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#117274 12/07/03 10:58 PM
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
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wwh Offline OP
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The Admiral has been tempted to borrow from a usurer, but a friend dissuades him and takes him to a lawyer, who says of the usurer
FOENUM HABET IN CORNU

Il a du foin aux cornes.
Dans les campagnes romaines, les bouviers avaient l'habitude d'entourer de foin les cornes des taureaux dangereux, non pour atténuer les coups qu'ils pouvaient porter, mais pour avertir de loin les passants. De là le proverbe : Il a du foin aux cornes. Horace (liv. I, sat. IV, v. 34) parle du poète satirique et s'écrie en plaisantant : « Romains, voilà l'homme dangereux, fuyez-le, fuyez ; il a du foin dans les cornes, prenez garde ! »

Roman farmers used to attach hay to tips of bulls' horns to warn that the bull was dangerous.
So the lawyer is telling the Admiral that the userer
showed signs of being dishonest.


#117275 12/09/03 05:57 AM
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
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It's a quotation from Horace's Satires 1.4.34:

'faenum habet in cornu, longe fuge;

"He has hay on his horn, keep away; ..."

See footnote 6 on this page: http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Hor.+S.+1.4


And Plutarch's discussion of the custom in his Roman Questions: http://makeashorterlink.com/?B29A111C6


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