Category: Latin

Stupid Translation Advice

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Thomas Arnold, The Use of the Classics:

Another point may be mentioned, in which the translation of the Greek and Roman writers is most useful in improving a boy’s knowledge of his own language. In the choice of his words, and in the style of his sentences, he should be taught to follow the analogy required by the age and character of the writer whom he is translating. For instance, in translating Homer, hardly any words should be employed except Saxon, and the oldest and simplest of those which are of French origin; and the language should consist of a series of simple propositions connected with one another only by the most inartificial conjunctions.

In translating the tragedians, the words should be principally Saxon, but mixed with many of French or foreign origin, like the language of Shakspeare, and the other dramatists of the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. The term “words of French origin” is used purposely to denote that large portion of our language which, although of Latin derivation, came to us immediately from the French of our Norman conquerors, and thus became a part of the natural spoken language of that mixed people, which grew out of the melting of the Saxon and Norman races into one another. But these are carefully to be distinguished from another class of words equally of Latin derivation, but which have been introduced by learned men at a much later period, directly from Latin books, and have never, properly speaking, formed any part of the genuine national language. These truly foreign words which Johnson used so largely, are carefully to be shunned in the translation of poetry, as being unnatural, and associated only with the most unpoetical period of our literature, the middle of the eighteenth century.

So also, in translating the prose writers of Greece and Rome, Herodotus should be rendered in the style and language of the chroniclers ; Thucydides in that of Bacon or Hooker, while Demosthenes, Cicero, Caesar and Tacitus, require a style completely modern — the perfection of the English language, such as we now speak and write it, varied only to suit the individual differences of the different writers, but in its range of words, and in its idioms, substantially the same.

scholar-painting-16

An Englishman’s Fondness for Improper Pronunciation

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Winston Churchill, My Early Life:

“But even as a schoolboy I questioned the aptness of the Classics for the prime structure of our education. So they told me how Mr. Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought served him right , and that it would be a great pleasure to me in after life. When I seemed incredulous, they added that classics would be a help in writing or speaking English. They then pointed out the number of our modern words which are derived from the Latin or Greek. Apparently one could use these words much better, if one knew the exact source from which they had sprung. I was fain to admit a practical value. But now even this has been swept away. The foreigners and the Scotch have joined together to introduce a pronunciation of Latin which divorces it finally from the English tongue. They tell us to pronounce ‘audience’ ‘owdience’; and ‘civil ‘keyweel.’ They have distorted one of my most serviceable and impressive quotations into the ridiculous booby ‘Wainy, Weedy, Weeky.’ Punishment should be reserved for those who have spread this evil.”

In contrast to this, see Milton’s advice in his Tractate on Education:

“For the studies, first they should begin with the chief and necessary rules of some good grammar, either that now used, or any better: and while this is doing, their speech is to be fashioned to a distinct and clear pronunciation, as near as may be to the Italian, especially in the vowels. For we Englishmen being far northerly, do not open our mouths in the cold air, wide enough to grace a southern tongue; but are observed by all other nations to speak exceeding close and inward: So that to smatter Latin with an English mouth, is as ill a hearing as Law-French.”

Laying Aside Your Greek and Latin

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Thomas Arnold, The Use of the Classics:

Now when it is said, that men in manhood so often throw their Greek and Latin aside, and that this very fact shows the uselessness of their early studies, it is much more true to say that it shows how completely the literature of Greece and Rome would be forgotten, if our system of education did not keep up the knowledge of it. But it by no means shows that system to be useless, unless it followed that when a man laid aside his Greek and Latin books, he forgot also all that he had ever gained from them. This, however, is so far from being the case that even where the results of a classical education are least tangible, and least appreciated even by the individual himself still the mind often retains much of the effect of its early studies in the general liberality of its tastes and comparative comprehensiveness of its views and notions.

All this supposes, indeed, that classical instruction should be sensibly conducted ; it requires that a classical teacher should be fully acquainted with modem history and modern literature, no less than with those of Greece and Rome. What is, or perhaps what used to be, called a mere scholar, cannot possibly communicate to his pupils the main advantages of a classical education. The knowledge of the past is valuable, because without it our knowledge of the present and of the future must be scanty; but if the knowledge of the past be confined wholly to itself instead of being made to bear upon things around us, it be totally isolated from them, and so disguised by vagueness and misapprehension as to appear incapable of illustrating them, then indeed it becomes little better than laborious trifling, and they who declaim against it may be fully forgiven.

Thomas Arnold by Thomas Phillips.jpg

 

We Deserve More Praise For Our Latin

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Gianfrancesco Pico, Letter to Pietro Bembo:

To be sure, both Greek and Latin were effectively innate to the ancients, but we must seek these languages from their books, and thus we should receive a greater accession of legitimate praise for learning them. For they, even if they were unwilling, spoke Greek in Greece and Latin in Italy; but we Italians who speak Latin (not to mention Greek) have earned and acquired that skill through our industry. Thus it will happen that, should our age happen to get a fair judge of these matters, those who now speak even in a fairly middling way will be justly preferred to those outstanding champions of old, since the men of today, having had commerce with the Goths, Vandals, and the Huns, yet retain that ancient mode of speech worn down by so many centuries, or at any rate they attempt to retain it through continual imitation, in which pursuit there is perchance a marvelous – nay, even excessive mental subtlety.

Detail from one of the graffiti images

Lingua certe veteribus illis cum Graeca tum Latina quasi nativa adfuit, quam ab eorum libris petere nos oportet, quibus maior ea de re legitimae laudis accesio. Illi enim vel nolentes et in Hellade Graece et in Italia Latine loquebantur; nobis Italis qui Latine loquamur, nedum Graece, id nostra est partum et elaboratum industria. Inde fiet aequum rerum aestimatorem si sortiatur nostra aetas, posse eos qui nunc mediocriter loquuntur praecipuis illis et antesignanis iure praeferri, qui scilicet inter Gothos, Vandalos, Hunnosque versati priscam illam et tot saeculis abolitam dicendi rationem aut teneant aut tenere conentur imitatione continua, qua etiam in re mira subtilitas et forte nimia.

Narrow Grammatical Instruction

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Hippolyte Taine, Notes on England (tr. W.F. Rae):

The teaching is not what is requisite for counterbalancing these gross tastes; there is nothing attractive about it; it can hardly be considered by the young people as other than a task; it is very slightly literary and altogether technical. The chief aim is to know Greek and Latin well, to write correctly in verse and prose in these two languages; in fact, by dint of memory and exercises, the most clever succeed in doing so. On one point, the knowledge and the manipulation of Greek, they are far superior to the pupils of our lyceums; I have in my hands prize exercises, in which scenes from Shakespeare are very well translated into Greek iambics in the style of Sophocles.

But on other points I consider them inferior. Their Latin, prose and verse, is less elegant and less pure than that of our good compositions of the class of rhetoric. They do not appear to be really acquainted with history; they recount the legends of Curtius and of Regulus as authenticated facts. They descant on chivalry and the Middle Age in vague generalities, as was done in our old University. They do not appear to apprehend the difference of manners, of sentiments, of ideas, of characters which is the result of centuries. They do not seem to have read, like our good scholars, the works of a genuine historian, of a Thierry, of a Michelet, of a Guizot.

In general, they have few ideas; if the questions relating to existing and practical contemporary politics are excepted, a student of rhetoric in a Parisian lyceum possesses more. They have read many classical texts; but the explanation which is given to them is wholly grammatical and positive. Nothing is done to set forth the beauty of the passage, the delicacies of the style, the pathos of the situation; nor is the process of the writer indicated, the character of his talents, the turn of his mind; all that would seem vague. The master does not speak to the pupils as a critic to persons of taste; he does not endeavour to refine their literary touch; he does not comment upon the great writers of their country. It is the same in mathematics; he teaches formulas rather than the spirit; the manual of geometry is always the text of Euclid learned and said by heart; reason and reasoning hold but a secondary place. “Too frequently this teaching tends to form Greek scholars and calculators.” On the contrary, the young Frenchman of nineteen possesses, if he be intelligent, and if he has been studious, general instruction, a quantity of ideas blocked out, some half ideas of his own, a decided preference for certain authors and a certain form of style, the embryos of theories, vague views about the beautiful, about history, about philosophy, at least the sentiment that there are vast questions of first importance on which he requires to form an opinion, a requirement all the more pressing because around him scepticism floats in the air, because, most frequently, he has lost his religious beliefs, because no prevailing doctrine, imposed or accepted, is at hand to arrest his fluctuating mind, and because, if he desires to cast anchor in a port, he is obliged to seek for the port and forge the anchor.

Here many distinguished Englishmen whom I have known consider their school and even their university education as a simple preparation, a gymnastic, a training of the attention and of the memory, nothing more. They said to me, “When finished with that, we have been obliged to undo, or rather to form, our education; to acquire by personal reading all that we have succeeded in learning about philosophy, about history, about political economy, about the natural sciences, about art, about literature.” A remedy is being found for this defect, the circle is now being enlarged; but it is still narrow, always having Euclid and Sapphic verse as its centre. In consequence, the mind, becoming adult at a later period, arrives later at forming comprehensive views.

Portrait of Hippolyte Taine by Léon Bonnat.

Blame it on the Comets

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Manilius, Astronomica 875-893

“The sky has never gone alight with meaningless fires,
But farmers, deluded, have cursed their wasted fields
And in the infertile rows the depressed plowman
Pointlessly coaxes his mourning oxen to their yokes.
Or when a mortal spark hollows out the marrow of life
In bodies taken by heavy sickness or aged exhaustion,
And it takes a wavering people, and throughout entire cities
Shared mourning is accompanied by funereal fires.

That’s what the plague was like when it attacked Erekhtheus’ people
And carried ancient Athens out to graves in a time of peace.
One after another, slipping into sickness and cursing fate,
No kind of medical skill or prayer was helping them.

Duty itself fell to sickness, and the dead received neither
Burial nor tears. Even fire failed in its exhaustion
And the limbs of bodies were piled on burning limbs.
A people once so great could scarcely find their next of kin.

These are the horrors shining comets often proclaim.”

numquam futtilibus excanduit ignibus aether,
squalidaque elusi deplorant arva coloni,
et sterilis inter sulcos defessus arator
ad iuga maerentis cogit frustrata iuvencos.
aut gravibus morbis et lenta corpora tabe
corripit exustis letalis flamma medullis
labentisque rapit populos, totasque per urbes
publica succensis peraguntur iusta sepulcris.
qualis Erectheos pestis populata colonos
extulit antiquas per funera pacis Athenas,
alter in alterius labens cum fata ruebant,
nec locus artis erat medicae nec vota valebant;
cesserat officium morbis, et funera derant
mortibus et lacrimae; lassus defecerat ignis
et coacervatis ardebant corpora membris,
ac tanto quondam populo vix contigit heres.
talia significant lucentes saepe cometae:

 

From Gizmodo.com

I Always Preferred ‘Cum’

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Winston Churchill, My Early Life:

“Dr. Welldon took a friendly interest in me, and knowing that I was weak in the Classics, determined to help me himself. His daily routine was heavy; but he added three times a week a quarter of an hour before evening prayers in which to give me personal tuition. This was a great condescension for the Headmaster, who of course never taught anyone but the monitors and the highest scholars. I was proud of the honour: I shrank from the ordeal. If the reader has ever learned any Latin prose he will know that at quite an early stage one comes across the Ablative Absolute with its apparently somewhat despised alternative ‘Quum with the pluperfect subjunctive.’ I always preferred ‘Quum.’ True he was a little longer to write, thus lacking the much admired terseness and pith of the Latin language. On the other hand he avoided a number of pitfalls. I was often uncertain whether the Ablative Absolute should end in ‘e’ or ‘i’ or ‘o’ or ‘is’ or ‘ibus’? to the correct selection of which great importance was attached. Dr. Welldon seemed to be physically pained by a mistake being made in any of these letters. I remember that later on Mr. Asquith used to have just the same sort of look on his face when I sometimes adorned a Cabinet discussion by bringing out one of my few but faithful Latin quotations. It was more than annoyance, it was a pang. Moreover Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which Prime Ministers have never yet been invested. So these evening quarters of an hour with Dr. Welldon added considerably to the anxieties of my life. I was much relieved when after nearly a whole term of patient endeavour he desisted from his well-meant but unavailing efforts.”

Translation and Clear Thought

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H.E. Spalding, The Value of the Classics:

When I was graduated from the University of Michigan thirty-five years ago I was able to read Greek and Latin at sight fairly well and I have continued the reading of both ever since for my own pleasure. My business has been the practice of law. I have no qualification to judge of the value of classical studies except such as these facts imply.

Aside from disciplinary value and that of an acquaintance with two literatures which so largely enter into the fabric of all modern literature, the principal direct benefit of classical study, as it seems to me, is found in the training which that study if properly conducted gives in the high and difficult art of clear and accurate expression of thought. I speak advisedly when I say that few can state any matter, other than the simplest, in clear, accurate and concise language, and that the lack of this ability accounts for a very large proportion of litigation as well as of other human misunderstandings. In my judgment translation, especially translation at sight, without which no one can escape the slavery  of the dictionary, is far superior to original composition as an instrument for the development of this ability.

I may say at the same time, for the sake of emphasis, something often said before, that classical teachers in schools and colleges have been and as I think still are not sufficiently mindful of the importance of this matter. The proper practice of translation materially contributes to the formation of a good English style. Slipshod translation, such as was common when I was in college, and which I incline to think is still not uncommon, materially interferes with the development of the ability to perceive differences in meanings and to misunderstand the force and effect of different forms of expression. Students ordinarily enter college with the most rudimentary ideas of expression. They can neither speak nor write clearly and accurately. Classical studies should correct these faults. As those studies were commonly prosecuted a generation ago they tended to confirm students in habits of slovenly and inaccurate expression and necessarily in corresponding faults of thought.

the-scholar-georges-croegaert
Georges Croegaert, The Scholar

A Lengthy Disquisition on Shit-Talking

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Erasmus, Adagia 27:

If you say what you want to say, you will hear what you do not want to hear. St. Jerome cites this in the place of a proverb in his work Against Rufinus: ‘You will hear nothing more than this, except that from the crossroads: when you say what you want, you will hear what you don’t. Terence, in his Andria, writes:

If he continues to say what he wants, he will hear what he doesn’t.

and in his prologue to Phormio:

If he had contended against him with well-chosen words, he would have heard something good in return,

and he even alluded to the same thing in his prologue to Andria:

Let them cease to talk shit, lest they learn of their own crimes.

and somewhat more obscurely, he writes in his prologue to The Eunuch:

Then, if there is anyone who thinks that something here has been spoken a little ungenerously about him, let him think so, but understand that this was not an attack…

for by the word responsum, he means an attack made in return for another. But this passage reminds me that I should contradict the error of certain people who had written in the margin that I read in the following lines because he first did harm [quia laesit prius: indeed, thus it was written in the common copies. I, before anyone else, restored the proper reading, to wit:

Just as [quale sit] he who, first translating them well and describing them badly made bad Latin plays out of good Greek ones, and who now recently did the same for Menander’s Phasma

where the phrase quale sit has the same force as the Greek οἷον or the Latin velut or quod genus sit, which we use when we are about to lay out an example. For he was recounting the act of returning an assault, and then he added an example, and then first [prius] responds to the adverb which follows, recently [nuper]. So the sense is something like, ‘who earlier had translated many plays badly, which you now do not remember, also recently produced that shitty version of the Phasma, which you can remember.’

But, to return to the subject at hand, it seems that Homer was the father of this adage, and we read in this verse of Book 20,

              Ὁπποῖόν κ᾽ εἴπῃσθα ἔπος, τοῖόν κ᾽ ἐπακούσαις, that is,

You will hear such a speech as you have just made.

Similarly, Hesiod, in his Works and Days, writes,

Εἰ δὲ κακόν τ᾽ εἴποις, τάχα κ᾽ αὐτὸς μεῖζον ἀκούσαις,  that is

It is likely that to one talking shit, much shit will be talked in turn.

And again in that same book,

Εἰ δέ κεν ἄρχῃ

Ἤ τι ἔπος εἰπὼν ἀποθύμιον ἠὲ καὶ ἔρξας,

Δὶς τόσα τίννυσθαι μεμνημένος,  that is,

If first you yourself either say or do some bad word or deed, you will see it return to you with doubled interest.

Euripides, in his Alcestis, writes:

Εἰ δ᾽ ἡμᾶς κακῶς

Ἐρεῖς, ἀκούσῃ πολλὰ κοὐ ψευδῆ κακά,  that is,

If you talk some shit to me, you will hear a lot of shit in turn, and it will be true.

But Sophocles expressed the same sentiment in a much more charming way, and Plutarch cites him thus:

Φιλεῖ γὰρ γλῶτταν ἐκχέας μάτην

Ἄκων ἀκούειν οὒς ἑκὼν εἴπῃ λόγους, that is,

Indeed, the one who has tossed about his words carelessly is usually unwilling to hear what he was willing to say.

But the phrase from Sophocles is actually:

Φιλεῖ δὲ πολλὴν γλῶσσαν ἐκχέας μάτην

Ἄκων ἀκούειν οὓς ἑκὼν εἶπεν κακῶς,  that is

The one who pours out words carelessly is usually unwilling to hear the kind of shit he talked.

Indeed, even in our own times, the common saying goes, As you greet someone, so too will you be greeted, which is to say that people will respond to you in the manner of your own speech. Plautus writes, If you speak an insult, you will hear one. Caecilius, in his Chrysius as cited by Gellius, writes: You will hear an insult if you speak one to me. The same sense can be had from that Euripidean verse which one encounters in some authors, Ἀχαλίνων στομάτων ἀνόμου τ᾽ ἀφροσύνης τὸ τέλος δυστυχία, that is, The end of unbridled mouths and ungoverned madness is calamity. Celebrated among Chilon’s sayings is, Μὴ κακολογεῖν τοὺς πλησίον·εἰ δὲ μή, ἀκούσεσθαι ἐφ᾽ οἷς λυπήσεσθαι, that is, Don’t talk shit to those near you; otherwise you will hear what may case you pain. I think one could also add the little verse which Quintilian said was popular among the common people: He did not really insult him, because the other guy insulted him first.

              440px-Phlyax_scene_Louvre_CA7249

QVI QVAE VVLT DICIT, QVAE NON VVLT AVDIET

Si dixeris quae vis, quae non vis audies. Diuus Hieronymus in Rufinum nominatim prouerbii loco citat: Nihilque super hoc audies, inquit, nisi illud e triuio: cum dixeris quae vis, audies quae non vis. Terentius in Andria:  Si mihi pergit quae vult dicere, quae non vult audiet. Rursum in prologo Phormionis: Benedictis si certasset, audisset bene. Eodem allusit in prologo Andriae: Desinant Maledicere, malefacta ne noscant sua. Obscurius etiam in prologo Eunuchi: Tum si quis est, qui dictum in se inclementius Existimet esse, sic existimet, sciat  Responsum non dictum esse, responsum enim vocat conuicium conuicio redditum. Sed hic locus admonet, vt quorundam errorem coarguam, qui in margine  dscripserant me in his quae sequuntur legere, quia laesit prius: imo sic legebatur in vulgatis exemplaribus. Ego primus ex fide veterum restitui germanam lectionem, nimirum hanc:

Quale sit, prius   Qui bene vertendo et eas describendo male

Ex Graecis bonis Latinas fecit non bonas, Idem Menandri Phasma nunc nuper dedit,

vt quale sit idem valeat quod apud Graecos οἷον, apud Latinos ‘velut’ aut ‘quod genus sit’, quibus vtimur exemplum proposituri. Meminerat enim de conuicio regerendo, eius mox subiicit exemplum, deinde prius respondet ad aduerbium quod sequitur, nuper. Qui prius male verterat multas fabulas, quarum non meministis, idem nuper dedit ineptam fabulam Phasma, cuius potestis meminisse. Verum vt ad rem redeamus, primus huius adagii pater Homerus fuisse videtur, apud quem hic versus est in Iliadis Υ:

Ὁπποῖόν κ᾽ εἴπῃσθα ἔπος, τοῖόν κ᾽ ἐπακούσαις,  id est Talia dicentur tibi, qualia dixeris ipse.

Item Hesiodus libro, cui titulus Opera et dies: Εἰ δὲ κακόν τ᾽ εἴποις, τάχα κ᾽ αὐτὸς μεῖζον ἀκούσαις,  id est  Fors male dicenti dicentur plura vicissim. Rursus in eodem:

Εἰ δέ κεν ἄρχῃ

Ἤ τι ἔπος εἰπὼν ἀποθύμιον ἠὲ καὶ ἔρξας,

Δὶς τόσα τίννυσθαι μεμνημένος,  id est

Si quod prior ipse

Aut verbum aut factum dicasue gerasue molestum,

Ad te cum duplici rediturum foenore noris.

Euripides in Alcestide:

Εἰ δ᾽ ἡμᾶς κακῶς

Ἐρεῖς, ἀκούσῃ πολλὰ κοὐ ψευδῆ κακά,  id est

Si dixeris nobis male,

Mala inuicem permulta nec falsa audies.

Longe venustius idem extulit Sophocles citante Plutarcho:

Φιλεῖ γὰρ γλῶτταν ἐκχέας μάτην

Ἄκων ἀκούειν οὒς ἑκὼν εἴπῃ λόγους,  id est

Etenim solet qui dicta temere iecerit,

Audire nolens verba, quae dixit volens.

Refertur ex Sophocle:

Φιλεῖ δὲ πολλὴν γλῶσσαν ἐκχέας μάτην

Ἄκων ἀκούειν οὓς ἑκὼν εἶπεν κακῶς,  id est

Qui multa temere verba fudit, is solet

Audire nolens quae volens dixit male.

Quin etiam his nostris temporibus eiusmodi quiddam vulgo dictitant: Vt salutabis, ita et resalutaberis, hoc est vt tua fuerit oratio, ita tibi respondebitur. Plautus: Contumeliam si dices, audies. Caecilius in Chrysio apud Gellium: Audibis male, si male dicis mihi. Eodem pertinet Euripideum illud apud autores passim obuium: Ἀχαλίνων στομάτων ἀνόμου τ᾽ ἀφροσύνης τὸ τέλος δυστυχία, id est Infrenis oris et iniquae vecordiae finis seu vectigal, calamitas. Celebratur et hoc inter Chilonis apophthegmata: Μὴ κακολογεῖν τοὺς πλησίον· εἰ δὲ μή, ἀκούσεσθαι ἐφ᾽ οἷς λυπήσεσθαι, id est Non esse maledicendum iis, quibuscum agimus; alioquin audituros, quae molestiam adferant. Huc arbitror asscribendum versiculum, quem Quintilianus vt vulgo iactatum citat: Nec male respondit, male enim prior ille rogarat.

Pliny Says: F**k Your Wasted Time!

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Pliny, Letters 3.5:

He managed all of this incredible work even among the middle of the labors and bustle of the city. In his retirement, he exempted only the time he spent in the bath from his studies. And when I say the bath, I mean the baths proper – for when he was being rubbed down or dried off, he was always either listening to some book or dictating. On the road, as though he were free from all other concerns, he left himself time for study alone: at his side was a secretary with a book and some tablets, whose hands were wrapped in gloves in the winter, so that not even the asperity of the weather could take away his study time. For this same reason, he was even carried in a chair at Rome. I remember one time that he hassled me for walking, and said, “You could have not wasted these hours,” because he thought that all time was wasted that was not spent in study. With this diligent application, he completed so many of those volumes of his, and left to me one hundred and sixty commentaries on selections, composed on both sides and in the minutest handwriting, which really doubled the number of volumes. He even used to say that when he was a procurator in Spain, he was able to sell these commentaries to Larcius Licinus for four hundred thousand coins; and at that time, he didn’t have so many of them to sell.

Miniature-Pliny-the-Elder-Andrea-da-Firenze

Haec inter medios labores urbisque fremitum. In secessu solum balinei tempus studiis eximebatur – cum dico balinei, de interioribus loquor; nam dum destringitur tergiturque, audiebat aliquid aut dictabat -.In itinere quasi solutus ceteris curis, huic uni vacabat: ad latus notarius cum libro et pugillaribus, cuius manus hieme manicis muniebantur, ut ne caeli quidem asperitas ullum studii tempus eriperet; qua ex causa Romae quoque sella vehebatur. Repeto me correptum ab eo, cur ambularem: ‘poteras’ inquit ‘has horas non perdere’; nam perire omne tempus arbitrabatur, quod studiis non impenderetur. Hac intentione tot ista volumina peregit electorumque commentarios centum sexaginta mihi reliquit, opisthographos quidem et minutissimis scriptos; qua ratione multiplicatur hic numerus. Referebat ipse potuisse se, cum procuraret in Hispania, vendere hos commentarios Larcio Licino quadringentis milibus nummum; et tunc aliquanto pauciores erant.