Category Archives: Curculio

A Dumb Question about Animals (Pliny, Ep. 1.20.5)

Posted on Monday: March 7, 2016 by Michael Hendry

    In the course of a long discussion of rhetoric addressed to Tacitus, Pliny argues that size matters in judging orations, with an extended analogy from living creatures (Epistulae 1.20.4-5):(1) Et hercule ut aliae bonae res ita bonus liber melior est … Continue reading →

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Curculio 6: Two Adjectives in Seneca’s Agamemnon

Posted on Thursday: October 31, 2013 by Michael Hendry

How’s that for a boring title? As a continuation of my experiment with publishing original scholarship on this site, I have just uploaded an eight-page PDF containing two conjectures on the text of Seneca’s Agamemnon, titled as above (link). (I … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture: Plays, Curculio: Classics, Curculio: Latin, Latin Literature | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Curculio 5: Worst. Endearment. Ever.

Posted on Thursday: October 31, 2013 by Michael Hendry

Peter Davidson’s Poetry and Revolution: An Anthology of British and Irish Verse 1625-1660 (Oxford, 1998) includes a rather dull love-poem (number 36) by “T.C.”, most likely Thomas Cary, “Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles I” (516). The untitled poetic dialogue … Continue reading →

Posted in Curculio: English, English Literature, Etymology, Orbilius | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Curculio 4: A Sly Joke in The Alchemist?

Posted on Monday: September 30, 2013 by Michael Hendry

Kastril or Kestrel, the ‘angry boy’ of Ben Jonson’s Alchemist, calls his sister his ‘suster’ and says ‘kuss’ for ‘kiss’.1 It is not clear whether this is meant to represent a particular regional dialect, a generalized country accent, or his … Continue reading →

Posted in Blackfriars, Curculio: English, English Literature | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Curculio 3: “Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice . . .”

Posted on Sunday: September 1, 2013 by Michael Hendry

. . . and there are definitely worse possibilities. When one language adopts words from another, it sometimes happens that standard spelling changes create a new pair of homonyms, making two words that were quite different in the source language … Continue reading →

Posted in Curculio: Misc, Etymology, Spanish | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Curculio 2: ‘Pervert the Present Wrath’: a Conjecture on Cymbeline

Posted on Monday: August 26, 2013 by Michael Hendry

I am experimenting with publishing original scholarly notes on this site. My first attempt, a week ago, was a single page on the structure of Silius Italicus’ Punica. I have just uploaded a PDF file of my second paper, two … Continue reading →

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Curculio 1: Silius Italicus: Why Seventeen Books?

Posted on Monday: August 19, 2013 by Michael Hendry

The unusual length of Silius Italicus’ Punica has often caused puzzlement. Antony Augoustakis discusses the point in the first chapter of the recent Brill companion to Silius. He credits Michael von Albrecht with noting that the number of books “corresponds … Continue reading →

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