Work Text:
Stephen lay sprawled on the hard, prickly ground and stared at the stars dancing above him. It was at such moments, he thought, that Newton's laws seemed their most improbable: the curvature of the earth was startlingly apparent to his comprehension; might he not fall off its underside if he did not take care? His fingers found purchase in the tough native grass as he offered up a slightly slurred prayer for safety against the infinite drop.
He was still in this attitude of prostration some minutes later when a dry, bristled nose nudged his ear. He rolled over, and found himself face to face with a specimen of vombatus ursinus, the common wombat; however this wombat was not strictly common, as it had no small claim to fame as Stephen's personal pet. He greeted it morosely, then inquired of it in confidential tones whether it experienced attachment to others of its species: did it feel a form of marsupial love, of longing, of desire? Did it compose unknowable subterranean poetry in its nocturnal burrow? In a versical frame of mind, he addressed the wombat with the words of the ancient poet:
non iam illud quaero, contra me ut diligat illa
"-- ille I mean --"
aut, quod non potis est, esse pudica -- pudicus -- velit:
ipse valere opto et taetrum hunc deponere morbum.
o di, reddite me hoc pietate mea"
The wombat, lacking a suitable education, or perhaps offended by his spittle-laden pronunciation, simply stared at him and chewed on a mouthful of grass.
Trans: "I've ceased to hope that she'll -- he'll -- return my love, still less become faithful, for that's something beyond her (his) scope. But gods, if I have served you, grant my prayer: Health, and an end to this diseased despair." Probably screwed up on the Latin genderswitch, but I'll blame Stephen, because he's drunk.