Tuesday 4 September 1660

Annotations

• N Jenny Doughty on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 12:04am

  The Latin phrase is revealed by Google to come from one of Martial’s epigrams:

  71

  Quaero diu totam, Safroni Rufe, per urbem,
  si qua puella neget: nulla puella negat.
  Tamquam fas non sit, tamquam sit turpe negare,
  tamquam non liceat, nulla puella negat.
  Casta igitur nulla est? Sunt castae mille. Quid ergo
  casta facit? Non dat, non tamen illa negat.

  Unfortunately I have little Latin, and it certainly isn’t up to this, but I’m sure some of the distinguished contributors to this site can tell us both the meaning of the phrase and how it fits into the whole epigram.

• N Glyn on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 12:12am

  Mistress Diana is the daughter he met on 2 September and “and I fear is not so good as she should be.” - so, I guess it’s good to see him confronting his fears so quickly.

  Of course this is his old house, of which she is a neighbour and has appeared in the diary several times before.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 12:23am

  nulla puella negat.
  Here’s a translation that I found on the internet.

  From: “Drusus Caelius Salto”
  Subject: Martial: Epigrams, IV, 71
  
  Rufus, I’ve searched all Rome for a long time
  To find a girl who says no. There are none.
  It seems as if it’s simply just not done,
  As if it’s impermissible, a crime,
  To say no. Does that mean that they’re all whores,
  That virgins don’t exist? No, there are scores.
  Then what does a good girl do? She doesn’t give
  Either herself or a plain negative.

  
  
  

• N Ed LeZotte on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 12:49am

  I”m going out on a very shakey limb here — “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” — ??

• N Graups on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 01:04am

  “Nulla puella negat”; looks more like “Young girls never say no”.

• N Robin on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 01:46am

  “No young girl says no,” or possibly “No young girl denies [anything],” is a closer translation — “nulla” modifies “puella” and it’s all singular.

  My Latin is very rusty, but that sounds about right.

• N language hat on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 02:06am

  Quite right: ‘no girl says no.’

  The down-to-earth Martial seems a good match for Sam:
  “He had the keenest capacity for enjoyment, the keenest curiosity and power of observation. He had also a very just discernment. It is rare to find any one endowed with so quick a perception of the ridiculous who is so little of a caricaturist. He was himself singularly free from cant, pedantry or affectation of any kind. Though tolerant of most vices, he had a hearty scorn of hypocrisy. There are few better satirists of social and literary pretenders in ancient or modern times. Living in a very artificial age, he was quite natural, hating pomp and show, and desiring to secure in life only what really gave him pleasure. To live one’s life heartily from day to day without looking before or after, and to be one’s self without trying to be that for which nature did not intend him, is the sum of his philosophy.”
  http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial

• N chip on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 02:33am

  The play is on the subjunctive. Notice the change from neget to negat. This is the verb to deny, or say no. Thus, the first implies he searched all day throughout the town if any young thing might say no, no young girl did say no. Pepys has no problem having an affair and going home to teach Elizabeth her music lesson; he is a better, or worse, man than I.

• N vincent on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 03:17am

  “amere et sapare vix deo conceditur” Syrus Maxims
  for the rest:” Cum tua pervideas oculis mala lippus inunctis; cur in amicorum vitiis tam cernis acutum quam aquila?”
  Horice , Satirae,III 25-27

• N Pauline on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 03:36am

  Don’t do this to us, vincent
  We’re working on “nulla puella negat.”

  Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur.
  Wisdom with love is scarcely granted to a god.

  For the rest…….?
  

• N Pauline on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 03:48am

  “…to Axe Yard to my house, where standing at the door…”
  Perhaps not by verbal agreement the night before, but it looks like our man and the “puella” have made themselves available for this meeting. He hanging around the door; she on watch at her window. Or either may have dropped a hint of when they would be in the street today.

• N Roger Arbor on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 07:11am

  Human nature has not changed one iota… we see our own vices writ large. As the preacher says, “It’s the same old sin”.

• N David Goldfarb on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 09:11am

• N John Ryan on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 09:54am

  According to the Tomalin book,the phrase means ‘She refused me nothing’.

• N A. De Araujo on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 12:22pm

  “nulla puella negat” another good translation could be”Cosi fan tute”

• N JWB on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 03:10pm

  You are what you eat. Pepys taking on attributes of a three day old pasty.

• N Nigel Pond on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 03:34pm

  To John Ryan:

  I think Ms Tomalin is wrong on this one. As has been pointed out earlier “nulla” in this context is clearly singular feminine nominative case (with a short-sounding “-a”) and qualifies “puella”, rather than being a plural neuter nominative (which has a long-sounding “-a”)

• N Brian G McMullen on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 04:01pm

  Didn’t SP rent the Ax Yard home recently for a reasonable profit? Is the tenant not yet in or has SP simply commandeered the home for an afternoon dalliance?

  Be that as it may there was a reference to a London map circa 1740 a few days ago and I have found it very useful in locating SP’s coming and goings. Most of today’s geography can be found at:

  http://www.motco.com/Map/81002/SeriesSearchPlatesFulla.asp?mode=query&artist=384&other=361&x=11&y=11

• N Andrew Hamilton on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 05:48pm

  Paul, The translation you cite — really a poetic adaptation — is an extraordinary find! I have searched the Web high & low to no avail, with the possible exception of a book on Questia. As I’m not a subscriber I couldn’t discover whether it contained IV.71. Here’s my amateur prose take:

  I ask all day, Rufus Safronus, through the city,
  If any girl say no: No girl says no.
  Just as if it were not right, just as if it were a disgrace to deny,
  Just as if it weren’t allowed. No girl says no.
  Is there no chaste woman then? There are a thousand. What then
  Does the chaste woman do? She does not consent, but at the same time, she does not say no.

  Pepys clearly knows his classics. It appears he had a first rate education for his time.
  

• N Nix on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 05:55pm

  Mr. Hamilton, that’s a lovely translation.

  But does Samuel’s citation mean that she is one of the chaste women who remain chaste despite “not saying ‘No’”?

  Or does he mean that she is a hypocrite, passing herself as chaste but never saying no?

• N Andrew Hamilton on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 06:01pm

  I take it she didn’t say no and I think Pepys is very pleased to find that the
  Latin tag has truth.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 07:15pm

  Andrew — Your translation is to my taste a far superior one.
  For the record, here’s the site where I found the one I quoted:
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/legiovi/messages/201?viscount=100

  The material is contained in a message to a Yahoo group called “legiovi

• N Brad W on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 07:30pm

  I took the wrong approach to our puella.

  Instead of searching for the source document and a translation, I tried putting her through an online Latin-English dictionary, which fell far short. My own lack of knowledge of roots and inflections to blame. I did find a nice Klingon-English translator, though, and an extensive site on languages in the works of JRR Tolkien. Carpe hobbit.

• N Andrew Hamilton on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 07:50pm

  With today

• N Nix on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 08:01pm

  “the king’s mistress, the Duchess of Cleveland” —

  Samuel has already met her, or at least laid eyes on her, as Madame Palmer. See the entry for July 13, and annotations under her link for a very remarkable life story.

• N Glyn on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 08:41pm

  One of the originals of Brian McMullen’s map is currently on display in the British Museum as part of its 18th-century London exhibition. It is very large (I would guess about 6ft high by 12ft wide)and you can get right up close to it. Should you wish, you can buy smaller prints of it in the Museum Shop but at an exorbitant price. This exhibition ends in late November.

• N language hat on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 09:26pm

  Cum tua pervideas…:
  For wherefore while you carelessly pass by
  Your own worst vices with unheeding eye,
  Why so sharp-sighted in another’s fame,
  Strong as an eagle’s ken, or dragon’s beam?

  Or, less poetically:
  When you look over your own vices, winking at them, as it were, with sore eyes; why are you with regard to those of your friends as sharp-sighted as an eagle, or the Epidaurian serpent?

  Context here:
  http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0063&layout=&loc=1.3.25

• N David A. Smith on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 09:27pm

  “Did she or didn’t she?”
  Sex brings out the commenters, doesn’t it? :)
  Even 340 years later, our boy Sam shows both wit and verbal legerdemain. The Latin epigram — kudos to Paul for the lovely translation — signals that she toyed and Sam did “dally with her a great while,” but whether they consummated, or just engaged in heavy flirting, remains a mystery.
  Maybe I’m entirely too married, but I think she led Sam to that wonderful place that he is sure he *could* have had her (ego flattered) but in fact he *did not* have her (guilt assuaged, “it’s not sex if I didn’t …”), so he can go home to Elizabeth with a clear conscience and “take great pleasure” in her music lesson. Titillation, ego gratification, and courageous self-discipline all in one flirty little encounter with Ms. Diana.

• N Julia on Fri 5 Sep 2003, 09:48pm

  I think the context of the epigram supports David A. Smith

• N Laura K on Sat 6 Sep 2003, 04:47pm

  Interestingly, I barely see the ambiguity referred to by Julia and David, above.

  Sam dallied with her a great while, finding that “no girl says no”. Looks pretty clear to me. But it’s no less fascinating to note how different readers take away different meanings.

  Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Latin translations. I’d be lost without you!

• N Todd Bernhardt on Sun 7 Sep 2003, 02:35pm

  Flash! Great new Latin resource!!

  Like Laura, I want to thank all the Latin scholars out there for helping with the translations. In return, I’d like to contribute what I can … it’s not much, but hey, I’m not much of a Latin scholar!

  http://www.porkpie.demon.co.uk/slighty.htm

  Sic faciunt omnes,
  Todd

• N Glyn on Sun 7 Sep 2003, 04:58pm

  Personally, I’ve changed my mind about this after having read the translations and Julia’s and others comments: Diana didn’t say No, but that doesn’t necessarily that she meant Yes either.

  Todd’s Latin website is a mine of useful phrases.