelter.
NOW IN PRESS.
Dr. Boli’s Lavishly Illustrated Folio History of the Coffee Table. Perhaps the world’s most inconvenient piece of furniture, the coffee table was a fixture of suburban living rooms in the bygone days of the middle twentieth century. In this nostalgic look back at the ranch houses and split-levels of yore, Dr. Boli traces the mysterious origins of the coffee table in the pseudo-orientalism of the late Victorian era, through the age of modern design and into the early days of postmodernism. A special chapter on the medical aspects of coffee-table design details the many forms of knee and shin injuries frequently reported during the heyday of the coffee table’s popularity. The illustrations in this generously sized volume are so delightful, and the binding so attractive, that you will certainly want to leave this book out for your guests to admire, perhaps laid open on some sort of low, flat surface. Folio, 328 pp.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
