Martialis! Gotta love him.

V.29

Si quando leporem mittis mihi, Gellia, dicis
       formosus septem, Marce, diebus eris.
Si non derides, si verum, lux mea, narras
       edisti numquam, Gellia, tu leporem.

From the Loeb:

If ever you send me a hare, Gellia, you say: "Marcus, you will be handsome for a week." If you are not making fun of me, if what you say is true, my joy, you, Gellia, never ate a hare.

So I'm reading the Latin and asking myself a few questions. For instance, is "si quando" can mean "if ever" (and quando does have an indefinite meaning after si), could you also just say "whenever"? (Quick check in Traupman says whenever is quandocumque...ok, interesting, I'll file that away somewhere.)

Also, I didn't know that lux mea was a term of endearment, but not a surprise.

But of course, the humor here is the superstition that eating a hare will make you beautiful. And I have to ask myself, do we have anything like that? Well, eating oysters is supposed to be an aphrodisiac. But eating a hare will make you beautiful? WHY????


Ok, let's move on... V.55

Dic mihi, quem portas, volucrum regina? "Tonantem."
       nulla manu quare fulmina gestat? "amat."
Quo calet igne deus? "pueri." cur mitis aperto
       respicis ore Iovem? "de Ganymede loquor."

There was a footnote on this. "A statue or painting of Jupiter and his eagle is in mind."

Here's the translation from the Loeb:

Tell me, whom are you carrying, queen of birds? "The Thunderer." Why is he not bearing thunderbolts in his hand? "He's in love." With what flame does the god burn? "For a boy." Why do you look back at Jove softly with open mouth? "I speak of Ganymede."

Ok. Here's my question (and I'm sure there's an article somewhere that has answered this): who is this volucrum regina? If Martial's calling her queen of the birds, why? Does this woman specialize in bird statues? Is he just joking because she's carrying a big eagle, which = king of the gods? Why? And as long as I'm asking why, why is she so in awe of Jupiter being in love with Ganymede? Why mitis? Is there fondness about her thinking of the young boy being stolen away to be the cupbearer?

Is it simply the story she's using to SELL the statue? It's a nice statue of an eagle, right, but it doesn't have ANYTHING about it to make it Jupiter, does it? And is Martial using a woman as the seller and yet having it be a homosexual couple (so to speak)--is he trying to make this bit of romance appeal to anyone?

So what a telling little poem this is... And Martial is helping her to sell this eagle, isn't he? Made it about love, passion, desire, not just a symbol of power! (But why doesn't he name the seller? Is this pure fiction?)

I like the raunchy epigrams as much as anyone else, and the saucy ones with the stingers are good, but isn't this one overlooked? I don't recall ever seeing this one in a textbook.... But look at how interesting it is! What it says about Roman life?! Can you imagine a woman with a booth selling bird statues? Or--wait--she's carrying this statue? Where is she carrying it to??? Is she just showing it around the market? Can you imagine what she'd do with a statue of a peacock? Doves?

THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT MAKE READING LATIN INTERESTING!

PLUS look at the language, the natural, conversational language! When we ask ourselves what we should be doing in class, what conversational skills our students should be able to perform, why, it's all here in this!!!!

Right. I've blown an hour watching Grey's Anatomy and writing up this. Time to be domestic.