Loeb Classical Library

Michael Zwingli

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Hmmm...I hear what you're saying...
It's not a question of coming first but of being on the nobler page which is the right one, the one that feels more natural...
...but I am not familiar with the concept of the right page being "nobler" than the left. Whence this? What magic bestows nobility upon a page of paper, yet leaves its obverse remaining ruefully ignoble? Is it, perhaps, that Muslims will wipe their bottoms with only the left pages of books, said being closest to their "dirty" left hands, when they have run out of toilet paper? (To all my Muslim friends: just joking, now, please don't take offense.) And, what about these Muslims, who write and read from right to left, and open their books beginning with our back cover and their front? Do such facts switch the "polarity of nobility" in their books, making the left pages noble and the right ignoble? Is this polarity at all dependent upon whether the reader is left or right hand dominant? The Chinese read from top-down. Are then all of their pages noble or, perhaps, all ignoble? Verily, this is a conundrum!

What I intend to convey by all the foregoing hijinx, is that the consideration that an attribute such as nobility might be thought to be held by a specific part or aspect of a thing to a greater degree than a functionally and aesthetically equivalent other specific part or aspect of the thing essentially represents a case of misattribution. As pertains to reading from the right-hand pages feeling more natural than reading from the left, I have never discerned that in my personal experience.
That's the choice made by the Budé collection and I think they're right.
I'm sure that this suffices, that it gets the job done, but in light of the foregoing, is it optimal? That question having been asked, I must say that I think I disagree with you. I would rather have the Latin text preceding the translation, notions of nobility notwithstanding, even though such a scheme, when applied to a facing page format, will necessarily relegate the Latin original to the potentially ignoble left-hand pages.
 
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