Trotting back to Martial

[ginlindzey]

If I haven't mentioned the Martial book I'm reading by William Fitzgerald, I need to. It's great.  It's for those of us who have secretly loved Martial over the years but were told in one way or another that he was not worth serious study.

ANYWAY.  Down to real business.

(In other words, a diversion from the things I MUST work on....)

I'm prepping some Martial for my Latin 3's.  A few things have come up.  First:

Martial II.38

Quid mihi reddat ager quaeris, Line, Nōmentānus?
     Hoc mihi reddit ager: tē, Line, nōn videō. 

(gee, will those macrons show up?)

So, what gives?  A spondee in the penultimate foot in the first line?  

ALSO, how do you really explain the word order?  Or take a look at this:

Martial II.78

Aestīvō servēs ubi piscem tempore, quaeris?
     In thermīs servā, Caeciliāne, tuīs. 

Now, when I say how do you explain the word order, I'm not an idiot. I like word order; I like poetic word order.  I like nesting. I've got good explanations for the framing of things.

But especially in this second one, consider how far in UBI is...  it's setting up the indirect question--punctuation certainly helps on that.  But if you were to show this to a student, how do you get them to see... well... I guess the word order isn't all that crazy.  After all, it's like the wording is framing the fish in a fish bowl.  The fish in the summer time -- literally inside that phrase-- and Caecilianus in his baths.

Of course, WHY would Martial be keeping fish???

He wouldn't.  I should see what poems are on either side of this one....eh... nothing worth mentioning. II.77 is about Cosconius complaining about the length of the epigrams, and II.79 is aobut Nasica only inviting M to dinner when M has already invited people over and thus would have to beg to be excused.  Can't see the relationship, unless it's just about the nature of relationships, and how people treat others.

I'm tired; I'm rambling.

I wish I were going to be teaching this to the III's in person. Alas, they will be reading these on their own.  Just not enough hours in the day. God knows I will be wasted tomorrow night from exhaustion.  (* = a digression on parenting and the inability to get school work done when kid's homework intervenes.)

I like Martial. I like the poems I'm picking out. We have examples in tomorrow's selection, titled "Did You Dis Me or Did I Dis You?," of purpose clauses, indirect questions, and indirect commands.  All stuff we've just finished with.

I better get back to it.

Comments

Martial--order

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think the ancient redactor of Martial necessarily had artistic reasons for the order of the poems, maybe they are in calligraphic order. Does the author of your book have any comments about the order?

ken

Re: Martial--order

[ginlindzey.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's all about the order. The way he talks about the order gives you the impression that the order was left intact. Of course, what do I know.

I'm just saying it's a great book; the juxtaposition of epigrams is critical to his argument and very effective. Makes Martial seem far more intelligent and clever than I first thought....