12
Literary Literacy in Roman Pompeii
The Case of Vergil’sAeneid
Kristina Milnor
A couple of years ago, I came across a page in the upscale clothing
catalogue put out by the J. Peterman Company. It advertises a certain
blouse, called ‘‘the Satin Doll,’’ which the company sold at the time for
$128. Like almost every page in the J. Peterman catalogue, this is not just
an advertisement but a narrative, one that, in this case, seems to have been
inspired by a line from the 1950s jazz song ‘‘Satin Doll’’ (music by Duke
Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, lyrics by Johnny Mercer), which is printed
at the top of the page: ‘‘Careful, amigo, you’re trippin’: Speaks Latin, that
Satin Doll.’’ The narrative, printed next to an artist’s rendition of the
blouse, runs like this:
She walked into the club alone around midnight.
Duke looked up from the bar as she approached. His face lost that world
weary look.
‘‘Arma virumque cano,’’ she said, using her cigarette holder like a baton to
mark the rhythm. It was some gambit.
‘‘Troiae qui primus ab oris ... ’’ he continued, not missing a beat. He
pulled out his Dunhill. Their eyes met over the flame. Her blouse shim
mered. So did she.
They talked for hours, until Billy Strayhorn shut down the piano for the
night; the subjunctives flowed like champagne.
‘‘Utinam te mox videam!’’ he finally blurted out.
‘‘Quod tibi libet, mihi libet,’’ she replied, writing her phone number on a
napkin. She turned, looked over her shoulder. ‘‘Tuesday.’’
Strayhorn heard the end of the conversation. ‘‘Man, what wasthat?’’ he
asked.
‘‘That,’’ said Duke, ‘‘was one smooth lady.’’Details of material, construction, and price of the blouse follow. Aside
from its role in representing an entertaining collision of classics and
American popular culture, though, this page from the catalogue also
makes an interesting case study of (what I would call) ‘‘literary literacy’’
in the average American consumer. Obviously the joke of the piece turns