Thursday, June 09, 2005
(8:53 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Let's Talk About Sex, in Latin
Now that I am regrouping from my battles with the Apostolic Fathers, with Justin Martyr, and with Irenaeus, in order to wage a full frontal assault on Clement of Alexandria, I have one question -- does anyone know where I could find an edition in which the whole text is translated into English? I ask this because the learned editors of the Ante-Nicene Fathers have seen fit to translate from Greek into Latin, and vice versa, whenever an author is inconveniently close to mentioning the fact that sometimes people have sex.The most humorous thing is that they didn't just leave it in the original tongue, as though they wanted to prove that it was translatable in principle -- but only available to learned and temperate men. If you don't believe me, look here and scroll down to "CRAP. X. --QUAENAM DE PROCREATIONE LIBERORUM TRACTANDA SINT." The whole book is apparently the equivalent to the courses the wife teaches in White Noise ("Eating and Drinking: Basic Parameters"), and he's finally getting around to the appropriate way to have sex. The chapter immediately following is also translated into Latin, and concerns appropriate uses of tobacco.
