Nec vox hominem sonat;
Nor does your voice sound like a human creature's.
This may be said of boys of various kinds-- as pot-boys, butcher's boys,
baker's boys, and other boys who are in the habit of bawling down areas;
also of several descriptions of men, as cab-men, coach-men, watch-men,
and dust-men. The same may likewise be asserted of some women, such as
apple-women, oyster-women, fish-women, and match-women. Here also the
singing of charity children of both sexes, and the voices of
parish-clerks, may be specified, and, lastly, of many foreigners whose
names terminate in ini.
[Illustration]
Verbs of asking, of teaching, of clothing, and of concealing, commonly
govern two accusative cases, as
Ego docebo te, adolescentule, lectiones tuas:
_I'll_ teach you your lessons, young man.
This speech is usually the prelude to something which elicits that
exemplification of the vocative case which has been given in the first
part of the Grammar.
Some verbs of this kind have an accusative case even in the passive
voice, as
Bis denos posceris versus de scoparum manubrio:
You are required to make twenty verses on a broomstick.
Why should not a broomstick form the subject of a poetical effusion,
when the material of the broom itself is so often used in schools to
stimulate inventive genius?
Nouns appellative are commonly added with a preposition to verbs which
denote motion, as
Interea ad templum non æquæ Palladis ibant
Crinibus Iliades passis. _Virgil._
In the mean time the Trojan woman went to the temple of
unfriendly Pallas with their hair about their ears.
How odd they must have looked. Here we take occasion to remind
schoolboys never to lose an opportunity of giving a comic rendering to
any word or phrase susceptible thereof, which they may meet with in the
course of their reading. To say "crinibus passis",-- "with dishevelled
hair" would be to give a very feeble and spiritless translation. Vir is
literally construed _man_; some school-masters will have it called
_hero_,-- we propose to translate it _cove_. So dapes may be rendered
_grub_, or perhaps _prog_; aspera Juno, _crusty Juno_; animam efflare,
to _kick the bucket_; capere fugam, to _cut one's stick_, or _lucky_;
confectus, _knocked up_; fraudatus, _choused_; contundere, _to whop_,
&c. &c.