Okay, I’m interested, but I can’t afford the text until after the 15th. Is that ok?
Yup, I think we can forgive you. You may have to be flogged, though. Just to set an example, as it were.
WHAT? Well, we can take care of that at the NYC dopefest, right? 
Teach, I fear you may need to flog a few of us, then. Mid-May sounds (financially) good to me, too.
I’ll take care of flogging the women, Maeg; you can handle the guys.
Now I know what to get with the Amazon gift certificate DRY gave me for my birthday.
(Now I just have to learn how to thank him in Latin.)
It’s on order! I’ll get it in a couple of weeks. Woohoo!(Ironically, I just spent my Barnes & Noble gift certificate on a book that B&N has on back order.)
[Now if only I could read the boards at home! I can access them only at work, so I can’t attend class after 5 pm.]
So basically:
The floggings will continue until morale improves?
Um, the floggings will be gentle, right? RIGHT?
runs and hides
Please consider me interested… lapsed classicist, trying to knock the rust off some of my languages. (I’m actually trying to get to grips with Boethius’ Consolations of Philosophy at the moment, but I’m cheating by using one of those Loeb en regarde translation editions).
Seneca I can cope with. But I did Cicero’s Pro Caelio for A level, and I’m warning you, if I have to suffer through that one again… just kill me now. (I used to turn up for class wearing a badge that said “Caelius is guilty OK”, I got that annoyed…)
Thanks for reminding me! I have one of them. It was supposed to be for the whole family, but they spent the last one. And it would do them some good to learn Latin.
My fasces doesn’t swing that way, LNO. But I suppose if I am going to be an Equal Opportunity Flogger, I might as well not be homophobic about it then.
For all those who won’t have the book for another two weeks, that will be fine. It will probably make the most sense to start out with general grammar stuff, to ease the road for those with little inflected (or regular) foreign language experience.
That and it will probably take awhile for LNO and I to figure out what the hell we have gotten ourselves into, er, get organized.
Boethius is good stuff, Steve. As I am sure you know, the Loeb’s not exactly the primo edition. What do you think of his curious Late Antique verse?
And I like the Pro Caelio. Ok, not the bullshit about the ambassadors. The rest of it is great!
screech-owl
Gratias ago.
MR
I can’t afford the book just now either, Maeg, plus I’m off for five days starting tomorrow. I’ll be in here seeing what you’ve all been up to the day I’m back, though, and I should be able to get the book that week.
But try to flog me and you’ll end up with a broadsword in a place you wouldn’t like it. 
Ooh, Latin! I want in, as long as we don’t have to read Tacitus. I’m still recovering from that particular trauma.
I’m in.
I’m buying my copy when I get paid this Friday. Fortunately, I live right around the corner from both a Borders and a Barnes and Noble, in addition to having access to several university bookstores, one of them Catholic. So someone’s got to have that book.
Also, I found that making flashcards really helps with vocabulary, both in terms of actually writing down the word (be sure to include the genitive) and its meaning; but also for repetition. When you have extra time to study, just whip out your flashcards!
Robin
Hmmm. Have to think about Boethius’s verse… some of it seems very self-consciously simple, almost as if he’s going back to first principles and trying to re-invent from there? Of course, I haven’t yet got around to analysing the metre and… oh, there’s an idea - if I want to know what it actually sounds like, I could try reading it out loud, couldn’t I?
UK people like myself might like to know (if they don’t already) that amazon.co.uk is advertising only a 2-3 day lead time on the textbook. (Mine’s on order.)
Mnementh, you are so threatening the wrong person.
Come to DC this weekend for the rapier seminar. Three days of constant fighting and training. We’ll see whose ass gets the business end of whose sword then.
Anyway, if there are lots of people who are interested but don’t have the book, we can start the Latin stuff later. I will be away this weekend, so LNO and I won’t really have a chance to hash this stuff out.
MR
Wait, Maeg? Is this the same seminar you said I could laugh my ass off watching you at?
Well, yeah. But I have to be modest or you will start having expectations. This way when I actually do fabulously, I can pretend to be surprise, and you will think I am some sort of prodigy.
Naturally.
Hi all–I’ve seen several translations of this, some of which are very different. Perhaps you could help me out and get some practice by giving me your translations of this passage while you’re waiting for the textbooks.
“Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto vi supernum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram…”
Thanks!
I sing of arms and a … hey! This looks familiar. You won’t get me to do your homework for you. (That is, unless I receive a substantial bribe. Pizza and beer are acceptable.) (And for the love of God, don’t use the translation ‘Arms, and the man I sing, forc’d by fate, And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate…’ It sounds like Latin gangster rap.)
Note the ‘arma virumque’. -que is the happy enclitic conjuction. A modern equivalent is when Indiana Jones says to Short Round, “Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.”
Or, fortuna gloriaque, puer. Fortuna gloriaque.
[sub]Ok, I definitely need my morning coffee now.[/sub]