In der antiken griechischen Metrik bezeichnete Arsis (griechisch ἄρσις von αἴρω airo „erheben“, „aufheben“) das Heben des Fußes oder des Fingers, Thesis (θέσις von τίθημι tithemi „setzen“, „betonen“) den Schlag von Fuß oder Finger, das musikalische Taktschlagen bzw. das Aufstampfen des Fußes im Tanz. Dem entspricht der lateinische Ictus („Schlag“, von lateinisch icere „schlagen“; deutsch Iktus). Dementsprechend war in der sich an Silbenlängen orientierenden, quantitierenden antiken Metrik die Thesis stets die lange Silbe (elementum longum) im Versfuß, der Arsis entsprach die kurze Silbe (elementum breve), Doppelkürze (elementum biceps) oder Ambivalenz (elementum anceps). Im Daktylus (—◡◡) zum Beispiel war also — die Thesis und ◡◡ die Arsis.

Οὐκ ἄρα παντὸς ἀνδρός, ὦ Ἑρμόγενες, ὄνομα θέσθαι [389a] [ἐστὶν] ἀλλά τινος ὀνοματουργοῦ· οὗτος δ᾽ ἐστίν, ὡς ἔοικεν, ὁ νομοθέτης, ὃς δὴ τῶν δημιουργῶν σπανιώτατος ἐν ἀνθρώποις γίγνεται.

Then it is not for every man, Hermogenes, [389a] to give names, but for him who may be called the name-worker; and he, it appears, is the lawgiver, who is of all the artisans among men the rarest.

(demiurge from demos and ergon, commoner and labor. nomothete is a legislator, a member of the assembly that legislates, and definitely not a commoner.)

Walz, Saint Thomas Aquinas, a biographical study > post ipsam missam nunquam scripsit neque dictavit aliquid, immo suspendit organa scriptionis

"Chaff: Thomas Aquinas's Repudiation of His Opera omnia" by Boyle and Boyle

"The metaphor of Aquinas hanging up his pens alluded to the exiled psalmist hanging up his lyre (Ps. 137:l-6),51 as if Aquinas were also estranged in a foreign land, his hand withered and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth (w. 5-6).

Same > "I cannot": Thomas Aquinas replied to an anxious inquiry about I why he had abruptly ceased writing and dictating his Summa JL theologiae. His companion and confessor, Reginald of Piperno, afraid that overzealous study had induced insanity, insisted that he continue. "I cannot," repeated Aquinas, "because everything that I have written seems to me chaffy." /// sicut palea: comme un ballot de paille; comme du fumier; like straw; Lacan gives "comme du fumier," which isn't literal

Wenn ich dabei mich und das Wort entstellte, tat ich nur, was ich tun mußte, um im Leben Fuß zu fassen. Beizeiten lernte ich es, in die Worte, die eigentlich Wolken waren, mich zu mummen.

Als die christlichen Kreuzfahrer im Orient auf jenen unbesiegbaren Assassinen-Orden stiessen, jenen Freigeister-Orden par excellence, dessen unterste Grade in einem Gehorsame lebten, wie einen gleichen kein Mönchsorden erreicht hat, da bekamen sie auf irgend welchem Wege auch einen Wink über jenes Symbol und Kerbholz-Wort, das nur den obersten Graden, als deren Secretum, vorbehalten war: „Nichts ist wahr, Alles ist erlaubt“… Wohlan, das war Freiheit des Geistes, damit war der Wahrheit selbst der Glaube gekündigt…

burden (plural burdens): 1. (music) A phrase or theme that recurs at the end of each verse in a folk song or ballad. 2. The drone of a bagpipe. 3. Theme, core idea, e.g. "the burden of the argument."

burden (n.2) "leading idea, main topic," 1640s, a figurative use (on the notion of "subject often repeated") of the earlier sense "refrain or chorus of a song," 1590s, originally "bass accompaniment to music" (late 14c.), from Old French bordon (Modern French bourdon) "bumble-bee, drone," or directly from Medieval Latin burdonom "drone, drone bass" (source also of Spanish bordon, Portuguese bordão, Italian bordone), of echoic origin.

" 'undiluted, pure and free and general determination and will, as shall best and most usefully seem agreeable to him, with council or without council ... paying no attention to any solemnity of law, custom, reformation, decree or statute ... undiluted and pure power and jurisdiction, decision, power, lordship, and free determination...' [...]

In the law of the city [Mantua] the head of the Bonacolsi family now [in 1299] possessed almost absolute power. [...] On his deathbed [in 1308] Guido explained to the anziani that he was worried by the thought that he had taken money from the commune and used it for the construction of his palace. In reply they declared that he was perfectly justified in what he had done and that in future he should use all his communal finances as he thought fit. Six days later their decision was put to the General Council which prudently concurred. Councillor after councillor rose to his feet to compose some rhetorical exercise on the theme: 'by the custom and vigour of the statutes of the commune of Mantua, he is and has been able to dispense and dispose and expend and donate the money and property of the commune of Mantua and to convert it to his own use'. [...]

[After he died the council confirmed that his successors, two brothers,] were to have authority 'to conserve, guard, rule, govern, dispose, spend, give, and also receive to themselves, have, and retain the property, money, revenues, and goods of the commune of Mantua, and the possessions and goods of exiles, and whatever pertains to the commune of Mantua; and to do, in whatever manner they shall please, and as shall best and most conveniently seem and appear convenient, each and every thing, at their pure, undiluted, and free will and decision.' Finally the vicars were freed from any obligation to render accounts, or to stand to sindication (i.e. enquiry into the performance of their office). "

This reductionist method has its uses in the fields of abstraction such as logic and mathematics, and in the fields of manmade artefacts such as mechanics But it fails singularly to lead to a perception of reality (truth) in the case of living organisms such as nature, including man, in which the whole is not merely the sum of the parts, if only because the parts are so cohesively interrelated that isolating any part distorts perception of the whole