Against Sundials
The gods confound the man who first found out
How to distinguish hours! Confound him, too,
Who in this place set up a sundial,
To cut and hack my days so wretchedly
Into small portions! When I was a boy,
My belly was my sundial -- one surer,
Truer, and more exact than any of them.
This dial told me when 'twas proper time
To go to dinner, when I had aught to eat;
But nowadays, why even when I have,
I can't fall to unless the sun gives leave.
The town's so full of these confounded dials
The greatest part of the inhabitants,
Shrunk up with hunger, crawl along the street.
Commentary
In response to yesterday’s offering.
(c.254-184 BC)
This fragment from Plautus is offered in juxtaposition to Henry Austin Dobson’s “On The Hurry of This Time” (Poem #1905). As Martin justly observes, ‘Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.’ The verse fragment (with my suggested title) is from “The Boeotian Woman”, (3rd century BC), preserved by Aulus Gellius (2nd century AD), and discussed in his Attic Nights,1, p. 247.
— William Grey
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Aulus Gellius, The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. Vol 1 Loeb Library Edition (trans John C. Rolfe). London: Heinemann, 1927. ↩