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Attempting to cobble back together the declension poem from Punch's Comic Latin Grammar, which Martin Gardner suggests as a possible source for Alice's vaguely remembered noun paradigm in Wonderland (although "mouse" is actually the third-declension mus, muris; first-declension musa, musae is "muse". Sundry scraps of the poem are scattered around Google, esp. in previews of an otherwise inaccessible JSTOR paper.
Musa, musae,
The gods were at tea,
Musae, musam,
Eating raspberry jam,
Musa, musa,
Made by Cupid's mama.
Musae, musarum,
Thou Diva dearum.
Musis, musas,
Said Jove to his lass,
Musae, musis,
Can ambrosia beat this?
...Well jeez, my own memory of Latin has certainly gone down the drain. Oh well.
By comparison, Alice's litany in chapter 2: "A mouse, of a mouse, to a mouse, a mouse, O mouse!": note the capitalized article in the nominative "A mouse" vs. the uncapped accusative "a mouse", the "Church Latin" pronunciation of -ae, and the lack of the ablative case (~"by/for/from a mouse"; I'm not sure how Victorian grammars usually glossed the form).
Musa, musae,
The gods were at tea,
Musae, musam,
Eating raspberry jam,
Musa, musa,
Made by Cupid's mama.
Musae, musarum,
Thou Diva dearum.
Musis, musas,
Said Jove to his lass,
Musae, musis,
Can ambrosia beat this?
...Well jeez, my own memory of Latin has certainly gone down the drain. Oh well.
By comparison, Alice's litany in chapter 2: "A mouse, of a mouse, to a mouse, a mouse, O mouse!": note the capitalized article in the nominative "A mouse" vs. the uncapped accusative "a mouse", the "Church Latin" pronunciation of -ae, and the lack of the ablative case (~"by/for/from a mouse"; I'm not sure how Victorian grammars usually glossed the form).