Note 41 — Second Part.
Reading edition
Martial, Bk. VI. Epigr. 41. Also bk. IV. Epigr. 41.,
Quid recitaturus circumdas vellera collo? Conveniunt nostris auribus illa magis.
(Why do you when going to read your verses aloud wind woollen wraps round your throat? The wool were better in our ears). The tacere (to hold his tongue) in the first Epigram stands for fellare, as in Martial, VII. IX. 5. 96. Perhaps too the verse of Epicharmus given in Aulus Gellius, Noct. Attic. I. ch. 15. is applicable in this connection, οὐ λέγειν δύνατος, ἀλλὰ σιγᾷν ἀδύνατος. (Not able to speak, yet unable to be silent). Comp. Martial, VI. 54. VII. 48. XII. 35.—“Harpocratem reddere (to recall Harpocrates” in Catullus 74. 4.) Again Minutius Felix, In Octav., says: “Esse malae linguae, etiamsi tacerent” (To be of a foul tongue, even if they kept silence). Priapeia, 27. 4., “altiora tangam” (I will touch higher things). In part we may have to look for the same allusion also in Ausonius’ Epigrams 46, 47 and 51, and several other very similar ones in the Anthology.