METRICAL HAIKU

FONTANASALSA
Salem ac lepores
quis solet edere fons?
Fontana Salsa.

SALTY SPRING
What spring always brings forth
salt [=wit] and pleasantries?
Salty Spring.

LOCAL FAUNA
Languesco muscis
innumerabilibus
exsanguinatus.

I grow weak,
drained of blood
by uncountable flies.

EPIGRAM

DE VERSIBUS COMPONENDIS
Infelix qui non potui cognoscere rhythmi
   causas, sed sedeo stultus ineptus hebes,
erodens unguis, papyrum et calamos male dicens,
   calvitium pulsans, iudiciumque tremens.

ON VERSE COMPOSITION
Unfortunate I, who don’t yet know the causes
   of rhythm, but sit foolish, incompetent, dull,
gnawing my fingernails, cursing my paper and pens,
   beating my bald head, and trembling at judgment.

 

VARIA

PALAEOGRAPHY JOKE (Dactylic Hexameter)
Sappho [lacuna] ferox elegantia carmina scripsit,
sed quaedam omisit [desunt tria verba] pudenter
ut si nescieris [perierunt syllaba plura]
numquam noveris aut mysteria [cetera desunt]

Fierce Sappho [gap in manuscript] wrote sophisticated poems,
but modestly left out certain things [3 words missing],
so that if you don’t find out [many syllables have been lost],
you will never know either the mysteries [the rest is missing].

THE LADY ANSWERS (Iambic Trimeter)
(Lesbia’s reply to Catullus 52, quoting his own words back to him)

‘Quid est, Catulle, quid moraris emori?’
puella te tot passa contumelias
nunc odit invidetque nec pudet loqui:
‘Quid est, Catulle, quid moraris emori?’

‘WTF, Catullus, why don’t just drop dead?’
The girl who suffered so many insults
now hates and loathes you and is not ashamed to say:
‘WTF, Catullus, why don’t you just drop dead?’