ellauri141.html on line 215: Persicos odi, puer, adparatus, Persikkaa inhoan, kuuletko poika
ellauri141.html on line 354: And by way of further warning, I’d better say up front that my reading of this poem differs radically from every other that I’ve seen. What follows is, I think, pretty well uncharted territory in the Persicos Odi canon. I’m going to try to make the case for and translate Pericos odi as a sex poem!
ellauri141.html on line 366: Adolescent slave boys were fair game for a virile man. Jupiter may have had his Ganymede, but none of the standard pantheon of gods were gay as we use the term. But there was a limit: it was queer to screw a boy after he was old enough to shave. “Passive’ homosexuality was the real disgrace. The urge to bugger was understandable. A man’s desire to be buggered was disgraceful. As often observed, it was better to give than receive. And in Horace’s poems, pederasty seems no more frowned upon than a taste for veal might be frowned upon today. Actually less. By now you can see where I’m headed with all this. I think the puer in Persicos odi, puer, apparatus... is the kind of boy that Horace is sometimes fond of screwing.
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