-
. The POTIS Project
I. Curculio: An Online Journal
II. My Other Sites and Pages
III. My Old Texts
IV. Favorite Sites
V. Blogroll
VI. Other Links
Recent Comments
- Jeremias Grau on Five More Seneca Commentaries
- BAMBOS NEOPHYTOU on Callimachus on Heraclitus
- Raphael Soares on Artemis a Model for Widows?
- Raphael Soares on Artemis a Model for Widows?
- Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado on “Government by Clowns”?
Author Archives: Michael Hendry
Plain and Simple: Marcus Argentarius IV G-P (A.P. 5.89)
(Note: I hope someone will let me know if the Greek comes out wrong, and if so what browser and operating system were in use. On my screen, it looks fine except that acute accents not combined with breathings are … Continue reading
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Chicken (Pliny, Ep. 7.21)
(Note: a general bibliography for this and my other Pliniana will soon be uploaded and linked, and this note removed.) Pliny’s Epistle 7.21 seems trivial at first. It is short enough to quote in full:(1) C. Plinius Cornuto suo s. … Continue reading
Posted in Curculio: Latin, Exegesis, General, Latin Literature, POTIS
Tagged Chickens, Pliny
Leave a comment
“We’ve Made It Legal, but We Can’t Make It Right” (Martial 5.75)
Any problems in this little poem are exegetical – there are no significant variants: Quae legis causa nupsit tibi Laelia, Quinte, uxorem potes hanc dicere legitimam. As a punch-line, the pentameter, particularly the last word, seems rather flat. I suspect … Continue reading
Posted in Curculio: Latin, Exegesis, Latin Literature, POTIS
Tagged marriage, Martial, puns
Leave a comment
A Different Kind of Astronomical Conjunction (Pliny, Ep. 1.3.1)
Pliny opens the third letter of his collection, to Caninius Rufus, with a series of questions about the latter’s luxurious villa in Comum – I mark the clauses I am most interested in (1.3.1):(1) Quid agit Comum, tuae meaeque deliciae? … Continue reading
Female Turpitude Meets Male Torpitude (Catullus 11.18)
Daniél Kiss’s Catullus Online: An Online Repertory of Conjectures on Catullus is a wonderful resource, which I have found complete and accurate in whatever I have checked, but rather depressing viewed at length. Only six of the sixty-eight lines in … Continue reading
Posted in Catullus, Curculio: Latin, Latin Literature
Leave a comment
“I’ll put her to her pension”: A Mad World, My Masters I.ii.66
One of the more difficult passages in Middleton’s play is the soliloquy of Harebrain (aka Shortrod) as the “pure virgin” (actually a courtesan) fetches his wife (I.ii.62-69): This is the course I take; I’ll teach the married man A new … Continue reading
Posted in Curculio: English, English Literature, Etymology, POTIS
Tagged Middleton, Samuel Beckett, Schopenhaur
Leave a comment
A Dumb Question about Animals (Pliny, Ep. 1.20.5)
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
Philogelos V (75)
Σχολαστικὸς νοσῶν, εἶτα πεινῶν, ὡς οὐδέπω τετάρτη ὥρα ἀπηγγέλη, ἀπιστῶν πρὸς ἑαυτὸν τὸ ὡρολόγιον ἐκέλευσε κομισθῆναι. A pedant, being sick and then hungry, and suspicious as the fourth hour was never announced, ordered the sundial to be moved into his … Continue reading
Philogelos IV (256)
Σχολαστικὸς εἰς χειμῶνα ναυαγῶν καὶ τῶν συμπλεόντων ἑκάστου περιπλεκομένου σκεῦος πρὸς τὸ σωθῆναι, ἐκεῖνος μίαν τῶν ἀγκυρῶν περιεπλέξατο. A pedant, as his ship was sinking in a storm and his fellow passengers were each one embracing a piece of tackle … Continue reading
Philogelos III (25)
Σχολαστικὸς ἐν τῶι πλέειν χειμῶνος ὄντος σφοδροῦ καὶ τῶν οἰκετῶν κλαιόντων· Μὴ κλαίετε, ἔφη· πάντας γὰρ ὑμᾶς ἐν διαθήκαις ἐλευθέρους ἀφῆκα. A pedant on a sea-voyage, when there was a severe storm and his slaves were weeping, said: “Don’t cry: … Continue reading
Philogelos II (2)
Σχολαστικὸς κολυμβῶν παρὰ μικρὸν ἐπνίγη· ὤμοσε δὲ εἰς ὕδωρ μὴ εἰσελθεῖν, ἐὰν μὴ μάθῃ πρῶτον καλῶς κολυμβᾶν. A pedant nearly drowned while swimming; he swore that he would not go into the water again, if he did not learn first … Continue reading
Philogelos I (55)
Σχολαστικὸς εὐτράπελος ἀπορῶν δαπανημάτων τὰ βιβλία αὐτοῦ ἐπίπρασκε, καὶ γράφων πρὸς τὸν πατέρα ἔλεγε· Σύγχαιρε ἡμῖν, πάτερ· ἤδη γὰρ ἡμᾶς τὰ βιβλία τρέφει. A witty pedant, in difficulties for money, began to sell his books, and writing to his father … Continue reading
A Literary Translator’s View of Heaven
On the last page of An Homage to Jerome, Patron Saint of Translators (1946), Valery Larbaud imagines Jerome in Heaven, “surrounded by his court of glossophile, grammarian and lexicographic angels, more beautiful even than Correggio’s, and who work under his … Continue reading
Lies Necessary and Unnecessary
A real liar does not tell wanton and unnecessary lies. He tells wise and necessary lies. It was not necessary for Gahagan to tell us once that he had seen not one sea-serpent but six sea-serpents, each larger than the … Continue reading
Posted in Culture: Fiction, English Literature
Tagged Paradox, What I've Been Reading
Leave a comment
How Is Gaios Holy and Good?
Laudator Temporis Acti quotes A Third-Century A.D. Inscription from Eumeneia, adding many interesting comments. Here is one more. The first four lines mean “I Gaius, who am equal in numerical value to two words of awe, make this declaration as … Continue reading
Latin Syllabification and Accentuation
As part of my larger project (QLTP), one of the things I’ve been working on in the last few months is software to divide a Latin word into syllables, determine which ones are short, which long by nature, and which … Continue reading
I’m Back
Actually, after my eight-day trip, I’ve been back and pretty much silent for . . . let’s see . . . twelve weeks now. Let’s see if I can get back in the swing of things, posting every day. I … Continue reading
Posted in Announcements
Leave a comment
Gentler Remedies Are Preferable
In A Perpetual Student, Laudator Temporis Acti notes a couple of misprints. Here is the second, from a paper by Joachim Latacz on Nietzsche: By now he has already received (from Leiden) the handwritten transcription of the time by Stephanus … Continue reading
Break Time
Dear readers: I will be out of the country for the next eight days, and will not be posting any more notes on Persius or anything else until I get back, as I will not have access to my boo<k>s. … Continue reading
Posted in Announcements
1 Comment
Who Invented Ten-Sided Dice?
Who invented the ‘d10’ ten-sided dice used in many modern board games? I don’t know, but Shakespeare seems to presume their existence in the last scene of Timon of Athens (variously numbered 5.4, 5.5, or 17), lines 31-34, where the … Continue reading
