Plinivs - Vol. 2 Ch. 8 - Cithara

[MangaDex]

 

[bocchi]

Yawning in the presence of Nero. That takes balls

 

[Vertical]

that Pliny, trying to get himself killed I see, a classic.

 

[genm9zombie]

absolute chad

 

[freakofnature]

A remark on the washerwomen's words to Eucles about washing the clothes in his piss: it was common in Roman times to wash clothes in diluted urine (the first of several stages of the cleaning process). There'd be places near laudries where passersby could relieve themselves, and the urine collected for washing with.

Of course, the raunchy subtext is that they would like to see him relieve himself in front of them. 😏

Urine was also used as mouthwash and for cleaning teeth. (Yes, seriously!)

 

[Thelele]

I spent forever finding just the right words to use there..."piss" is in the King James Bible!
But somehow "laundry room" slipped through...I changed it to "fullonica" to make up for that anachronism.
Yamazaki gets an award for the most obscure reference for "Kribana," a word that only appears twice in the entire corpus of Greco-Roman literature (AFAIK), in an obscure quotation in the Deipnosophistae.
Miki snuck in a Doraemon reference (among others), so I snuck in a Nekojiru reference, if you can spot 'em...

 

[Markgraf]

And on this day in history Pliny gave zero fucks.

 

[quitelot88]

All these chapters feature a New World parrot.

 

[sylvacoer]

So wait, is he a slave or a free man who's working for Pliny for room and board?

 

[Thelele]

The Japanese uses "Plinius-sama" here so I followed the lead of the French translation that calls him the Maitre/Master. Perhaps "Dominus" would be better?
It seems that the confusion is meant to be intentional, which is why the housekeeper has to explain that Artemios is working there freely and not as a slave—in which case "master" is used as a term of respect.
The honorifics here are tricky because Eucles is a free Greek, but everyone treats him as a slave. "Sir" seems like the proper way to address a Roman knight.

Maybe the parrot flew, attracted by Nero's dulcet tones?

 

[Ced1106]

Great manga. Thanks for the translation!!! 🐈🐈🐈

 

[laiseran]

The virgin Nero vs the chad Pliny

 

[Doomroar]

@freakofnature mmh interesting i was sure it was just a very aggressive and direct puck up line, but to think it had a practical meaning to it related to their work.