Tiberinus

This is how I imagine Tiberinus would have looked. I'm not sure who the actual statue is meant to be (it was taken in the gardens out the front of a castle built by the mad king Ludwig on an island in the middle of a lake in Bavaria), but it has the kind of wild sollemnity that Virgil describes in these lines from Aeneid VIII:

Huic deus ipse loci fluvio Tiberinus amoeno
populeas inter senior se attollere frondes
visus; eum tenuis glauco velabat amictu
carbasus, et crinis umbrosa tegebat harundo.
tum sic adfari et curas his demere dictis:

'O sate gente deum, Troianam ex hostibus urbem
qui revehis nobis aeternaque Pergama servas,
exspectate solo Laurenti arvisque Latinis,
hic tibi certa domus, certi (ne absiste) penates.'

To this man [Aeneas] the god of that place, old Tiberinus himself, appeared, lifting himself up from his hallowed stream, between the poplar leaves; a thin linen garment cloaked him with its grey-green mantle, and a clump of shady reeds hid his hair. Then the god spoke to him, and took away his worries with these words: 'O seed of the race of the gods, you who brings back to us the Trojan city, and who preserves eternal Pergumum, long-awaited on Laurentine soil, and in the Latin fields, here is a fixed home for you, here (fear not) are your fixed gods.'

[Aeneid VIII.31-39]

audio video disco

Here's an article (with thanks to Latinlanguage.us) about Latin in everyday speech, which explains the title of this blog (in case you didn't know already).

labels

I've updated my sidebar, to include some labels (primarily for the benefit of my year 12 students); now if you want to look up everything I've ever written about the HSC (for example), just click on the HSC link in my side bar.

And while we're talking about the HSC, here's an article I saw in the paper the other day, suggesting that the cure for HSC stress is to write less.

fusionman

I hope that fusionman has read the story of Daedalus and Icarus in Ovid's metamorphoses, and takes Daedalus' wise advice:

instruit et natum “medio” que “ut limite curras,
Icare,” ait “moneo, ne, si demissior ibis,
unda gravet pennas, si celsior, ignis adurat
inter utrumque vola. nec te spectare Booten
aut Helicen iubeo strictumque Orionis ensem:
me duce carpe viam!”

Daedalus equips his son, and says "Icarus, I warn you to fly by the middle course, so that the waves won't weigh down your wings, if you go too low, and so that the fire of the sun won't burn them, if you fly too high; fly between the two. I order you not to look at the bear-watcher, nor Helike, nor the drawn sword of Orion: take to the sky with me as your leader."

Of course, we all know what happened next:

cum puer audaci coepit gaudere volatu
deseruitque ducem, caelique cupidine tactus
altius egit iter. rapidi vicinia solis
mollit odoratas, pennarum vincula, ceras:
tabuerant cerae; nudos quatit ille lacertos
remigioque carens non ullas percipit auras,
oraque caerulea patrium clamantia nomen
excipiuntur aqua, quae nomen traxit ab illo.

The boy began to revel in his daring flight, and deserted his leader, and touched with a longing for the heavens, he steered his course higher. The nearness of the scorching sun softened the sweet-smelling wax, the bonds of the feathers: the wax melted; he shakes his bare arms, but lacking the power of his wings he cannot catch any air, and his mouth, calling the name of his father, is swallowed up by the dark-blue sea which now bears his name.

[Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII.204-9, 223-30]

Year 8 vocab quiz

Every Thursday my year 8 class has a vocab test, but sadly we can't have it today as I'm on strike. So instead (since this is a teachers' strike not a students' strike) they can quiz themselves.

step 1. go to the cambridge vocab tester, select 10 questions, vocab from stage 6 (not checklist only), English to Latin

step 2. do the quiz, write down your mark out of 10

step 3. write down the Latin for: I was walking; you praised; she was carrying; we shouted; they were

step 4. check your answers by reading the comments to this post

step 5. post a comment with your name and mark out of 20

onomatopoiea

My learned language teaching colleagues and I were discussing onomatopoeia over lunch today, particularly the noises made by animals in different cultures. Did you know, for example, that although dogs say 'woof' or 'bow wow' in English speaking countries, in Germany they say 'wau wau', in France the say 'ouah ouah' and in Japan 'wun wun'?

I'm not sure what dogs said in ancient Rome, but many of the latin verbs which describe the sounds animals make have an onomatopoeiaic quality. Can you guess which animals are most commonly associated with these latin verbs ?

• balo
• baubo
• coaxo
• maumo
• mugio
• pipio
• ululo
• vagio

While we're at it, there's a famous play by the Greek comedian Aristophanes, in which the chorus dances around singing 'brek-kek-kek-kek koax koax, brek-kek-kek-kek koax'. Which animal are they imitating (it's also the name of the play)?

• Related post: Cats and Dogs

Socrates

I read an article the other day comparing the late Jack Gibson to Socrates. Here are a few excerpts:

Jack Gibson was rugby league's Socrates. Just as the 5th century BC Greek father of philosophy taught by asking questions, Gibson - Australia's greatest football coach - encouraged thought with epigramatic one-liners.

Take the brawl at St George Leagues Club in 1970, when Gibson was the Dragons' coach. Gibson... turned to his young winger from Grafton, whom he called "Boy Carr".

"Boy Carr, I've got a question for you... If you put a mug in a tuxedo, put him in a Rolls-Royce and open the door, what steps out?"

Carr was unable to provide an immediate answer and surrendered, saying, "I don't know."
Gibson said: "A mug."...

...like Socrates, who taught Plato, who taught Aristotle, Gibson inspired Wayne Bennett, who mentored Craig Bellamy.

Here's a bit about the real Socrates:

Socrates is the saint and martyr of philosophy. No other great philosopher has been so obsessed with roghteous living. Like many martyrs, Socrates chose not to try to save his life when he probably could have done so by changing his ways. According to Plato, who was there at the time, Socrates told the judges at his trial that '[y]ou are mistaken... if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action- that is, whether he is acting rightly or wrongly.' But, unlike many saints, Socrates had a lively sense of humour; this sometimes appeared as playful wit, sometimes as pregnant irony. And, unlike the saints of any and every religion, his faith consisted not in a reliance on revelation or blind hope but in a devotion to argumentative reason. He would not be swayed by anything less.

[Socrates, Anthony Gottlieb, 1997. p1]

an essay

Here's an essay, which I've just finished writing. I set the question for my year 12 class recently, and thought I should have a bash at trying to answer it myself. If you're not in my year class, you may not find it very interesting (sorry). If you are in my year 12 class, I hope you find it helpful. Feel free to leave a comment (even a negative one).

What can we learn about Horace’s approach to life from his poetry? In your answer refer to at least three poems we have read this year.

Though it may be a dangerous task to try to discern something of a poet’s character from his work, a strong impression of Horace’s approach to life presents itself throughout his Odes. He writes often about the brevity of life and the inescapability of death, and consequently urges his readers to make the most of the short time they do have, without worrying too much about the future.

hic et illic

Here are a few posts from other people's blogs which I've been enjoying lately:

• A useful post on homographs from LatinLanguage.us
• Gifts for the god who has everything from Eternally Cool
• Pilcrows and Octothorps and rare plants and their Latin names from Laudator Temporis Acti
• Finally a post on grammar which is definitely not about me

books

Every month I get an Abbeys catalogue in the mail- I thought I’d post the reviews of some of the book which looked interesting to me from this month’s catalogue.

Imprimatur11 September 1683, Rome. The citizens of the city wait anxiously for the outcome of the battle for Vienna as Ottoman forces lay siege to the defenders of Catholic Europe. Meanwhile, a suspected outbreak of plague causes a famous Roman tavern to be placed under quarantine. A plot to assassinate the pope and plans to use the plague as a weapon of mass destruction in the battle between Islam and the West are discovered. Drawing on original papers discovered in the Vatican archives, this meticulously researched and brilliantly conceived thriller sheds new light on the power struggles of 17th century Europe, the repercussions of which are still felt today.

Cleopatra: Last Queen of EgyptShe was the last ruler of the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies who had ruled Egypt for three centuries. Highly educated (the only one of the Ptolemies to read and speak ancient Egyptian, as well as the court Greek) and very clever (her famous liaisons with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were as much to do with politics as the heart), she steered her kingdom through impossibly taxing internal problems and against greedy Roman imperialism. Stripping away our preconceptions (many of which are as old as her Roman enemies) in this magnificent biography, Tyldesley uses all her skills as an Egyptologist to give us a rich picture of a country and its Egyptian queen.

A Brief History of the Private Lives of Roman EmperorsBlond’s scandalous expose on the life of the Caesar’s is a must-read for anyone interested in what really went on in ancient Rome. Julius Caesar is usually presented as a glorious general, when in fact he was an arrogant charmer and a swank. Augustus was so conscious of his height that he put lifts in his sandals. But they were nothing compared to Caligula, Claudius and Nero! This book makes fascinating reading, eye-opening in its revelations and endlessly entertaining.

Augustus

I've posted quite a few words lately, without many pictures, so here's a picture without many words. It's a photo of a statue of Augustus which I took (or perhaps it was my wife) while on holidays in Rome last year. What a man!

superbus

Superbus is an odd Latin word. It’s obviously the root of ‘superb’, but the meaning of the Latin word is quite different to that of its English derivative, which generally has only positive connotations. Superbus has the basic meaning of ‘proud’, but can be used in a positive or a negative sense. For example in Book VIII of the Aeneid (where the word occurs seven times), it can be used to describe Hercules, the heroic slayer of the monster Cacus (and 'type' of Augustus):

nam maximus ultor
tergemini nece Geryonae spoliisque superbus
Alcides aderat…
For our great avenger, the son of Alceus [Hercules] was at hand, exalting in the death and spoils of three-bodied Geryon…

Virgil, Aeneid VIII.201-2

monsters and portents

If you had to guess the meanings of the Latin words monstrum and portentum, chances are you'd go with their English derivations; 'monster' and 'portent' (i.e. an omen, or sign from the gods). And you'd be right. For example, have a look at the following passages:

huic monstro Volcanus erat pater: illius atros
ore vomens ignis magna se mole ferebat.

Vulcan was the father of this monster: vomiting his father’s black fire from his mouth he would move around with his huge bulk.

Virgil, Aeneid VIII.198-9

tum memorat: 'ne vero, hospes, ne quaere profecto
quem casum portenta ferant: ego poscor Olympo.’

Then [Aeneas] declared: ‘There is no need, my friend, no need to ask what these portents mean: I am called for by Olympus.'

Virgil, Aeneid VIII.532-3

That seems fairly straight forward. Except monstrum doesn't usually mean 'monster'- its basic meaning is 'portent'; portentum on the other hand, can sometimes mean 'monster'. In the following passages for example:

Ecce autem subitum atque oculis mirabile monstrum,
candida per silvam cum fetu concolor albo
procubuit viridique in litore conspicitur sus;

Now suddenly before his eyes there appeared a portent. There through the trees he caught sight of a white sow with offspring of the same colour, lying on the green shore.

Virgil, Aeneid VIII.81-3

namque me silva lupus in Sabina...
fugit inermem.

quale portentum neque militaris
Daunias latis alit aesculetis,
nec Iubae tellus generat, leonum
arida nutrix

For in the Sabine forests a wolf fled from me... unarmed as I was. A monster such as not even warlike Daunia rears in her broad oak forests, nor the land of Juba, that barren nurse of lions.

Horace, Odes I.22.9, 12-16

Why is this so? The basic meaning of each word is to do with signs and omens; each noun derives from a verb- monstrum from monstro, monstrare (to show; cf ‘demonstrate’) and portentum from portendo, portendere (to reveal), thus both words mean something which has been shown or revealed. The secondary meaning of ‘monster’ comes from the idea that monsters are somehow sent from the gods, often as a punishment for some kind of wrong doing (eg the Minotaur, the Calydonian Boar), or that they are able to show the will of the gods in some way.

[These two articles also discuss the word monstrum and related English words]