Chapter & Verse

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Thomas Engelsing would like to learn the source of the following lines: “And now hear this, my ruder truth, thou art composed of lust unchained and most vile flux.”

 

Royall Moore hopes that someone can provide a citation for the phrase “North northwest the path of culture” (i.e., Egypt to Mesopotamia to Greece, Rome, Europe, and the New World)—a line he heard on a radio broadcast by Robert Frost, who was reading from his poems.

 

Tobe Kemp seeks a provenance for his family’s longtime expression, “And I’m the dumpsy dido that can do it.”

 

Send inquiries and answers to “Chapter and Verse,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge 02138, or via e-mail to chapterandverse@harvardmag.com.

You might also like

Made in Germany

Harvard Art Museums’ new exhibition Made in Germany? Art and Identity in a Global Nation explores the search for national identity, in Germany as in the United States.

A Modern Yet Classic Shakespeare

The A.R.T. enlivens Romeo and Juliet.

Harvard Class of 2028 Demographics Disclosed

A decline in African American enrollment after the Supreme Court ruling

Most popular

Harvard Class of 2028 Demographics Disclosed

A decline in African American enrollment after the Supreme Court ruling

From the Archives: The Secrets of Haiti’s Living Dead

 A Harvard botanist investigates mystic potions, voodoo rites, and the making of zombies.

The Power of Patience

Teaching students the value of deceleration and immersive attention

More to explore

Meet Harvard Magazine’s Ledecky Fellows

The 2024-2025 Undergraduate columnists

Brain Mapping Suggests How Memories are Stored

A decade-long project to map a cubic millimeter of human brain reveals previously unimagined architectures.

Harvard Author Behind Afrofuturist Trilogy “Blood and Bone”

The reality-based fantasies of novelist Tomi Adeyemi