{"id":65,"date":"2005-10-30T23:15:54","date_gmt":"2005-10-31T03:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/63.247.138.2\/~curculio\/?p=65"},"modified":"2013-09-01T17:40:43","modified_gmt":"2013-09-01T22:40:43","slug":"ludus-elegiacus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/curculio.org\/?p=65","title":{"rendered":"Ludus Elegiacus"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1937, a Latin teacher named L. E. Eyres published his “Ludus Elegiacus” in Greece & Rome<\/em> (pages 56-57 and 155). It is a set of twenty-five epigrams in elegiac couplets, the first five of four lines each, the rest single couplets. As the editor’s introduction states, it was designed “to teach a School Certificate class to recognize the difference in meaning between words of similar appearance, and to use scansion as an aid to translation”. Because of copyright laws, I can’t reproduce the whole thing, but here are a few samples:<\/p>\n

6. The street-singer and his dog.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Cane, canet canis hic: solus cantare recusat:
\n   Deest mihi vox: tu, sis, cum cane, cane, cane.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

9. Ship’s rations.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Navigat ad Cares coniunx meus: esurit ergo:
\n   Quod tam cara caro, carne carina caret.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

17. The scrounger.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Anulus annosae fuerat; mihi saepe precato
\n   Annuit: insipiens est anus, anne sapit?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course, this last omits one of the Latin words beginning with an-<\/em> as inappropriate for schoolboys. No such inhibition was felt by Colin Haycroft of Duckworth & Co. in a letter published in the (London) Spectator<\/em> on July 20, 1985:<\/p>\n

\n

Sir: As the subject of ‘mooning’ at Greenham Common has raised its ugly head (?) in your columns (Home life, 13 July), may I submit to you an epigram (veiled in the decent obscurity of a learned language) inspired by a recent incident that occasioned a lady’s protest?<\/p>\n

\n

Terga tuens duri versa ad se militis olim,
\n   ‘ei mihi, nil gratum est’ dixerat ‘anus’ anus.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1937, a Latin teacher named L. E. Eyres published his “Ludus Elegiacus” in Greece & Rome (pages 56-57 and 155). It is a set of twenty-five epigrams in elegiac couplets, the first five of four lines each, the rest … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,87],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latin-grammar","category-work-teaching","tag-meter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/curculio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/curculio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/curculio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curculio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curculio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/curculio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":728,"href":"https:\/\/curculio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/curculio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curculio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curculio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}