Monday, February 21, 2005
Punk
Dennis Mangan calls someone a gay punk, and Rogueclassicism wonders if the Latin vocative catamite (nominative catamitus) is a correct translation of the English punk in "Age, catamite -- fac mihi hunc diem felicissimum!" ("Go ahead, punk -- make my day!").
The American Heritage Dictionary gives "a passive homosexual; catamite" as one definition of punk.
Our English word catamite comes ultimately from the Greek mythological figure Ganymede, cupbearer of the gods. Theognis 1345-1350 (tr. J.M. Edmonds) explains how Ganymede got the job:
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The American Heritage Dictionary gives "a passive homosexual; catamite" as one definition of punk.
Our English word catamite comes ultimately from the Greek mythological figure Ganymede, cupbearer of the gods. Theognis 1345-1350 (tr. J.M. Edmonds) explains how Ganymede got the job:
A pleasant thing hath lad's-love ever been since Ganymede was loved of the great Son of Cronus [Zeus], the king of the Immortals, who seized and brought him to Olympus and made him a God, what time his boyhood was in its lovely flower. In like manner, Simonides, be not thou astonished that 'tis come out that I too am taken with the love of a fair lad.
