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Unread 09-28-2015, 03:35 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
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Okay, you've redeemed yourself with that one, Erik.
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Unread 09-28-2015, 05:44 PM
Susan McLean Susan McLean is offline
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Since we are on a Cunningham streak, here is one of my favorites of his (content warning!), which is very Martial-like but not a translation.

Lip was a man who used his head.
He used it when he went to bed
With his friend's wife, and with his friend,
With either sex at either end.

--J. V. Cunningham
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Unread 10-03-2015, 03:44 PM
Erik Olson Erik Olson is offline
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Default LII. — TO CENSORIOUS COURTLING (Ben Jonson)

In this epigram Jonson satirizes a spiteful "courtling" who condemns his work with a fashionable faintness of approbation, or sets himself up as a censorious critic to gain a reputation for wit. The same thing Jonson satirizes here is found in Lucian's recommendation to the courtier in The Rhetorician's Vade Mecum, Fowler:
And then do not wave your hand too much-warm approval is rather low: and as to jumping up, never do it more than once or twice. A slight smile is your best expression; make it clear that you do not think much of the thing.
So, Pope's "Damn with faint praise," &c.*
LII. — To Censorious Courtling

COURTLING, I rather thou shouldst utterly
Dispraise my work, than praise it frostily:
When I am read, thou feign'st a weak applause,
As if thou wert my friend, but lackd'st a cause.
This but thy judgement fools: the other way
Would both thy folly, and thy spite betray.

*An Epistle to Arbuthnot

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; [...]

.

Last edited by Erik Olson; 10-04-2015 at 12:52 PM.
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