Saturday, July 08, 2006
Birth
Lucretius 5.222-227 (tr. W.H.D Rouse, rev. Martin Ferguson Smith):
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Then further the child, like a sailor cast forth by the cruel waves, lies naked upon the ground, speechless, in need of every kind of vital support, as soon as nature has spilt him forth with throes from his mother's womb into the regions of light, and he fills all around with doleful wailings -- as is but just, seeing that so much trouble awaits him in life to pass through.In line 223 there is an example of asyndetic privative adjectives (infans, indigus).
tum porro puer, ut saevis proiectus ab undis
navita, nudus humi iacet, infans, indigus omni
vitali auxilio, cum primum in luminis oras
nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit,
vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut aequumst
cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum.
