you can play a vocabulary game and for every word you get correct, the charity will donate 20 grains of rice to people without food. That might not sound like much, but they add up. In the last 15 minutes, I've racked up 1480 grains. And Latin has helped me so much in getting more of these correct! Such as ululate. I seem to remember a verb or something from somewhere in Livy that ululate is derived from. :D
In other news, completely unrelated to Latin, my sister sent me pictures of my niece today, and she's so epically cute, I just have to share:
No longer am I just a stalker! I shall partake in the Latin Experience. *waves*
Anyways, onto my story. I went to Barnes and Noble today and of course had to take a look at the Latin section. Which, when there, I spotted a children's book amongst the reference material. I pulled it out and read the title: Olivia The Essential Latin Edition. Confused, I opened it and was delighted to see the entire story of Olivia the Pig done in Latin. So amazed by the book, I stood there and read it then had to buy it.
The book is dedicated to the memory of Amy High who taught an elementary Latin program in Virginia (Time magazine did a piece on the program). I can't imagine learning Latin in elementary school. Long division was hard enough. For more information on Amy High go to www.AmyHigh.org
I wanted to share this earlier, but with my little guy being sick, I was postponed for a while.
I have a confession which will probably gain me even more social embarassment than I've already accrued...
I run and play LARP games, such as White Wolf's Vampire the Requiem, and one of my favorite players recently gifted me with a copy of Requiem for Rome, a setting for the roleplaying game in Ancient Rome!!!
I have only just started reading it and I am in love! Vampire the Requiem (V:tR)integrates the gaming world into actual historical events, so it has a straight up Roman history section complete with little asides of how things in the Empire affected Vampire society. And I can gleefully state that the authors of this text appear to have been students of Latin, as they have provided some appropriate declensions for their glossary of terms for game play!
Titus Livius (traditionally 59 BC – AD 17), known as Livy in English, was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita, from its founding (traditionally dated to 753 BC) through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own time.
Livy's writing style was poetic and archaic in contrast to Caesar's and Cicero's styles. Also, he often wrote from the Romans' opponent's point of view in order to accent the Romans' virtues in their conquest of Italy and the Mediterranean. (thanks Wikip.)
Livy seems exciting. I think that it's really cool that we are reading the writings of someone who lived during both the republic AND the Empire. Even though he wrote about the early histories of Rome; I would think that in some way the current political state around him would have influenced what he was writing... is this a possibility Dr. M?
And what I mean by influence is that he would have glorified or omitted events based on what the current leader would have wanted.
-Anne
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Supernatural was on tonight... There was lots of Latin. Lots!
Sam was all fluent and stuff because he paid attention in Latin class. :D
Also, the idea of a virgin sacrifice was entertained for about five minutes. Dean got to be Achilles at Aulus (but more successful) and that made me very happy.
It seems my interests are a bit different than the rest of my classmates. I'm sure it is due to my advanced age. Although I am getting used to always being the oldest person in my classes, including the instructors. Oh well I digress.
I read a book review today in the St. Pete Times they lifted it from the Chicago Tribune. The author reviewed _The Oxford Companion to Italian Food_ he included a few tidbits from Roman times.
"Cicero, the Roman orator, reportedly game the family name to chickpeas, whose Latin name is Cicer arietinum (ceci in Italian), already a staple at the time and to this day."
"Mozzarella di bufala, that beloved and most Italian of cheeses, is made from the milk of water buffalo not native to the country. They were brought to Italy from Asia during the late Roman Empire - a much better legacy than that Roman essential garum, a sauce made by fermenting fish and their entrails."
Hmmmm, I can just imagine the ladies chatting - Oh Scintilla, what you do to fish entrails is magic... you must share your secret with me.
Tracy
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Yeah, I'm a dork. I know it.
I found this while looking for something to better share the awesomeness of the Blue Oyster Cult song "(Don't Fear) the Reaper," which I mentioned in the comments for Prof. M's "More Art" post. But blogger doesn't allow videos to be posted in comments, so... I'll do it here...
Anyway, so I found this fan-made video for the episode "In My Time of Dying," which was the premiere episode of the second season of Supernatural, set to the song. I think it can be understood even if you don't watch the show. And you can, of course, just play it to hear the song. It's not the most rockin' version of the song that I've heard (that would be this one live version I have), but it's the original 1976 recording. I really enjoy the guitar and the drums and how they play against the lyrics. In the live version, it's almost like the lead guitar is the voice, crying and screaming, and the drums are the heartbeat, racing, pushing forward in time. There's a fatalism in the live version that just moves me strongly. But I couldn't find the live version in a format that I could post here. Only this one. So it will have to do. Even though, all of those things that I love so much about the live version are much more subdued and mellow in the 1976 studio rendition.
(It seems the video may have stopped working... very disappointing because it's been on YouTube for over a year.)
If you want to know what's going on in this episode of Supernatural (to better understand that part of the video): Sam, Dean and their dad, John, (played by Jeffery Dean Morgan who was in the movie P.S. I Love You recently, and also on the show Gray's Anatomy at some point) got into a really bad car accident... The side of their '67 Impala was hit full-on by an 18-wheeler truck (it happens...). So at the beginning of this episode, Dean was in a coma and dying. His disembodied spirit was walking the halls of the hospital, trying to figure out a way to save himself, but he had company in the spirit world - a Reaper who was stalking him. (Hence, the song chosen for this video...) But John couldn't sit and do nothing about it, couldn't sit and watch his son die, so he made a deal to save Dean's life. He gave up his own life to the Demon who had killed his wife 23 years before. In exchange, the Demon possessed the Reaper and gave Dean his life back. Oh, and the gun that's featured in this video is the demon-killing 1835 Colt Paterson revolver I talked about before... the one that has "non timebo mala" engraved into the barrel. :D
Okay, I've babbled more than enough for one weekend. Much more than enough. Valete!
~Rachael
Addendum: Supernatural will be on this Thursday at 8pm and at 9pm (that's right, two episodes). The first one will be "Nightshifter," which is not really that scary, so don't not watch because you think you'll be scared, and the second is "Jus In Bello," the new episode that I posted clips from several days ago, which has Sam speaking some lines of a Latin exorcism like it's a second language. (If you recall, Sam was the one who did pay attention in Latin class.) That probably makes me way more happy than it should... LOL!
Also... more clips... just because:
"In My Time of Dying" the "Full on Swayzied that mother" clip:
YAY!!! Ok, so FINALLY after looking for this painting for YEARS... I found it!!! It's one of my absolute favs. This picture honestly does not do it justice. In reality the colors are richer, darker and so intense. It was painted by Paul Delaroche in 1855. It's called 'Le jeune martyre' which I believe translates as the young martyr.
Hello! I just wanted to let everyone that frequents this blog know that the USF Historians' Guild now has a blog too. There will be updates on events as well as posts pertaining to anything and everything historical. Latin and history go hand and hand so I thought I would post on here to try to get people to post on the Guild's blog so someday it could be as cool as this one. It's for both professors and students and I think it could develop into something great. So here's the link:
Yeah... It's me again with more about Supernatural. There's a spoiler clip for next week's episode, Jus In Bello, up at YouTube... and there's Latin in it. So I'm sharing.
There's two clips actually. The first kinda sets up the second a little bit, but the second one is the one with the Latin in it. One thing you should probably know about it beforehand is that Sam and Dean are being held by the FBI at some jail somewhere on a bunch of charges including many, many counts of murder, fraud, breaking and entering, arson, grave desecration, and the list goes on and on... The main agent after them (you'll see him in the first clip) has been trying to catch them since half-way through last season, and he thinks they are extremely dangerous psychopaths... Well, he's half-right. :D
a MET exhibition of Nicolas Poussin's landscapes inspired by Classical myth--the colors are so beautiful, it is almost painful (for intermediate and advanced, what clause is this?!). My favorite is the "Landscape with Calm" (shown here) all that blue and green blending in each other...
What did you guys think? I found it fascinating---except the part where they did human sacrificies--well, at least they weren't Romans. Did I hear correctly what the lecturer said? "All ancient peoples had human sacrifice, except the GREEKS!"
The Greeks rule baby!
(>> gets off high horse....)
I attaching here a lovely picture of that I missed from the lecture tonight---it's the god Turms (Hermes) carrying the soul of a deceased woman into the underworld...I have always found it such a sad and beautiful image; it alludes to the stealing of a bride, I think. The other one she did show us tonight, but I couldn't see the egg she was talking about. I looked it up (Etruscan+ egg) and bingo---don't you just love google?
I meant to do this a while ago, but better late than ever! Here are some more renditions of this famous story from the Old Testament. I like the one by Artemisia Gentileschi (Anne, this is the one you posted) but my personal favorite is the one where Judith's back is shown and it's so strong and determined. I never thought that a back could make a statement like that, but it does! I read once that in Rennaissance painting a lot of female figures were actually based on male models which were cheaper and more readily available. That would explain those muscular women, like the Michallangelo's Sibyls in the Capella Sistina.
Anyway, I could go on and on about Rennaissance art, which I adore. Here is a quick summary of the story of Judith and Holofernes; it has been taken up through the centuries as a metaphor for things ranging from womens lib to standing up against tyrannical polities:
Holofernes (Hebrew, הולופרנס) was an Assyrian[1] invading general of Nebuchadnezzar, who appears in the deuterocanonical Book of Judith. It was said that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar dispatched Holofernes to take vengeance on the nations of the west that had withheld their assistance to his reign. The general laid siege to Bethulia, commonly believed to be Meselieh, and the city almost surrendered. It was saved by Judith, a beautiful Jewish widow who entered Holofernes's camp and seduced him. Judith then beheaded Holofernes while he was drunk. She returned to Bethulia with the disembodied head, and the Jews defeated the enemy. This can be interpreted as honey trap.
So, I'm sitting here translating Cicero and Seneca (cursing both their names might I add) and I'm totally frustrated. And that's when I realize, and I've thought this before but this time I REALLY thought about it, that I'm translating words that are over 2,000 yrs old. wow. I mean really, wow.
