Wow. I dont rememeber reading roman poetry like this in school......

Man I never could understand Poetry.

And especially Poetry written in Latin?

:bigchuckle:

In ancient Rome it was considered appropriate to force another man to degrade himself by forcing him to suck your cock, if he angered you enough.

Of course the threat was used far more than the practice, since it didn't count if you had a gang of people to help you do it. that meant a fight and as you might imagine, people would try very hard to resist such things.

I love to joke around saying "jupiter's cock" in sentences at random....

Learned it from Spartacus (my fave show)

nasty! lol

I think the poem was simply a guy bitching about he wasnt weak for writing poetry, and he would prove it by causing bodily harm to the people picking on him.

Such deep thinkers they were!!!

have you seen his image? he was under 30 (he died at 30)

yup...

and perhaps some bottled up frustration over some closeted issues?

It's all Greek to me!

This was ages ago when I took Latin II, there was a line of prose and the translation was, "The man is pleasing to himself..." and we all burst out laughting. Well, we were silly teenaged boys.

This is definitely not the kind of poem I've encountered. Rather ribald.

[link to www.google.com (secure)]


He was young!!!!

Now I curious to go read more

Is this about some Roman fag jerking off?

His girlfriends name was Lesbia.

Omg is that where 'Lesbian' comes from?

It was probably in Rome that Catullus fell deeply in love with the "Lesbia" of his poems, who is usually identified with Clodia Metelli, a sophisticated woman from the aristocratic house of patrician family Claudii Pulchri and sister of the infamous Publius Clodius Pulcher. In his poems Catullus describes several stages of their relationship: initial euphoria, doubts, separation, and his wrenching feelings of loss. Many questions remain unanswered—most importantly, it is not clear why the couple split up—but Catullus's poems about the relationship display striking depth and psychological insight. One such poem with insight to the reasons of his parting with "Lesbia" is poem 11, which is addressed to his companions Furius and Aurelius and requests them simply to pass a farewell insult to Lesbia.[4]

[link to en.wikipedia.org]

Yeah, don't mess with poets.LOL

Nope. Lesbos was an Greek island and Sappho wrote poetry that had a Lesbian appeal. That's the origin.

Lesbia was a fairly common name.

On a side note, Maggot is a French name for girls during the medieval period. Charming.

A lesbian would originally have been someone who hailed from the isle of Lesbos.
[link to voices.yahoo.com]


seems the word is for sure Greek in origin

wow now that is interesting. How did it evolve into being associated with something so disgusting then.

Here is his complete collection translated.

Some of these are hilarious!

[link to www.poetryintranslation.com]

Check out...

"Stop Stealing My Napkins"

"My Things Back Please"

"Oh Caesar:of Otho’s head"

"Threesome: to Cato"

"Disgusting: to Aemilius"

If you mean "Maggot" then it originally meant something like Maiden. It was used in Germany, France, and England.

If you mean lesbian and Sappho, which I don't find disgusting just not my personal preference and not an acceptible aspect of being a Christian then Sappho wrote romantic poems to women in general and in specific. Since she came from Lesbos, then I think that her poems became associated with her and hence a lesbian was a term for such manifestations of sexual preference.

In my first college philosophy class, we read Socrates and his writings on love, and some of it was downright homosexual, although he himself didn't participate in it. It was quite eye opening and hard as heck not to bust out laughing, but we all were snorting and trying not to crack up, and then even the female professor broke into hysterics.

Last Edited by Don'tBeAfraid on 02/02/2013 01:49 PM

I didn't take philosophy. Damnit. I should have. My favorite 'history' like course in college was Western Civ. It got me so hooked on the greek and roman times. I love this stuff, it is fascinating to me.

I meant "maggot" yes -

Have you watched the Rome miniseries that ran on HBO. It was way way better than Spartacus. It ran two seasons and was one of the most expensive series ever. Here's a clip.

Latin actually

Sigh ...

<sarc> Really? I didn't know that! </sarc>

Have you ever thought of the possibility one day people of the future could be reading our own personal notes, letters, emails, posts, cybersex in their classes on the 21rst century society?

im counting on it

No! That would be perverted and degenerate!

Ostria1, they'd have to be utterly bored!

But seriously historians have certainly read common correspondence between sweethearts during the Civil War. There is a very refined and elegant eloquence in them versus the typical letter or email today.

It's possible that likewise some historian might stumble upon a printed copy or saved post on a thumb drive and find it interesting to note the language, the layers of meaning, the idioms, the sentence structure, the flirtations, the intrigue, the putdowns, the banter between all of the chorus of a community like GLP.

How's that for a run-on-sentence!

Then maybe that's shared within a class like "Social Media from the Primitive Age of Western Post-Modern Millenials."

Anything's possible and your post is insightful, and such insight coupled from a lovely woman is like the sudden awareness of the fragance of gardenias.

Last Edited by Don'tBeAfraid on 02/02/2013 03:51 PM