concept
"Homo sum" (Terence)
Homo sum
also: Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto
A tag from Terence's play Heauton Timorumenos ("The Self-Tormentor"), 163 BC -- "I am a man; I consider nothing human alien to me" -- reduced here to its bare opening two words as a stock rhetorical shrug; Vasilyev reaches for the learned commonplace while excusing his own quick forgetting of grief, part of his habitual pose of the world-weary philosopher.
Reading notes
- A Story Without an End §81 Homo sum
Vasilyev's clipped Latin tag from Terence -- "I am a man, nothing human is alien to me" -- reached for as a stock excuse for his own quick emotional forgetting, part of the learned, self-regarding pose he strikes in company that the narrator has already caught him striking, tearfully, on the night of the shooting itself.