Apuleius class results

I got an A! Yay! This is the first A, straight up, no qualifiers, that I have received in Latin graduate school, and I actually feel like I deserved it. I think this blog helped enormously. I have spent the past several years trying to find the most productive and best way for me to translate and study, and nothing quite seemed to work for me. I asked a few professors, and they were less than unhelpful. I'll never forget my Fall professor saying, "Don't work so hard. Just do it better." which made me want to thwack him. But the process I developed for this blog has been working wonderfully. I feel like my Latin improved more this last semester than in the two years before.

The Process
1. Copying the Latin text from The Latin Library to my blog.
2. Taking it a sentence at a time, I list the words I don't recognize and need to look up.
3. Look up the words.
4. Translate the passage into English and write down the translation in the blog.
5. Check my translation against another's translation to see if I missed anything major.
6. Correct my English translation if necessary.
7. Translate in class from the Latin, using my English translation as a backup if necessary.

I could, if I need to know it even better, write out the translations of the words I needed to look up, and then  re-translate the whole thing from Latin by sight. The above method is the minimum, though, and by doing it that way, I was able to translate both familiar and unfamiliar passages well enough on the exams to get As on both tests. That is the first time it's happened.  What a blessing this experience was and continues to be.

Wednesday quotes

1. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. --Oscar Wilde

2. Inspiration doesn't lie in the mud; it lies in the clean and wholesome life of the ordinary man. --Robert Frost

3. Real glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves. --Joseph P. Thompson

4. Only two things are infinite: the Universe and human stupidity. And I am not sure about the former. --Albert Einstein

5. Money may buy the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings food, but not the appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace or happiness. --Henry Ibsen

"They Are Not Long" by Earnest Dowson

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter
Love and desire and hate
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

--Earnest Dowson

Monday Quotes

1. Life is full of needle-hooks of experience which catch the attention when alrger matters are at stake, and they remain in the mind they are fogotten, so that in years later, it is a bit of gilding, or a certain smell , or the tone of clockt's striking which recalls one to a tragedy. --Evelyn Waugh

2. I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with snse, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei

3. Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility. --James Thurber

4. One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. --A. A. Milne

5. Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket?  --Anon.

"Loving in Truth" by Sir Philip Sidney

LOVING in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, 
That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain; 
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, 
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain; 
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain; 
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow 
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain. 
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay; 
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows;    
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way. 
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, 
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite. 
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart, and write!”

--Sir Philip Sidney

"One Ring" by J. R. R. Tolkien

Three Rings for the Elven Kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-Lords in their hall of stone.
Nine for the Mortal Men doomed to die
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne.
In the land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all
And in the darkness, bind them
In the land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

---JRR Tolkien

Quotes for today

1. If today, you are not confused, you just not thinking clearly. --Irene Peter

2. She who seeks her knight in shining armor must remember that she will have to clean up after his horse. --Anon.

3. Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globes of gas atoms. Nothing is 'mere'. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination - stuck on this carosel, my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light...for far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined!

Why do poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia, man must be silent? --Richard Feynman

4. I know that I saw my own Hell there, the Hell of the artist, and that all who sought after beautiful and wonderful things with too avid a thirts lsto peace and form and became shapeless and common. --W.B. Yeats

5. Someday, when we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tide, and gravity, we will harness the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. --Rene de Chardin

"The Rainbow Connection" by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
when wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that
and someone believed it,
and look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing?
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.

All of us under its spell,
we know that it's probably magic....

Have you been half asleep
and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.

--Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher

Practicing Latin - Name These Poems!

Eremo ambulavi
Et vocavi:
"Heu, Domini, capisse me illo loco!"
Vox inquit, "Est non eremus."
Vocavi, "Autem, sed -
Arena, calor, vacuus horizon."
Vox inquit, "Est non eremus."
--
Viridis primus naturae aurum est
Arduissimus color ad tentandum
Priscum folium est flos
Sed vix horam
Tum folium ad folium concidit
Sic Eden ad dolorem cecidit
Sic aurora ad diem ruit [/defluit]
Nihil aurum commorari possit.
--
Mea somnia de agrum longum sunt
Et sangiunem et fumum et glandes
Illic in eorum sepulcros mei socii sunt
In sepulcum meum non sum.

Ego aeque commercium hominis condocefacio
Et rudimentum cantavi palam
Sed cum dedidicerim et curraverim
Memoraverunt et remanserunt.
---
Hiatum in mentem meam sensi
Tamquam cerebellum scidisset
Conatus sum componere comissuram ad comissuram
Sed compellere non possum eos ut concurrant.
Cogitatio avorsa jugare conatus sum
Ad cogitationem priorem
Series retextuerunt longe
Similis pilae super coaxationem.

(Erika and Heather, if I did any of the above wrong, could you tell me where? I have my suspicions about the last one.)

"I walked in a desert" by Stephen Crane

I walked in a desert
And I cried:
"Ah, God, take me from this place!"
A voice said, "It is no desert."
I cried: "Well, but -
The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon."
A voice said, "It is no desert."

--Stephen Crane

"When You Are Old" by W. B. Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

--W. B. Yeats

Five more quotes

1. I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it. --Anon.

2. Learning is not the attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence. --Abigail Adams

3. Education is the acquisition o f the art of the utilization of language. --Alfred North Whitehead

4. Wisdom is found on the desolate hillside, El-ahrairah, where none come to feed, and the stony bank where the rabbit scratches a hole in vain. --Richard Adams, Watership Down

5. Ubi Romani solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant. --Tacitus (Where Romans create a wasteland, they call it peace.)

Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

-- William Shakespeare

"Building a Palace" by C.S. Lewis

Imagine yourself a a living house.
God comes in to remodel that house.
At first, you can understand what he is doing;
he's fixing drains and making minor repairs,
but presently he starts knocking you about
in a manner that hurts abominably...
He's knocking out walls there and adding on rooms here.
It hurts awful...what on earth could he be up to?
Adding on extra wings here, putting up towers there...
The answer is quite simple.
you thought you were going to be a quaint little house,
But God has another purpose in mind.
He's building a palace.


--C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

"ad Lesbiam" by Catullus

VIVAMUS mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum seueriorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

--Catullus

Let us live, my Clodia, and let us love,
and let us judge the all the gossip
of our harsh elders as worth a single penny!
Suns are accustomed to setting and then rising again;
When our brief light burns out,
the night is forever given over to sleep.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
Then another thousand, and then a second hundred,
Then thousand kisses more, and then another hundred.
Then, when we have made multiple thousands,
we will confuse them all that we not know them all,
and so no one evil is able to envy us,
when he knows how many kisses there are.

"fletus passeris lesbia" by Catullus

Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,
cui primum digitum dare appetenti
et acris solet incitare morsus,
cum desiderio meo nitenti
carum nescio quid lubet iocari,
et solaciolum sui doloris,
credo, ut tum gravis acquiescat ardor:
tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem
et tristis animi levare curas!

--Catullus, ~60 B.C.E

I translated this poem in another post, but I think I can't actually post the translation. After I translated it, a few of the lines didn't make sense, so I googled the poem to find what others thought. Several pages suggested that it was considerably dirtier than I had realized, as most of the poem could have a double meaning and, in fact, makes more sense in the double meaning.

Now I'm too embarassed to post it. Now that the double meaning has been suggested, I can't unsee it. :( Dagnabbit. I still want to study Catullus, and this does seem to suggest the class this fall is going to be one long blushfest for me, but I think I'll first look over the English translations so I'll only translate the ones I won't be too embarassed to post after.

In the meantime, The Catullus Experience. As the byline suggests, "it's like being John Malkovich, but better." I knew the outlines of this story before, but this is a great way to read it. The execution isn't perfect, but the concept is fabulous.

Thursday Quotes

1. The art of flying is to throw oneself at the ground, and miss. --Douglas Adams

2. Nine out of ten statistics are made up on the spot. --Anon.

3. "Well, if you will, go on. Know this: although you are wrong to go, your friends are right to love you."  --Ismene, in Antigone, by Sophocles.

4. Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings, admiring, asking, and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science. --Albert Einstein

5. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. --Mark Twain

"Udine" by Loren Higbee

The night that Margaret got sick, we made
the hasty decision to go and help (she was
afraid of hospitals and wouldn't call
an ambulance). The buses had long since

stopped running, so we put on jeans and t-shirts
and ran ourselves, even though their apartment
was on the other side of town. We reached
Piazza Primo Maggio near midnight

and in the park-like square I jogged right by
a hooker underneath a street-light. Dressed
in purple-mini-skirt, blouse, and stockings - he
towered over me, at least 6'5" in his

five-inch heels. In that brief moment, I
heard him cough brokenly and sigh and shift
his weight from foot to foot. My feeling of
terror and revulsion passed. My eyes

met his. We shared a passing glance, and I
felt a sudden flare of empathy
for my transvestite prostitute -- both whores
and missionaries learn early on to keep

a clinical distance, not to be discouraged
by scorn, and above all not to take
rejection personally. We both nodded
as I ran past -- professional courtesy.

--Loren Higbee

Poets for the Summer

This summer will have two themes. Well, three.

1. Ninteenth-century novels. This plan will be aided greatly by my recent discovery of free books I can download to my BlackBerry.

2. Recommended by friends. These aren't many, but they will be on the list.

And best of all,

3. Poetry. Writing these entries have reminded me of how little I know about poetry and how many poets I resolve to learn more of an then don't. So this post will be pinned and I'll make a running list of poets to be on it. Robert Frost, Stephen Crane, E. E. Cummings, Dorothy Parker, and Edgar Allen Poe will not be on the list because I've read them fairly thoroughly already. The poets below I have read some of, but not enough to be able to claim a familiarity with their entire work.

Poets

Dylan Thomas
Rainer Maria Rilke
Alexander Pope
Emily Dickinson
John Donne
Langston Hughes
Edna St. Vincent Millay
A. E. Housman
T. S. Eliot
Catullus
William Wordsworth
W. B. Yeats
Emily Sailers
Marianne Moore
Dante

"Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.


Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.


Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

--Dylan Thomas