{"id":61,"date":"2005-07-06T20:04:47","date_gmt":"2005-07-07T00:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/63.247.138.3\/~drweevil\/?p=61"},"modified":"2007-09-03T17:01:50","modified_gmt":"2007-09-03T21:01:50","slug":"petronius-on-kisses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/?p=61","title":{"rendered":"Petronius On Kisses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since today is <a href=\"http:\/\/bamber.blogspot.com\/2005\/07\/today-is-international-kissing-day.html\">International Kissing Day<\/a>, here&#8217;s a little poem attributed to Petronius (Fragment 54 in the collections, though it doesn&#8217;t look particularly fragmentary):<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Foeda est in coitu et brevis voluptas<br \/>\net taedet Veneris statim peractae.<br \/>\nnon ergo ut pecudes libidinosae<br \/>\ncaeci protinus irruamus illuc<br \/>\n(nam languescit amor peritque flamma);<br \/>\nsed sic sic sine fine feriati<br \/>\net tecum iaceamus osculantes.<br \/>\nhic nullus labor est ruborque nullus:<br \/>\nhoc iuvit, iuvat et diu iuvabit;<br \/>\nhoc non deficit incipitque semper.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And here is Ben Jonson\u2019s translation (<em>Underwood<\/em> 88):<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short;<br \/>\nAnd done, we straight repent us of the sport:<br \/>\nLet us not rush blindly on unto it,<br \/>\nLike lustful beasts, that only know to do it:<br \/>\nFor lust will languish, and that heat decay,<br \/>\nBut thus, thus, keeping endless Holy-day,<br \/>\nLet us together closely lie, and kiss,<br \/>\nThere is no labour, nor no shame in this;<br \/>\nThis hath pleased, doth please and long will please; never<br \/>\nCan this decay, but is beginning ever.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Line 6 (&#147;thus, thus&#148;) seems to depict or enact the kiss itself, and is even more effectively alliterative in the Latin (<em>sed sic sic sine fine<\/em>). Jonson&#8217;s &#8220;Holy-day&#8221; is what we would call a holiday. I doubt that our author is particularly sincere in impugning &#8220;doing&#8221; (<em>coitus<\/em>) in favor of kissing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since today is International Kissing Day, here&#8217;s a little poem attributed to Petronius (Fragment 54 in the collections, though it doesn&#8217;t look particularly fragmentary): Foeda est in coitu et brevis voluptas et taedet Veneris statim peractae. non ergo ut pecudes libidinosae caeci protinus irruamus illuc (nam languescit amor peritque flamma); sed sic sic sine fine [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classics","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}