I Ask Of You Greetings And Money
September 7, 2015 7:02 PM Subscribe
I love how overwrought these are. A slight change of setting and modernizing a few of the words, and these sound exactly like some of the "please send money" entreaties I overheard from other kids' phone calls during college.
posted by phunniemee at 7:37 PM on September 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by phunniemee at 7:37 PM on September 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
For you must know that without Ceres and Bacchus Apollo grows cold.
Indeed.
posted by clockzero at 7:37 PM on September 7, 2015 [35 favorites]
Indeed.
posted by clockzero at 7:37 PM on September 7, 2015 [35 favorites]
I have to rent lodgings, buy necessaries, and provide for many other things which I cannot now specify.
Truly, nothing has changed except for the cost.
posted by zachlipton at 7:38 PM on September 7, 2015 [27 favorites]
Truly, nothing has changed except for the cost.
posted by zachlipton at 7:38 PM on September 7, 2015 [27 favorites]
Reminds me of this joke:
Dear Dad,
$chool i$ really great. I am making lot$ of friend$ and $tudying very hard. with all my $tuff, I $imply cannot think of anything i need, $o if you would like, you can ju$t $end me a card, as I would love to hear from you.
Love, your $on
--
Dear son,
I kNOw that astroNOmy, ecoNOmics, and oceaNOgraphy are eNOugh to keep even an hoNOr student busy. Do NOt forget that the pursuit of kNOwledge is a NOble task, and you can never study eNOugh.
Love, dad
posted by cacofonie at 7:42 PM on September 7, 2015 [17 favorites]
Dear Dad,
$chool i$ really great. I am making lot$ of friend$ and $tudying very hard. with all my $tuff, I $imply cannot think of anything i need, $o if you would like, you can ju$t $end me a card, as I would love to hear from you.
Love, your $on
--
Dear son,
I kNOw that astroNOmy, ecoNOmics, and oceaNOgraphy are eNOugh to keep even an hoNOr student busy. Do NOt forget that the pursuit of kNOwledge is a NOble task, and you can never study eNOugh.
Love, dad
posted by cacofonie at 7:42 PM on September 7, 2015 [17 favorites]
Yes. They are much cheaper now.
posted by notyou at 7:42 PM on September 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by notyou at 7:42 PM on September 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
That's the problem with young people these days- my generation didn't depend on anyone! We made our own way! I went on crusade, and saw Cyprus, Antioch and the Holy Lands, and paid for it entirely by selling protection to merchants and pilgrims. I started out as a simple troubadour, and now I'm Bishop of Toulouse! These dodecennials have had everything handed to them by their parents, and all they care about is their fancy psalters, and getting engravings done of themselves! They spend all their money on surcoats lined with marten fur, or listening to shawm-players in the taverns, and then have to get money from their parents for firewood and tapers!
Last week, one of my students wrote to his parents to bring him mulled wine, because he was cold!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:43 PM on September 7, 2015 [133 favorites]
Last week, one of my students wrote to his parents to bring him mulled wine, because he was cold!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:43 PM on September 7, 2015 [133 favorites]
For you must know that without Ceres and Bacchus Apollo grows cold.
I am totally using this line the next tme I ask for a raise.
posted by happyroach at 7:52 PM on September 7, 2015 [41 favorites]
I am totally using this line the next tme I ask for a raise.
posted by happyroach at 7:52 PM on September 7, 2015 [41 favorites]
I now feel a deep and pressing need for an "I started out as a simple troubadour, and now I'm Bishop of Toulouse!" T-shirt
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:54 PM on September 7, 2015 [22 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:54 PM on September 7, 2015 [22 favorites]
Truly, nothing has changed except for the cost.
Back in the day, students were subject to the authority of the university and thus immune to local laws; universities didn't want to lose their income, and to earn a diploma one only had to pass a final examination.
I don't think I'd have made it.
posted by mr. digits at 8:00 PM on September 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Back in the day, students were subject to the authority of the university and thus immune to local laws; universities didn't want to lose their income, and to earn a diploma one only had to pass a final examination.
I don't think I'd have made it.
posted by mr. digits at 8:00 PM on September 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Hey, cortex, can we get a shawm-player to do the intro track on the next podcast?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:04 PM on September 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 8:04 PM on September 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
In the Byzantine art gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they have a case devoted to ostraka (writing on pieces of broken pots) from early Christian monasteries. Some of them are the equivalent of doodles, or scratch paper - but some are messages, and I always get a kick out of reading them because they're this same kind of wheedling begging, stuff like "please give the servant who brought this to you a dozen eggs and a blanket to bring back to me, I really need them...."
It's universal.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:31 PM on September 7, 2015 [11 favorites]
It's universal.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:31 PM on September 7, 2015 [11 favorites]
(For the curious, here's the rockin' sounds of the shawm.)
posted by quinndexter at 9:15 PM on September 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by quinndexter at 9:15 PM on September 7, 2015 [6 favorites]
Hopefully if I wrote my parents back in the day saying that I needed money to become a shawm musician they would have eagerly sent cash. and told me to play that thing outside.
posted by missmary6 at 9:58 PM on September 7, 2015
posted by missmary6 at 9:58 PM on September 7, 2015
BEHOLD! Tʜᴇ Sᴀᴛᴄʜᴇʟ ɪɴ ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ɪ sᴛᴏʀᴇ ᴍʏ Cᴜʀʀᴇɴᴄʏ. Lᴀʏ ᴛʜɪɴᴇ Eʏᴇs ᴜᴘᴏɴ ɪᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ʏᴇ sʜᴀʟʟ sᴇᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɪᴛ ɪs Bᴀʀʀᴇɴ.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:25 PM on September 7, 2015 [20 favorites]
posted by Rhaomi at 10:25 PM on September 7, 2015 [20 favorites]
For you must know that without Ceres and Bacchus Apollo grows cold.
This sounded like the student was referencing something, so i found a mention of both this letter and the likely original saying:
“. . . . Where in Terence’s Eunuchus Chremes cites a saying, ‘Without Ceres and Liber, Venus grows cold’ — i.e. without bread and wine, love grows cold — in a collection of model letters of about 1220 an Oxford student, writing home for money, has the variant ‘sine Cerere et Bacone frigescit Apollo’ (‘without Ceres and Bacchus, Apollo grows cold’ — the writer may also be punning on the medieval baco ‘bacon’, a word of Germanic origin).”
(From Sources of Inspiration: Studies in Literary Transformation, 400–1500, pp. 95–96)
posted by D.C. at 10:46 PM on September 7, 2015 [12 favorites]
This sounded like the student was referencing something, so i found a mention of both this letter and the likely original saying:
“. . . . Where in Terence’s Eunuchus Chremes cites a saying, ‘Without Ceres and Liber, Venus grows cold’ — i.e. without bread and wine, love grows cold — in a collection of model letters of about 1220 an Oxford student, writing home for money, has the variant ‘sine Cerere et Bacone frigescit Apollo’ (‘without Ceres and Bacchus, Apollo grows cold’ — the writer may also be punning on the medieval baco ‘bacon’, a word of Germanic origin).”
(From Sources of Inspiration: Studies in Literary Transformation, 400–1500, pp. 95–96)
posted by D.C. at 10:46 PM on September 7, 2015 [12 favorites]
Hmm, I took that Ceres and Bacchus quote as a sort of garbled reference to food and drink and study - Ceres was goddess of grain, Bacchus was god of...well, and Apollo was sometimes God of knowledge, so I took it as a sort of "I can't study if I'm hungry and I haven't had the occasional night out". Maybe it's not the most perfect analogy or metaphor, but remember we're talking about something students would write.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:02 PM on September 7, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:02 PM on September 7, 2015 [8 favorites]
My father, who holds an AB Classical degree, once told me that this is basically what most of the lyrics in Carmina Burana consist of.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 12:27 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 12:27 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
"My father, who holds an AB Classical degree, once told me that this is basically what most of the lyrics in Carmina Burana consist of."
Not so much the 'send me money' part, but very much what the money is really for. Lots of sex, worrying about sex or lack thereof, angsting about love, and in the memorable (for singers) "In Taberna Quando Sumu" a rather exhaustive listing of who shows up to party, who they toast, and why.
posted by Vigilant at 3:10 AM on September 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
Not so much the 'send me money' part, but very much what the money is really for. Lots of sex, worrying about sex or lack thereof, angsting about love, and in the memorable (for singers) "In Taberna Quando Sumu" a rather exhaustive listing of who shows up to party, who they toast, and why.
posted by Vigilant at 3:10 AM on September 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
"O Fortuna" is a medieval blues song with choir, though. But I always did get a kick out of the Lamentations of undergrads set to a Church beat.
posted by jadepearl at 4:12 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by jadepearl at 4:12 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
This reminds me of the graffiti found in Pompeii. Technology changes, but human beings are still guided by the same impulses as always, especially related to family dynamics.
posted by Beholder at 4:31 AM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Beholder at 4:31 AM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
More shawm.
(I probably should have written "dancing to shawm music." Shawm was basically the EDM of its day.)
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:52 AM on September 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
(I probably should have written "dancing to shawm music." Shawm was basically the EDM of its day.)
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:52 AM on September 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
Most honorable paterfamilias, I have urgent need of barristers, armaments, and florins.
posted by TedW at 5:43 AM on September 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by TedW at 5:43 AM on September 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
Divine masters, by some cruel twist of Providence we have been assigned Double Secret Probation by the devious Dean Wormer, whose wife one of our associates has secretly wooed. Our academic performance is that of Achilles and the Tortoise. We require funds to construct a great siege engine, which we shall unveil at the town festival to seek revenge on our foes, because as the great philosopher Brutus says, "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:55 AM on September 8, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:55 AM on September 8, 2015 [7 favorites]
Ah, the shawm. If a goose could learn to sing...
posted by Existential Dread at 6:32 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Existential Dread at 6:32 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I dunno, I kind of like it! Like that crazy album "Baro Biao - World Wide Wedding" by Fanfare Ciocărlia -- tons of fun. Here, listen to a bit: "Manuela oh Manuela" [SLYT].
posted by wenestvedt at 6:42 AM on September 8, 2015
posted by wenestvedt at 6:42 AM on September 8, 2015
Charles Homer Haskins... I should've known. I have a delightful little volume by him about the culture of the first European universities. Well worth a read, if you happen across a copy.
posted by clawsoon at 6:54 AM on September 8, 2015
posted by clawsoon at 6:54 AM on September 8, 2015
Most honorable paterfamilias, I have urgent need of barristers, armaments, and florins.
For verily, the night soil has struck the water wheel...
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:18 AM on September 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
For verily, the night soil has struck the water wheel...
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:18 AM on September 8, 2015 [10 favorites]
Oooh, now do the one where they write letters with rapidly decreasing frequency to their high school girlfriends that they decided to stay with because, like, long distance relationships between 18 year olds are totally going to work out.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:31 PM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Rhomboid at 1:31 PM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
No letters, they talk through a hole in the wall, don't they? Or send emissaries, or something?
posted by wenestvedt at 2:56 PM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 2:56 PM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
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posted by jacquilynne at 7:34 PM on September 7, 2015 [1 favorite]