10 From my pastures the dainty she-goat bears to town her udders swelled with milk; from my folds comes the fatted lamb to send home again the moneyladen hand;1 and the tender calf, amid her mother's lowing, pours forth her blood before the temples of the gods. 16 Therefore, O wayfarer, thou shalt fear this god, and hold thy hand high: this is worth thy while, for lo! there stands ready thy cross, the phallus. "By Pollux! I'd like to," thou sayest. Nay, by Pollux, here comes the bailiff, whose stout arm, plucking away that phallus, finds in it a cudgel, well fitted to his right hand. III 4 O YOUTHS, this place and cottage in the marsh, thatched with osier shoots and handfuls of sedge, I support, I, a dried oak chipt into shape by farmer's axe; year by year, more and more rich it grows. For the owners of this poor hut, a father and youthful son, honour and greet me as a god; the one so honouring me with constant care that weeds and rough brambles are taken from my shrine; the other with lavish hand ever bringing humble gifts. 10 On me in flowery spring is placed a garland gay; on me the soft ear of corn, when first 'tis green on 1 cf. Eclogues, 1. 35. 2 The wayfarer can thus show that he is not stealing. Slaves guilty of theft could be crucified, but for the cross Priapus substitutes his own weapon, viz. the club projecting from his groin. 3 i.e. to steal. The metre of the original is the so-called Priapean, a combination of the Glyconic and the Pherecratean (see any Latin Grammar). 483 luteae violae mihi lacteumque papaver, 14 pampinea] Garrod proposes faginea or populea. 15 sanguine haec.. arma Voss: sanguine hanc.. Muretus sanguinea. arma Ω. 15 20 aram 17 omnia (omnibus M): munera Riese: munia Maehly: mutua Baehrens. nunc Bücheler: huic Ribbeck: hoc : haec the tender stalk, with yellow violets and milky poppy, pale melons and sweet-smelling apples, and blushing grape-clusters, reared beneath the vine-leaves' shade. These weapons, too, of mine-but you will be silent! a little bearded goat and his horn-footed sister besmear with blood. For these offerings Priapus must now make full return, and guard the owner's vineyard and little garden. 19 Therefore, away! boys, refrain from wicked plundering. Near by is a wealthy neighbour, and his Priapus is careless. Take from him; this path of itself will lead you from the place. It. Priapo est B: Priape (est omitted) Z. Garrod would read the line thus: pro quis, quicquid honoris est, hoc necesse Priapo. 20 Priapi Heinsius. 21 semita It.: semitam Q. CATALEPTON* I De qua saepe tibi venit; sed, Tucca, videre de non licet: occulitur limine clausa viri. qua saepe tibi, non venit adhuc mihi; namque si occulitur, longe est, tangere quod nequeas. venerit, audivi. sed iam mihi nuntius iste quid prodest? illi dicite, cui rediit. II CORINTHIORUM amator iste verborum, iste iste rhetor, namque quatenus totus 5 I. 1 De qua] Delia Scaliger. 3 de qua] Delia Scaliger. 6 dicite MSS. dicito Scaliger. cui Heyne: qui B: qu(a)e other MSS. II. 2 Not included in the citation by Quintilian, VIII. iii., 28, and rejected by Ribbeck and Baehrens. * See note at the opening of the Priapea. In B the title Catalepton is nowhere given. On this title, see vol. i. p. vii. The metres of the Catalepton are varied. The elegiac couplet prevails, being used in I, III, IV, VII, VIII, IX, XI, XÎIIA, XIV, and XV; but the rest of the poems are composed in some form of iambic measure. Thus the pure iambic trimeter is used in VI, X, and XII, the choliambus (or scazon) in II and V, and the iambic strophe (consisting of a trimeter coupled with a dimeter) in XIII. 1 This epigram has provoked much discussion. Before Birt, commentators adopted Scaliger's conjecture Delia in lines 1 and 3, and regarded the poem as a dialogue between Tucca and the poet, who are rivals for the love of Delia. But Birt revives the de qua of MSS., and explains the epi SHE, of whom I have often told you, has come; but, Tucca, one may not see her. She's kept in hiding, barred within her husband's threshold. She, of whom I have often told you, has not yet come to me, for if she's kept in hiding, what one can't touch is far away. Suppose she has come; I have heard But now what good is that news to me? Tell it to him, for whom she has come back. it. II 2 IT's Corinthian words the fellow adores, that sorry rhetorician! For, perfect Thucydides that he is, he gram as a piece of conversation or fragment of a letter, all of it the utterance of the poet. The verb of saying is omitted in lines 1 and 3, as often in the epistolary style. The lady referred to is not named. In the last two lines the poet turns away from Tucca to address those who have brought him news of the lady's return. This, he implies, is a matter of perfect indifference to him. 2 This epigram is discussed by the translator in the Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. xlvii., 1916, pp. 43 ff. The person assailed is T. Annius Cimber, a rhetorician who is said to have murdered his brother. In his rhetoric he was an Atticist, following Thucydides, who in his History has given so vivid a description of the Attic plague (11. 47-54). The writer uses verba in a double sense, "words" and "spells," and Corinthiorum implies "archaic or "obsolete," involving an allusion to old bronzes as well as to Medea's poisons. In Gallicum there is an implied reference to the name Cimber, and tau suggests some peculiarity of pronunciation. Cimber, who wrote in Greek, evidently used the Ionic ulv and the tragic opív. As, then, for his pupils he mingled these uncouth sounds, so for his brother he concocted deadly spells. |