Lapsed Classicists

[TunipTheVegemal]

As mentioned on the Mary Beard thread.

My name is Tunip and it is twenty eight years since I last read a full-length piece of Latin or Greek literature.

However I am glowing at the discovery that I can still apparently translate 'What's your favourite biscuit?' into Latin.

Anyone else?

Dunno, but your thread title sounds like me when I'm pissed...

Hi! I'm a bit scared though - does this mean I'm actually going to have to try to write some Latin or Greek now? I was rubbish at composition!

Can't do Greek actually as I don't have the font

I should say I'm BA(Hons) Classics, Newcastle 1998 :)

Yep about 20 years since did any- history ma with ancient history bias so did make use of my a levels.

Caecilius in via stat.

I am most impressed at your biscuit skills, tunip.

I am not so much lapsed as corrupted, I'm afraid. I last read Greek (badly) about five years ago but my Latin has turned medieval, with plenty of 'michi' instead of 'mihi' and, erm, what shall we say? Crude syntax.

I used to be able to read it quite well (I never got good at Greek) and I would love to get back into it.

Well, I don't know about corrupted. Mary talked about how second time round we could explore the byways we missed out first time round. Mine would be medieval Latin - I'd love to know more about it.

When I was a teenager I was weird I wanted to read More's Utopia in the original Latin and never did.

I'm weird too, then, because my first thought was 'ooh! I'd love to read More's Utopia in Latin'. I bet mine'd struggle though.

Medieval Latin is easier than Classical, IMO. Or rather, when it's hard, it's because you don't know the very, very, very specific vocabulary someone's cobbled together for something, rather than because the grammar/syntax is complicated.

Canis in via latrat.

Wonderful wonderful Internet! I don't even need to buy it, it's out there!
Utopia

Ecce!

Ecce! Caecilius est in puellam hortem!

I only did Greek GCSE before my degree so had a lot to catch up on in my first year at uni. I never really got good at it either but NT Greek is definitely simpler, mostly because it seems to be in a more English/logical word order. I can more-or-less translate it with just a lexicon.

Ooh ... that link is brilliant.

Though I would have to sit down with the parallel text and a dictionary. Boo.

wing - that's pretty damn cool! I would love to do NT Greek.

Another weird one here who thought reading Utopia in Latin is a great idea.

Not sure whether I can join you though as I sadly gave up Latin at 19. The last full-length Latin I read was, however, 2 years ago, when Cicero's Orations carried me through some difficult breastfeeding hours...

How splendid about the Cicero! Do you think it will have gone into the milk so your child can say s/he imbibed Cicero with his/her mother's milk?

Wow. Cicero carried you through breastfeeding?

You're hard core. We did Cicero for A Level and it required copious amounts of snoozing back then.

It was at the stage when breastfeeding was painful (thrush, tongue tie, etc) so having to concentrate hard on something else was great, plus it was the Loeb edition, with a brilliant introduction and and the English translation on the next page for when I got stuck.

As for imbibing Cicero with milk I can only hope, but the antecedents are good: my mother read a long biography of a Communist giant while pregnant with me and I did turn out to be quite leftie...

Wow. You're amazing.

I like this theory of imbibing literature with mother's milk, though ... my mum was reading toddler books to my brother while breastfeeding me, and I did indeed turn out to be a Tiger who came to tea, so it must be true.

I can't believe you're dissing Cicero, LRD! We did his letters for A level and I loved them - they were really colloquial and immediate compared with any other texts I'd read at that stage. Some of his later dialogues are a bit stolid, admittedly.

Totally agree re earlier points about mediaeval Latin. I did try to read some of the carmina burana in the sixth form but the vocabulary is just so different and the syntax is often odd too. I loved Helen Waddell's translations of mediaeval Latin troubadour songs, though - must dig them out again.

It's probably a sign I was never meant to be a Classicist, TBH. I love lots of bits of Latin but I really didn't get on with Cicero. I might prefer his letters, though.

I love medieval Latin songs - shedloads of carols have bits of Latin and bits of English. My dad just bought be a CD with a version of the boar's head carol that translates itself line-by-line ('caput apris defero'). It's gorgeous.

Plus when it is translated line by line I can understand it all!

My favourite Latin author was Tacitus - so sharp and clever and funny. I loved Euripides too and still try to go to Greek tragedy as often as I can - the National production of Antigone earlier this year was really impressive. There is something about Greek tragedy that sums up the human condition better than anything else I've ever encountered.

I love this thread!

LRD I'm surprised anyone thinks reading the new testament in Greek is Cool It really isn't that bad, even now years and years after graduating. Because the word order is much more straightforward you don't need to worry quite as much about case endings etc as a lot of it is logical once you know the word meanings (and as I said, that's what I use the lexicon for!).

I had completely forgotten that the Loebs have the English on one side. I may have to dig out some Plato :)

Yes, I love carols like that too, LRD - In Dulci Jubilo is my favourite. Actually last weekend I discovered the technical term for them - macaronic. You probably knew that already!

mooncup - oh, Virgil for me. I love it. I love Greek tragedy, too. Sophocles, probably. I got to do a whole paper on tragedy as 1/5 of my degree, and I was really lucky because one of the lecturers volunteered to read Greek with me once a week, just as an optional thing, so I got to go over all sorts of lovely stuff with him just gently guiding me through, and not worrying too much about my grammar because we were reading it for the lit.

I wrote about Euripides' Cyclopes in my finals exams and felt well smug about it!

wing - oh, but it is cool! Because it is so lovely to be able to trace a text back to the original (or, I mean, I know Jesus probably spoke Aramaic, but you know what I mean).

I might give it a go, now you're encouraging me. I had a look ages ago, but mostly gave up.

My heart will always belong to Vergil (I'm sure we never called him Virgil) when it comes to Latin. Although Suetonius was a laugh (on Caligula and Nero).

There was someone else I really liked in Latin, but I just can't remember his name. He wrote satirical poems... Catullus! That was it!

I love this thread too