In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, James M. Pfundstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes >On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, Leofranc Holford-Strevens wrote (in part): > >> >> To the English reader _facetus_ is a 'faux ami': it implied not >> schoolboyishness but polished elegance; not always even humour; cf. >> Quintilian 6.3.20: "Facetum quoque non tantum citca ridicula opinor >> consistere; neque enim diceret Horatius facetum carminis genus concessum >> esse Vergilio. Decoris hanc magis et excultae cuiusdam elegantiae >> appellationem puto. Ideoque in epistulis Cicero haec Bruti refert uerba: >> "ne illi sunt pedes faceti ac +deliciis ingredienti mollius+ [text >> corrupt, but reference is to mincing gait]." Quod conuenit cum illo >> Horatiano "molle atque facetum". It is allied to _urbanitas_; cf. >> Catullus 36. 19 'pleni ruris et inficetiarum', 22. 14 'idem infaceto est >> infacetior rure'. To be sure a sense of humour is not excluded (see >> Fordyce on Catullus 43. 8), but 'hoc etiam animaduertendum est, non esse >> omnia ridicula faceta' (Cicero, _De oratore_ 2. 251). >> >> In Horace, if 'facetum' is to be translated 'witty', let it be in the >> eighteenth-century sense rather than the twentieth. > >I'd be glad to hear more on this, but I'm not sure the evidence you've >cited satisfies me. The fact that not all birds are chickens does not mean >that chickens are not birds. And the Quintilian quote is from a longer >passage where he is talking about various types of humor. In this view, >when Quintilian contrasts "facetus" with "ridiculus" he is contrasting two >different types of humor, as opposed to contrasting what is humorous with >what is non humorous, e.g. "iocum vero id accipimus quod est contrarium >serio" (Quintilian, I.O., 6.3.21). > >JMP > My point was that _facetus_ is not 'facetious', and not always 'humorous'; no one has humorous or witty feet, and if it's jokes you want, Latin comedy can beat Menander any day. I was not saying that humour is excluded; there is indeed, as has been observed, not a little humour in the funeral games for Anchises, though of a somewhat Dingley- Dellish nature (Statius, who knew these things from the inside, sets him to rights in _Thebaid_ 6 just as he sets Horace to rights on Pindaric metre in _Silvae_ 5.3_). LAH-S *_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_* Leofranc Holford-Strevens 67 St Bernard's Road usque adeone Oxford scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter? OX2 6EJ
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