After many fine guesses the Torundel competition is finally over. Thank you to everybody who participated. I used a fair share of my voting power to give a 50% upvote to each of the many guesses, but it was @owasco who had it right.
Congratulations!
I am very impressed that you got it @owasco.
The character, Sang Hortuscany, from my story about Torundel was loosely based on the Roman poet, Gaius Valerius Catullus, and in part VIII I paraphrased a famous poem of his in the shitposter style:
I love her, and hate her. How is that possible? you ask me.
I know not, but it is happening, and it is like having a big, lumpy tree trunk up my arse!
The real poem has the same number as I mentioned in Torundel text so that could have been a way to find it. Writing "poem 85" in Goggle led right to it. The real poem is very close to the one I wrote.
Ōdī et amō. Quārē id faciam fortasse requīris.
Nesciō, sed fierī sentiō et excrucior
In my translation:
I hate and love. How come? you ask.
I know not, but it happens, I feel it and it crucifies me.
No one knows what Catullus looked like. This drawing is just me imagining him.
There was also another clue. Catullus wrote in a style that differed from the epic poems that was the norm of the time. Inspired by the Greek poets of Alexandria and of the wonderful Sappho's erotic poetry, he wrote about daily life trifles in the Roman upper class especially centred around his main love interest, who he in the poems call, Lesbia, probably hinting at the home Island of Sappho. As both Sappho and the Island Lesbos later have been associated with female homosexuality, I named Sang Horuscany's lover and wife, Dykeia - Dyke being a slang word for a lesbian.
Roman painting believed to be a portrait of the female poet Sappho.
The last clue is taken from another famous poem. In my text i wrote this:
Uranumsia was obsessed with Dykeia; said she needed to feel like Dykia to write the shitposts. She gave him free access to any holes… except when she was reading, but he had to tolerate the chirping and mess of two little birds in a cage because Dykeia had loved her two birds more than her eyes. And yet he found it charming, and educated, and spirited.
Lesbia loved a domesticated sparrow. In his poem no. 3 the sparrow he has so envied in poem no. 2 for being his love, Lesbia's darling is now dead. So he praises the little bird as if it was an important person. Fourth and fifth line says:
passer, dēliciae meae puellae,
quem plūs illa oculīs suīs amābat.
which translates into:
The sparrow, delight of my girl,
whom she loved more than her own eyes.
Lesbia, 1878 painting by John Reinhard Weguelin
Thanks for comment and guesses to: @crrdlx @prayzz @owasco @themanualbot @steevc @debbie-ese @rthelly @sidekickmatt @darthnava @johnolusegun @shanibeer
I worked on this for hours to be honest! I'd never heard of the guy before yesterday - the number 85 and the name Dykeia were the clues that made me certain I had it right this time. Before you gave us that batch of clues, I was looking closely at Sappho.
It was a delightful quest. Thanks for the fun! And for the 50 hive. That is a larger purse than I have taken for any one thing I have ever put on the blockchain.
I know that feeling, suddenly just having to reveal something. Glad you succeeded. I read both Sappho and Catullus in Gymnasium, but I never got the same close relationship to Greek. My own language was closer to Latin so it was easier for that young and impossible teenager to remember the words of Catullus. I was in the final exam in Greek examinated in Sappho though, and I got what must be A- because I remembered that in the textbook we were using (which were ancient), an accusative was changed into a nominative to hide the sex of the lover she was addressing in the poem (which was of course female). My classical language teacher who normally was a great admirer of those old scholars (this one was called Karl Hude and was normally treated with much respect) called it an act of a pig :) grammatical case swindling is a serious crime especially when it tries to obfuscate love.
It is my intent to read Sappho when my life becomes more easy (when the teenage years of my Zulu angry youngest daughter comes to an end).
Thanks for putting all this effort into this. 50 Hive seems too little for all that work.
Well I couldn't have guessed that.
Congratulations @owasco.
Nope, I knew it was hard, but writing "poem 85" in Google would have led you right to it.
Hooray for the winner! I would have added another guess but it seems the contest is over.
Yes, @owasco cracked it.
Congratulations to the winner. That wasn't an easy one. Trust me.
Yes, it was a hard one.
Ah Catullus, I would never have guessed him! He looks very robust and physical in your drawing, I imagine him as more dreamy and studious. Perhaps he was somewhere between the two? I studied Catullus at school, in Latin. I can't remember the poems now, but I remember being intrigued by them. Clever @owasco!
Yes, he might be a bit too brutal looking. Nothing is harder than translating a spiritual impression into a physical image. I always understood him as a bit of a double person, a bit like John Keats. I do not doubt the feelings they convey, they are too private and self-revealing to be inventions, but the poems of both poets are also so cold and carefully crafted and slightly manipulative. There is an element of trickster in this kind of art. That's why I wanted to make him look different from the normal sensitive face :) I will have to work much longer on it to get something satisfactory.