Separated at birth?

I think so.

Photo credit Scott Beale / Laughing Squid.

This entry was written by jason and posted on April 21, 2007 at 4:47 pm and filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

6 Comments

  1. Douglas F Shearer
    Posted April 21, 2007 at 5:14 pm | Permalink

    Seems to have been a week for this comparison.

    You guys keep teasing with Slingshot, I’m raring to get my hands on it. It may even be enough to get me to grab an Accelerator too.

  2. andrew
    Posted April 21, 2007 at 10:56 pm | Permalink

    Is it the left or right twin that’s the evil one? I forget ;-)

  3. Jon Shea
    Posted April 23, 2007 at 12:35 am | Permalink

    The Romans tended to believe that the left, which they called “sinister”, was bad or unlucky.

    Consider: G.V. Catullus, Carmen 12

    Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra
    non belle uteris: in ioco atque vino
    tollis lintea neglegentiorum.

    Marrucinus Asinius, your left hand
    You use not beautifully: during jokes and wine
    You steal napkins from the rather inattentive.

    Poetry doesn’t get much better than that.

  4. David Young
    Posted April 24, 2007 at 1:10 am | Permalink

    @Jon: All I can say when I look at that photo is “Inferno, Canto VI”. I need to reform. I think it’s better poetry, btw.

  5. Jon Shea
    Posted April 25, 2007 at 6:41 pm | Permalink

    David, it might not be fair to compare a magnificent epic, the single greatest post-Classical pre-Renaissances piece of literature, with a 16 line poem about a napkin thief, but I’ll admit that I wasn’t being entirely serious. (Anyone notice Paulie Walnuts fill his napkin at the continental breakfast buffet on the Sopranos last Sunday? I think that’s what Catullus was talking about.)

    I don’t know any Italian, and so I don’t feel qualified to speak to Inferno’s poetic merits, but that’s a good passage. I wish you both luck with your own passage past Cerberus and back.

    Catullus will probably always reign as my favorite poet. He taught me about heartbreak years before I would ever even fall in love. It really doesn’t get much better than the Lesbia poems.

    Sorry if I ran on. My inability to pass up on opportunities to discuss classical Latin literature is one of my regrettable social shortcomings.

  6. andrew
    Posted April 26, 2007 at 9:24 am | Permalink

    Er, um, sorry, but it was just a Simpsons reference.


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