Christmas holidays start for me today, so posting will be a bit slow for the next month or so (actually it will probably be pretty normal, given it's been pretty slow for the last month as well). A merry Christmas and a safe, relaxing, enjoyable holiday to all (if there's still anyone out there).
For your enjoyment over the festive season, here are a couple of Latin Christmas carols; a tarditional one, originally written in Latin, and one of my personal favourites, and a not so traditional one, originally written in English, but translated into Latin by someone with too much time on their hands.
Veni, veni Emmanuel!
Captivum solve Israel,
qui gemit in exsilio,
privatus Dei Filio.
CHORUS
Gaude, gaude; Emmanuel
nascetur pro te, Israel.
Veni, O Jesse virgula!
Ex hostis tuos ungula,
de specu tuos tartarie
duc et antro barathri.
CHORUS
Veni, veni O Oriens!
Solare nos adveniens,
noctis depelle nebulas
dirasque noctis tenebras.
CHORUS
Veni, Clavis Davidica!
Regna reclude caelica!
Fac iter tutum superum
et claude vias inferum.
CHORUS
Veni, veni Adonai!
Qui populo in Sinai
legem dedisti vertice,
in Maiestate gloriae.
CHORUS
Veni, O Sapientia!
Quae hic disponis omnia,
veni, viam prudentiae
ut doceas et gloriae.
CHORUS
Veni, veni, Rex gentium!
Veni, Redemptor omnium,
ut salvas tuos famulos
peccati sibi conscios.
CHORUS
Reno erat Rudolphus
Nasum rubrum habebat;
Si quando hunc videbas,
Hunc candere tu dicas.
Omnes renores alii
Semper hunc deridebant;
Cum misero Rudolpho
In ludis non ludebant.
Santus Nicholas dixit
Nocte nebulae,
"Rudolphe, naso claro
Nonne carrum tu duces?"
Tum renores clamabant,
"Rudolphe, delectus es!
Cum naso rubro claro
Historia descendes!"
You can find all these and more at this site.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
finding nemo
I recently finished reading Into the Wild, the biography of Christopher McCandless (which has also been made into an excellent movie). At the age of 23 Chris donated all his money to Oxfam, and lived as a homeless hitchhiker for a couple of years, trying to escape the commercialised, consumerist culture which he had come to hate, and eventually ending up in the Alaskan wilderness.
In one section of the book the author detours to discuss other famous Americans who have done similar things, including Everett Ruess. Here's part of what he writes about Ruess:
The name 'Nobody' has been used by others before and after Ruess. In Homer, Odysseus calls himself 'Noboby' in order to trick the Cyclops Polyphemus:
After Odysseus and his men had blinded Polyphemus, his cries of pain attracted the attention of the other Cyclopes:
How appropriate then that Krakauer describes Ruess' journey as an 'odyssey'.
Nemo is also the name of the captain of the submarine Nautilus in Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, another character who spurned society in favour of a nomadic life, and I presume that Nemo the clownfish was named after the captain.
In one section of the book the author detours to discuss other famous Americans who have done similar things, including Everett Ruess. Here's part of what he writes about Ruess:
...like McCandless, upon embarking on his terminal odyssey, Ruess adopted a new name or, rather, a series of new names. In a letter dated March 1, 1931, he informs his family that he has taken to calling himself Lan Rameau... Two months later, however, another letter explains that "I have changed my name again, to Evert Rulan..." and then in August of that same year, with no explanation, he goes back to calling himself Everett Ruess and continues to do so for the next three years- until wandering into Davis Gulch. There for some unknowable reason, Everett twice etched the name Nemo - Latin for "nobody" - into the soft Navajo sandstone - and then vanished. He was twenty years old.
(Into the Wild, John Krakauer, p93)
The name 'Nobody' has been used by others before and after Ruess. In Homer, Odysseus calls himself 'Noboby' in order to trick the Cyclops Polyphemus:
When the wine had coiled its way round his understanding, I spoke to him in meek-sounding words: "Cyclops, you ask what name I boast of. I will tell you, and then you must grant me as your guest the favour that you have promised me. My name is Nobody; Nobody is what my mother and father call me; so likewise do all my friends."
To these words of mine the savage creature made quick response: "Nobody then shall come last among those I eat; his friends I will eat first; this is to be my favour to you."
After Odysseus and his men had blinded Polyphemus, his cries of pain attracted the attention of the other Cyclopes:
Hearing his cries they hastened towards him from every quarter, stood round his cavern and asked him what ailed him: "Polyphemus, what dire affliction has come upon you to make you profane the night with clamour and rob us of our slumbers? Is some human creature driving away your flocks in defiance of you? Is someone threatening death to yourself by craft or by violence?"
From inside the cave the giant answered: "Friends, it is Nobody's craft and Nobody's violence that is threatening death to me."
Swiftly their words were carried back to him: "If nobody is doing you violence - if you are alone - then this is a malady sent by almighty Zeus from which there is no escape; you had best say a prayer to your father, Lord Poseidon."
With these words they left him again, while my own heart laughed within me to think how the name I gave and my ready wit had snared him.
How appropriate then that Krakauer describes Ruess' journey as an 'odyssey'.
Nemo is also the name of the captain of the submarine Nautilus in Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, another character who spurned society in favour of a nomadic life, and I presume that Nemo the clownfish was named after the captain.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
stats
Congratulations to all my year 12 students, who received their HSC results today and have done very well. Here are some HSC statistics for 2008:
Number of students...
Number of my students...
Highest marks in my class...
Percentage of my class in the top performance band...
Number of students...
- sitting the HSC across NSW this year: 67 931
- doing Latin Continuers: 217 (0.32% of the total number of students)
- doing Latin Extension: 122 (0.18% of the total number of students)
Number of my students...
- doing Latin Continuers: 8 (4% of the total number of Latin Continuers students)
- doing Latin Extension: 8 (7% of the total number of Latin Extension students)
Highest marks in my class...
- for Latin Continuers: 95/100
- for Latin Extension: 49/50
Percentage of my class in the top performance band...
- for Latin Continuers: 63%
- for Latin Extension: 75%
Marcus Antonius and Manius Aquilius
At the beginning of Cicero's fifth Verrine oration, he mentions the case of Manius Aquilius, like Verres a former governor of Sicily, who was charged with (and apparently guilty of) corruption during his time in office. Cicero suspects that Verres' lawyer will try to use the same tactics used by Aquilius' lawyer (Marcus Antonius, the grandfather of the famous Mark Antony) to secure his acquittal. This is how he describes the scene:
causa prope perorata ipse arripuit M'. Aquilium constituitque in conspectu omnium tunicamque eius a pectore abscidit, ut cicatrices populus Romanus iudicesque aspicerent adverso corpore exceptas; simul et de illo vulnere quod ille in capite ab hostium duce acceperat multa dixit, eoque adduxit eos qui erant iudicaturi vehementer ut vererentur ne, quem virum fortuna ex hostium telis eripuisset, cum sibi ipse non pepercisset, hic non ad populi Romani laudem sed ad iudicum crudelitatem videretur esse servatus.
With the case almost concluded himself grabbed hold of Manius Aquilius and stood him up in the sight of everyone and tore the tunic from his breast, so that the Roman people and the judges could see the scars received on the front of his body; at the same time he said many things about that wound which he had received on his head from the leader of the enemies, and in this way persuaded those who were meant to judge the case to fear very much that the man whom fortune had snatched from the weapons of the enemies, when he had not spared his very person, that this man would seem to have been preserved not for the praise of the Roman people, but for the cruelty of the judges.
It's a dramatic, sensationalistic approach and Cicero here seems to regard it with cynicism- it was just a convenient trick to get Aquilius acquitted of his obvious guilt (something that Cicero himself would never stoop to doing, of course). But elsewhere Cicero describes the same event with more sympathy. In his De Oratore, he writes from the point of view of Antonius, giving him a chance to explain his actions:
Saepe enim audivi poetam bonum neminem sine inflammatione animorum exsistere posse et sine quodam adflatu quasi furoris. Qua re nolite existimare me ipsum, cum mihi M'. Aquilius in civitate retinendus esset, quae in illa causa peroranda fecerim, sine magno dolore fecisse. quem enim ego consulem fuisse, imperatorem ornatum a senatu, ovantem in Capitolium ascendisse meminissem, hunc cum adflictum, debilitatum, maerentem, in summum discrimen adductum viderem, non prius sum conatus misericordiam aliis commovere quam misericordia sum ipse captus, cum excitavi maestum ac sordidatum senem et cum ista feci, quae tu, Crasse, laudas, non arte, sed motu magno animi ac dolore, ut discinderem tunicam, ut cicatrices ostenderem.
For I have often heard that no man can be a good poet without a burning heart or without some kind of insane inspiration. And so do not suppose that I myself, when I had to defend Manius Aquilius against the State, did the things I did in closing that case, without great emotion. For I remembered that he had been consul, a general decorated by the Senate, that he had climbed the Capitol in triumph, when I saw him him humbled, crippled, sorrowing, his fortunes completely reversed, I was myself overcome by compassion before I tried to excite that same compassion in others, when I called forth that unhappy old man, filthy as he was, and when I did those things which you praise, Crassus, not as a trick, but affected by great pain in my heart- that is I tore open his tunic and exposed his scars.
causa prope perorata ipse arripuit M'. Aquilium constituitque in conspectu omnium tunicamque eius a pectore abscidit, ut cicatrices populus Romanus iudicesque aspicerent adverso corpore exceptas; simul et de illo vulnere quod ille in capite ab hostium duce acceperat multa dixit, eoque adduxit eos qui erant iudicaturi vehementer ut vererentur ne, quem virum fortuna ex hostium telis eripuisset, cum sibi ipse non pepercisset, hic non ad populi Romani laudem sed ad iudicum crudelitatem videretur esse servatus.
With the case almost concluded himself grabbed hold of Manius Aquilius and stood him up in the sight of everyone and tore the tunic from his breast, so that the Roman people and the judges could see the scars received on the front of his body; at the same time he said many things about that wound which he had received on his head from the leader of the enemies, and in this way persuaded those who were meant to judge the case to fear very much that the man whom fortune had snatched from the weapons of the enemies, when he had not spared his very person, that this man would seem to have been preserved not for the praise of the Roman people, but for the cruelty of the judges.
(Cicero, In Verrem V.3)
It's a dramatic, sensationalistic approach and Cicero here seems to regard it with cynicism- it was just a convenient trick to get Aquilius acquitted of his obvious guilt (something that Cicero himself would never stoop to doing, of course). But elsewhere Cicero describes the same event with more sympathy. In his De Oratore, he writes from the point of view of Antonius, giving him a chance to explain his actions:
Saepe enim audivi poetam bonum neminem sine inflammatione animorum exsistere posse et sine quodam adflatu quasi furoris. Qua re nolite existimare me ipsum, cum mihi M'. Aquilius in civitate retinendus esset, quae in illa causa peroranda fecerim, sine magno dolore fecisse. quem enim ego consulem fuisse, imperatorem ornatum a senatu, ovantem in Capitolium ascendisse meminissem, hunc cum adflictum, debilitatum, maerentem, in summum discrimen adductum viderem, non prius sum conatus misericordiam aliis commovere quam misericordia sum ipse captus, cum excitavi maestum ac sordidatum senem et cum ista feci, quae tu, Crasse, laudas, non arte, sed motu magno animi ac dolore, ut discinderem tunicam, ut cicatrices ostenderem.
For I have often heard that no man can be a good poet without a burning heart or without some kind of insane inspiration. And so do not suppose that I myself, when I had to defend Manius Aquilius against the State, did the things I did in closing that case, without great emotion. For I remembered that he had been consul, a general decorated by the Senate, that he had climbed the Capitol in triumph, when I saw him him humbled, crippled, sorrowing, his fortunes completely reversed, I was myself overcome by compassion before I tried to excite that same compassion in others, when I called forth that unhappy old man, filthy as he was, and when I did those things which you praise, Crassus, not as a trick, but affected by great pain in my heart- that is I tore open his tunic and exposed his scars.
(Cicero, De Oratore 194-5)
Monday, December 15, 2008
derivations by association
The other day I was thinking about the word voracious, and how it comes from the Latin word voro (to devour), which is also the root of the word carnivorous; carnis is Latin for meat or flesh, and the source of the word carnival, which was originally a celebration to mark the beginning of Lent, a time when you didn't eat meat- since vale is Latin for good-bye, carnival is literally 'good-bye to meat'; similarly a valediction (see, for example, this poem) is a fancy word for a farewell (dico = to say), and a benediction is a blessing, bene being Latin for good/well- which we also see in the word benevolent, coming from the Latin word to want (volo), as does malevolent, which has the opposite meaning (malus = bad).
That's all really...
That's all really...
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
destructive derivations
For no particular reason here are three English similes for 'destroy' and their Latin derivations:
- to annihilate comes from ad+nihil, to turn something into nothing.
- to obliterate comes comes from the Latin verb oblittero (to blot out or erase), which I presume comes in turn from ob+litterum and must have been originally used in the context of written records.
Year 8, period 3
Once you have finished the worksheet, you can spend some time revising what we have learnt in stage 11. Go to the Cambridge Latin Course website and complete all the Practising the Language exercises you find there (Test your Vocab, Word Endings, Sorting Words).
If you've finished that, you can read a bit about Roman politics and law at one of these sites.
If you've finished that, you can read a bit about Roman politics and law at one of these sites.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Magnapinna
This article in today's paper about a rare species of squid caught my eye. The squid was filmed more than 2km under the sea by a remote control camera, and has been identified as belonging to the magnapinna genus. Magnapinna is Latin for 'big wing/fin', and if you have a look at some of these pictures you can see how it got its name- from the huge size of the fins on the side of its head.
Related Post:
Related Post:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
