#trimalchio

[more-than-tender-curiosity]

Comparing The Princeton Draft vs Trimalchio vs The Great Gatsby like

[vessels-for-good-intent]

new book hehe

[acertainidontknowwhat]

We can see performance in the Cena as ritual given the fact that Trimalchio’s dinner was an oft-repeated event. Based on internal evidence, we know that those in attendance (aside from Encolpius and his friends) have seen the show before, perhaps multiple times. Also, the dining room itself is characterized as a sacred space as it must be entered right foot first (an enslaved member of the household stands by the dining-room door and reminds everyone to enter in a religiously respectable manner). Everything that takes place during the dinner, therefore, can be characterized as an imitation of ritual.

On a similar note, most argue that the performance ends when Trimalchio's wife, Fortunata, calls Trimalchio canis, "a dog", after he kisses one of the enslaved boys. Encolpius tells us that it was at this moment that the good nature of the dinner ended, but that does not necessarily mean the performance stopped, only that the tone of the performance shifted. The mood quickly becomes tragic as tears begin to flow: Fortunata cries, Trimalchio cries, and even Scintilla and Habinnas cry. The change in mood leads to Trimalchio's extended speech which doubles as an autobiography and ultimately his mock funeral. It seems unlikely that the mock funeral would have been introduced without the major shift in tone.

[neoclassicalblobphilosopher]

Rip Trimalchio you would've loved keeping up with the Kardashians

[helenoftroydidnothingwrong]

Out of context quote from Latin today: “Trimalchio invented fast fashion”

[krautjunker]

Das Gastmahl des Trimalchio

Das Gastmahl des Trimalchio

von Vincent Klink Neureiche gab es schon immer. Der Protz Trimalchio aber, mit Minderwertigkeitskomplexen beladen, wie das solche Leute grundsätzlich an sich haben, war ein besonderes Kaliber. Was hier berichtet wird, ist nicht irgendeine Fama, sondern stützt sich auf die gesicherten Schriften eines gewissen Petronius, der sein Opus Magnum Satyricon nannte und als Berater am Hofe Kaiser Neros…

[ask-jay-gatsby]

okay ill bite and ask you about your gay car what's happening w that :333 (has never seen or read gatsby) (I KNOWWW im gonna tonight promise)

POST: LONG ISLAND, NY. 1 AUG 1922

Dear Old Sport,

Well, I’m glad you asked! And it’s funny you should mention reading—the source of such a term as ‘gay car’ came from my mouth, but Nick himself wrote it down for posterity. He’s always writing things down. He’s allowed me to include a photograph of his note recording the day we went to lunch together.

[THERE IS A PHOTOGRAPH OF TYPEWRITTEN TEXT TAPED TO THE PAGE]

So, as you can see, Nick recorded what I said and wrote it down. I hope he’s not using it for anything untoward, but with him, I doubt it. He’s a good man.

Sincerely and emphatically,

Jay Gatsby

[greeneyed-thestral]

[filmjunky-99]

s a t y r i c o n, 1969 🎬 dir. federico fellini 'Arriving at Trimalchio's Banquet'

[officialpenisenvy]

they didn't lie that child can bride

[rannadylin]

It will never cease to amuse me that the LOTRO writers just took a snippet of Old English from the opening lines of Beowulf and made it an NPC's name in Rohan... XD

[more-than-tender-curiosity]

Another one

Trimalchio

vs The Great Gatsby

Like yeah fitz jordan has done some questionable things man. Like date nick carraway on purpose, but that’s beside the point, isn’t it

[vessels-for-good-intent]

“a weird spinning noise from the cornets” —nick carraway, trimalchio

first off. nick. you are drunk and possibly high and you know nothing.

second off. scott. what the fuck do you know about jazz

[acertainidontknowwhat]

Two more examples of Trimalchio's vulgarity that we can explain through religious/superstitious recontextualization.

Trimalchio's boy-favorite (deliciae), Croesus, described as an elderly boy (puer vetulus) with inflamed eyes (lippus) and uglier than his master (domino...deformior). On first glance we interpret the appearance of Trimalchio's boy-favorite as just another instance of Trimalchio misunderstanding what a deliciae represents as most are chosen for their beauty. However, as one scholar points out, some Romans chose ugly or deformed enslaved people for their apotropaic power because their physical appearance could repel the evil eye. That Trimalchio chose this particular boy as his deliciae shows his worry which is consistent with his overall superstitious nature.

The second example is Trimalchio's insistence that everyone at the dinner should feel free to fart. Once again, what on first appearance seems a vulgarity, at which even our protagonist laughs, audible farting was considered to have an apotropaic effect similar to laughter because of its involuntary nature. This might explain why Trimalchio attempts to persuade everyone that their physical health is in jeopardy if they don't fart!

Trimalchio does everything in his power to ward off some perceived threat. This perhaps goes hand-in-hand with his constant focus on death. The two examples above can also be seen as emphasizing Trimalchio's humble nature, a continuation of a theme I have touched on before.

[gendzl]

I found a copy of the Cambridge critical edition of The Great Gatsby at a used bookstore today! 😁

[dduane]

Today's small mystery

Reshelving some books that got out of their normal shelf in the upstairs bedroom, with the usual side revelations: (a) I need ebook copies of all the [Insert Color Here] Fairy Books, as it'd be good to have a collection of searchable texts*; (b) I need ebook copies (implying searchable texts) of the entire C.S. Lewis collection, as hunting for one of the more obscure quotes online is a waste of time that could be spent doing useful things like baking, or on creating crap renders of the recalcitrant manes of local demigods: (c) Hmm, some of these have bookmarks stuck in them. I wonder what those are about...?

I went through two or three books that had marks in them (blank sticky notes, usually), and in all but one case was able to figure out why I'd marked them, and make a note elsewhere of their content and implications. (I've been flirting with getting into Obsidian to see if it helps me stay on top of this kind of issue, but am not sure I really need it yet.)

This one, though, has left me baffled. It might have simply been where I paused in my reading... but that's not usually how I use my bookmarks. Normally I place them as a reminder that there was something on that page or spread that needed my attention for some reason, or was related to something else that was going on in life, or writing, or something. In this case... now all I have to try to recall is exactly what the issue was.

The bookmark tells me that we're almost certainly talking about something I was reading in 1994, because it's a train ticket from the 5th of September in that year, which I bought on the train (because there's no "from" marking on it), while heading to Wicklow Town. ("Cill Mhantain" is Irish for Wicklow.)

...The book is the Abbey Classics edition of Petronius's Satyricon: the Burnaby translation of 1694. (Interestingly, the National Library of Ireland has the same edition I do. Though I bet theirs is in better condition.) This is what we'd think of as a paperback, though it's actually bound with a soft cloth binding and has a paper dust jacket. (A scan of the front cover and front flap is below.) There are a lot of places I could have picked this up used in Dublin, but my guess is that it comes from one of a number of trips to Hay-on-Wye.

...And here are the pages where the train ticket was stuck in: a passage from the middle of Trimalchio's feast.

So now all I have to do is work out why I marked those pages... thirty years ago. (eyeroll) Yay.**

Something to occupy myself while I go off and make a flammkuchen...

*They're all online at Gutenberg, so that's all right.

**Though looking at the obscure idiom/metaphor "She's a very Pye at his Bolster," I wonder if it was something to do with that. ETA: So the thing to do when you run into a phrase like this in translation is to check another translator and see what they've got. It hadn't occurred to me on first glance that "Pye" wasn't a culinary reference, but a contraction of "magpie". And surprise, the 1913 Heseltine translation at Tufts' Perseus Digital Library has this as "a magpie belonging to a sofa": i.e. a bird that "henpecks" you in your own bed. Ow.