Monday, March 2, 2009

Announcement

Hello everyone. I'd like to announce that I'll be hosting a radio program on talkshoe.com called "Spanish Tutor." Anyone with an interest or need of help with Spanish, from translations to homework help, you're welcome to tune in.

The episodes are an hour long and at 2:00 pm EST daily. This will be the schedule for now; I'm willing to do more if people so request. Ojala que nos veamos ahi.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Ad Inaugurandum

What better way to start than with an excerpt from Livy's Ab Urbe Condita. I thought this passage would make a nice inaugural excerpt, since it deals with just that: an inauguration. The verb inaugurare means to take the auspices or to consecrate,
and the famous murder that followed from it. Interestingly, in Ovid's recounting of the
story in the Fasti, Romulus is very pious and the killing of his brother is almost like a divine
necessity. But the language used by Livy to me seems less heroic: "avitum malum,
regni cupido," "ancestral fault, the desire to rule." This is the end of chapter six and the
beginning of chapter seven.

Ita Numitori Albana re permissa Romulum Remumque cupido cepit in iis locis ubi expositi ubique educati erant urbis condendae. Et supererat multitudo Albanorum Latinorumque; ad id pastores quoque accesserant, qui omnes facile spem facerent paruam Albam, parvum Lavinium prae ea urbe quae conderetur fore. Intervenit deinde his cogitationibus avitum malum, regni cupido, atque inde foedum certamen coortum a satis miti principio. Quoniam gemini essent nec aetatis verecundia discrimen facere posset, ut di quorum tutelae ea loca essent auguriis legerent qui nomen novae urbi daret, qui conditam imperio regeret, Palatium Romulus, Remus Aventinum ad inaugurandum templa capiunt.
[7] Priori Remo augurium venisse fertur, sex voltures; iamque nuntiato augurio cum duplex numerus Romulo se ostendisset, utrumque regem sua multitudo consalutauerat: tempore illi praecepto, at hi numero auium regnum trahebant. Inde cum altercatione congressi certamine irarum ad caedem vertuntur; ibi in turba ictus Remus cecidit. Volgatior fama est ludibrio fratris Remum novos transiluisse muros; inde ab irato Romulo, cum verbis quoque increpitans adiecisset, "Sic deinde, quicumque alius transiliet moenia mea," interfectum. Ita solus potitus imperio Romulus; condita urbs conditoris nomine appellata.


"With the Alban state having been restored to Numitor, the desire to found a city
in those places where they had been left out and brought up took hold of Romulus and
Remus. There were also a great many Albans and Latins left. To this shepherds had
also added, who all together could easily hope that Alba and Lavinia would be small
compared to the city that would be founded. Then their ancestral fault, the desire to
rule, came among these thoughts, and thence a horrible dispute arose from a sufficiently
calm beginning. Since they were twins and diffidence of age could not make a ruling,
in order that the gods who presided over those lands would choose by augury who would
give his name to the new city and who would rule over it once it had been founded, Romulus
took the Aventine temple, Remus took the Palatine temple to take the auspices.
An augury of six vultures is said to have come to Remus first. And then, the
augury announce, when twice that number of vultures showed itself to Romulus, each
brother's crowd hailed him as king: one group argued in favor of the time at which
the augury had been given, the other in favor of the number of birds. Then, coming
together in a faceoff, by a struggle of anger they turned to violence: there in the crowd
Remus was struck and killed. The better known account is that Remus, in mockery
of his brother, jumped over his new walls; thence he was killed by the angered Romulus,
who chiding with words had added: "Thus then, whoever else jumps over my walls." Thus
did Romulus gain power alone; the founded city was named after the founder.

I thought this passage would make a nice inaugural excerpt, since it deals with
just that: an inauguration. The verb inaugurare means to take the auspices or to consecrate,
and the famous murder that followed from it. Interestingly, in Ovid's recounting of the
story in the Fasti, Romulus is very pious and the killing of his brother is almost like a divine
necessity. But the language used by Livy to me seems less heroic: "avitum malum,
regni cupido," "ancestral fault, the desire to rule."

Principium

Welcome!

I'm Scott, currently a self-tutoring student of classical Latin. I'm also proficient in French, Italian, and most fluent in Spanish, my second language. My interests are mostly in philosophy, literature, poetry, history, and linguistics.

My aim is to post my own translations, sometimes with accompanying comments, of excerpts from the classical literature which I am currently reading. As I begin this blog, I am recovering from a broken ankle, so I will likely be able to give this project a lot of time. However, as I go back to work, time will be more of an object, so posts could get to be as brief as a couplet at times.

What exactly will I be posting? My current Latin projects are two prose works: Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, Book I, Cicero's Orator, and Vergil's Eclogues. I will mostly be focusing on these for awhile. I might also take a crack at other works that I read intermittently, such as Dante's Divina Commedia, the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and even English works, like those of Milton and Shakespeare, among others.

The main purpose of this project is to expose myself to the critique and observation of others who may be more knowledgeable than myself. I welcome any and all comments, corrections, and reactions.

Also, for those of you who are students of Latin or any of my other languages, I also like to practice by giving help. I'm more than happy to post answers alongside my main projects.