I was just talking to a friend who told me about a very curious thing which Speaker Pelosi (of Meet The Press gaf fame) said to Sec. Paulson. This is in a New York Times story:
Paulson Begs
The New York Times highlights the defining moment of yesterday’s White House meeting on the bank bailout bill when Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson "got down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to ‘blow it up’ by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal."
Said Pelosi: "I didn’t know you were Catholic. It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans."
Paulson sighed, "I know. I know."
"I didn’t know you were Catholic." ?
"I didn’t know you were Catholic." ?!?
Speaker Pelosi… Vae tibi tam nigrae, dicebat caccabus ollae.
How glib.
After everything you have said on television, Speaker Pelosi, and how you vote …
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So, I’m confused. Did Pelosi say that to Paulson or did he say that to her. I guess it doen’t matter. Either way makes sense given Pelosi’s recent very non Catholic abortion comments.
I love Thomas Peter’s (from American Papist) response on this from last Thursday:
The former Goldman Sachs CEO even went down on one knee as if genuflecting, to which Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) is said to have joked, “I didn’t know you were Catholic.”
That’s funny, Madame Speaker, I wasn’t sure you were, either.
I know Vae tibi tam nigrae, dicebat caccabus ollae is essentially “The pot calling the kettle black”, but what is the literal translation?
Is this accurate: “‘Alas, so black you are,’ said the pot to the kettle.”
Jeff: I think I would say something like, “‘Woe to you, so black you are!’ said the frying pan to the cooking pot.”
I am not absolutely certain I got the shape of the cooking vessels right, but I think so. I am going by what I can discern in the ancient cook book by Apicius, De re cuinaria which probably dates to the end of the 4th beginning of the 5th c. (i.e., around the time of St. Augustine!).
In that ancient book of cooking I found both caccubum and olla.
Here is the recipe. Let me know what you think – aside from the fact that it looks pretty good:
See what I mean? I could call that caccubum a roasting pan, I suppose, but I think frying pan fits.
Now that hunting season is coming, and some ducks and other birds will be coming my way to die and to be eaten – bless them – I might have to try this. Somewhere on a shelf I have the English edition of Apicius someone worked up. Perhaps this recipie is included.
Please note that the word is probably caccabum, i, n. rather than masculine caccabus. In that phrase the writer probably just changed it in order to avoid the elision and thus screw up a good line.