Epictetus and Cleanthes. Henry IV couldn't sleep. When things are not alike. Getting picky. When words fail us. Lost in translation. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on Bill Clinton.

Paradoxical, what? . . . Epictetus quotes Cleanthes (though some say Zeno said it, and if there are any strong opinions out there on this point, please mail them in): "Possibly the philosophers [by definition lovers of wisdom and disinterested] say what is contrary to opinion, but assuredly not what is contrary to reason." Qua philosopher, we might add.

The Greek for contrary to opinion is "paradoxa," by the way; for contrary to reason it's "paraloga." This is of no immediate help to me but seems worth salting away for future reference and/or shocked, joyful recognition.

Crowning the day . . . Such shocked, joyful recognition occurred to me on a day long ago, reading Henry IV's soliloquy about sleep and the worried man. (Who sings a worried song? Definitely.) "How many thousands of my poorest subjects/ Are at this hour asleep!" he begins. (He's facing rebellion and battle.) "O sleep, O gentle sleep,/ Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee. . . " -- scared her away, so that at 1 a.m. he's pacing.

There's more on this theme for a page, until he's looking for no more than "partial sleep," denied him, a king, while permitted to lesser folks. "Then happy low," he says, addressing the lowly, "lie down!/ Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

There's Shakespeare again, pulling out those shopworn phrases. Thing of it is, he made them up. Reading "Hamlet" as a high-schooler, I was impressed with all the familiar phrases Shakespeare used. Then it dawned on me that he is where they came from. He wasn't being trite, after all.

Mac is different from you and me . . . I have made a big deal about saying "different" when it isn't needed, as in "seven different ways to avoid probate." Vs. seven same ways? Alas, then I read the great Macaulay, who in his monumental [it's what you say about such books, right?] History of England used "different" in a way that seems at first redundant.

Speaking of England under the Stuarts as neither fish nor fowl (my phrase, trite as dirt) because of the standoff between king and parliament, he said, "With the vices of two different systems it had the strength of neither."

"Two systems" would have done, yes? No, because they could have been similar. That distinction, plus legitimate need for emphasis to keep the reader clicking, and you have reason enough for Macaulay, who surely rests more easily knowing I think so.

Found in translation . . . Jean Benedetti, known to you all as editor and translator of love letters between the Russian writer Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) and the actress Olga Knipper, who became his wife, did us a service, says reviewer Patrick Miles in Times Literary Supplement (12/20/96). He cut them to fit 292 pages, for one thing, and caught their "energy" in everyday words and phrases.

But alas, Benedetti committed some "howlers" when the Russian got more difficult. Chekhov said what translates as "It's a life of bliss," but Benedetti came up with "no life, but raspberries," which is not very close at all. C. wrote of "big spiders in my room," B. made it "great scholars." For "I dream only of you," B. delivered "Only you dream of me," which is off 180 degrees.

If God is in the details, this is an atheistic translation. But still, "the vitality of these lovers remains," says reviewer Miles -- which goes to show we can be too picky.

What's your angle, Buddy? . . . To be or not to be obtuse. The U. of Chicago scholar who died in a December plane crash was an expert on the big-bang theory and other "equally obtuse" topics, said a WBBM-TV announcer. A few days later, my interlocutor said something was "obtuse," meaning the same thing: complex and out of the ordinary, beyond the ken of ordinary mortals.

Another in that conversation saw another word mixed in there: obscure. So we had it: "obtuse" is no longer only dense or dim or dumb or wide (as in angle) but is also a new, unauthorized combination of obscure and abstruse. Thus the language trips and stumbles along, thanks in great measure to its increasingly oral, vs. written, nature as mediated by -- guess whom? -- the electronic media. Alas and alack-a-day.

But what do it mean in England? . . . In The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories (Regnery, 1997), Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraph strains credulity with stories of who bombed the Okla. City federal building in addition to McVeigh and Nichols, how presidential aide Vincent Foster died other than by suicide, and other matters. Tut-tut.

The problem is not his evidence, which seems persuasive, or his politics, which seem not to intrude, nor anything else about his argument, which seems reasonable. It's how he uses "hone" for "home," as in "[Sen. d'Amato's] investigation honed in on allegations that a raiding party had entered Foster's office at around 10:50 PM to spirit away incriminating documents." (p. 190)

That's not the only time either. Evans-P comes over here from Blighty for four years to cover U.S. politics, "Cambridge-educated and internationally renowned," and says "hone" (sharpen, as skills) when he means "home" (return to, as to home). Sure he writes an immensely readable, fascinating book about the seamy, not to say disgusting side of American law enforcement and high-level corruption, but so what?

— Reader, take heed. You are reading an essay written decades ago, lightly edited and with many updated links. Commentary? As shrewd as it was then. Enjoy. —