A new approach to translating and Metamorphoses 11.1-6

My prof wants us to try a new approach to translating. Instead of looking up every word, we try to read it, and when we can't do it, look at the translation. Then, cover up the translation and try again. It isn't memorizing translations - it is the equivalent of leaving the Phonics method of learning to read and doing Whole Word instead.

I don't know, but I'm going to give it a shot. So, instead of translating a passage once and looking up every word, I'm going to translate it several times, until I read the whole thing in Latin without looking at the English once. That means I'm going to type out the translation several times. It'll look the same on the screen every time, or at least close, but the method for creating the translation will be slowly, slowly more independent. The goal is to go through the whole bit at least three times.

Thoughts on this passage:

• I didn't translate it three times. In fact, I only translated it the once. It worked out okay and it was fine in class, but I wish I had started earlier so I could have done without referring to notes at all. 
• I forgot that manium comes from manis, a dead soul. So regina manium is Queen of the Dead, which is a phrase that just has to come in handy some day. 
• The goddess only shows up when fate is done with him? But at the end of 6, she says she can override fate.
• “the first beginning of things” is primis rerum exordiis, language from Lucretius, who wrote about atoms and the first generation of matter.
• ululatibus is my favorite Latin onamonapeia. It means “howling”
• Lucius reminds me of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. He could always have found salvation, but he needed to change.

This is a place holder so the English translation is in a narrower column. The wide translation makes it hard to keep track where I am. Live and learn. I would like to move them right even more. EpexegeticalnightmarecometrueRomanDianacryout

11.1 Around the first watch of the night, I was waking up, suddenly rigid with panic, and I see the full circle of the moon glistening with too much brilliance emerging from the waves of the sea. Surrounded by the silent secrets of the dark night, and even certain that the highest goddess was strong with special power and that human affairs are ruled wholly by the her own providence, not only flocks and wild animals, but also truly the inanimate thing were enlivened by the command of her light and power. Even the bodies themselves on land, in the heavens, and in the sea grow now in following her increase, and shrink now following her decrease. Certainly with fate now having been satiated by so many and such kinds of sufferings of mind and supplying hope of safety, although late, I decide to be entreat the awesome  specimen of goddess present. Quickly with my lazy rest shake off, I arose happily and speedily. I immediately delivered myself to the sea for bathing with an eagerness for the purification, and with my head submerged in the waves seven times, because the divine Pythagoras had declared that number especially apt for religious rites, I prayed to the potent goddess with a face covered in tears. 11.2 "Queen of the sky - whether you are mother Ceres, the original parent of crops, who, happy to discover your daughter, with the animal fodder of ancient acorns removed, you show a gentle food, and now you live in the Elusian land. Or whether you are heavenly Venus, who at the first beginning of things joined the separates sexes through generated Love and with the human race having been propogated through ever-existing progeny, you now inhabit the isolated sanctuary of Paphos. Or whether you are the sister of Apollo, who led out so many people with birth having been recreated with your soothing suages of pregnancy and who you is now worshipped at the shrines of Ephesus. Or whether you are the feared Proserpina in the howling nights, suppressing ghostly attacks with a three-formed appearance, closing the gates of Earth, wandering through diverse locations, you are won over with various flourishes--you herself, lighting up every city wall with your feminine light, and nourishing the happy seeds with your moist fires, and dispensing uneven light according to the changeable Sun. By whatever name, whatever rite, whatever appearance it is right to invoke you: you, take care of me now in my utmost trials, lift up my fallen fortune, give me peace and rest from my cruel instances of servitude. Let there be enough of labor, let there be enough of danger. Drive away the harsh appearance of this quadriped, return me to the sight of my own people, return me to my own Lucius self. And if any god I offended is oppressing me with unrelenting savagery, at least let is be permitted to me to die, if it is not permitted to me to live." 11.3 With my prayers poured out in this manner and with miserable lamentations added, overwhelming sleep overcame my feeble spirit again on that same couch. I closed my eyes not quite enough and there, from the middle of the sea, a divine face emerged, bringing a face deserving of veneration even from the gods. Little by little from there it seemed that shining figure was standing before me, with the sea shaken off from the whole body. And I will try to describe the amazing sight to you, if only the poverty of my human mouth will give the ability of unlocking the words, or the god herself delivered an abundant supply of speaking ability. Now first, her hair, long, abundant and slightly curling, was flowing softly down, dispersed freely over her divine shoulders. A circle of many different flowers surrounded the top of her head, in the middle of which, in truth, above her forehead, was a flat round disk like a mirror, or rather a symbol of the moon, and it emited a white light. On the right and left it was surrounded by coils of darting snakes, and it was decorated above with stretched-out spears of Ceres' grain. Her tunic was multicolored, women in sheer linen, now shining with brilliant white, now flowing with yellow bloom, now flaming with a rosy red; and what far and away even was confusing to me was a rich, dark cloak shining with a black shimmer, which was wrapped around her and running under her right side to her left shoulder, with part of the hem hanging down decorated in a knot, hanging down in multiple tucks, it was making beautiful waves, with knots of fringe down to the very edge. 11.4 Through the woven edges and on the surface itself scattered stars were shining, and in the middle of them the half moon was breathing flaming fires. Nevertheless, whereever the edge of that amazing robe was flowing, a circle of all the flowers and all the fruits was stuck individually with a bond. Here are many diverse things being carried. For indeed in her right hand she was carrying a bronze noisemaker, whose narrow plate curved like a belt is transported on a small stick, shaken by an arm tapping in triple time, they were returning a clear sound. In her left hand  was truly hanging a golden cup, in whose handle, on the part which was jutting out, the head of an asp was rising up, carrying it high and from side to side and with a swelling neck. The goddess' ambrosial feet were hiding in sandals woven of the victory palms. Thus and such she was, breathing out the fertile happiness of Arabia, and she deemed me worthy of her divine voice: 11.5 "Having been moved nearer by your prayers, Lucius, I, the mother of all natural things, the mistress of all the elements, the firstborn of the saeculorum, the highest goddess, the queen of the dead, of the heavendwellers foremost, the universal face of gods and goddesses, with whose nod the shining peak of heaven, the healthy breezes of the sea, the mournful silence of the dead are ruled; the one god with multiple faces, various rituals, and many names, who is worshipped throughout the whole world. There the first-generated Phrygians call me the mother goddess Pessinuntiam, here the nativeborn Athenians callme of Cecropian Minerva, in this place the wave-washed Cyprians call me Paphiam Venus. To the arrowbearers in Crete I am Dictynna Diana, to the trilingual Sicilians I am Ortygiam Prosepina, to the ancient Eleusians I am Attic Ceres. To some I am Juno, to others I am Bellona, to those people Hecate, to these people Rhamnusiam, and Ethiopians, those who are lit up by the first rays of the waking Sun god, and Egyptians, strong in ancient learning, worshipping me with the proper ceremonies, they call me by my true name: Queen Isis. I am here in pity for your situation, I am here in favor and inclined toward you. Now send away your tears and banish your lamentations. Push away your grief. Now for you by my providence a day of salvation is beginning to brighten. Ergo and therefore, bend your carefull attention to these my commands. The day which is the day born from this night is named for me by eternal reverence. On that day, with winter storms are sedated and the stormy waves of the sea are placated, my priests dedicate a rough ship to the sailable sea, dedicating  it as the first-offerings of a voyage. You must wait for it with a mind neither worried nor profane. 11.6 "For at my command a priest in the readiness for the procession, in his right hand, will carry a circle of roses attached to the bronze rattle. Therefore without hestitation, quickly join the parade with the moving crowd, relying on my will, and gentley, as if kissing the hand of the priest nearby, with the roses plucked off, immediately cast off the hide of the beast formerly the most detested by you. Do not recoil at the sight of any of my instructions as if it were harsh. For at this very moment when I come to you, at the same time I am present there as well, and those things were following I beging by making them happen to the priest in his sleep.. At my order, the tight-packed people you are accompanying will fall away for you, not anyone among the happy ceremonies and the festive spectacle will be horrified at the deformed face which you will present, or your suddently changed body, nor, interpreting anything contrary out of spite, will anyone press charges. "You will plainly remember and you will hold always in your inner mind the secret that to me the rest of the course of your life is left, assured to the ultimate end of your last breath. Nor is it unjust that you owe what you live to her by whose grace you return to humanity. Moreover, you will live blessed, you will live glorious in my tutelage, and when you descend to the those below having completed your space of time, there as well, in the subterranean hemisphere, you will see me, shining in the Acheron darkness and reigning in the Stygian innermost chambers. Living in the Elysian fields themselves, I will favor you and you will constantly adore me. "But if by attentive servility and reverent ministrations and tenacious chastity you merit our godliness, you will know that it is permitted to me to prolong your life's space beyond that legislated by fate."