Ταρασσει τοὐϚ Ἀνϑρώπους οὐ τὰ Πράγματα, αλλα τὰ περι τῶν Πραγμάτων, Δογματα.
It is not events [pragmata] themselves that trouble people, but their judgements [dogmata] about those circumstances.Epictetus, Handbook 5
Pretty funny in context. The other half of the joke is that Laurence Sterne uses Locke’s association of ideas to explain how his mother came to associate the sound of her husband’s clock-winding with sex, providing the motor for Tristram’s life and the whole book.
25 January 2011 at 20:26
G. Legman, In Rationale of the Dirty Joke (1968) has a chapter on the clock/coitus jokes (pp. 80-83).
29 January 2011 at 12:04
Thanks for the pointer. I see there is also a bit on “Dr. Slop’s baptizing-syringe. What a quixotic book. It really makes me think of Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy.