“Why – even supposing I had the skill – do you bid me compose a song dedicated to Venus the lover of Fescennine mirth, placed as I am among long-haired hordes, having to endure German speech, praising oft with wry face the song of the gluttonous Burgundian who spreads rancid butter on his hair?”

Quid me, etsi valeam, parare carmen
Fescenninicolae iubes Diones
inter crinigeras situm catervas
et Germanica verba sustinentem,
laudantem tetrico subinde vultu
quod Burgundio cantat esculentus
infundens acido comam butyro?
Carmen 12, line 1; vol. 1, p. 213.
Carmina

Original

Quid me, etsi valeam, parare carmen<br/>Fescenninicolae iubes Diones<br/>inter crinigeras situm catervas<br/>et Germanica verba sustinentem,<br/>laudantem tetrico subinde vultu<br/>quod Burgundio cantat esculentus<br/>infundens acido comam butyro?

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Why – even supposing I had the skill – do you bid me compose a song dedicated to Venus the lover of Fescennine mirth, p…" by Sidonius Apollinaris?
Sidonius Apollinaris photo
Sidonius Apollinaris 7
Gaulish poet, aristocrat and bishop 430–489

Related quotes

Rainer Maria Rilke photo

“Someday you will name me,
then gently place those burning
holy roses in my hair.

[Songs of Longing]”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Source: Rainer Maria Rilke - Sämtliche Werke (Complete Works)

Rachel Maddow photo

“I had long blonde hair, but even as a little girl with long blonde hair, I looked like one of the Hanson boys.”

Rachel Maddow (1973) American journalist

The View, ABC (March 5, 2009)

Norodom Ranariddh photo
Ovid photo

“Gay was oft my song when I was gay, sad it is now that I am sad.”
Laeta fere laetus cecini, cano tristia tristis.

III, ix, 35; translation by Arthur Leslie Wheeler
Epistulae ex Ponto (Letters From the Black Sea)

Anna Akhmatova photo

“I am not one of those who left the land
to the mercy of its enemies.
Their flattery leaves me cold,
my songs are not for them to praise.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

I am not one of those who left the land..." (1922), translated in Poems of Akhmatova (1973) by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward

Sylvia Day photo
Hayley Jensen photo
Pete Seeger photo

“A good song can only do good, and I am proud of the songs I have sung.”

Pete Seeger (1919–2014) American folk singer

Statement to the court prior to his sentencing for contempt of Congress (1961); also quoted on NPR: Weekend Edition (2 July 2005)
Context: A good song can only do good, and I am proud of the songs I have sung. I hope to be able to continue singing these songs for all who want to listen, Republicans, Democrats, and independents.

John Wooden photo

“I do not have the right, Bill, but I do have the right to say who is going to play on my team and we’re going to miss you.
reported by Bill Walton, about his right to wear his hair long”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Interview on Charlie Rose https://archive.org/details/WHUT_20100614_130000_Charlie_Rose (2000)

George Eliot photo

“The song shall spread and swell as rivers do,
And I will teach our youth with skill to woo
This living lyre, to know its secret will;
Its fine division of the good and ill.
So shall men call me sire of harmony,
And where great Song is, there my life shall be.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

The Legend of Jubal (1869)
Context: "This wonder which my soul hath found,
This heart of music in the might of sound,
Shall forthwith be the share of all our race,
And like the morning gladden common space:
The song shall spread and swell as rivers do,
And I will teach our youth with skill to woo
This living lyre, to know its secret will;
Its fine division of the good and ill.
So shall men call me sire of harmony,
And where great Song is, there my life shall be."
Thus glorying as a god beneficent,
Forth from his solitary joy he went
To bless mankind.

Related topics