The agreeable eye

an eudæmonistarchives

Crambe repetita (21)

Yea, but you will infer that this is actum agere, an unnecessary work, cramben bis coctam apponere, the same again and again in other words. To what purpose? ‘Nothing is omitted that may well be said,’ so thought Lucian in the like theme. How many excellent physcians have written just volumes and elaborate tracts of this subject! No news here; that which I have is stolen from others, Dicitque mihi mea pagina, fur es. If that severe doom of Synesius be true, ‘It is a greater offence to steal dead men’s labours than their clothes,’ what shall become of most writers? I hold up my hand at the bar among others, and am guilty of felony in this kind, habes confitentem reum, I am content to be pressed with rest.

—Robert Burton
(The Anatomy of Melancholy
‘Democritus to the Reader’, p. 22)


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