\n"}John Tzetzes was a teacher and scholar who lived in Constantinople in the 12th century\u00a0and was a real asshole. Apparently the gentleman had this habit, which was he would write a letter to someone and then write erudite scholarly annotations in verse on the letter so you got all of his very good jokes. Not, like, on the letter! No no no, in a separate book of poetry called \u201cthe Histories\u201d that he published in which the allusions are explained. Also apparently a lot of sources only survived in the references that John Tzetzes made about them, which at first I was like,\u00a0\u201cno he would hate that, takes the focus away from him!\u201d but actually I think John Tzetzes\u2019 ghost should be antiplacated by any means possible
\nTzetzes described himself as hot, like Cato the Younger, as well as modest\u2013 not a joke!\u2013 although he admitted he was quick to temper. Here are some quotes from ordinary scholars otherwise driven to madness by reading John Tzetzes for too long:
\n\n\n\nThroughout his life Tzetzes was both prolific and fiercely, cantankerously\noutspoken about what he considered to be the exceptional quality of his work.\n\n\nThis\ncombination rendered him well known and has secured him an enduring place in the\nClassical tradition, despite the fact that the actual quality of his work rarely equals his\nperception of it and is often seriously marred by inaccuracy, false logic and awkward\nphrasing. \u2013 Aaron Heinrich
\n\n\nAnother major difficulty in studying Tzetzes is the extreme and quite particular presence of his own self in his texts, to the point that the vast majority of his writings appears to be driven by an \u2018autographic syndrome\u2019. The textual image of this phenomenon\u2013 Tzetzes\u2019 egocentric, idiosyncratic and contentious character\u2013 has been mostly interpreted as a purely personal trait of his. \u2013\u00a0Panagiotis Agapitos
\n\u2026And there were many other verses of sundry dialects, but I omitted them as useless.\u00a0 \u2013 an medieval scribe trying to copy one of John Tzetzes\u2019 texts and giving up
TZETZES (languagehat) contains one of his showoffy poems in which the punchline is some WILD medieval anti-Semitism and here is an exegesis of the million languages the dude crammed into the poem and also a lengthy discussion of whether or not some real filthy profanity was in the original (conclusion: absolutely)
\nanyway i have to go to spanish class but i thought some of you might want to know about this dude, i leave you with his commentary on his upstairs neighbors
\n\n\n\n\nI live in between the horrors of fire and watery deluge. For, beneath me the hay\nis strewn about, while above my head and around the lintel of my doorway\nrain flows in as a great stream. For, the house is a three-storey [building] and a\nholy priest, although of a lower rank, resides on the second floor above me \u2026\nTogether with his children he raises little pigs. These children and the piglets\ndo just the opposite of what the cavalry of Xerxes did. For, [Xerxes\u2019s] horses\nleaned over to drink [water] and completely dried up the rivers \u2026 On the\ncontrary, these little ones produce so much water [literally, urine] that it flows\ntogether to form navigable rivers.\n\n