Monday, April 29, 2013

 

Hic, Haec, Hoc

[Percival Leigh (1813-1889)], The Comic Latin Grammar; A New and Facetious Introduction to the Latin Tongue (London: Charles Tilt, 1840), pp. 25-26:
The nominative singular's hic, haec, and hoc,—
Which, to learn, has cost school-boys full many a knock;
The genitive's hujus, the dative makes huic,
(A fact Mr. Squeers never mentioned to Smike);
Then hunc, hanc, and hoc, the accusative makes,
The vocative—caret—no very great shakes;
The ablative case maketh hôc, hac, and hôc,
A cock is a fowl—but a fowl's not a cock,
The nominative plural is hi, hae, and haec,
The Roman young ladies were dressed à la Grecque;
The genitive case horum, harum, and horum,
Silenus and Bacchus were fond of a jorum;
The dative in all the three genders is his,
At Actium his tip did Mark Antony miss:
The accusative's hos, has, and haec in all grammars,
Herodotus told some American crammers;
The vocative here also—caret—'s no go,
As Milo found rending an oak-tree, you know;
And his, like the dative, the ablative case is,
The Furies had most disagreeable faces.



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