On demand translations

One of the, uh, perks of my profession is that I get friends and family asking me about translating Latin phrases they come across (or want to get tattooed?!) and yesterday evening, I got a picture of a card with some fancy script and a Latin phrase from B.i.L.2. (brother-in-law, second of that appellation).  He said that his boss wanted to know what it meant.  Heh.  "Meaning."  What a loaded term for a translation...  >;)  Here's the pic:

Turns out it's an epigram by Martial (he of the chiasmus at the end of chapter three) and translates (more or less) as "Whether it is sent to someone dear or to someone unknown, a letter still calls everyone 'his own.'"

Basically, he is playing off of the fact that many people used the reflexive pronoun as a greeting in a letter and that it doesn't matter who writes the letter or to whom the letter is sent, the letter will say the same thing to the reader...  So be careful what you write.  Since we do something similar, using "Dear..." to open most letters--regardless of how dear that individual may or may not be--we could choose to translate Martial's poem as something like, "Whether lightly known or someone near, a letter still calls everyone 'dear.'"

Of course, I could have explained all of this fascinating detail to B.i.L.2., but all I sent back was, "I could tell you all about the subtlety, but I like you. ;)"

Chronogram?

Random, if interesting, note from a book about rabies.  Rabid: A cultural history of the world's most diabolical virus by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy New York: Viking, 2012. 

So, in a chapter about Saint Hubert, a saint whose relics were reputed to heal rabies, Wasik and Murphy mention that after the saint's reliquary was stolen, "one enameled display bears a chronogram, or Latin message carrying a date inside it, reading: "ConCVLCaVerVntsanCtIfICatIoneM"--or, "They have spurned that which is most holy," with the numerals spelling out 1568 [when the relics were stolen]."  p. 45

Progress reports, 3 December 2012

I was able to pass out progress reports for Latin 1, Latin 3 and Latin 4.  SOAR and Mythology suffered technical digi-funkies and I will distribute them tomorrow.  Latin 2 has had a stay of execution in order to let them work on the quiz corrections for homework.

Nevertheless, progress need to be signed and returned to me by Friday.  This Friday.

Latin 1 mythology project due dates

2 November, 2012—Creation myth rough draft

6 November, 2012—Creation myth peer editing

13 November, 2012—Creation myth second draft

16 November, 2012—Ruler myth second draft

27 November, 2012—Ruler myth peer editing

30 November, 2012—Ruler myth second draft due

7 December, 2012—Warrior figure rough draft due

11 December, 2012—Warrior figure peer editing

14 December, 2012—Warrior figure second draft due

11 January, 2013—Love figure rough draft

15 January, 2013—Love figure peer editing

18 January, 2013—Love figure second draft

25 January, 2013—Trickster figure rough draft

29 January, 2013—Trickster figure peer edit

1 February, 2013—Trickster figure second draft

8 February, 2013—Death figure rough draft

12 February, 2013—Death figure peer editing

15 February, 2013—Death figure second draft

22 February, 2013—Nature figure rough draft

26 February, 2013—Nature figure peer editing

1 March, 2013—Nature figure second draft due

27 March, 2013—Final draft due

Post Thanksgiving homework (26-30 Nov, 2012)

Latin 1:
Monday--Texts to the past (3)

• Into your composition book
• Tweeted @KHSLatin
• Posted to the Facebook page

Tuesday--Work on your second draft of the ruler myth
Wednesday--
Thursday--Study for the quiz/finalize ruler myth second draft

Latin 2:
Monday--Wiki work, messy myths
Tuesday--Imperative forms (positive and negative) for iacio, iacere--"to throw"
Wednesday--Imperative forms (positive and negative) for battuo, battuere--"to beat" or "to fence"
Thursday--Study for the quiz

Latin 3:
Monday--Ghosts, 8.1
Tuesday--Ghosts, 8.2
Wednesday--Ghosts, 8.3
Thursday--Study for the quiz

Latin 4:
Monday--Read Justinian's Flea. chapter 8
Tuesday--Keep reading Justinian's Flea. chapter 8
Wednesday--Be prepared for discussion on Justinian's Flea. chapter 8
Thursday--Study for the quiz

13-16 Nov homework post

Gah.  Sorry this is a day late...

Latin I
Tuesday--Ruler myth rough draft
Wednesday--Fully decline the noun and adjective "bellum iustum" (n)
Thursday--Fully decline the noun and adjective "fabula mala" (f)

Latin II
Tuesday--Wiki work
Wednesday--Fully decline the noun and adjective "unus sonus"
Thursday--Fully decline the noun and adjective "duo corpores"

Latin III
Tuesday--7.1
Wednesday--7.2
Thursday--7.3

Mythology--Keep working on the wiki, especially since we do not have our usual lab time this week.

Latin 1--Ruler myth guidance

Ok, so I totally forgot my laptop today and it had the handout that I needed to print...  Oops.  So here's a little info on what I will be looking for with the Ruler Myth Rough Draft:

~A ruler (king, queen, etc) deity is the god or goddess which is in charge.  He or she usually embodies something which is vital to the society over which he or she rules.  E.g. Jupiter is the god of the sky but also the law, victory and other good Roman values.

~After researching other ruler deities, your myth needs to be a story about the ruler, how they use (...  or abuse...) their power and to what/whose benefit. Your myth might be about how your ruler deity came into power or, alternatively, how they keep power. 

~Examples of ruler deities:
Zeus
Jupiter
Danu
The Dagda
Horus
Ra
Quetzalcoatl
Brahma/Shiva/Vishnu
Izanagi
Marduk
Tengri
Odin
Ahura Mazda
Ishtar

And many more...

Halloween homework (29 Oct-2 Nov)

Latin 1--Continue brainstorming about your project: e.g. what kind of culture do you have that will produce these myths?  What is important to them and how do they preserve it? 

Latin 2--Brainstorm on your project: where do we get the myths from, and (by extension), how do we find the primary sources?

Latin 3--Chapter 6 of Ghosts: 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3

Latin 4--Have chapter 5 (law stuff) of Justinian's Flea read by Wednesday morning.  We will also go over the textbook readings and any exercises you feel need going over.

Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

 I am so into this book right now; I would read it to my SOAR class but...  The selective, but effective, use of profanity prevents that.  Still, students of any language (especially an old one) would do well to remember the following exchange between the titular character, Alif, an American academic and a jinn named Vikram:

"... How do you translate ذرة in your English interpretation [of the Quran]?"
"Atom," [she] said.
"You do not find that strange considering atoms were unknown in the sixth century?"
[She] chewed her lip.  "I never thought of that," she said.  "You're right.  There's no way atom is the original meaning of the word."
"Ah."  Vikram held up two fingers in a sign of benediction.  He looked, Alif thought, like some sort of demonic caricature of a saint.  "But it is.  In the twentieth century, atom became the original meaning of ذرة, because an atom was the tiniest object known to man.  Then man split the atom.  Today, the original meaning might be hadron.  But why stop there?  Tomorrow, it might be quark.  In a hundred years, some vanishingly small object so foreign to the human mind that only Adam remembers its name.  Each of those will be the original meaning of ذرة."
Alif snorted.  "That's impossible. ذرة must refer to some fundamental thing.  It's attached to an object. 
"Yes it is.  The smallest indivisible particle.  That is the meaning packaged in the world.  No part of it lifts out--it does not mean smallest, nor indivisible, nor particle, but all those things at once.  Thus, in man's infancy, ذرة was a grain of sand.  Then an atom.  And so on.  Man's knowledge of the universe may grow, but ذرة does not change."
...
"I don't understand," said Alif.  "What does this have to do with The Thousand and One Days?  It's not a holy book.  Not even to the jinn.  It's a bunch of fairy tales with double meanings that we can't figure out."
"How dense and literal it is..."
"Your mother's dense," Alif said wearily.
"My mother was an errant crest of sea foam.  But that's neither here nor there.  Stories are words, Alif, and words, like ذرة, sometimes represent much grander things..."

G. Willow, Wilson. Alif the Unseen. New York: Grove Press, 2012. 207-208.  

What really interests me is how I am reading this two years after this article by Rober Krulwich tickled my fancy in a similar way.  Krulwich tells a story of the (not-quite-yet-Buddha) prince Siddhartha contesting for his bride-to-be.  One challenge in these contests is a mathematical problem: how many Xs in a yojana (~10 kilometers) where X is the smallest possible unit imaginable.  And he's not far wrong!  He estimates the approximate size of a carbon atom. 

The moral of the stories?  Just because someone lived a thousand, two thousand or more millennia ago does not de facto make them a moron. 

That, or the Buddha was a jinn, but that's mixing mythologies.  ;)

Homework for 15 to 19 October

Latin 1:
Monday--Timeo, timere "to fear"
Tuesday--Casa, casae (f) "little house"
Wednesday--Via, viae (f) "road" or "way"
Thursday--Ager, agri (m) "field"

Latin 2:
Monday--Pono, ponere "to place" or "put" (present tense, active and passive)
Tuesday--Pono, ponere "to place" or "put" (imperfect tense, active and passive)
Wednesday--Figo, figere "to fasten" or "attach" (present tense, active and passive)
Thursday--Figo, figere "to fasten" or "attach" (imperfect tense, active and passive)

Latin 3: Ghosts of Cannae
Monday--5.1
Tuesday--5.2
Wednesday--5.3
Thursday--5.4

Latin 4:
We will go over chapter four of Justinian's Flea for tomorrow, chapter five for when we get back!

Bring your own device experiment

As per our various discussions last week, please consider the following text amended to the syllabus:

Students are encouraged to bring personal electronic devices for educational purposes (cell phones, mp3 players, tablets, etc.) Students need faculty permission to make cell-phone calls during school hours. Inappropriate use of a personal electronic device may result in confiscation.

N.B. Students assume responsibility for safety and storage of their devices.

Examples of acceptable educational uses include, but are not limited to:
· Checking a definition
· Inputting homework, notes or other class materials
· Listening to music while working solo or in small group
· Searching for supplementary material or information

Examples of unacceptable uses include, but are not limited to:
· Texting on an unrelated topic to someone outside the classroom
· Searching for material specifically barred by law or school policies

My objective in this experiment is to…

1. Teach and demonstrate good digital citizenship
2 Teach source evaluation (digital, traditional and hybrid)
3Teach how to use technology to produce a good product, i.e. avoiding “death by PowerPoint”

This is not a license to abuse electronics in other classes; this extends only to this classroom and no further. Please make sure that your electronic devices are stowed and secure before leaving the classroom.

Homework for 8 to 12 October

Latin 1 and 2
Monday: Amicus, amici (m)--Friend
Tuesday: Animus, animi (m)--Breath/spirit
Wednesday: Vir, viri (m)--Man

Latin 3
Monday: Ghosts 3.6
Tuesday: 4.1
Wednesday: 4.2

Latin 4
Chapter four of Justinian's Flea for next Monday

The Last Unicorn's contribution to the myth class

So, I need to chase down this quote in the 'real' book, but I have to wait for it from the library...  Instead, this is my transcription from the graphic novel; words from a brigand who is offended that the wizard knows stories about Robin Hood, but not himself:

"Robin Hood's a classic example of the heroic folk figures synthesized out of need... John Henry is another.  Men have to have heroes, but no man can ever be as big as the need, and so a legend grows around a grain of truth, like a pearl... Robin Hood is the fable and I am the reality.  No ballads will accumulate  around my name unless I write them myself; no children will read of my adventures in their school books and play at me after school.  I mean, you can't leave epic events to the people.  They get everything wrong."

Of course, though he speaks about Robin Hood, the same could be said for many heroes.  ;)

Cleopatra and de quiz de Nile

Remember, quizzes for all Latin sections tomorrow; below is a brief summary of the mini-seminar from Latin 2 on the movie Cleopatra.

~The movie had a slower pace than many students desired but the action was good when it happened; the second half was more political and focused on the core characters of Antony and Cleopatra rather than the wider story.

~Cleopatra was very charismatic and sympathetic but many felt that she got over Caesar's death too quickly; she was with Caesar for power but Antony for love.

~Through most of the movie, Cleopatra want Egypt to be great again and tries anything within her power to make that happen.  Her focus is on her son as the heir of Egypt and Caesar but then she chooses Antony over her duty and obligations.  At the end, she's not crying over her son or kingdom, but Antony.

~Does the queen emulate the goddess Isis to make her seem more confident or does emulating a goddess make her so?  She was raised to think of herself as a living deity, something which Caesar and Marc Antony were not raised to belive nor would their culture acccept the mindset of one man being "master of Rome" (or anything else for that matter).

~"Octavian really got on my nerves."  Yea, well, emperors are not known for making friends...  ;)

HomeWHOOPS for 1 to 5 October

Seems I forgot to post this to the blog yesterday...  Oops, sorry.  :\

Latin 1 and 2 (2 does Imperfect as well as perfect)
Monday: Teneo, tenere (to hold)
Tuesday: Video, videre (to see)
Wednesday: Voco, vocare (to call)

Latin 3--Ghosts
Monday: 3.3
Tuesday: 3.4
Wednesday: 3.5

Latin 4
Chapter 3 of Justinian's Flea for Monday

Homework for 24-28 September... And togas?!

Since this week's homework is pretty straight forward, I'm just going to sock it to y'all in one lump. 

Latin 1--Narro, narrare (to tell), habeo, habere (to have) and habito, habitare (to live in).

Latin 2--Same verbs as the 1s, but you can do four times as many different things with them.

Latin 3--2.6 tonight and on to Carthage (ch 3) for the rest of the week.

Latin 4--Chapter 1 by Thursday, Chapter 2 by Monday.  And remember to make a toga by Friday.  Here are some links to help:

Not bad, but the illustrations help more than the descriptions.

Simpler, but less coverage.

Similar to the above but more descriptive.

Homework for 18 and (oops) 17 September

18 September
Latin 4--Pronouns... (boo!) And chapter one of Justinian's Flea (yay?)
Latin 1--Puella, puellae (f) "Girl"
Myth--Project working-on-itude
Latin 3--2.4 in Ghosts of Cannae
Latin 2--Imperfect forms (active and passive), plus translations of the verb porto, portare--"To carry"

17 September
Latin 1--Terra, terrae (f) "Land" or "Earth"
Latin 2--Imperfect forms of ago, agere "To drive"
Latin 3--2.3 and review verb forms
Latin 4--Begin chapter 1 if you haven't already and brace yourself for pronoun review.

12 September homework blast

SOAR: Have books!  I grade you now...
Latin 4: Review hic, haec hoc (yes, I know it hurts).
Latin 1: Prep presentations; remember that if you are hitching your wagon to technology (PowerPoint, etc) to have a backup.
Myth: Complete your "rough draft" summary and be ready to work up a newer, shiner second draft tomorrow.
Latin 3: 2.2 and review.
Latin 2: Review your basics (noun/verb forms).

11 September homework

SOAR--Remember, down to the media center for books tomorrow!

Latin 4--Quiz corrections, we will go over them tomorrow.  And keep reading Flea

Latin 1--Quiz corrections

Myth--Compose a summary of a story that you know well and think can take the application of Campbell's Hero's Journey (books, films, fairy tales, etc).

Latin 3--2.1 in Ghosts and quiz corrections

Latin 2--Quiz corrections. 

10 September homework

SOAR--Reminder that we will be going to the media center tomorrow and Weds

Latin 4--Read intro and preface to Flea

Latin 1--Nothing…  Yet…

Myth--Review the hero's journey, we will continue it tomorrow; if you didn't understand a part, re-read the portion in the handout and come with questions!

Latin 3--1.6 in Ghosts and REVIEW!!!  One chart.

Latin 2--Review, review, review (especially verb endings!!!)

The week ahead...

...and yes, the promised extra credit info. 

All Latin sections should expect homework or directed study Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  I will not be available for tutoring after school on Wednesday on account of needing to eat before the fencing meeting at 6:30p that day.  ;) 

Now, for the extra credit example I promised on Friday.  You can click the 'extra credit' tag on this post to see some other examples, but here's one a Latin 1 brought in as a question the other day.  It involves YouTube, a rather strange show and Google. 

Said student asked what the Latin was in an episode from The Regular Show on Cartoon Network.  Episode's title, More Smarter, should give you an idea of where this is going with relation to Latin...  Anyway.  I cannot find a legitimate clip, so until Cartoon Network dains to post one...  Left with this transcription of an argument between the two main characters (it also saves you from hearing the wretched pronunciation):

Mordecai: "Quārum hī vitiō moriānis?"

Rigby: "Moriānis? Moriānis vestris incipivit rem tōtam."

Mordecai: "Et hi irem facĕre debēre īre stultum."

Wow, you say, Mr. McConnel is so cool that he was able to get all that by just listening to it!  No, dear student mine, no.  I used the internet.  I used a search-term trick my wife taught me, which is to answer my who-what-when-where-why-how questions and plug those into my search.  To wit, I searched for 'regular show more smarter latin' and, lo, someone had already posted this same question on Yahoo Questions. Fair is fair, and I used the above's transcription and translation as a guide for my own. 

Translation then looks like this:
M: Of whose this by means of incorrect ideas?
R: Ideas?  By means of y'all's ideas all of this thing began.
M: And this hedgehog would make another hedgehog stupid.

Wow.  Cannot begin to tell you how bad the grammar is, but you get a sense of it from the, um, "English" rendering.  My guess is that the writers used an online translator and just wrote what they got out of the other side...  Yet another reason not to trust them.  ;)

Quizzes incoming!

Latin 2, 3 and 4, you've got a bunch of sentences you've kind of seen before...  Which is to say that I've taken them from the book and made some adjustments.  >;)

Latin 1: review your notes from this week; the story of Romulus and Remus, parts of speech and nouns.

Myth: You will be allowed to use the Campbell comic book as reference, so be ready to tell me what he says in your own words.

Homework roundup, 4 September

Latin 4 needs to study hic, haec, hoc while 1 just needs to make sure there's a transcription and translation on the page.  Myth makes art while 3 reads 1.4 (and studies endings) and Latin 2 is off the hook because I plumb forgot.

I want to host a host of hosts?!

A simple question today in Latin 4 led to, of course, a complicated answer.  Because it's Latin.

The word "host" in English has three distinctly different possible definitions...  Why?

Ok, here we go.  According to my go-to guide on the history of words and their uses (etymology.com, though I would prefer the OED if I had access), a host who receives guests is a portmanteau of the Latin word hospes (could mean either 'host' or 'guest') from which we get 'hospitality' etc and the Old English word ghostis which means 'stranger.'

Option two is a host, as in an army (archaic, but you see it still); as in, "our men were set upon by a mighty host of the enemy."  This version comes from the Latin hostis which means an enemy of the state (a personal enemy is an inimicus in case you were curious).

Option three is consecrated bread for a Christian service, from the Latin hostia, 'a sacrifice.'

You may all groan and roll your eyes now. 

Quizzes for everyone tomorrow!!!

All sections of Latin and Mythology; fun for the whole family! 

Latin 4: Participles and the Huns.

Latin 1: Note, notes and names.  Overview of Roman History and the beginnings of Latin Literature.  Plus Roman names.

Myth: Remember the movie and be prepared to apply Jung to it.

Latin 3: Perfect and Ghosts.

Latin 2; Trojan Horse.

Homework for 29 August

Latin 4: Nothing formal, but be ready to go over the sentences tomorrow.

Latin 1: Clean up your name and do it if you haven't already...

Mythology: Who are these guys anyway?  (Freud, Jung and Campbell)

Latin 3: 1.3 of Ghosts--And take notes this time, please. 

Latin 2: Do the homework you were supposed to have done yesterday...  :\

And if a Latin 4 offers you a piece of jerky?  NOLI EDERE!!!  (don't eat it)

27 August homework

Latin 4: Find or speculate fourth-principal part of some verbs you already know.  Also, I am soliciting ideas for read-alouds dealing with King Arthur, the Middle Ages, etc.  PG or PG-13 please.  I like my job.

Latin 3: Completely (Latin forms and English translations) go through the perfect tense (active) of the verb studio, studere, studi--To study

Latin 1: What is your name?  What does it mean?

Mythology: Any further thoughts or ideas prompted by today's clip or the handout?

Latin 2: Completely (Latin forms and English translations) go through the present tense (active and passive) of the verb cupio, cupere--To desire or to want.

Also, for Latin 1, in case you didn't get the summation of our note-taking exercise, here it is:

• The big pic: the story of Romulus and Remus, the founding of Rome and how the Romans saw it (and what it can tell us about them)
• The story: Amulius steals Numitor's throne.  Makes Numitor's daughter a priestess (no sex).  She gets pregnant by Mars and has twins.  Amulius orders twins thrown into the Tiber River.  Twins saved by a wolf and a woodpecker (or some guy and his _____ wife).  Twins grow up, kill Amulius and put Numitor back on the throne.  Go off to found their own city, Romulus kills Remus. 

Visi-visi-visigoths

The following blurb from the Writer's Almanac today:

"It was on this day in the year 410 that Rome was sacked by the Visigoths. It was the first time in 800 years that Rome was successfully invaded.

The leader of the Visigoths was a man named Alaric. They came from what is now Germany, and were one of the many tribes who were suffering at the hands of the Roman Empire. Roman leaders enforced higher and higher taxes on the people in their outer provinces, and corrupt local officials grew wealthy while the people stayed poor. Rebellions broke out, and the Visigoths started moving toward Rome. Once it became clear that the Visigoths were preparing to invade the city, about 30,000 Roman soldiers and slaves defected to Alaric's army — many of them had been captured from the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire and forced into servitude.

The Visigoths began their siege of Rome in 408, and soon residents were starving. Alaric agreed to end the siege in return for 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silk tunics, 3,000 pounds of pepper, and 3,000 leather hides. But Alaric's next round of negotiations fell apart; furious, he returned to his siege on Rome, and the city soon fell to the Visigoths.

St. Jerome, one of the great Church leaders of the day, was living in Bethlehem when Rome fell. He wrote: "My voice sticks in my throat; and, as I dictate, sobs choke my utterance. The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken." Those who were not Christians blamed Christianity for destroying the long-lived Roman Empire. St. Augustine, living in Hippo, wrote an entire book called City of God to reassure Christians that the fall of Rome was not a judgment on Christianity.

The 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon, who is most famous for his book The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), called Rome's fall "the greatest, perhaps, and most awful scene in the history of mankind.""

What the Myth?

The following are the quotes used during today's discussion about mythology in the Mythology class.  Latin students may choose to disregard.  Or not.  ;)

}  Definitions from the board:

◦      “Teachings too old to know whether or not they are true, so they are experimented with and investigated.”

◦      “Big scary gods.”

◦      “Mythical, folklore, creatures, stories.

Quotes:

}  “Myth [is] a dramatic presentation of the moral wisdom of the race.  The myth uses the totality of the senses rather than just the intellect.”—Rollo May

}  “Myth is the secret opening through which inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestations.”—Joseph Campbell

}  “Myths are things which never happened but always are.”—Carl Sagan

}  “Myth… is the distilled essence of human experience, expressed as metaphoric narrative.”—John Alexander Allen

}  “Myth is whatever a people believe or behave as though they believe.”—Richard Guches

}  “Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.”

The functions of mythology (according to Campbell):

1. Awakens and perpetuates a sense of wonder and participation in the mystery of the universe.
2. Gives a deep and mystical importance to the shared image of the universe.
3. Validates and maintains moral systems and customs.
4. Conducts individuals through the cycles of their lives.
1. i.e. birth, childhood, maturity, old age and death.       

Scientist smackdown

For those of you not familiar with either Richard Dawkins or Neil DeGrasse Tyson, both are respected scientists... And I just watched a clip online of Tyson "rebuking" Dawkins.  The transcription below (as well as corrections and punctuation) are mine, and this is what Tyson says about the difference between being an advocate and an educator: "One of them is you put the truth out there, and like you said, they either buy your book or they don't. Well, that's not being an educator; that's just putting it out there. Being an educator is not only getting the truth right but there's got to be an act of persuasion in there as well. Persuasion isn't always: 'here's the facts, you're either an idiot or you're not,' it's, 'here are the facts and here is a sensitivity to your state of mind;' and it's the facts plus the sensitivity, when convolved together, that creates impact."

I wish that I could have attached the clip...  But there's un-bleeped language from Dawkins at the end and, well, I'd rather spend ten minutes transcribing than two hours responding to emails about how I let a university professor drop profanity onto my blog.

Also, "convolved."  New favorite word.  ;)

Black Nile by Dan Morrison

I picked this up because I am, after a childhood of Indiana Jones and steady diet of Victorian-era explorers, an avowed Egypt-nut.  When my wife and I went there, it was a trip of a lifetime and we always talk about going back...  Which would be the price of another trip of a lifetime.  ;)

Until then, I have books.  This one chronicles one man's journey from the White Nile's origin at Lake Victoria aaall the way to Rosetta on the Mediterranean coast.  I was glad he spent a lot of time detailing the southern reaches of his journey, and I was expecting some Latin-related stuff later on...  But then I came across this not half-way in:

"We were approaching the Sudd.  For thousands of years this giant swamp--more than fifty thousand square miles, as big as England--had repelled invaders from the lands to the north.  The British explorer Samuel Baker described it as "a vast sea of papyrus ferns and rotting vegetation, and in that fetid heat there is a spawning tropical life that can hardly have altered very much since the beginning of the world."  In AD 61 the Roman emperor Nero, who controlled Egypt, dispatched troops up the river to find the source of the Nile.  They returned with reports of "immense marshes" that were too dense for all by the smallest of one-man canoes."

Imagine...  A physical barrier that stopped the Romans.  Not the Alps, Pyrenees, Rhine, Danube or even the deserts of the Middle East...  But a swamp.

Citation:
Dan Morrison, The Black Nile, New York: Viking Penguin, 2010, p. 132.

Old stories and a question

I was goofing around, finding fun tid-bits for the myth class I may be teaching in the Fall, and I remembered a line by one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett: "But it was much earlier even than that when most people forgot that the very oldest stories are, sooner or later, about blood." Comes from the opening page of his book Hogfather, a send-up of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, etc. I do love satire.

But here's the rub, how do I teach that? Right now, I'm in the middle of a great book, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by NC native son Steven Sherrill. It's good, although dense, and not a book I could recommend to a student... Under eighteen. It has sexuality, cursing and a slew of check-marks that would get an "R" rating slapped on the movie.

... But how is that any different from teaching Saturn lying in wait for Uranus and dismembering him? Or Jupiter's cavalcade of conquests (read: rapes)? I mean, I'm not about to throw out decorum or good taste here, but where is the line? For this blog, for me as a teacher? I am curious what you all think. I am especially interested in parental input, since (after all), it's your children's minds I'm corrupting.

Citation:

Terry Pratchett, Hogfather, New York: HarperTorch, 1996, p. 1.

The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt

I heard about this one on the radio some months ago, but only just got around to it.  Even though Greenblatt's focus is on the Renascence humanist and bibliophile, Poggio Bracciolino, it is Bracciolino's discovery of the first-century BCE On the Nature of Things by Lucretius is the drive.

I really, really liked Greenblatt's reading and analysis of Epicurean, Stoic and Humanist philosophy within the context of their respective ages but...  Wow.  Is he ever biased.  He only grudgingly admits that Scholasticism (the intellectual driving force of the early to high Middle Ages) might (just maybe) have had something to do with the preservation of this great poem...  And, more to the point, he seems to delight in bashing on imperial and medieval Christians whenever he gets the chance.  


Ok, he's a prof at Harvard and his previous book was on Shakespeare, so I know he's going to favor the Ren/Ref ex post facto mentality...  But still.  There was something about reading this that set my intellectual tummy turning, both as a Latin teacher and former medievalist.  


That said, I want to read it again and mine it like the good little curiosity monster that I am.  ;)  

New label--"no-escape"

Ok.  I'm reading a book on the GOBI DESERT, right?  There should be nothing in here related to Rome, Western Europe or even the Indo-European language group (aside from the odd mention of the Silk Road), right?!  It's the middle of Outer Mongolia.

Alas.  King Midas.

The last chapter of John Man's Gobi: Tracking the Desert opens with the story behind a road named, "the Road of the King with the Ass' Ears" and as he starts telling it...  I'm thinking, hang on a sec.  Take out the daughter of the barber and swap in the reeds for the field-mice and it's one of the Midas myths.  Man does not state outright if the myth was a Turkish original grafted onto the Greek or if it was a story which migrated from west to east along the Silk Road but...  Yeesh!  There really is no escape, is there?

Warrior of Rome series by Harry Sidebottom

Well, you can tell by his (horridly unfortunate) name that he's British.  I grabbed the third book in this series, The Caspian Gates, by accident today at the library, but based on the opening chapter alone (to say nothing of his copious maps, chronology and glossary), I'm putting this one down in favor of starting from the beginning with Fire in the East.

The guy knows from Rome too; he isn't just a talented writer whose fiction happens to be historical...  He's an Oxford classics prof who happens to write fiction.  His website is here, and I am kinda geeked about these books.  Ever since I tried, and failed, to get into Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series last summer, I have been hankering for a little more machismo from my Roman fiction.  Especially after the slew of female-first-person books I've been reading of late (Pilate's Wife, Cleopatra's Daughter and I promise that I will try to read Cleopatra's Moon before the summer's out), I think that I'm looking forward to a little rock'em-sock'em action.  ;)

Pilate's Wife by Antoinette May

This is a book that Ms. Chiu recommended to me last year and I checked out...  And then my wife read before I could.  :P  She said it was good but it was time to take it back to the library.  Ah well.  I'll get to it later.

Waaay later, like, a year later, I did.  Here's the issue: as the title implies, this book will run to an ending which the majority of the Western World knows, i.e. the show-trial of Jesus of Nazareth before Pontius Pilate--but instead of Pilate and his wife being side characters, now it is Jesus and his disciples who are on the margins.  The book gives May the chance to really get into her narrator and Pilate (Pontius Pilate, the hunk if you can believe it) and the whole Judean episode is only the latter third of the book.

This book as a lot to recommend it...  But I could not use it in the classroom.  R-rated (and up) scenes kill that option, though there are quotes and items in it which do indicate May did her research.

The only thing that continues to eat at me is the anachronism of the main character.  She is a disciple of Isis and, normally, in fiction that denotes a more modern world-view...  But unlike, say for argument's sake, Cleopatra's Daughter, the narrator is horrified by what she sees because we would think it abhorrent, not because she's been taught otherwise.

Warrior Queens by Antonia Fraser

I picked this up because I felt the ladies weren't getting their due in my classroom.  Honestly, how many women have we talked about aside from Cleopatra and whaserhame, you know, Catullus' on-again-off-again girlfriend.  Yea...  Then, I find this book which starts with the warrior queen of the Iceni, Boudica, who led a mostly sucessful revolt againt the Romans in 60 CE and she (Fraser) uses Boudica as a foil to illuminate other great queens of history, about half of which could be relevent to a Latin class.  

So, that's almost two-thirds relevance for a fairly short book, awesome!  Right?  Um...  Not so much.  :\  Fraser is a good historian, but she's also British and writing for an educated British audience of the early 80's.  It's dense!  Like, atomic weight of lead.  It's a good book, just not (I fear) for a high school classroom.

Alas.  Earwax.

There's no escape...

I went by the library and picked up some books and, oh look!  There's a new Batman graphic novel on the new shelf.  DontmindifIdo...  Little summer escapist reading never hurt any...

Oh.

Spoiler warning

I need a Bat-Signal or something here...

The following landed in my inbox yesterday from a high-school friend:

"Quick and random question.  It's Latin-related: I am reading a book about long distance hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail, and a line in Latin is mentioned a couple times. The requisite Google search to make sure it says what the author claims shows disagreement in spelling. It is attributed to St. Augustine and translates differently depending on the website hit.

As my book at several PCT hikers write it "Salvitur Ambulando" means "walking solves all things". Google wants to correct the spelling to "solvitur ambulando" and those results translate it to "It is solved by walking."

Not knowing much about Latin, I can't even guess which is correct, or if they are variants of the same phrase with the vowel change indicating gender or tense, or just a typo that keeps getting recycled, or ... ?

Can you shed any light? Thanks!”

Now...  I've been on this...  But I am curious what other people come up with.  Any ideas?

Summer reading

Ok...  Staring down a fairly light summer-reading list.  Right now I've got Warrior Queens by Fraser (candidate for inclusion in Latin 3 Enemies of Rome sequence), May's Pilate's Wife which I am assured by my wife and Ms. Chiu is worth my while...  Aaand not much else.  Ideas?  Any classics of Classics I've missed this year?

Curiosity killed the bat but satisfaction brought him back

So, settled into a little light summer-Sunday reading...  Comic books.  :)  Batman tells me that, "It is something of an irony that the image of Vulcan, Roman god of fire, has been used to market baking soda for over a hundred and forty years given that sodium bicarbonate is well known for its retardant properties..." (Dini et al 118)

Huh.

Really?

Well, "be curious" out commencement speaker said, not but two days past, so...  TO THE INTERNET ROBIN!

Wikipedia says that, "The Arm & Hammer logo dates back to the 1860s.James A. Church ran a spice business known as Vulcan Spice Mills. According tothe company, the Arm and Hammer logo represents Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking."  Huh.  Okaaay...  Citation?  Yes!  Good.

So, they reference a website called "Trivia Library" and they, in turn, reference a multi-volume work entitled The People's Almanac.

Or I could just go to the company's website and click through to a timeline where they state that in 1867, "Austin Church retires and his two sons form Church & Co.  They introduce the now familiar hammer-wielding arm of Vulcan, god of fire, on their packages."

Dini, Paul et al.  Batman: Detective.  New York: DC Comics, 2007.

Olympic oops

I'm on my way to graduation (which was awesome, congrats to all our grads!) and this comes on the radio.  I'll cut to the end for you and give you the fun bit:

"SIEGEL: This well-choreographed business took less than a minute and would have made Vulcan, the god of fire, proud.

CORNISH: Don't you mean Hephaestus?

SIEGEL: His Greek name, you mean?

CORNISH: Yes. You'd expect to refer to the Greek gods since we're talking about the Olympics, right? Which brings us the final flub in our list. The Royal Mint has issued commemorative gold coins for the London games, coins embossed with the names of Jupiter, Mars, Minerva.

SIEGEL: And those would be the Roman names of the Greek gods Zeus, Ares and Athena.

CORNISH: When pressed, The Royal Mint justified the use of the Roman names because the Olympic motto is in Latin.

SIEGEL: Citius, altius, fortius: swifter, higher, stronger. All of these Olympic gaffes make us wonder if the motto for the lead up to the London games really ought to be this...

CORNISH: Errare humanum est: To err is human."

All I get from this is that the Roman names take the gold medal (coin, whatever).  ;)

Just "a bunch of pushy Italian immigrants..."

Understatement of the week, the mayor of London said in an interview about his new book, "Just upriver from where I am, I can see London Bridge — that was the site of the first bridge across the river. Who built London Bridge? It wasn't Londoners. It was a bunch of pushy Italian immigrants from 43 A.D., the Romans, who founded this town."  Romans = "pushy."  Got it.

A music video?!

Mr. McConnel does like rap.  Yea, I know.  So, when you've picked yourself up off the floor, consider this: my business is words and studying wordsmiths.  What kind of a language teacher would I be if I did not appreciate word-artists who speak to the human condition of any age.

One rapper I'm fond of is B.o.B., he's got the vocabul-flow that I favor; quick and sharp wit.  His song and video, Play for Keeps contains a classic Latin phrase, with translation, used (I think) smartly.  He's used Roman  history elsewhere ("...swag like Caesar...") too.  Hmm...  

Yes, the following video does contain two words which I would not approve of in the classroom but he uses them appropriately.  And he's awesome.  ;)

Final exam prep... And next week!

• Latin final exams will be on Friday
• Remember: you are allowed the note-card passed out Friday
• Weren't here on Friday?  No problem, see me
• Special note for Latin 3--Remember to bring your books!!!
• Latin 1 and 2 final projects are due Friday as well
• Please make sure to get all extra credit, quiz corrections, etc in to me THIS WEEK
• Come Friday, I will have a list of who is passing (before the final), if you are, you will be invited to a field trip out to Mediterranean Deli in Chapel Hill next week
• Those who are not passing will have the chance to make up some points in class

The dull things I do and the cool stuff I find

So, I finally put down the grading this evening and picked up a library book, The Fourth Part of the World by Toby Lester; it's about the...  Well, not discovery of the New World, but rather how it was understood at the time.  It centers around the so-called 'America's Birth Certificate,' a 1507 map which delineated the New World as NOT a hitherto unknown part of Asia AND called them "America" after Vespucci.

But that's not the fun thing.  The fun thing I want to share is the quote from the back of the book by P.J. O'Rourke who is (I think) a darned good wit.  He blurbs, "What distinguishes civilized people from barbarians?  It's the map of the world they have in their minds.  A barbarian's map marks the spot of just a few things: herds of sheep to steal, convenience stores to rob, political opponents to condemn on talk radio or the internet.  A civilized person tries to see the world as whole."

Attention Latin 3!

Due to the fact that over half of you went rollerskating today (how DARE you... ;P), and I will be gone on Friday, we will adapt.  Tomorrow, the Mithridates group will finish and then we will settle in for an all-class discussion covering the rest of tomorrow and Thursday.

The Trojan War (part 1)

The reality

• In 1275 BCE a city named ‘Illium’ on the northwest coast of modern Turkey is attacked and destroyed by a group of Greeks
• In 850 BCE, a blind poet from the area named Homer composes the epic poem the Iliad
• We know that Homer knew the area and that ruins were still uncovered in his time because his descriptions in poem match the archeology and topography
• Through the poem and other works, the Trojan War, the heroes in it and their journeys home take on the significance as the end of the golden age of heroes
• By why?
• Two possibilities
• Iron trade through the Hellespont from the Caucasus Mountains
• The Greeks were allies of the Hittite Empire and were given the territory to conquer because Troy and some other cities had broken away

Births and beginnings

• It’s Jupiter’s fault (as usual)
• He rapes a woman named Leda…  Who happens to be the queen of Sparta
• Since Jupiter was in the form of a swan at the time, she… Lays eggs
• Helen
• Clytemnestra
• Castor
• Pollex

Side note: To the Romans, Castor and Pollex were considered to be patrons of Rome as they were believed to have aided the Romans drive off the exiled king Tarquin and his allies.  The Temple of Castor and Pollex was also one of the locations for Senate meetings and trials

• Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world and EVERYONE wants to marry her
• Theseus of Athens even goes so far as try kidnapping her!
• But he gets pushed off a cliff, so no big deal
• All the suitors gather, all the kings and/or princes of Greece and there are threats, etc until Odysseus, king of Ithaca (who doesn’t want to be there anyway) proposes an oath:
• All the suitors must swear to defend Helen’s marriage and abide by her choice
• In exchange, Odysseus gets off the hook to marry Penelope (king of Sparta’s niece) and Helen chooses the one suitor not there, Menelaus—The younger brother of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae
• Menelaus sent Agamemnon as his representative because Agamemnon was going to marry Helen’s sister Clytemnestra
• Menelaus swore to sacrifice 100 oxen to Venus…  He forgets… 

Eris and Paris

• Jupiter (again) has discovered the identity of the woman who will bear the son to overthrow him: the sea nymph Thetis
• He arranges a marriage to Peleus, a minor king and all the gods are invited to the wedding
• At the wedding, the goddess Eris (Roman name: Discordia) throws an apple into the crowd with “to the fairest” written on it—Venus, Juno and Minerva all claim it
• To solve the problem, Jupiter sends them to ask a mortal—Paris
• Paris is a prince of Troy who is living in exile (and unaware of his heritage) because of a prophecy he would destroy Troy
• Each of the three goddesses try to bribe Paris:
• Juno—Asia
• Minerva—Wisest of all men
• Venus—Make the most beautiful woman in the world fall in love with you

Not an acceptable excuse...

For the record, I have excused students' work for a variety of reasons, up to and including a Chevy Tahoe landing on a student's car (she brought the accident report to verify).  I've even granted an extension to a junior who missed several days of class on account of his arrest for participating in a robbery ring...  And yet...  Not sure I'd still accept this bozo's homework.

Latin... Punk?!

Heard the tail of a story on the radio; a Scots-Gallic punk band is planning a few songs in Latin on their next album.  Apparently, they're a little tired of criticism that Scots is an endangered, dead, near-dead (etc) language, so they're going to go whole hog...  Or, rather, porcus totus.

Due on Friday... Yikes, that'll be a lot to grade

Latin 1:

• Nature figure second draft
• Be prepared for a quiz focused on Jason AND the Jugurtha passage from the worksheet packet
• Aforementioned worksheet packet
• Composition book with Jason notes

Latin 2:

• Project progress--Remember, many of you have let this slide for the last few weeks...  It's starting to HURT!!!
• A quiz based on the grammar from page 263's translation
• Composition books

Latin 3:

• There will be a quiz

Notes some on The Immortals

• Very interesting visions of the Greek gods
• Zeus = very cleverly realized
• Athena = Seriously?!  She's a wuss!!!
• Ares = Cleverer than I'd expect...  
• Poseidon = Dude, what are you wearing on your head?
• Other gods and goddesses?  What other gods and goddesses?  I mean, they made Athena a sniveling wannabe ninja, kinda glad they didn't try that with Hera...
• Definitely holds up the ideal of the Achilles-esque hero (lead from the front, fight better; need no rabble to help you, only back you).
• Clever way to work the Theseus/Minotaur/Labyrinth myth into the overall gods/titans thing, but too quickly done with.
• The bow...  Wow.  Someone watched a little too much of this show when we were kids.

Just in case you missed it...

For all levels of Latin, please get your progress reports back in NOW (or have your parent/guardian email me).

Latin 1:
Nature figure rough draft peer-edit tomorrow; if you do not have it...  You will be writing it tomorrow and doing the peer-editing on your own time.  Finish pages 37 and 38 (first page, front and back) of the grammar worksheets if you did not in class.

Latin 2:
Translate the brief passage in the textbook...  And be ready to know it backwards and forwards grammatically.  Oh, and those final project thingys.

Latin 3:
Your final projects are only a week away.  Quiz corrections other than that.

Friday

Latin 1: Quiz, comp book, Nature figure rough draft
Latin 2: Quiz, packet and project progress report.
Latin 3: Y'all are off the hook for exercise 6; 1-5 only.  We will go over the packet tomorrow in lieu of a quiz.

Hercules notes, the latter labors

6.     Clean the Augean stables

§  King Augeas’ stables have never been cleaned and he has a herd of cows…

·        Must clean the stables in one day

§  Hercules re-routes a river and washes it all away

§  Just like the Hydra, Eurystheus says Hercules didn’t actually do it…

·        Last 6 labors of Hercules—Out of Greece

7.     Capture the Cretan Bull

                                                             i.      Review Theseus and the Minotaur

                                                           ii.      Releases to wander Marathon

8.     Steal the horses of Diomedes

a.     Diomedes is a giant (and son of Ares) w/ a herd of man-eating, fire-breathing horses

b.     Hercules waits until night, looses the horses and chases them up a hill

                                                             i.      Then digs a trench around it, lets a river flow in—Makes it an island

c.      When Diomedes shows up, Hercules fights him, kills him and then feeds him to the horses to calm them down

                                                             i.      Takes them back and dedicates them to Juno

9.     Get the belt of Hippolita

a.     Queen of the Amazons

                                                             i.      A belt from Ares given as a symbol of her queenship

b.     Hercules arrives, queen aggress, no prob

                                                             i.      But Juno disguises herself as an Amazon and starts a rumor that Hercules will kidnap the queen

c.      Amazons storm Hercules ship, he grabs the belt and runs

10.                        Steal the cattle of Geryon

a.     Geryon is a monster with one head, three bodies and two legs (number of arms in dispute)

b.     Kills Geryon’s two headed god and then Geryon himself with an arrow

c.      Starts the cows back

                                                             i.      Two happenings, Juno sends a fly and he meets a race of dragon women who try to take the cattle

11.                        Apples of the Hesperides

12.                        Cerberus

a.     Goes down, asks Hades

Must take Cerberus w/o weapons but it’s ok