R: Re: Latin (was Language universal?)

Ray Brown wrote:

> Yes, I never got on much with Martial; and it's not Catullus scurrilous
> verses that I think it's worth learning Latin for; I can read much the
same
> in modern urban graffiti.
>
> It's his lyrical poetry that I like, e.g.
> Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque....
>
> Paeninsularum, Sirmio, insularumque....
>
> Phasellus ille quem uidetis, hospites....
>
> and many more.
>
> And the poem at his brother's grave - Multas per gentes et multa per
> aequora uectus - is IMO both finely written and very moving.
>
My favorite carmina are basically the 63 (Attis) for its mystic/epic
overtones and some of the epigrmmata (68-116): odi et amo (quare id faciam
fortasse requiris. nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.); the Latin
translation of some Greek classics: the Coma Berenicis (66?), or the great
'Ille mi par esse deo videtur' (51), a translation of Sappho's Ode 31 LP. I
don't particularly like the nugae, and I believe Cicero was right when he
said she was nothing more than a whore (well, he's not so direct, but a good
chapter of the pro Milone is based on the description of her and her
brother's 'morigeratio'). Some of the scurrilous thing are funny (Egnatius
defricatus orina!), as the last of the carmina docta (the paraklausithyron),
but that's not the kind of poetry I like very much.

Luca

P.S: am reading Baudelaire. Great!

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