What follows is a paragraph of Ovid's Ibis; it's a translation from Latin into Anglo-Saxon by yours truly. In actual fact it's a modification of Ovid's original: in making it into a lipogram, I had to omit from my writing an amazingly common and most basic part of linguistic communication. I must warn you, it's a bit strong; nothing that'd affright your bairns, though.
107-126
May God withhold from you all this world's bounty, and all its fruits and crops; and so may aquatic gods hold away succour from your mouth. May a blowhard god suck back any wind or air that would comfort you in your pain. No bright sun will transmit its rays to you, and Apollo will withdraw his light from you, and at nightfall no starlight will touch your sight. May Vulcan disallow you his aid; may Air follow suit; may land and main withdraw from your path. May you fall blindly through unfamiliar lands, an outcast, and doss down in any old shitty doorway, and pray, all shaking, for a bit of nourishing food, small though it is. May your body stay in pain and your mind stay sick; may night horrify you, such that you wish for day, and may daylight inflict on you that pain of wishing for night and its comforting dark. May you always subsist as a pitiful lump of shit, but with nobody to pity you. May all, girl and boy to a man, do a happy jig at your tomb. If you cry not, may scornful bastards add to your crying, and, if you lack any will to go on, may you sustain additional agony. Though you'll miss your lost status, all will look upon you with ill-will (an uncommon thing, I must say): you'll finish up as a man with nothing. May you long to finish your days but lack any possibility to do so. And if you pray that dying might soon grant you oblivion, may that animal will to subsist stay strong. May your soul cling long to your body and may drawn out agony kill you without killing you.
So say I.
I'll add additional parts of my translation if any of you wants a look; if not, don't worry. I wouldn't hold it against you, as this is a fairly stupid thing to do in anybody's book – in my opinion, that is. Wouldn't you say so?
April 02, 2005
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