We have to translate stories. Which is usually pretty cool. I normally know them, more or less, before I start translating the exact words. Its like brushing sand off a big stone picture, things slowly come into focus as you edge stuff out of the way. I enjoy this usually.
But today it is a story I was unfamiliar with and its just gruesome. I got to some guy killing his brother’s sons and then serving them for dinner because his wife slept with his brother and I just can’t do any more. Ew. Just ew. I know its a myth, a legend, but still. I bad enough at this that stories develop slowly and I have time to just let the images seep in. I can’t really skim ahead, but it looks like something nasty happens to the bad guy’s sons.
This is one of my favorite stories in ancient mythology, and certainly one of the best subplots in the House of Tantalus. Right now I am translating the Thyestes of Seneca, one of the most powerful plays I have ever read in any language.
Are you reading a prose or a poetic version of the story?
“Brittania insula est. Italia non insula est. Italia paene insula est.”
–the first two lines in my Latin I book, and almost all I remember from 2 years of the class :D.
It’s better than my Latin translations, all mine so far this year have dealt with war or battles or fighting or some emperor killing this and doing this to make his name known throughout the world. Give me some twisted stuff any day.
I second this. Titus Andronicus is the closest thing to “Jason meets Shakespeare”.
But I do have to add: does anyone else find it a bit strange that a poster who took her user name after MEDEA would find such a grisly tale so squeamish??
I thought about the Medea aspect as well and its too late for Titus. I already read it. (ew)
My facination with Medea contains repulsion as well. Its a facination, not nessesarily an idolization. (It is not my life’s goal to kill of my kids and curse my husband. I swear.)
Reading things in English helps, I can go faster and put things together better. This story had a lot of new vocab and it took me a while to get each sentence.
“He…wait, that’s the word for to dine…what case is that…okay, so it connects back to…limbs!!! he ate them? No, it goes back to…OMG! He fed his nephews to his brother! AHHHHHHH! O miser Thyestes indeed!”
Well, Thyestes did commit adultery with Aerope and throw Atreus out of Argos, so I can’t blame Atreus too much. The Seneca version of the story is absolutely fascinating. Seneca explores the vir iratus, the man possessed by unending anger and desire for revenge. It is filled with brilliant sententiae, witty gnomic proverbs. Here is one of the best, right from Atreus’ mouth:
Take heart in the fact that in ten years, all your hard work and studying will result in you completely forgetting any Latin you ever learned. At least, that’s what happened to me… I was once an Ancient Greek/Latin major in college. I can sorta remember some of the Greek, and the Latin has been completely removed from my brain.
'course, if I would have kept up with it a little bit, it probably wouldn’t have atrophied.
Anyways, have you all seen the Anthony Hopkins version of Titus?
Sure have. I think it’s fabulous, possibly my all-time favorite Shakespeare movie (followed closely by the Olivier version of Lear and just about everything Branagh’s ever done). Helps to have a strong stomach, though…
I was a Classics major as well. To avoid the usual atrophy, I am trying to keep up with it. I read Book I of the Iliad and a lot of Suetonius this summer, and just got into the Thyestes a few weeks ago. I am not getting a chance to read as much as I would like, but oh well.
Maybe recovering classics majors should start a SDMB Dead Languages Reading Group. It’s much easier to keep up when there are other people doing the same reading. Misery loves company.
I took two years of Latin in high school and although it’s considered a “dead” language, I still consider it the second most useful class I ever took in high school. (Typing is the only thing I learned in H.S. that I STILL use every day of my wretched life! Go figure!)
Anyway, since you’re in your first year of Latin, I thought a much simpler translation was in order for you. My favorite and only – Latin joke:
I forgot to say WHY I think Latin was so useful (and no, I am not intending to pad my post count, which I could give a Red Rat’s Ass about…):
Before Latin: Diagramming sentences was a torture worse than anything. Made no sense to me.
After Latin: Grammar and sentence diagramming (useful when debating grammar points with other English/Writing/Journalism geeks) is now fun and easy!
Point being: Latin gave me a solid foundation for sentence structure in general for all the Romance Languages. Take Italian or Spanish next and see what I mean!
I am sad to say that I have that on a sweatshirt of mine. My mom bought it for me, expecting it to be real Latin. I think the look I gave her was a little dirtier than necessary.
READ it? Hell, I’ve seen it (the BBC version on public television, no less).
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If it IS your life’s goal, you’ve certainly dissuaded me from having any romantic aspirations with you! :eek:
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Try these three, which are in plain English:
“Why, there they are both, baked in that pie;
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.”
–Titus Andronicus, Act 5, Scene iii
or a longer passage:
“Hark! villains, I will grind your bones to dust,
And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste;
And of the paste a coffin I will rear,
And make two pasties of your shameful heads;
And bid that strumpet, your unhallow’d dam,
Like to the earth swallow her own increase.
This is the feast that I have bid her to,
And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;
For worse than Philomel you us’d my daughter,
And worse than Procne I will be reveng’d.
And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come. [He cuts their throats.]
Receive the blood: and when that they are dead,
Let me go grind their bones to powder small,
And with this hateful liquor temper it;
And in that paste let their vile heads be bak’d.”
–Titus Andronicus, Act 5, Scene ii
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Tired, mildly moody–and now envious of watching you flirt with everyone else–Iampunha, Zenster, god knows who else–EXCEPT me.
As to e-mail, I promise I’ll reply this weekend. POSSIBLY tomorrow night.
