Greek entries from Sidgwick's diary

[jeidsath]

Σαῦλος:

On a different topic, take a look at this interesting post about Arthur Sidgwick's personal diary. Can you decipher his Greek?

οἴκοθεν

from home

οἴκαδε

to home

ὦ στέρνα δὸς στέρνοισι συμπλέκον δέμας

O breast, give to breasts a combined frame.

γυμνοῦ κόρη τὸ σῶμα· σὀς πάρειμ’ ἀνήρ (kίους wisc)

Strip, girl, your body, your man is present. (unk. Can someone decipher this?)

ὦ θάλπος ἡ οὐ στηθέων τε συμβολή.

O pain of the breasts not joined.

χείλει φιλοῦς ἥγιζεν αἰσχύνην ἐμήν

Two lips hallowed my shame.

δυω· τίς ἔστ’ ἄριθμος ἡδίων σέθεν;

Two, what number is more pleasant to thou?

ἥδιστος ὕπνος σωμάτων ἐζευγμένων

Sweet sleep of bodies yoked together.

[Paul Derouda]

Looks interesting, I'll have a have look into Sidgwick's secret diaries... A couple of remarks:

στέρνον makes more sense if translated "chest".

"Pain" doesn't quite fully get the meaning of θάλπος, which is a sort of sweet pain, I think. I mixed sort of sensation. I don't have anything better though.

χείλει φιλοῦς᾽ ἥγιζεν αἰσχύνην ἐμήν
φιλοῦςα has an elided alpha, I'd suppose. (I suppose this means "kissing")

σὀς πάρειμ’ ἀνήρ
Nothing wrong with your version, but see how the Greek uses the first person? Effective, I'd say.

[Paul Derouda]

χείλει is perhaps dative "with her lip(s)".

[jeidsath]

It's the first entry on December 31st, the day after his wedding. I wouldn't expect him to expect that to be the dative for χεῖλος. But maybe he meant something like this?

χείλει -- φιλοῦς᾽ ἥγιζεν αἰσχύνην ἐμήν

Also, there's a word that I can't decipher after that sentence in the original. Maybe Latin?

Thank you for pointing out that I dropped φιλοῦσα!

[Paul Derouda]

χείλει φιλοῦς᾽ ἥγιζεν αἰσχύνην ἐμήν
My take on this: "Kissing with her lips, she hallowed my shame", or just maybe "lovingly with her lips she hallowed my shame", but I'd rather think that φιλοῦςα refers to kissing here (or whatever you want to call it).

[mwh]

This is fascinating. Erotica self-evidently call for iambic trimeter. Sidgwick wrote an intro to verse composition (still in use), and it shows (though I don't recall his using any of these verses in it).

ὦ στέρνα δὸς στέρνοισι, συμπλέκον δέμας
Oh give breast to breast, entwine body [sc. with body]!
But συμπλέκον puzzles me. I’d have expected σύμπλεξον. It does seem to be συμπλέκον that’s written, not συμπλέκου (mid./pass.), however. Can anyone solve? What am I missing?

γυμνοῦ κόρη τὸ σῶμα· σὸς πάρειμ’ ἀνήρ. (pious wish)
Get naked, girl. I your man am here.

ὦ θάλπος ἡδὺ στηθέων τε συμβολή.
Oh sweet heat and meeting of breasts!

(The wedding night)
χείλει φιλοῦσ’ ἥγιζεν αἰσχύνην ἐμήν. (fact)
Kissing (it) with her lips she hallowed my shame.
How wonderfully Victorian.

δυω· τίς ἔστ’ ἄριθμος ἡδίων σέθεν;
Two! What number is there sweeter than you [i.e. 2]?

ἥδιστος ὕπνος σωμάτων ἐζευγμένων.
Sweetest (is) the sleep of bodies yoked.

[jeidsath]

I think that συμπλέκου is just as likely (and makes more sense). He's squeezing at the end of the line, and the curve of the notebook is also warping the character. Thank you for figuring out ὦ θάλπος ἡδὺ. I couldn't figure out the third word, but now it's obvious.

Also, this should be a lesson to anyone writing their diary in Ancient Greek to be read in a 150 years: Accuracy! (If you don't want to be picked to death on the internet.) Sidgwick's composition skills are amazing.

He would have been 33 when he wrote this page, having as yet published no books on composition). His wife, Charlotte Sophia Wilson, was 13 years his junior.

[Paul Derouda]

As to what really happened during the Sidgwick's wedding night - if you're indiscreet enough, you can find some more context to χείλει φιλοῦς᾽ ἥγιζεν αἰσχύνην ἐμήν if you take note of the little μ letter in the second column of the wedding night entry (also to be found in the three following entries of the diary). The blogger gives us a hint on how the interpret these μ's.

[Victor]

Nice find, jeidsath.
One thought preoccupies me: were these iambics the morning's spontaneous outpourings, and during the preceding night Charlotte Sophia Sidgwick the sole object of her husband's thoughts, or was Arthur busy mentally composing the morrow's jottings even at the very moment when other, perhaps more genuinely spontaneous, outpourings were taking place? I don't doubt the man's sincerity, just his priorities.

[daivid]

ὦ στέρνα δὸς στέρνοισι, συμπλέκον δέμας
Oh give breast to breast, entwine body [sc. with body]!
But συμπλέκον puzzles me. I’d have expected σύμπλεξον. It does seem to be συμπλέκον that’s written, not συμπλέκου (mid./pass.), however. Can anyone solve? What am I missing?
.

δὸς I read as initiating aorist - not two breasts bumping into each other and then bouncing apart. Then he has no need of an imperative - the entwining of bodies naturally follows.
(Or am displaying how much I have still to learn in that I don't expect an imperative?)*

*learn about reading Greek that is.

[mwh]

Hi daivid,
Not quite sure what you’re saying here. A second imperative is needed, if only to take care of δέμας.

Victor, I expect he could toss off iambics without premeditation. They’re easy. Still, distracting oneself by meditating iambic effusions might work as a technique to avert premature physical ones.

[Victor]

Victor, I expect he could toss off iambics without premeditation.

True. He'd probably had a lot of practice pumping out lines of the stuff from his early adolescence until now.

Still, distracting oneself by meditating iambic effusions might work as a technique to avert premature physical ones.

Quite possibly. Being a true scholar he may have resolved that Greek would come first. His wife probably regarded this as a gentlemanly thing to do, as long as she was allowed the honour of coming second.

[Paul Derouda]

I seriously doubt she was allowed to come before January 3rd at the very least, or whenever the little μ's disappear again from the second column of Arthur's diary. I would very much like to see the next page of the diary, as I expect that her coming second is honoured there with yet another iambic.

[daivid]

Hi daivid,
Not quite sure what you’re saying here. A second imperative is needed, if only to take care of δέμας.
.

I read it as an abbreviation of something like:
"Oh give breast to breast" an body was entwining with body.

If that's not valid why did he not use an imperative?