» Dining well (Catullus 13) Latin Poetry Podcast

Dining well (Catullus 13)

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[audio:http://blogs.dickinson.edu/archive/images/catullus13.mp3]

Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me

paucis, si tibi di fauent, diebus,

si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam

cenam, non sine candida puella

et uino et sale et omnibus cachinnis.

haec si, inquam, attuleris, uenuste noster,

cenabis bene; nam tui Catulli

plenus sacculus est aranearum.

sed contra accipies meros amores

seu quid suauius elegantiusue est:

nam unguentum dabo, quod meae puellae

donarunt Veneres Cupidinesque,

quod tu cum olfacies, deos rogabis,

totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.

2 Comments

Jan Frazier
April 17th, 2013 at 10:04 am

Your diction is beautiful; thank you so much for this podcast. My students and I are memorizing this poem for our fourth quarter recitation project so we have been listening to your podcast frequently. As we listen, several of my students have asked why the -am in “bonam atque magnam” was not elided in the podcast, nor was the -am in “inquam attuleris.” These elisions would seem to be required by the meter. Thank you so much, / Jan Frazier
Chris Francese
May 9th, 2013 at 10:53 pm

Thanks for your comments. In my view there is a middle ground between total elision and full pronunciation, and that’s what I try to do in certain cases. You can read a bit more from me on this issue here:
http://www.bmcreview.org/2010/01/20100118.html