Oh, the Roman was a rogue,
He erat was, you bettum;
He ran his automobilis
And smoked his cigarettum;
He wore a diamond studibus
And elegant cravattum,
A maxima cum laude shirt,
And a stylish hattum!
He loved the luscious hic-haec-hoc,
And bet on games and equi;
At times he won, at others, though,
He got it in the necqui;
He winked (quo usque tandem?)
At puellas on the Forum,
And sometimes even made
Those goo-goo oculorum!
He frequently was seen
At combats gladiatorial,
And ate enough to feed
Ten boarders at Memorial;
He often went on sprees
And said, on starting homus,
"Hic labor -- opus est,
Oh, where's my hic--hic--domus?"
Although he lived in Rome --
Of all the arts the middle --
He was (excuse the phrase)
A horrid individ'l;
Ah! what a diff'rent thing
Was the homo (dative, hominy)
Of far-away B.C.
From us of Anno Domini.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Lay of Ancient Rome
Thomas Russell Ybarra (1880-1971), Lay of Ancient Rome: