Ad Familiares 9.22
Ad Familiares 9.22
Headnote
Cicero to L. Papirius Paetus, written probably at the Tusculan villa in June or July of 45 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. fort. in Tusculano m. Iun. aut Quint. a. 709 (45), month-precision uncertain between the two. Provoked, evidently, by a freely worded letter of Paetus that used a bawdy term without apology, Cicero responds with a mock-Stoic disquisition, in five sections, on whether obscenity inheres in the word or in the thing it names. The structure is a small Academic exercise: expound Zeno’s thesis, marshal counter-examples from comedy and tragedy, work the conclusion through pairs of words for the same object, then end with a Stoic tag and a comic concession. The closing date-pun — honorem igitur K. Martiis — treats the Kalends of March as something one must be polite to, just as one is polite to the obscene words.
The voice is the late Paetus voice: high learning poured into low diction, mock-formal philosophising about latrine matters, the sage and the bath both invoked in a single paragraph. One Greek phrase closes the argument: ho sophos euthyrr\=emon\=esei, “the wise man will speak straight-forwardly,” a Stoic technical formula on free speech (parrh\=esia). Cruxes: libertatem loquendi I take as “freedom of speech,” the technical Stoic parrh\=esia that Paetus has just exhibited. The fragmentary stage quotations — one from Naevius’s Demiurgus, one a song associated with Roscius, several unattributed — I render closely enough for the punch-lines to land without footnotes; the point each time is that the matter is more brazen than the wording. The famous catalogue of false or shifting obscenities (penis, anus, bini, mentula, divisio, intercapedo, batuit, depsit, testes, colei) I have left the Latin tags in place where the joke turns on the Latin word, with the gloss inline, since a fully Englished version would lose the linguistic point of the letter. Suppedit I have construed in the sense “pisses under (himself)” that the bath-contrast requires; others (Shackleton Bailey) take it of farting and emend, but the manuscript reading works once the comic shape is admitted.
I love your modesty — or rather, your freedom of speech. And yet this was the view of Zeno, a sharp fellow, by Hercules, even if our Academy has a great quarrel with him — but, as I say, the Stoics hold that each thing is to be called by its own name. For their reasoning runs like this: nothing is obscene, nothing shameful to utter; for if there is any indecency in obscenity, it lies either in the thing or in the word; there is no third option. In the thing it does not lie. And so in comedies the act itself is narrated (as in that scene in The Craftsman: just now, by chance — \,you know the song; you remember Roscius: so she left me high and dry, naked —: the whole speech is veiled in words, the matter being more brazen than what is said); and so too in tragedies. For what is that line, the one woman who —? what, I ask, of she usurps the double couch? what of this fellow’s dared to enter his bed? what of when I was still a virgin, against my will, by violence Jupiter ravishes me? Good, “ravishes”; though it means the very same thing, no one would have stood the other word.
amo verecundiam †vel potius libertatem loquendi. atqui hoc Zenoni placuit, homini me hercule acuto, etsi Academiae nostrae cum eo magna rixa est—sed, ut dico, placet Stoicis suo quamque rem nomine appellare. sic enim disserunt, nihil esse obscenum, nihil turpe dictu; nam si quod sit in obscenitate flagitium, id aut in re esse aut in verbo; nihil esse tertium. in re non est. itaque non modo in comoedus res ipsa narratur (ut ille in Demiurgo: modo forte——, Nosti canticum; meministi Roscium: ita mé destituit núdum——, totus est sermo verbis tectus, re impudentior), sed etiam in tragoediis. quid est enim illud: quae múlier una—— quid, inquam, est: Úsurpat dupléx cubile’? quid? huius †ferei ’ hí c cubile iníre est ausus’? quid est: virginem me quondam invitam per vim violat Iuppiter’? bene ’violat’; atqui idem significat, sed alterum nemo tulisset.
You see, then, that since the matter is the same and only the words differ, nothing seems shameful. So: it is not in the thing; much less is it in the words. For if what the word signifies is not shameful, the word that signifies it cannot be shameful. You say “old woman” (anus) by a borrowed name; why not by its proper one? If the thing is shameful, not even the borrowed name is clean; if it is not, then the proper one is better. The ancients used to call the tail (cauda) “penis” — whence, from the resemblance, “penicillus,” a little brush; but today “penis” belongs to the obscenities. “But Piso Frugi, in his Annals, complains that young men are ‘given over to the penis.”’ What you in your letter called by its own name he, more veiled, called penis; but, because many followed suit, the word has become as obscene as the one you used. What about that common expression, cum nos te voluimus convenire — “when we wanted to meet you” — is that obscene? I remember an eloquent ex-consul speaking thus in the Senate: hanc culpam maiorem an illam dicam? — “shall I call this fault greater or that?” Could anything sound more obscene? “No,” you say; “for he did not mean it that way.” So it is not in the word; and I have shown it is not in the thing; therefore it is nowhere.
vides igitur, cum eadem res sit, quia verba non sint, nihil videri turpe. ergo, in re non est; multo minus in verbis. si enim quod verbo significatur, id turpe non est, verbum, quod significat, turpe esse non potest. ’ anum ’ appellas alieno nomine; cur non suo potius? si turpe est, ne alieno quidem; si non est, suo potius. caudam antiqui ’penem’ vocabant, ex quo est propter similitudinem ’penicillus; at hodie ’penis’ est in obscenis. ’ at vero Piso ille Frugi in Annalibus suis queritur adulescentis "peni deditos" esse.’ quod tu in epistula appellas suo nomine, ille tectius ’penem; sed, quia multi, factum est tam obscenum quam id verbum, quo tu usus es. quid, quod vulgo dicitur: ’cum nos te voluimus convenire,’ num obscenum est? memini in senatu disertum consularem ita eloqui: ’ hanc culpam maiorem an illam dicam?’ potuit obscenius? ’ non,’ inquis; ’non enim ita sensit.’ non ergo in verbo est; docui autem in re non esse; nusquam igitur est.
Liberis dare operam — “to devote oneself to (begetting) children” — how honourably it is said! Even fathers ask their sons to do it; the name of the act itself they dare not utter. Socrates was taught the lyre by the most distinguished lyre-player; his name was Connus — you don’t think that’s obscene, do you? When we say terni, “three apiece,” we are saying nothing scandalous; but when we say bini, “two apiece,” it is obscene. “In Greek, anyway,” you will say. So it is not in the word, since I too know Greek and yet I say bini to you, and you do likewise, just as if I had spoken Greek and not Latin. Ruta (rue) and menta (mint) are both proper words; I would like to call a little mint-plant mentula, on the model of rutula — I cannot. “Tectoriola” — little plasters — is charming; on that pattern, then, say “pavimenta” too — you can’t. Do you see, then, that there is nothing here but silliness, that shamefulness lies neither in the word nor in the thing, and so is nowhere?
’Liberis dare operam’ quam honeste dicitur! etiam patres rogant filios; eius operae nomen non audent dicere. Socraten fidibus docuit nobilissimus fidicen; ’Connus’ vocitatus est; num id obscenum putas? Cum loquimur ’terni,’ nihil flagiti dicimus; at cum ’bini,’ obscenum est. ’Graecis quidem,’ inquies. nihil est ergo in verbo, quoniam et ego Graece scio et tamen tibi dico ’bini,’ idque tu facis, quasi ego Graece, non Latine dixerim. ’ ruta ’ et ’menta’ recte utrumque; volo mentam pusillam ita appellare ut ’rutulam; non licet. belle ’tectoriola; dic ergo etiam ’pavimenta’ isto modo; non potes. Viden igitur nihil esse nisi ineptias, turpitudinem nec in verbo esse nec in re, itaque nusquam esse?
And so we plant obscenities inside respectable words. How so? Is divisio, “division,” not a respectable word? Yet there is an obscenity inside it; and the same with its counterpart intercapedo, “interruption.” Are these words obscene, then? But we behave absurdly: if we say “so-and-so strangled his father,” we make no apology; but if it is something about Aurelia or Lollia, an apology must be premised. And by now even non-obscene words are taken for obscene. “Batuit, ‘he gave it a beating,’ ” he says, “is shameless; depsit, ‘he kneaded,’ is much more shameless.” And yet neither is obscene. The world is full of fools. “Testes” is a perfectly respectable word in a court of law; in another setting, less so. And “the colei Lanuvini,” the Lanuvine balls (of cheese), are respectable; the Cliternine ones, not so much. What of this — the thing itself is sometimes respectable, sometimes not. Suppedit, “he pisses underneath himself,” is disgraceful; but the moment he is naked in the bath, you will not find fault.
igitur in verbis honestis obscena ponimus. quid enim? non honestum verbum est ’divisio’? at inest obscenum, cui respondet ’intercapedo.’ num haec ergo obscena sunt? nos autem ridicule: si dicimus ’ ille patrem strangulavit,’ honorem non praefamur; sin de Aurelia aliquid aut Lollia, honos praefandus est. et quidem iam etiam non obscena verba pro obscenis sunt. ’"Batuit," inquit, impudenter, "depsit" multo impudentius.’ atqui neutrum est obscenum. stultorum plena sunt omnia. ’ testes ’ verbum honestissimum in iudicio, alio loco non nimis; et honesti ’colei Lanuvini,’ ’Cliternini’ non honesti. quid? ipsa res modo honesta, modo turpis; suppedit, flagitium est; iam erit nudus in balneo, non reprehendes.
There you have the Stoic doctrine: the wise man will call things by their straight names ho sophos euthyrrēmonēsei. What a lot has come out of one word of yours! Your daring me in every direction is welcome; for my part, I keep, and shall keep (such is my habit), Plato’s reserve. So I have written to you in veiled words about things the Stoics handle with the plainest words possible — though they say that breakings of wind ought to be just as free as belchings. So an honour, then, to the Kalends of March! You will love me and keep well.
habes scholam Stoicam: o( sofo eu)qurrhmonh/sei. quam multa ex uno verbo tuo! te adversus me omnia audere gratum est; ego servo et servabo (sic enim adsuevi) Platonis verecundiam. itaque tectis verbis ea ad te scripsi, quae apertissimis agunt Stoici; sed illi etiam crepitus aiunt aeque liberos ac ructus esse oportere. honorem igitur K. Martiis. tu me diliges et valebis.