Where is 56th and Wabasha? "Meet Me in the Morning" Dylan Mystery Solved
Short version The lyric is not "Fifty-sixth and Wabasha", it is actually "Fifty-six and Wabasha", referring to the intersection of old Minnesota Highway 56 and Wabasha Street in Saint Paul, Minnesota. If you listen, you can hear Dylan sing "fifty-six", rather than "fifty-sixth", particularly on the take that was released as the B-side to "Duquesne Whistle". Minnesota Highway 56 no longer intersects Wabasha Street, but from 1963 to 1974 it did intersect Wabasha Street, at what is now (in Feb. 2021) the intersection of George Street and Cesar Chavez Street in St. Paul, or possibly South Wabasha & Cesar Chavez. Long Version "Meet Me in the Morning" is the first song on side two of Bob Dylan's celebrated 1975 album Blood on the Tracks. In the opening lines of the song, according to the lyrics on Bob Dylan's official site (https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/meet-me-morning/), the narrator invites the listener to a rendez...
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uteris et Veneri servit amica manus,
hoc nihil esse putas? scelus est, mihi crede, sed ingens,
quantum vix animo concipis ipse tuo.
nempe semel futuit, generaret Horatius ut tres
Mars semel, ut geminos Ilia casta daret.
omnia perdiderat si masturbatus uterque
mandasset manibus gaudia foeda suis.
ipsam crede tibi naturam dicere rerum:
'Istud quod digitis, Pontice, perdis, homo est.'
-Martial, Epigrams 9.41
This translation owes somethign to that of Poldy... but not everything, because I can't find Poldy's translation right now ;)
Ponticus, the fact that you never fuck, but use your left hand as a concubine
and your girlfriend-hand serves Venus--
do you think that this is no big deal? It's a crime, believe me, and a huge one at that,
so big that even you can hardly conceive it in your mind.
I mean, Horatius fucked just once to father three,
and Mars just once, to give chaste Ilia twins.
Either of them would have ruined everything if he had masturbated,
and entrusted his shameful pleasures to his own hands.
You had better believe that it is Nature herself that tells you:
"That mess which you waste on your fingers, Ponticus, is a human being."