Pronunciation
Usher. Yesterday I saw committed a crime of deepest dye (scelus capitale). The schoolmaster of the Straight Street (vicus rectus), who smells worse than a goat, and instructs his threepenny classes in his school, which abounds in dirt and filth, pronounced three or four times volucres with the accent on the penultimate. I indeed was astounded that the earth did not at once gulp him up.
Praec. What otherwise ought one to expect such a schoolmaster to say? He is in other parts of the grammatical rules thoroughly worn out (detritus). But you are disturbed over a very small matter and make a tragedy out of a comedy, or still more truly a farce.
Usher. I have finished my task. Now it is your turn. You now keep the conversation going.
Praec. I don’t wish to give you the chance to answer me what I don’t ask (παραφθέγγης). This broth is getting cold. Bring a table fire-pan. Heat it up a little before you dip your bread in it. This radish is not eatable, it is so tough—and so are the rootlets in the broth.
Usher. They certainly have not brought the toughness from the market, but they have acquired it here in our store-room in which the pantry is quite unsuited for provisions. I don’t know why it is we always have brought to us here bones without marrow in them.
Praec. Bones have but little marrow in them at the new moon (sub lunam silentem).
Usher. What when it is full moon?
Praec. Then there is plenty.
Usher. But our bones have little, or more truly no, marrow.
Praec. It is not the moon that bereaves us of marrow but our Lamia. She has here put in too much pepper and ginger, and in the soup and particularly in the salad there is also too much mint, rock-parsley, sage, cole-wort, cress, hyssop. Nothing is more harmful to the bodies of boys and youths than foods which make the stomach hot.
Arch. What kinds of herbs then would you wish to be used for food?
Praec. Lettuce, garden-oxtongue, purslain, mixed with some rock-parsley.