I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth.

I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth.

It is Hebrew to me.
[Fr., C'est de l'hebreu pour moi.]

It is Hebrew to me.
[Fr., C'est de l'hebreu pour moi.]

. . . Philologists, who chase
A painting syllable through time and space
Start it at home, read more

. . . Philologists, who chase
A painting syllable through time and space
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark,
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's Ark.

A Babylonish dialect
Which learned pedants much affect.

A Babylonish dialect
Which learned pedants much affect.

Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of
the two!

Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of
the two!

But to the purpose--for we cite our faults
That they may hold excused our lawless lives;
And read more

But to the purpose--for we cite our faults
That they may hold excused our lawless lives;
And partly, seeing you are beautified
With goodly shape, and by your own report
A linguist, and a man of such perfection
As we do in our quality much want--

Small Latin, and less Greek.

Small Latin, and less Greek.

This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist and the
armipotent soldier.

This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist and the
armipotent soldier.

He plays o' th' viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four
languages word for word without book, and hath all read more

He plays o' th' viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four
languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts
of nature.