Marvellous! That last one is priceless! A lesson to us all. I have copied it out, if you don’t mind. It reminds me of RS Thomas’s withering reply in Unpublished.
The voice recordings add a wonderful element to this ... After a day dealing with university politics in Morocco, this put a welcome escapist smile on my face !
*quare* is the older English 'wherefore', now coomonly misunderstood in 'Romeo and Juliet'. We have lost a lot of nuance with the demise of 'whence', 'whither', 'hence', 'hither', 'thence', 'thither'.....
Marvellous! That last one is priceless! A lesson to us all. I have copied it out, if you don’t mind. It reminds me of RS Thomas’s withering reply in Unpublished.
The voice recordings add a wonderful element to this ... After a day dealing with university politics in Morocco, this put a welcome escapist smile on my face !
Beautiful, thank you. 👏
MARTIAL: sneezing and coughing
Petit Gemellus nuptias Maronillae
et cupit et instat et precatur et donat.
Adeone pulchra est? immo foedius nil est.
Quid ergo in illa petitur et placet? Tussit. (I, 10)
Gemellus wants to marry Maronilla;
wants, urges, pleads and wheedles:
So, she’s quite a beauty, then? No, she’s a gorilla.
So, what is it in her that he loves? She sneezes.
Si memini, fuerant tibi quattuor, Aelia, dentes:
expulit una duos tussis et una duos.
Iam secura potes totis tussire diebus:
Nil istic quod agat tertia tussis habet. (I, 19)
If I’m right, Aelia once four teeth possessed;
one sneeze loosened two, a second did the same.
Now you can safely sneeze, as you do best;
there’s nothing for a third sneeze to reclaim.
*quare* is the older English 'wherefore', now coomonly misunderstood in 'Romeo and Juliet'. We have lost a lot of nuance with the demise of 'whence', 'whither', 'hence', 'hither', 'thence', 'thither'.....