I've never, on any day, laughed as much,Wolfgang de Melo didn't translate the interjection ecastor (used only by women, see Aulus Gellius 11.6). Paul Nixon rendered it as "oh dear". Literally "by Castor".
nor do I think I will laugh more during all the rest of my life.
numquam ecastor ullo die risi adaeque,
neque hoc quod relicuom est plus risuram opinor.
"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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Sunday, September 15, 2024
A Day Full of Laughter
Plautus, Casina 857-858 (Myrrhina speaking; tr. Wolfgang de Melo):