Contents Execrable, Part I (Foto, Lad)

Dear Lad,
° I was humming Carl Orff’s setting of

Amabo, mea dulcis Ipsithilla, . . .

with a view toward improving same. Or, at least, riffing it into a more authentic metre.
° I thumbed through the text of the Catulli Carmina.
° All the way through.
° Nothing, no Ipsithilla at all.
° Then I eliminated the epithalamia and epyllion, and rethumbed.
° Nothing.
° Then I eliminated the epigrams.
° Nothing.
° Finally I opened my eyes and observed that Carmen vii followed immediately upon Carmen v.
° Aha! My 1961, Oxford University Press published edition of the poems of the most justly celebrated of all Rome’s poets had been bowdlerised.
° Censored!
° In 1961.
° Under the aegis of Oxford University Press.

° So I thought it might be worthwhile to remind ye young tigers how very wicked and dishonest were the Good Old Days. (For a return to the Good Old Days is the subtext of all the proCensorship resolutions currently before so many Redneck Legislatures).

° First, what did the 1961 Censor--”Editor” in his own mind--think fit to expurgate? ((Unbeknown to him, I also possess the 1958 Oxford University Press urtext, yes, just three years earlier.))

VI--Ad Flavium

uerum nescio quid febriculosi
scorti diligis: hoc pudet fateri . . . .
. . . . cur? non tam latera ecfututa pandas . . . .

((diseased whore; all the verbs based on futuere, fututum require only the insertion of a ck into the first syllable to translate themselves for an English reader, Italians need only a vowel shift))

XV--Ad Aurelium

((Peto ut)) conserues puerum mihi pudice,
non dico a populo--nihil ueremur
istos, qui in platea modo huc modo illuc
in re praetereunt sua occupati,--
uerum a te metuo tuoque pene
infesto pueris bonis malisque . . . .

((the inclusion of boy, that is, unfurry male youth, and Aurelius’s penis in the same sentence explains all))

XVI--Ad Aurelium

Pedicabo ego uos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi, . . .

((Latin, unlike our own puritanical tongue, had verbs for being the oraltop, the analtop; like our own puritanical tongue, it had abundance of adjectives for effeminatebottompansyassedpooftersissyboyfaggot))

XVIII-XX

((These fragments are nonCatullan immigrants))

XXI--Ad Aurelium

Aureli, pater esuritionum,
non harum modo, sed quot aut fuerunt
aut sunt aut aliis erunt in annis,
pedicare cupis meos amores . . . .

((for one who trained a youth to be pedicated might well be said to be teaching him to be thirsty))

XXV--Ad Tallum

Cinaede Thalle, mollior cuniculi capillo
uel anseris medullula vel imula oricilla
uel pene languido senis situque araneoso . . . .

((a treasure trove of insulting references to the things a pansyassedbottom can be said to be softer than: bunnyfur (coniglio), goosedown, bonemarrow, an old man’s unviagraed penis, a cobweb . . . .))

XXVIII--Ad Verranium et Fabullum

. . . . o Memmi, bene me ac diu supinum
tota ista trabe lentus irrumasti.
sed, quantum uideo, pari fuistis
casu: nam nihilo minore uerpa
farti estis . . . .

((cf. Merrill’s unbeatable translation, “You have most scurvily abused me.” Memmius, you may have irrumared me with your “beam,” but it looks like somebody else has stuffed you full with a--well, a verpus is a circumcised male, therefore a wogsubject of a subjugated nation out East somewhere))

End of Part I, Contents Execrable