A little beyond you at present.”
“— est perpetua. Una dormienda. Luna dies et nox.”
“Is Latin poetry hard to read?” Eugene said.
“Well,” said Mr. Leonard, shaking his head. “It’s not easy.
Horace —” he began carefully.
“He wrote Odes and Epodes,” said Tom Davis.
“What is an Epode, Mr. Leonard?”
“Why,” said Mr. Leonard reflectively, “it’s a form of poetry.”
“Hell!” said
“Pap” Rheinhart in a rude whisper to Eugene.
“I knew that before I paid tuition.”
Smiling lusciously, and stroking himself with gentle fingers, Mr. Leonard turned back to the lesson.
“Now let me see,” he began.
“Who was Catullus?” Eugene shouted violently.
Like a flung spear in his brain, the name.
“He was a poet,” Mr. Leonard answered thoughtlessly, quickly, startled.
He regretted.
“What sort of poetry did he write?” asked Eugene.
There was no answer.
“Was it like Horace?”
“No-o,” said Mr. Leonard reflectively.
“It wasn’t exactly like Horace.”
“What was it like?” said Tom Davis.
“Like your granny’s gut,” “Pap” Rheinhart toughly whispered.
“Why — he wrote on topics of general interest in his day,” said Mr. Leonard easily.
“Did he write about being in love?” said Eugene in a quivering voice.
Tom Davis turned a surprised face on him.
“Gre-a-at Day!” he exclaimed, after a moment.
Then he began to laugh.
“He wrote about being in love,” Eugene cried with sudden certain passion.
“He wrote about being in love with a lady named Lesbia.
Ask Mr. Leonard if you don’t believe me.”
They turned thirsty faces up to him.
“Why — no — yes — I don’t know about all that,” said Mr. Leonard, challengingly, confused.
“Where’d you hear all this, boy?”
“I read it in a book,” said Eugene, wondering where.
Like a flung spear, the name.
— Whose tongue was fanged like a serpent, flung spear of ecstasy and passion.
Odi et amo: quore id faciam . . .
“Well, not altogether,” said Mr. Leonard.
“Some of them,” he conceded.
. . . fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
“Who was she?” said Tom Davis.
“Oh, it was the custom in those days,” said Mr. Leonard carelessly.
“Like Dante and Beatrice. It was a way the poet had of paying a compliment.”
The serpent whispered.
There was a distillation of wild exultancy in his blood.
The rags of obedience, servility, reverential awe dropped in a belt around him.
“She was a man’s wife!” he said loudly.