Poor Picker of Pockets
So, I could start sleeping, but that would hardly be fun.
I've decided this week is horrible. Plus, nearly everyone else I've talked to agreed. Let's start a coalition to ban this week. I'm sure more asinine groups exist. Oh wait, I'm probably a member of most of them.
I should be doing latin. Really, it's right there on my bed, open, with a pencil. Just waiting to be translated. All the little words will fit together like a puzzle, and suddenly, latin is beautiful. I'll overcome the awkwardness of an extremely limited vocabulary and feel what Horace was saying. Sometimes, I think he is the sly old bastard he portrayed himself to be. Sometimes, I think he's not.
sed cur heu, Ligurine, cur
manat rara meas lacrima per genas?
cur facunda parum decoro
inter verba cadit lingua silentio?
nocturnis ego somniis
iam captum teneo, iam volucrem sequor
te per gramina Martii
campi, te per aquas, dure, volubilis.
(But oh, why, Ligurinus, why
does the rare tear trickle down my cheek?
Why, in the middle of words, does my eloquent
tongue fall into silence, not at all seemly?
In my dreams at night, now
I hold you captive, now I, flying, follow
you over the grassy Martian
field, awkwardly over rough waters.)
This falls at the end of a big joking ode, but he slips. All of a sudden, here's the unmarried 50 year old poet lamenting over a lost, possibly dead, boy. A boy who he very clearly loved extremely dearly. For me, it's 'cur facunde parum decoro/inter verba cadit lingua silentio?' that kills me. You feel it. After reading those words out loud, you have to stop. Only certain people can be that loud in their silence. Horace is one of them.
I've decided this week is horrible. Plus, nearly everyone else I've talked to agreed. Let's start a coalition to ban this week. I'm sure more asinine groups exist. Oh wait, I'm probably a member of most of them.
I should be doing latin. Really, it's right there on my bed, open, with a pencil. Just waiting to be translated. All the little words will fit together like a puzzle, and suddenly, latin is beautiful. I'll overcome the awkwardness of an extremely limited vocabulary and feel what Horace was saying. Sometimes, I think he is the sly old bastard he portrayed himself to be. Sometimes, I think he's not.
sed cur heu, Ligurine, cur
manat rara meas lacrima per genas?
cur facunda parum decoro
inter verba cadit lingua silentio?
nocturnis ego somniis
iam captum teneo, iam volucrem sequor
te per gramina Martii
campi, te per aquas, dure, volubilis.
(But oh, why, Ligurinus, why
does the rare tear trickle down my cheek?
Why, in the middle of words, does my eloquent
tongue fall into silence, not at all seemly?
In my dreams at night, now
I hold you captive, now I, flying, follow
you over the grassy Martian
field, awkwardly over rough waters.)
This falls at the end of a big joking ode, but he slips. All of a sudden, here's the unmarried 50 year old poet lamenting over a lost, possibly dead, boy. A boy who he very clearly loved extremely dearly. For me, it's 'cur facunde parum decoro/inter verba cadit lingua silentio?' that kills me. You feel it. After reading those words out loud, you have to stop. Only certain people can be that loud in their silence. Horace is one of them.