From dlupher@ups.edu Sun Mar  5 16:07:49 2000
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Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 16:09:31 -0800
To: classics@u.washington.edu
From: David Lupher <dlupher@ups.edu>
Subject: Re: The Eternal Rabbit

Alice Radin should not chortle at her class for confusing "leporem,"
"charm" at Lucr. De rer. nat. 1.28 with "leporem," "rabbit."  Her
students were not wrong; they were just reading at a deeper level
than she was.  Here's how it works out:

	1. Lucretius was not the only poet of his day to write a
	poem entitled "De rerum natura."  So, too, did the Hispano-
	Roman poet Egnatius.  See Willy Morel's "Fragmenta Poetarum
	Latinorum" for a couple of surviving fragments.

	2. Spain was famous for its soft-furred little bunnies.
	Thus, when alluding to that same Egnatius, Catullus referred
	to him as "cuniculosae Celtiberiae fili" at 37.18. So right
	there we have a mid-lst-cent.-B.C. connection between bunnies
	and poems entitled "De rerum natura."  But we can go further:

	3. That the softness of the bunny was regarded as particularly
	erotic is evident from another Catullan poem, #25, where the
	"cinaedus" Thallus is described as "mollior cuniculi capillo."

	4. The Catullan references to bunnies suggest a punning connection
	between "cuniculus" and "cunnus"---cf. Elizabethan quibbles
	involving "coney."

	5. All of this inevitably implies that in the 50's B.C. the
	soft fur of the bunny was regarded as especially Venutian, and
	it is obvious that the lepor/lepos which Lucretius asked Venus
	to shed upon his poem would have that rabbitty erotic charm
	which Alice's students students were so acutely intuiting.

You see?  This can all be explained by sticking to the 50's B.C.  We don't
even have to go hopping after the deeper erotic meaning of the Easter Bunny
(about which the religious radio stations are gearing up to pontificate).

David Lupher
Classics Dept.
Univ. of Puget Sound






.