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Know anything about double dactyls?
Well, before I lose the ones that I wrote back in the late 1990s (and a few others since), I thought I'd post them here for your amusement. But note that Double Dactyls and haiku (more on those in another note, perhaps) are great ways to translate things like Martial's epigrams.
Martial VII.3
Cur non mitto meos tibi, Pontiliane, libellos?
Ne mihi tu mittas, Pontiliane, tuos.
Fear of Reciprocity
Higgledy Piggledy
Pontilianus, ac-
quaintance of Martial and
Rather a pest:
"Send me your book!" M said
Epigrammatic'ly
"Risk reciprocity?
Surely you jest!"
I.19
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.
Free to Cough
Higgledy Piggledy
Elderly Aelia,
Subject of Martial's po-
etical jeer,
Lost her teeth (four) in two
Superpertussial
Fits; from a third fit she
now has no fear.
Women Peacekeepers (from a passage in Livy)
Higgledy Piggledy
Woman of Sabine, who
Rushed into battle 'twixt
Husband and dad,
Though their own rapes started
Filiopatricide,
Dropped the bomb: PREGNANCY--
No one left sad.
Haunted House (from a passage in Pliny)
Clinkity Clankety
AthenoDOrus, phi-
losopher, purchasing
Cheap real estate,
Faced up to hauntings with
parapsychology,
buried the bones--now he's
Lost his roommate.
Here's one that isn't a translation but is just about Claudius:
Luck of the Dice
Whammity, Whackity
Emperor Claudius
Suffered from passions--yea
Verily--VICE:
Gambled on marriages
(LUdifuTUtio)*
Bettered his chances by
Playing at dice.
(Ludifututio is a Latin term coined by the illustrious Peter Green. It means
"f***king game," as in Nil nisi ludifututio--it's just a f***ing game.)
Ah, well, gotta run. We can discuss double dactyls later. For the results from a contest that Doug Parker at UT ran a decade ago, please go to:
http://www.txclassics.org/exrpts7.htm
Well, before I lose the ones that I wrote back in the late 1990s (and a few others since), I thought I'd post them here for your amusement. But note that Double Dactyls and haiku (more on those in another note, perhaps) are great ways to translate things like Martial's epigrams.
Martial VII.3
Cur non mitto meos tibi, Pontiliane, libellos?
Ne mihi tu mittas, Pontiliane, tuos.
Fear of Reciprocity
Higgledy Piggledy
Pontilianus, ac-
quaintance of Martial and
Rather a pest:
"Send me your book!" M said
Epigrammatic'ly
"Risk reciprocity?
Surely you jest!"
I.19
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.
Free to Cough
Higgledy Piggledy
Elderly Aelia,
Subject of Martial's po-
etical jeer,
Lost her teeth (four) in two
Superpertussial
Fits; from a third fit she
now has no fear.
Women Peacekeepers (from a passage in Livy)
Higgledy Piggledy
Woman of Sabine, who
Rushed into battle 'twixt
Husband and dad,
Though their own rapes started
Filiopatricide,
Dropped the bomb: PREGNANCY--
No one left sad.
Haunted House (from a passage in Pliny)
Clinkity Clankety
AthenoDOrus, phi-
losopher, purchasing
Cheap real estate,
Faced up to hauntings with
parapsychology,
buried the bones--now he's
Lost his roommate.
Here's one that isn't a translation but is just about Claudius:
Luck of the Dice
Whammity, Whackity
Emperor Claudius
Suffered from passions--yea
Verily--VICE:
Gambled on marriages
(LUdifuTUtio)*
Bettered his chances by
Playing at dice.
(Ludifututio is a Latin term coined by the illustrious Peter Green. It means
"f***king game," as in Nil nisi ludifututio--it's just a f***ing game.)
Ah, well, gotta run. We can discuss double dactyls later. For the results from a contest that Doug Parker at UT ran a decade ago, please go to:
http://www.txclassics.org/exrpts7.htm
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-01 12:47 pm (UTC)Ah, the halcyon days of the Double Dactyl Debacle. Well do I remember...
BTW, you did see the DD I posted in reply to your comment in my LJ, didn't you?
Also BTW, I ordered a couple of little somethings from Anima Altera the other day. Will repeat the performance the moment you put up a Carpe Cafaeum T-shirt (sine Anglice, for preference)!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-01 03:14 pm (UTC)Ah, yes, Carpe Cafaeum. Will try to get to it this weekend. Thanks for shopping!
more DD's
Date: 2005-10-01 04:47 pm (UTC)For double dactyls by "Senex Caecilius"....