7/24/2007

Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo

Sometimes I just feel like someone has written the thing that is, at the time I read it, absolutely perfect.

Having read and translated most of Catullus's poetry back in high school, with a teacher who, while very nice, didn't quite explain all the intricacies of just how sexual and dirty Catullus was, I have always loved his sparrow poems. And his invective against his friends can be hilarious, as can his complaints about stealing (Oh noes! Writing lots of poetry about how much you suck! So mean!). Yes, I was a huge Latin dork (one of two students in AP Latin at my school, along with a teacher's aid for a Latin class my senior year). It's so nice to know that I'm not entirely alone.

Reading Metafilter, I found this, which is funny by itself, but then reading the comments (frequently the best thing about posts there, especially when they go off on a collective tangent as they do here), I realized that poems redone as limericks are awesome. Unfortunately, you missed out on more chances of bad poetry from me, because these have been written already (by the appropriately pseudonymed Kattullus).

Poem 85
I hate and I love, oh it's true
It's excruciating to know you
But Lesbia, dear
Let me be clear
I wanna fuck till we're both black and blue

Poem 3
My Lesbia's has a sparrow she kisses and licks
It repays her by doing all kinds of tricks
To understand the attention
She gives it, I should mention
That "sparrow" is the name of my dick

However, I remembered the best poem of Catullus, at least from a completely vindictive perspective. I'm pretty sure we didn't actually translate this in the class (because the Latin is really filthy, and apparently is frequently ignored or censored heavily?), so I had to go try to find an unexpurgated copy somewhere else back then. So I bring to you the only limerick version of Catullus 16 that has ever mattered. As it's the only one that I've written.

Poem 16

You claim that my poems are gay.
Although that's what you are anyway.
My poems are not clean.
I am, so you're mean.
I'll sodomize you both right away.

Catullus was a genius, I tells ya!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hi
i 'm italian and pleased to find someone loving his as much as i do.

even if, maybe, the most famous "ODI ET AMO"
will probably better explain what life is.

here's my m s n address, if u wanna add me

messalina _ @ hot mail . com

bye,