Sherry Chandler

Catullus 43-a Pretty Picture

Salve, nec minimo puella naso
nec bello pede nec nigris ocellis
nec longis digitus nec ore sicco
nec sane nimis elegante lingua.
decoctoris amica Formiani
ten provincia narrat esse bellam?
tecum Lesbis nostra comparatur?
o saeclum insipiens inficetum!

[Catullus returns to the subject of poem 41 with a different slant, a trick he employs several times in his Carmina. Line 5 is lifted whole from the earlier poem.]

Heyo lass of the not least nose
nor pretty feet nor glinting black eyes
nor overlong fingers nor overdry mouth
nor any measurable grace of tongue–
drab of the bankrupt Formian.
And the province says that you are joli
with our Lesbia art thou campared?
o generation unwise and rotten!

Ten in line 6 is, I believe, an insertion of the negative phoneme on to a pronoun. It is probably a contraction of the vulgar ain tu, [You don't say]– “a colloquial expression which expresses surprise,” according to my century-old Latin Dictionary for Schools (Lewis).

I question the identification of “ain’t” by grammarians as deriving from “am not” by parallel to this Latin vulgarism. I think it is just as likely to be a alternative way of saying “NAY,” which is “aye” with the negative on the front. “AIN’T” seems as likely to be “aye” with the negative on the rear, for added emphasis. Latin “ain” is exactly that–aio ["I speak emphatically"] + the negative=”you don’t really say”

1. Catullus 41–C*nni indelicias
2. Catullus 74– Mr. Grundy
3. Catullus 85
4. Catullus 2 & 2b–Cat’s Sparrow
5. A picture for you

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