Bailey's Extant Remains commentary.

Here's Horace's Satire 1.1:

Horace (65 BC–8 BC) - The Satires: Book I Satire I

I found von der Muehli's work but it'll have to wait until this evening... Consider this a teaser

On a cursory search, I found a couple of other versions, which I thought might lend some nuance, even if they’re not the best renderings –

63. There is also a limit in simple living, and he who fails to understand this falls into an error as great as that of the man who gives way to extravagance. (This from a Kindle book, with no translator named – also here: https://epicurus.net/en/vatican.html. Maybe someone here is familiar with it.)

63. There is an elegance in simplicity, and one who is thoughtless resembles one whose feelings run to excess. (Trans. Peter Saint-Andre, Monadnock Valley Press; this one seems to be somewhat in contradiction to the others.)

(Now an NBA game is calling …)

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Pacatus

63. There is an elegance in simplicity, and one who is thoughtless resembles one whose feelings run to excess. (Trans. Peter Saint-Andre, Monadnock Valley Press; this one seems to be somewhat in contradiction to the others.)

Oh no, I hope you copied that wrong from St Andre - but I suspect you did not!

And *that* , ladies and gentlemen, is why we delve into the Greek.

VS63: "There is also a limit to frugality. The man unable to consider this suffers a similar end as the man who indulges in excess." --Eugene O'Connor

VS63: "There is also a limit in simple living. He who fails to heed this limit falls into an error as great as that of the man who gives way to extravagance." --Russel M. Greer

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I have (on loan from a friend) "The Essential Epicurus" by O'Connor.

And found "Letters, Principle Doctrines and Vatican Sayings: Epicurus" by Greer -- on Archive.com

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Here is Vatican Saying 63 as contained in the early 14th century manuscript, Vat.gr.1950.pt.2, folio 404r.

VS63 starts at the red epsilon (Eστι...) and ends at the end of the line before red alpha (Aκολουθεῖν) that starts VS64. This is *the* source of our discussion.

The first controversy seems to have to do with the disagreement between Usener/Bailey/Bignone and von der Muehli.

Bailey (using Usener) transcribes the manuscript as:

von der Muehli transcribes it as (click here to link to the book on Hathitrust )

with the following footnote (following the 10):

noting that Usener "corrects" the text of the manuscript to λιτοτητι καθαριος.

Von der Muehli, on the other hand, transcribes the manuscript as λεπτοτητι καθαριοτης.

To my eye, the manuscript itself clearly agrees with von der Muehli's transcription of λεπτοτητι

Usener appears to be "outhinking" the scribe who copied the manuscript on that specific word; however, the second word appears to agree with Usener/Bailey because the ending is clearly ...ριος but the previous letter looks like an theta alpha (...θα...) so it looks like ...θαριος. But what are those first two letter? That's the rub.

It might be handy to have a chart of ancient Greek miniscule. Click here to go with the handy chart at Wikipedia.

and here is a link to a collection of ancient Greek ligatures.

Here is where the scholarship above my pay grade comes in!! The reason Usener/Bailey and von der Muehli can disagree on what the manuscript is *supposed* say is that they're trying read into the possible transcription mistakes that the scribe could have done in copying the text from a source to vat.gr.1950.

Let's at least examine those two words that are in disagreement: λιτοτητι and λεπτοτητι.

λιτοτητι the dative of λιτότης "plainness, simplicity"

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, λι_τότης

Note that the LSJ definition even gives "for λεπτότης in Epicur.Sent.Vat.63." so it appears they accept that λιτότης is supposed to be λεπτότης in VS63. So...

λεπτότης "thinness: fineness, delicacy, leanness"

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, λᾶας , λεπιδόομαι , λεπτότης

So, Saint-Andre follows von der Muehli *and*, more importantly to me, the actual text of the source manuscript.

ἔστι καὶ ἐν λεπτότητι καθαριότης, ἧς ὁ ἀνεπιλόγιστος παραπλήσιόν τι πάσχει τῷ διʼ ἀοριστίαν ἐκπίπτοντι.

The issue for me lies in the fact that if we follow the manuscript on λεπτότητι, why aren't we following the manuscript text on the second word ending with ...θαριος?

More to come (no doubt), but I want to save here before I lose all this!

To me, this looks like κ_θαριος but what that second letter is...? According to a search in LSJ for words with that ending, the only word that fits the letters is καθάριος. But according to LSJ, καθάριος refers to "purgative medicine, POxy.116.15 (ii A.D.)" but that appears to be from the 2nd c. AD/CE! So, it appears von der Muehli is trying to correct for grammar and "correcting" to καθαριότης. "

Saint-Andre's note to VS63 reads:

[63] The phrase ἐν λεπτότητι καθαριότης is somewhat obscure; καθαριότης means purity, cleanliness, neatness, scupulousness, integrity, elegance, refinement, simplicity, frugality, economy, etc., while λεπτότης means thinness, meagreness, fineness, delicacy, subtlety, etc. Can there be a purity in meagreness, a scrupulousness in delicacy, an integrity in fineness, a frugality in subtlety? Translating this phrase as "an elegance in simplicity" ties it to other statements Epicurus makes about both living beautifully (e.g., Vatican Saying #17) and living simply or naturally (e.g., Vatican Saying #21).

Have we brought up the Epicurus Wiki VS63:

Vatican Saying 63 - Epicurus Wiki

There is [due measure] even in frugality (and) he who (is) thoughtless [about this] suffers [somewhat as badly].

Wow, Don amazing investigation and translation work.

In an above post I quoted a Greer translation, and I should mention what Greer says in his prologue -- that he used the translations of others: Bailey, vod der Muehll, Usner, and Hicks, and that is it "not so much a translation as a paraphrase".

So we probably should be careful with "translations" like this?

Quote from Kalosyni

So we probably should be careful with "translations" like this?

Not necessarily, but it pays to be cautious. Especially when someone is using only the English and is not comparing those to the original.

There are methods of translation called dynamic and formal equivalence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_and_formal_equivalence#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DFormal_equivalence_approach_tends_to%2Cbut_with_less_literal_accuracy.?wprov=sfla1

The dynamic tries to convey the sense or meaning, the formal tries to be more word for word. Both are valid, but it's always better to translate from the original and to consciously decide which method you're going to use.

One thing I find annoying about Bailey is that he says outright "I do not understand the meaning of λεπτότης here." So instead trying to understand, he just decides it's the *wrong* word and fits in one he understands that's similar spelling.

Don How would you, personally, render V63 in English? Maybe taking a stab at both formal equivalence and a more dynamic rendering?

Don, I love how you produce posts like the ones above and then say you're no good at such things.

To add to the hopper, Inwood and Gerson render it as: 'There is also a proper measure for parsimony, and he who does not reason it out is as badly off as he who goes wrong by total neglect of limit.'

Long and Sedley: 'There can be refinement even on slender means, and one who fails to take account of it is in a similar position to someone who goes astray through ignoring limits.'