mothwing | Entries tagged with latin

Segesta oppidum est pervetus in Sicilia, iudices, quod ab Aenea fugiente a Troia atque in haec loca veniente conditum esse demonstrant.

That he should have had the time to do that at all while he was fleeing is a miracle. I certainly would not have stuck around to found the odd village while I was on the run, especially considering he was carrying around Anchises.

I never realised how much I had forgotten, but at the same time, it's vaguely reassuring how to realise how many of the things I learnt back in 2002 are still there. Too bad that my motivation deteriorated towards the end and I don't have the sound basis of half remembered knowledge on the subjunctive and more complex constructions involving relative clauses that I have for most other things.

I've spent the day I should have used to write my various papers poring over the speech against Verres, and while I can absolutely sympathise with the Sicilians, I'm lost in the constructions more often than not. It would be fun, reading Cicero again (... even though, irrationally, after reading Harris's Imperium, my sympathy for Cicero has diminished greatly because he left Terentia, who was one of my favourite characters in the novel) if there wasn't ( this horrible exam at the end of it all. )

Other than renewing my acquaintance with Cicero's language and works I've spent the day fangirling Michael Praetorius and Giorgio Mainerio (especially the ( Schiarazula Marazula ). One of my favourite pieces ever, probably due to happy memories with

angie_21_237 and Angelo Branduardi's version and holiday tapes back in 1999.

Ok, back to Verres and his collection.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Uelzen
Current Music: Johann Hermann Schein - Suite No 4 in D Major

Exegi monumentum aere perennius
Regalique situ pyramidum altius,
Quod non imber edax, non aquilo impotens
Possit dixuere aut innumerabilis
Annorum series et fuga temporum.
Non omnis moriar multaque pars mei
Vitabit Libitinam: usque ego postera
Crescam laude recens, dum Capitolium
Scandet cum tacita virgine pontifex.
Dicar, qua violens obstrepit Aufidus
Et qua pauper aquae Daunus agrestium
Regnavit populorum, ex humili potens,
Princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos
Deduxisse modos. Sume superbiam
Quaesitam meritis et mihi Delphica
Lauro cinge volens, Melpomene, comam.

I need to practice translating, anyway, and later today, I'm going to practice on that one. The first lines sound more than promising, and all that reminds me of Ozymandias is good.

Current Mood: chipper

( Musings on the Latin III course - to take or not to take? )

EDIT: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!

Prospective English teachers need do an ORAL EXAM??? I only learned that today. I thought, since it's LATIN and no a widely spoken language, a written exam would be it. Well, apparently, I've been wrong... Half and hour of doom... I completely suck at oral exams. ( The reason why I fear them )

Latin was fun, though. The teacher seems really competent and good at what he's doing. Some of the students who already know him asked if he could reintroduce the "Latin quote of the day" (note to self: good idea. Steal.), which sounds like a brilliant way to get students interested. Some of the people from my course were there as well, although my old quadrumfeminate is now only a triumfeminate, sadly. We also received the texts for next week and the teacher uploads his course materials on his home page. He's really good, although he also made us abandon hopes - he treated us to his opinion on the State Examination Office,

"Seriously, normal people just do not work there. It's just sadists who have taken up the job to have an outlet for their tendencies, and natural laws of human interaction are not valid there, as everybody who has ever had to contact them will know."

Thanks for that. We also learnt to the immense horror of non-natives that everybody needs to take this monster of an external exam in the state they come from. Well, that or get a signed "Declaration of Unobjectionability" from their home states that permits them to take the exam in Hamburg. Here's hoping that it's just a formality...
...et ibant omnes ut profiterentur singuli in suam civitatem ...

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: Philoturm, University of Hamburg

I passed the Latin test!

I don't have any definite results yet, though, because the papers had to be passed from our teacher, who corrected them, to her Professor, who corrected them again, to the Dean, who has to sign them. I never knew it was such a big deal! It's only and exam, but because it's also the first "Latinum", it seems to be more of a big deal than I would have anticipated.

Silke and I came to collect our results, but they couldn't tell us anything so I called our dear Professor at home. I don't like calling teachers, seriously. She was very nice, though, and let us know that we had both passed (much to our relief) and asked us if we liked the course and if we had at least some fun. I told her that we did and that we were also going to see her again in Latin III. She was really happy about that. Oooh, I love her, she is such a nice woman. Absolutely kind and gentle. I'm really looking forward to the third course!

I rewarded myself with Rainer Maria Rilke's collected poems - boy, it was hard to make that decision! I hung around in that bookstore for hours, walking to and fro between the Rilke (useful), Marias' A Heart So White (have been wanting it for ages) and Kundera's Identitiy (craaaaaaave!), until the shopkeeper started hanging around me to see if I was stealing anything. Well, I was about to steal Plays Pleasant and Plays Unpleasant, by Shaw, that's true. I'd love to see them performed, though. Maybe they available on tape somewhere... hm.

Now, I'm going to attack the scary mildew with a brush as per instruction and see if it's dead (hopefully). It sounds like a bad idea to brush it off the wall, because that's bound to send spores flying everywhere, but that's what it says on the bottle. Hm.

Current Mood: content
Current Location: My Room
Current Music: An Dro Suite - Wohlgemut

Did I mention that the designers of our lovely, shiny new E-Learning system FORGOT about Minor subjects?

EDIT: some of them, that is. Some were lucky, but then, it only befits my faculties to be sloppy and unorganised. They always are.

Until today, students could only enroll for courses in their Major subject - in most cases. Minors - pshaw, who even needs those?

I only need one more course in my major, all other courses I need are in my minor subject.
This whole thing is so typical of my university - instead of introducing it little by little, for the new students who enroll this year first of all and then, after a test phase, subsequently for the rest, they do it for everybody at the same time and are dismayed when it does not work - as everybody with a spoonful of brain would have known from the beginning.

For most courses on the syllabus of my lovely German literature minor, it's still not possible to enroll online and I'll just have to come along to the first session and basically see what happens. I hope nobody'll kick me out or anything. Studying in Hamburg is nothing for the faint-hearted, each semester, some new, half-baked plan will amuse old hands and cause younglings to despair.

Today, I'm going to try and get someone to explain to me what I'll have to do when I change from my ordinary Magister-course to the "state examination" teachers have to take in Germany. The courses themselves are pretty much the same, it's just another title and stupendous amounts of paperwork if you want to change your course. The only difference is that you have to take more of everything as a teacher and have to do internships and Latin.

Oh, and I'll get my Latin results today. *crosses fingers*

Anything else? Uh, no. *sigh* Nothing interesting ever happens in my life. Other than waiting for Stine to work properly I am reading a lovely book on "courtly culture". I'd love to be able to go back to the late years of the 12 century and hear what those Minne songs really sounded like.
Couldn't these guys hurry a little with realising that not only church music deserved proper notation? I know that those cunning folks have been using neumes back in the 9th century, couldn't they be a little more liberal and teach those illiterate courtiers not only to write the words but the notes of their songs as well?
It feels so pointless to look at the text of a song without any idea whatsoever what the music sounded like.

Current Mood: cynical
Current Location: My Room
Current Music: For the Beauty of the Earth - Rutter: London Sinfonia

Yesterday, after the Latin lesson, one day before the Latin exam today, a small group of diligent students met downstairs in the Great Hall and, when our wonderfully batty teacher had walked past and wished us good luck for today, hurriedly stuck their heads together and had a whispered conversation.

"The paragraph she'll use in the Latin exam is going to be one that deals with a battle, and it can be understood as a whole without loads of info about stuff that happened before?"

"Yes. And judging from the vocab she had us practise, it's going to have the words "acies", "collis", "impedimenta", "homo", "equitates" and the like in it, too. Right?"

"Yep."

"And it is definitely going to be from the first book, right?"

"Yes, she said so."

Frantic page turning and silence followed as furrowed brows bent over bilingual versions of the work of the great commander.
"Heeey...the only paragraphs he does have that actually discuss a battle are 24, 25 and 52." Members of the Secret Service could not have been more proud.

"Yes! That's true. Oh! Oh!"

Frantic counting ensued.

"Paragraph 24 has only 97 words! That's SO going to be it. It also has "acies", "collis", various horsemen and "montes" in it. Oh! And remember how she said that she had to change one of the "uti"s Caesar keeps using instead of "ut" into "ut" to make it easier for us to understand?"
A triumphant finger was thrust at the offending sentence and six hopeful faces stared down at the page. The huddled congregation was joined by other students with various books and printed pages.

"Paragraph 24?"

"Paragraph 24."

And the despairing recovered hope, the busy felt as though they were going to manage it after all, the lazy relished the human kindness, and the meeting dispersed.
Did I want to believe that? Did I think that this most convenient solution for all our problems was, in fact, going to be the solution? Nooo. What did they do? They learnt the German translation of §24 by heart, and what did I spend my day with? Grammar, grammar, the content of the first book, translating a couple of paragraphs that could have been meant as well (24, 25, 51 and 52). I feel dumb. It was sooo obvious it was going to be that one, but for some reason, those hints always seem to be too convenient for me and I don't dare believe them.

Today, everybody had ominous white sheets of paper that bore the words Postquam id animadvertit, copias suas Caesar in proximum collem subducit equitatumque, qui sustineret hostium impetum, misit.

"If that text is not going to start with a "postquam", I am going to faint," came various whispered sighs, reading and re-reading their translations and asking last-minute questions to the learned.

The exam began, the first test sheets were distributed and anxious eyes followed our teacher as she gave out the sheets, hopeful whispers were heard everywhere in the room.

"Postquam?"

"Yep."

And a sigh of relief washed through the room, when at the far back people unfolded their smuggled German translation and started copying, word for word.

Too bad that I never manage to cheat properly and did not learn the German translation of the paragraph by heart like others. I could KICK myself.
Why do I have to be so utterly incapable of cheating?
I already found two possible mistakes, although I personally do not see why they should be treated as such - I hope they do allow us to turn the Latin text into a grammatical German translation instead of expecting an ungrammatical word-for-word translation. Hm. And I have the sneaking suspicion that some of those alleged ablativi absoluti might not have been, in fact, abl abs's. Damnit.

Well, we pass or we fail. But I don't think I'm going to fail.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Rutter: Sanctus (from Requiem)- The Cambridge Singers

Now, this is really something for the musical connoisseurs of the lingua latina out there.

Sing the golden oldies. In Latin!

My favourites are "Silentio Sonante" and "Pons super amnem magnum".

I have been singing this song all day:

( Abeo Cursu Longo )

Off to do some shopping now. A friend of mine invited me and another friend to a video night, I bet it will be a lot of fun!

Current Mood: nerdy
Current Music: My Latin rendition of "Leaving on a Jetplane"

Profile

Mothwing

Books

January 2022

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

Style Credit

Style: Fruit Salad for Leftovers by sforzinda

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Friday, June 13th, 2025 03:31 pm

Roads to Safe Places

Uton we hycgan hwær we ham agen, ond þonne geþencan hu we þider cumen

Entries tagged with latin

Saturday with Cicero

Horatius, Carmina III, 30,1.

Latin III

Latin and Rilke

Stine yet again...

Postquam

Abeeeeeeeeo, cursu longoooo....

Profile

January 2022

Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags