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Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 18:59:27 -0800
To: classics@u.washington.edu
From: David Lupher <dlupher@ups.edu>
Subject: Re: The Eternal Rabbit

Michael Hendry notes:
>There is an even closer connection between *lepos, leporis* and *lepus,
>leporis*, and it is classically-attested.  Here is Martial 5.29:
>
>    Si quando leporem mittis mihi, Gellia, dicis:
>       "Formonsus septem, Marce, diebus eris."
>    Si non derides, si uerum, lux mea, narras,
>       edisti numquam, Gellia, tu leporem.

Yes, the pun here is obvious, and it was noted by Pliny the Elder
at Nat. Hist. Bk 28.79.260: "Cato thought that to take hare as food
is soporific, and a popular belief is that it also adds charm to
the person for nine days, a flippant pun" (Rackham's version).
Oddly, though Pliny called this a "frivolus iocus," the word which
Rackham translates "charm" here is not "leporem" but "gratiam."
No matter; Pliny clearly saw a pun here.

But the jokester who composed the SHA's life of Alexander Severus
cited (or manufactured?) some verses that make the pun even more
explicit than did Martial, whose epigram he cites (ch. 38).  He
("Aelius Lampridius") says that a poet sent Alexander these verses:
	pulchrum quod vides esse nostrum regem,
	pulchrum quod Syra detulit propago,
	venatus facit et lepus comesus,
	de quo continuum capit leporem.
(The second line is corrupt.  Morel, in "Fragmenta Poetrarum Latinorum,"
 prints: "pulchrum quem tetulit Syrum propago.")  See Morel or the SHA
for a Latin translation of Alexander Severus' supposed witty reply,
obviously indebted to the Martial epigram

>Also, a rabbit (cuniculus) is not quite the same thing as a hare (lepus),
>which makes some of DL's connections even more fanciful than they would be
>otherwise.

Picky picky. I suppose that you are the kind of pedant who distinguishes
between frogs and toads.

David Lupher
Classics Dept.
Univ. of Puget Sound



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