Tea at Trianon: The Suda

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, November 7, 2024

The Suda

From The Greek Reporter:

The Suda, the massive tome written by a Byzantine scholar around the year 1100, was one of the world’s first encyclopedias and lexicons. Created as both a syllabary of the Greek language and an overview of events in the known world up until that time, it is a benchmark in scholarship of the medieval period. The Suda, or Souda (Σοῦδα,) was formerly attributed to an author called Soudas or Souidas. It is an encyclopedic lexicon, written in Greek, with a staggering 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost and often derived from medieval Christian compilers. The derivation of the word “Suda” is from the Byzantine Greek word souda, meaning “fortress” or “stronghold” with the alternate name, Suidas, stemming from an error made by Eustathius, who mistook the title for the author’s name. (Read more.)