How about reading some COBOL code? 
Oh, my God! I loved the selection from the Volsunga Saga in E.V. Gordon’s An Introduction to Old Norse That’s one hell of a dysfunctional family. Unfortunately I think I have forgotten what little Old Norse I once knew, and I have only just begun to study Greek. My Latin is more than a little rusty, but count me in. When do we start?
hmmmm.
Could we start with something most popular bookstores are going to have?
See, I live in a place where there are 2 (count 'em, two) bookstores. Within any sort of driving distance. Anything much more arcane than Herodotus, the most popular of the Greek plays, and Plato are pretty much unavailable off the shelf, and I need time to order it . . .
Tisiphone
Well, from what i’ve read this is Old Latin pronunciation :). Some authors transcribe Latin with u’s instead of v’s: uiuus - vivus
Lots of great suggestions! I hear Herodotus, Catullus, Martial, the Sagas…
So here’s an idea. Since there is such a great mix of people reading the stuff now, complete newbies, and old forgetfuls, perhaps we should start with something really emblematic of classical literature. A passage you could point to and say with confidence: “now that is what Rome/Greece is about.”
I seem to hear more votes for Roman material, so how about this.
The Aeneid of Vergil, book VIII. It’s the book in which King Evander gives Aeneas the grand tour of the site upon which the future Rome will stand. It is an aetiological masterpiece:
John Dryden’s translation. This is Rome. Custom and law over brutality. Lots to talk about later. 
This book also has, in my humble opinion, some of the most beautiful verses in all of Latin poetry, not to mention the story of Cacus, a monster brutally murdered by Hercules. In graphic detail. Something for everyone.
So here’s what I think we should do. All of us should read the book in English. It’s only a few hundred lines, so it’s hardly a big commitment. I’ll have details posted on a website located here. It probably won’t be up until later today.
For those of us who will try to read the passage in Latin, it will be a bit more time consuming. I think our best bet would be to skim it in English first and pick out the passages we like. If all of us post a few dozen favorite lines, it will keep the Latin commitment to a manageable level. This way we can each talk about our favorite parts without necessarily sloughing through the whole thing.
If the name Vergil doesn’t ring any bells, don’t worry. I’ll post some biographical data on him as well, in addition to a brief synopsis of his epic masterpiece, The Aeneid. No child will be left behind.
No one will have to buy any books unless he/she wants to. I will have links to everything we do in the original and in translation posted on the site. Of course, for those who find reading from a bound volume more pleasant, power to you. I’ll suggest some editions and post amazon links accordingly.
This sound good so far?
Vale,
MR
Hey, y’all, please read my original post. (and quote me correctly)
Your link doesn’t work, but the Latin original and Dryden’s translation are both available from The Perseus Digital Library That link should work, but I think their server is down at the moment.
Leave your personal problems out of this and think about baseball next time.
Because I haven’t put up the site yet.
Quite so. Where I clipped the above passage from. I will have links to the Perseus Project furnished on my site.
MR
Mea maxima culpa. I didn’t read your post carefully enough. (I have a little trouble with English sometimes, even though it’s my mother tongue.)
Mea maxima culpa. I didn’t read your post carefully enough. (I have a little trouble with English sometimes, even though it’s my mother tongue.)
By the way, it’s interesting you chose book 8 of the Aeneid. I’ve been reading a prose translation by David West, and I’m right in the middle of book 8 now.
Damnit. And here I had my fingers crossed hoping for Book II of the Aeneid, since then I could rely on extensive undergraduate exposure and pretend that I was really edjumicated.
So what are we going to do when you’re out of town, Maeglin?
Woo-hoo! Reading for Kathryn tonight! Hand me the red wine please.
Maeglin, this is a beautiful idea. I really want to get into Catullus, I’ve been poking at some of his stuff on my own since we had to translate something of his in class.
[sub]this is so cool…weeee! okay, gotta act more educated and less like the littlest kid in the big kid’s club[/sub]
Sorry, I’ll go to Statics now.
Hey, Maeglin. I meant to come in here earlier but didn’t have the time . . . other threads to tend to and all that.
I took . . . thinking hard . . . eight years of Latin from grade school to my junior year of high school. SO I’ve got a decent-enough background in that, coupled with my “tutoring” of Medea’s Child this past fall as she got into first-year latin. I don’t know ANY Greek beyond some very basic things, but should it strike my fancy I doubt it’d be very hard to get into.
Sorry to stumble into this thread so late, my enforced absence from the boards will be explained elsewhere. All this about the Scandinavian sagas (Magelin, it’s perfectly OK to talk about Scandinavian sagas, as sagas were written in and about Norway, the Shetland and the Orkney Islands as well as Iceland) would be music to the ears of my wife, who’s just finished her Ph.D dissertation on aspects of the Icelandic family sagas. She can read the sagas in the original Old Norse quite well, and read Njall’s Saga (impress your friends and pronounce it the Old Norse way–“NJOW-t’lls SA-ga”) to me without using a dictionary (OK, don’t ask me how she can do it). I think her choice for this group would be Laxdaela Saga: it’s fast-moving, humourous, surpisingly feminist in outlook, and–a big bonus for those new to sagas like me–easy to understand. I’ve been read Laxdaela–I’d have to consult her on which, of the other dozens of sagas she’s read, would be of interest to this group.
As for me, I’ve read several churchwardens’ accounts in Latin. They are as dull as reading the phone book. Stick with the sagas.
::peeking head in door:::::
I think I will wait for the movie to come out on any or all of these books you folks are intending to read.
Carry on.
I once was fluent in Fortran, before they’d even invented Cobol.
I’d love to throw in some sanskrit. That’d be peachy
I love Catullus! Great double meanings…passer anyone?
Maeglin, Book VIII is fine (I bought a complete latin version second hand many years ago since I did a book of it for O level…and that was what convinced me to buy my latin course books Memory? What memory?). Thanks for organising us all like this.
Duke - I have a translation of the Orkningasaya (sp? the book is at home at the mo) which I picked up when I was in the Orkneys scuba diving & haven’t got around to read yet…I keep finding more Celtic myths & not getting round to it… :sigh:
Maeglin, oh wonder on high, is your site supposed to be up yet? I still can’t get in.