Category: Slack

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Cetera laetus/laeta

In the cover image for this course, we can see François Bucher’s The Secret Message.  The 18th century Rococo artist Bucher has created a pastoral image that recalls (perhaps) Horace’s epistle very differently conceived (the reason why it is the cover image for this course).  

Boucher’s paintings are inspired by classical subjects.  It is not inconceivable  that Horace’s letter played some inspiration here (of course, crumbling shrines in idyllic settings run rampant through 18th century French art, so…)

Horace composes his letter to his close friend Aristius Fuscus, while sitting behind a crumbling shrine of the goddess Vacuna : post fanum putre Vacunae. Vacuna is an appropriately local deity (Livy mentions her shrine in a list of those struck by lightning: aedem…Vacunae in Sabinis.  Ovid mentions her in the Fasti in the passage devoted to Vesta.  (Her name has been connected to *vac: empty, but perhaps we should see her, as Ovid might be suggesting, as a Sabine hearth goddess.)  The image we have before us is quite different indeed.  

Your assignment for Friday is to write about this image (minimum 150 words).  Some ideas:

  • describe the image, or a part of the image
  • imagine what is happening
  • what is in the letter?
  • what is the woman feeling?
  • why is the woman here?  is she hiding?  
  • where is this scene?
  • what is on the relief? why? 

AS ALWAYS, use Smith and Hall, Lewis and Short, the Morgan-Owens Lexicon, a grammar and your best proofreading eyes!  

Don’t use res when what you really mean in the indefinite neuter plural.

No excuse for: 

  • adjectives that don’t agree with their nouns (-2)
  • verbs that don’t agree with their subjects (-2)
  • adverbs tacked randomly at end of sentences (-1)
  • word order that shows you just word for word translated (-1)
  • words that are not Latin (-3)

Suggestion: be simple!  Figure out what you can say in Latin!

 

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Plinius Explicatus

PLINIVS CALPVRNIAE SVAE S.

6.7.1.1

  Scribis te absentia mea non mediocriter adfici unumque habere solacium, quod pro me libellos meos teneas, saepe etiam in uestigio meo colloces. Gratum est quod nos requiris, gratum quod his fomentis adquiescis; inuicem ego epistulastuas lectito atque identidem in manus quasi nouas sumo. Sed eo magis ad desiderium tui accendor: nam cuius litterae tantum habent suauitatis, huius sermonibus quantum dulcedinis inest! Tu tamen quam frequentissime scribe, licet hoc ita me delectet ut torqueat. Vale.

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Exercitium Grammaticum Alterum

[Exerciti Responsum; notae]

 

NOTA BENE: The text below is an English translation of an actual letter. Any attempt to find the original violates the honor code, tempting though it may be! 

[To the writer’s wife]

You write that you are affected not moderately by my absence and you have one consolation when you don’t have me: that is,  that you hold my books and frequently even place them in my impression beside you.  I am happy to know that you miss me and happy too that you can erase the pain with this sort of medication.  I for my part read and reread your letters and return to them again and again as if they had just arrived. But this only fans the flames of my longing for you: if there is such pleasure in reading what you write, think what joy it is to talk with you! Do write as often as you can, even though it will torture me as much as it delights me. Farewell.

 

Feeling: use adficio, adficere, adfeci, adfectum

“when you don’t have me” = pro me

place: collocare

impression: vestigium

miss: requiro, requirere

ease the pain: adquiescere

medicine: fomentum

read and reread: use the frequentative lectitare (i.e.you don’t need to repeat it)

again and again: identidem

i.e. as if (quasi) new

‘fan the flames’ accendere (look it up, and you don’t need flames)

pleasure…joy: suavitas, -tatis (f)…dulcedo, -inis (f)

even though: licet + subjunctive

as much as: ita….ut…

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Personal Qualities

I started working on the list that Davidson gives for its peer review page. My best advice is to look carefully at the letters we read this term. Some of the qualities valued on the peer review page don’t translate easily or well. They will be almost always better expressed by verbal phrasing than just a list of nouns and adjectives.

Character and Personality
The following ratings will be used to compare this student with other very capable students.  Please make them as realistic as you can in comparison with outstanding students applying to other leading institutions.

Leadership: I think this is getting at the respect accrued to someone because they seem to know what they are doing–not really just someone who pushes to the front to take charge, but someone whom others don’t mind taking charge. 

  • consilium capere posse Latinitium
  • gratia: favor one finds with others (a word that is important and has a lot of senses)

Self-confidence: “a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgment”; syn:  morale, confidence, self-assurance, assurance, assertiveness, self-reliance, self-possession, composure.

  • to have c., fīdo, confīdo, fīsus sum, 3 intransitive
  • fiducia sui, self-confidence, boldness, courage PHI
  • bonum animum habere (courage)
  • praesenti animo uti –to possess presence of mind. 

Independence: not depending on another; capable of thinking and acting for oneself; 

  • legally: sui iuris esse; liber, libera, liberum 
  • personally:  suo consilio uti;  suo iudicio uti– to go one’s own way, proceed independently
  • suo more vivere (this seems not really a compliment)

Character and Integrity

  • note: integritas, integritatisdoes not mean “integrity” in our sense but rather wholeness “the undiminished or unimpaired condition of a thing.” I think integrity here means “honesty, respectablity” 
  • honestus, a,um : respectable 
  • opinionem virtutis habere – to have the reputation of virtue.
  • mores
  • poetic: integer vitae scelerisque purus (Horace)

Reaction to criticism: this has to be done with a verb phrase

  • how you take something: ferre + adverb

Concern for others

  • bene merens (merens, merentis) or bene meritus/ merita de + ablative of person 
  • benevolens, benevolentis 
  • consulere
  • cura; curare
  • humanitas; humanus, a, um
  • benignus

Respect accorded by classmates: this one is easy (but don’t use “habere”! use fruor, frui, fructum or utor, uti usum or something –both take ablative)

  • honor
  • dignitas
  • optima fides et fama
  • honestus, a,um: regarded with honor 
  • dignus, a, um (+ablative of respect)
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Slack Letter Three

Write a letter of recommendation for an acquaintance (familiaris, necessarius, amicus) who is applying to Davidson College.  Study the letters we have read for useful vocabulary; pay attention to syntactical construction.

Use available resources!

  • Latinitium: Smith and Hall Latin Dictionary
    • If you search for “study” you get this marvelous entry
  • Morgan Owens Lexicon
    • e.g if you go to the adumbratio and search for college, one of the things you get is: school: where do you go to school (or college)?  ubi studia exerces? (EGGER L.D.I. 100)
  • Logeion
    • helps you look for construction and other words used with the word you chose

Please address the following (as found on the peer application review for Davidson College:

  • How long and how well have you known the applicant?
  • What opportunities have you had to interact with and observe the applicant?
  • What do you see as the applicant’s strengths?
  • What do you consider to be the applicant’s weaknesses?

Please bear in mind that Latin very often uses verbs where we are inclined to use nouns!

Personal Qualities

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