Footnotes for Snape's Pensieve:

Take heed of loving mee': Donne, The Prohibition.


'Licence my roaving hands': Donne, Elegie XIX, "To His Mistris Going To Bed."


'Iucumdum, mea vita' (Snape's Bonding Ceremony):

You, my life, promise that this love of ours
between us shall be agreeable and last forever.
Great gods, arrange for her to speak the truth,
and to say this sincere and from the bottom of her heart,
so that it is granted us to continue all our life
this treaty of inviolable friendship.
(Catullus, Carmen 109, translation by Rudy Negenborn, 1997.)

I'd written something of my own and then by chance ran across this lovely bit, and couldn't resist. Randy ol' Catullus could occasionally be classy, no?

'Placetne/placet': a blatant rip-off from Dorothy Sayers, when Wimsey makes his last-ditch effort to propose to Harriet Vane -- Gaudy Night.


I wish I could claim the 'sacred in its fragility' bit, but I'm sure I've lifted it from someone, somewhere -- it just doesn't sound like me. My apologies for being unable to provide a citation.



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