Okay, I’ve been trying to teach myself Latin off and on for the last few months…and the usual bonus temptation in learning a foreign language has come up.
Namely…are there any good Latin swear words? Either decent enough translations of modern ones or whatever might have been considered profane to the Romans.
Okay, I know it may be a tall order, but I figure I’d ask.
And no, I’m not learning it just for that, but I figure I might as well get everything I can out of it.
IIRC, a guy named Henry Beard wrote a couple books that you might be interested in.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE squash the freaking semper ubi sub ubi IDIOTS any time you run across one. It does NOT mean always wear underwear. The proper word for underwear is subligare. :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack:
I learned a few from Colleen McCullough books. I’ll see if I can dig them up.
Podex!
My favorite!
Cunnus, mentula, fellator, and the relatively mild citocacia are all I can think of right now.
You might want to look up Pirapic verse.
Which were obscene and threatening poems attatched to staues of this guy http://www.phallic.org/priapus/ placed in Roman gardens warning of what would happen to anyone stealing vegetables.
Well, look at him, what do you think would happen? I recall a book that had the English and original Latin. Might be a good source for some pretty disgusting language.
Pestis! Furcifer!
According to my old high school Cambridge Latin course, this means Pest! Scoundrel! For the rest of high school, my friends and I would sometimes randomly greet each other in this fashion.
Apparently archaelogists found some graffiti on a Roman wall wishing that Marcus Vinidius (or someone) gets Really Vicious Hemerrhoids. Can’t recall the Latin for it, though.
How about Catullus’s “Carmen XVI”?
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,
quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.
nam castum esse decet pium poetam
ipsum, versiculos nihil necessest.
qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem,
si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici
et quod pruriat incitare possunt,
non dico pueris, sed his pilosis,
qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos.
vos, quod milia multa basiorum
legistis, male me marem putatis?
pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.
(Trans:
I’ll fuck you up the ass and make you blow me,
you faggot Aurelius and your bum-boy, Furius,
Who say, because of my verses,
That I’m effeminate, you shameful pair.
The pious poet ought to be chaste himself,
but his verses needn’t be so;
They’ll only have wit and charm
If they’re a bit squishy and indecent,
And can turn a fellow on –
I don’t mean a teenager, but a hairy old fart
Who can’t get it up too easily anymore.
So, just because you read about my thousands of kisses,
You dare to call me effeminate?
Well, I’ll fuck you up the ass and make you blow me!)
Here’s a link for more: http://www.notam02.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/Latin.1.html
And a slightly better rendering, in blank verse:
Fuck you, you two old queens, just suck my dick,
Aurelius, Furius, you pair of fruits,
Who say, because my verses are risqué,
That that must mean that I’m a slut like you.
I know the pious poet must be chaste,
But quite the opposite for what he writes –
Indeed, it only gets its wit and spice
If he throws in a little bit of smut,
The kind he knows can turn a fellow on –
Not randy kids, but hairy, grey old farts
Who find it’s tougher now to get it up.
So, just because you’ve read of my amours,
You think it means that I’m a sissy too?
Well, fuck you, you old queens, just suck my dick!
Man, that Catallus was a salty old bastard.
“Ite ad infernos” is useful in dealing with evil spirits, poltergeists, and people who just need to be told off.
This sounds like if they turned the Sopranos into a musical.
If you send me your address, I’ll send you a book. My mom got it for me when I was taking Latin in high school. The whole book is how to insult and insinuate in classical Latin. They’re pretty good.
My e-mail is in my profile.
Matt got here first with the poem I wanted to mention, but I will add another gem of Catullus’ (this is addressed to his ex-girlfriend - they had a bad breakup):
‘nunc in quadriviis et angiportis
glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes.’
(58.4-5)
Translation:
‘Now at crossroads* and in alleys
she ‘peels the bark off’ 
the grandsons of great-hearted Remus.’
*a common hangout for prostitutes
Other excellent insults are found in the satires of Juvenal and the epigrams of Martial, as well.
Cheers,
Daphne
(who should right now be revising the satires of Juvenal and the annals of Tacitus…)
Actually, that could be quite an interesting idea…assuming they got people who could sing to do the singing(or at least the dubbing).
There’s the ever-popular “Eos futue [pedica] nisi jocum percipere possent” (Fuck [bugger] 'em if they can’t take a joke).
I’m afraid I can’t offer you any swear words, but back in 1983 when a friend and I were exploring our mutual geekiness we coined a new Latin verb: Splitere, meaning: to leave, precipitously.
We both still use it. Usually in the first person plural imperative: Splitemus-ne!
:eek:
When I took Latin in school, we never knew he could get that earthy! All I remember of Catullus was that he wrote poems to Lesbia (?) and a bunch of funeral poetry. Certainly not stuff like this.
Wow.
George Gordon, Lord Byron, was rather candid about the saltiness of the Greek and Roman poets:
The final reference is to Virgil’s Second Eclogue:
Richard Barnfield’s free translation of this into English heroic couplets, about 1600, is called The Affectionate Shepherd. Here’s a large excerpt: