The following late antique text, recently discovered in a restaurant basement, is surmised to be a lost part of Macrobius’ Saturnalia, possibly from discussion, in book 5, of Virgil’s borrowings from Greek authors (e.g., one notes similarities to the etiological mode of Aeneid 7.112-19, where the fulfillment of a prophecy is simultaneously the origin of pizza). It is presented here in the form in which it has been preserved–namely, a loose debate among several scholars, many of them pseudonymous and not a few of them ridiculous, in the tradition of lampoons of intellectual life including Plato’s Symposium and Aristophanes’ Clouds. The accompanying image offers a reconstruction of a painting described by one of the speakers in an ekphrasis.
An interjection from a noted linguistic charlatan:
“Ah, I always thought it was the nominative singular present active feminine participle of μιμάω (“I drink in the morning”), accented like this: μιμῶσα But, with your explanation, I get to use it on myself.”
Consider:
Μιμάω: “I brunch”
μιμήσω: “I will brunch”
ἐμίμησα: “I brunched”
μεμίμηκα: “I have brunched”
μεμίμημαι: “I have been brunched”
ἐμιμήθην: “I was brunched”; but contrast with middle ἐμιμησάμην: “I made brunch available for others”
[Dr. Benjamin Eldon Stevens works on classical receptions, especially in contemporary fiction, science fiction, and fantasy (most recently co-editing a volume of essays on Frankenstein, while upcoming is a volume on ‘displacement’); underworlds and afterlives; Latin poetry; and histories of the senses. He has also published translations of Spanish poetry and French fiction. Hailing from Colorado and Nebraska, and having taught in Washington DC, New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, Dr. Stevens is currently at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.]
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