[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the
Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Dave Barry

 

Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the
closest our country has ever been to being even.

Will Rogers

 

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow,
next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to
explain why it didn't happen.

Winston Churchill

 

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to
be bought and sold are legislators.

PJ O'Rourke

 

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds
from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.

Oscar Ameringer

 

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the
most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly
every political practitioner in the country - and then declares itself
puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.

Charles Krauthammer

 

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9 Curses for Book Thieves from the Middle Ages and Beyond

 

It may seem extreme to threaten the gallows for the theft of a book, but
that's just one example in the long, respected tradition of book curses.
Before the invention of moveable type in the West, the cost of a single book
could be tremendous. As medievalist Eric Kwakkel explains, stealing a book
then was more like stealing someone's car today. Now, we have car alarms;
then, they had chains, chests . and curses. And since the heyday of the book
curse occurred during the Middle Ages in Europe, it was often spiced with
Dante-quality torments of hell.

 

The earliest such curses go back to the 7th century BCE. They appear in
Latin, vernacular European languages, Arabic, Greek, and more. And they
continued, in some cases, into the era of print, gradually fading as books
became less expensive. Here are nine that capture the flavor of this bizarre
custom.

 

1. DEATH BY FRYING PAN

A book curse from the Arnstein Bible, circa 1172

 

The Arnstein Bible at the British Library, written in Germany circa 1172,
has a particularly vivid torture in mind for the book thief: "If anyone
steals it: may he die, may he be roasted in a frying pan, may the falling
sickness [i.e. epilepsy] and fever attack him, and may he be rotated [on the
breaking wheel] and hanged. Amen."

 

2. "A WORSE END"

A 15th-century French curse featured by Marc Drogin in his book Anathema!
Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses has a familiar "House That
Jack Built"-type structure:

 

"Whoever steals this book

Will hang on a gallows in Paris,

And, if he isn't hung, he'll drown,

And, if he doesn't drown, he'll roast,

And, if he doesn't roast, a worse end will befall him."

 

3. "THE MOST SAINTED MARTYR WILL BE THE ACCUSER"

A book curse excerpted from the 13th-century Historia scholastica

 

In The Medieval Book, Barbara A. Shailor records a curse from Northeastern
France found in the 12th-century Historia scholastica: "Peter, of all the
monks the least significant, gave this book to the most blessed martyr,
Saint Quentin. If anyone should steal it, let him know that on the Day of
Judgment the most sainted martyr himself will be the accuser against him
before the face of our Lord Jesus Christ."

 

4. "OUT WITH HIS EYES"

Drogin also records this 13th-century curse from a manuscript at the Vatican
Library, as Medievalists.net notes. It escalates rapidly.

 

"The finished book before you lies;

This humble scribe don't criticize.

Whoever takes away this book

May he never on Christ look.

Whoever to steal this volume durst

May he be killed as one accursed.

Whoever to steal this volume tries

Out with his eyes, out with his eyes!"

 

5. "DAMNED AND CURSED FOREVER"

A book curse from an 11th century lectionary 

 

An 11th-century book curse from a church in Italy, spotted by Kwakkel,
offers potential thieves the chance to make good: "Whoever takes this book
or steals it or in some evil way removes it from the Church of St Caecilia,
may he be damned and cursed forever, unless he returns it or atones for his
act."

 

6. "YOU DESERVED THIS WOE"

This book curse was written in a combination of Latin and German, as Drogin
records:

 

"To steal this book, if you should try,

It's by the throat you'll hang high.

And ravens then will gather 'bout

To find your eyes and pull them out.

And when you're screaming 'oh, oh, oh!'

Remember, you deserved this woe."

 

7. "CURSED FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD"

This 18th-century curse from a manuscript found in Saint Mark's Monastery,
Jerusalem, is written in Arabic: "Property of the monastery of the Syrians
in honorable Jerusalem. Anyone who steals or removes [it] from its place of
donation will be cursed from the mouth of God! God (may he be exalted) will
be angry with him! Amen."

 

8. "I WISH SHE MAY BE DROUNED"

A book curse in a 17th century manuscript cookbook

 

A 17th-century manuscript cookbook now at the New York Academy of Medicine
contains this inscription: "Jean Gembel her book I wish she may be drouned
yt steals it from her."

 

9. "THE GALLOWS BE YR END"

An ownership inscription on a 1632 book printed in London, via the Rochester
Institute of Technology, contains a familiar motif:

 

"Steal not this Book my honest friend

For fear the gallows be yr end

For when you die the Lord will say

Where is the book you stole away."

 

BONUS: TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

One of the most elaborate book curses found on the internet runs as follows:
"For him that stealeth a Book from this Library, let it change to a Serpent
in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with Palsy, and all his Members
blasted. Let him languish in Pain, crying aloud for Mercy and let there be
no surcease to his Agony till he sink to Dissolution. Let Book-worms gnaw
his Entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth
to his final Punishment let the Flames of Hell consume him for ever and
aye."

 

Alas, this curse-still often bandied about as real-was in fact part of a
1909 hoax by the librarian and mystery writer Edmund Pearson, who published
it in his "rediscovered" Old Librarian's Almanack. The Almanack was supposed
to be the creation of a notably curmudgeonly 18th-century librarian; in
fact, it was a product of Pearson's fevered imagination.

 

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The highest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls in Venezuela, has a total
drop of 3,121 feet. 

 

The linen bandages that were used to wrap Egyptian mummies averaged 1,000
yards in length. 

 

The lowest temperature ever recorded in the world was 129 degrees below 0 at
Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.

 

The monastic hours are matins, lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers
and compline.

 

The world's first speed limit regulation was in England in 1903. It was 20
mph. 

 

The wristwatch was invented in 1904 by Louis Cartier.