Non Amo Te

I certainly knew the verse before; did not know it had a clasical antecedent:

I do not love thee, Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell,
But this I know, I know it well,
I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.

Apparently there is some venerable folklore here. It is said to concern Dr. John Fell (1624-1686), an emphatically non-folkloric Oxford University figure. It is said that Fell summoned an offending undergraduate in order to expel him. Fell offered to set aside the punishment if the student could gtranslate an epigram of Martial. The translation is above. Here is the epigram:

Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.

--Marital, Epigrammata I.32

Of course it is said that the unloved Fell relented and let the student stay. Both of them thereupon retreated to the obscurity from whence they arose. Believe it if you like, but you should know that the student's name is recorded as "Thomas Brown," which is grounds for suspicion as far as I'm concerned.

Sources: I find this in Gavin Betts and Daniel Franklin, Beginning Latin Poetry Reader at 119 (2007)