Re: Help with Latin

At 9:26 am -0500 23/9/98, Tom Wier wrote:
>Baba wrote:
>
>> Howdy folks,
>>
>> please forgive this but I know we have a number of cunning linguists
>> on the list whose latin knowledge surpasses mine (not hard).  Having
>> difficulty translating the following phrase, can anyone help?
>>
>> Eos non pedicamus
>
>Okay, Ray can probably help you better at this (for, IIRC, he
>was a Latin teacher for some years), but here's my go at it:
>
>We do not snare them
>(or alternately: "We are not snaring them")
>
>My handy li'l Latin dictionary doesn't actually have an entry for
>_pedicare_, but it does have one for _pedica_, "snare, trap".
Indeed - I graduated in Latin & Greek longer ago than I care to remember &
taught Latin for nearly 30 years before lecturing in computer science.

'pedica' (<-- pe:s, [gen.] pedis) does indeed mere a 'fetter' or 'snare';
originally, of course, it was a fetter for the feet, but came to be used
more generally.  There is, however, no derived verb *pedica:re.

And at 1:43 pm -0400 23/9/98, John Cowan wrote:
>Baba wrote:
>
>> Eos non pedicamus
>
>"We do not bugger them."
Yes, that's it, I'm afraid.

The verb is 'pe:di:ca:re' which is found in the Priapea, a collection
satiric & erotic fragments which was appended to L.Mueller's edition of
Catullus.  The Classical spelling of the word is 'paedi:ca:re' and is found
once in Catallus & several times in Martial.

Lewis & Short coyly give the meaning as "to practice unnatural vice" and
says it came to be used "of various forms of unnatural lewdness".

But the word is probably derived from Greek 'paidikos'=  of or pertaining
to a boy (or girl - but I guess 'boy' is the primary meaning here) - and
presumably originally meant 'to bugger [a child]', but came to be used more
generally of buggery.

I guess most have noticed that 'eos' (them) is masculine plural & the
subject 'we' would assuredly have also been male.

>What's the context?
I can tell you with certainty that it is not Catullus.  I have a copy of
his poems - but not Mueller's edition ;-)
I'm pretty certain that it is from the Priapea, but I do not know the
context.  Does any one on the list have a copy?

Ray.