Kevin's Classics

  A new year, a new blogpost I've been neglecting this blog again due to new responsibilities (finally progressing in this world, so it's been job responsibilities). In order to put some energy into this blog, I want to start to write something silly before I restart the "Miraculous Myths" series. I reread my last post of that, and I really appreciated what I was cooking (like the kids like to say, gosh I'm getting old). I will continue that series and get to my conclusion, but first let us celebrate the passing of the past festivities and passing of a new year with a silly song in Latin. Septem Dies Nivis In primo die nivis ninguit unum pedem et nemini placuit. In secundo die nivis ninguit dix pedes et omnibus placuit.  In tertio die nivis ninguit dix pedes denuo et omnnes metuere. In quarto die nivis ninguit quinque pedes et omnes fortunam displacere putant. In quinto die nivis ninguit duo pedes et omnes numina orant In sexto die nivis ninguit et ninguit et ning...

Introduction It was in my third year of secundary education (I believe that's the end of junior high school) when I first encountered this myth. Funnily enough, it was during a Latin exam, which tested our knowledge of the participle present. The exam consisted of some excersises that made us change verbs to their participle equivalents and vice versa, and it ended with a translation exercise. The text that we had to translate was a simplified version of this text, though it skipped to the part where Orpheus has already sung to Hades and Persephone. I don't remember what I got for that test, but the simplified Latin text, filled with present participles, is still in my mind when I think of Orpheus and Eurydice. It was a bummer to find out that Ovid's version was not so visually narrated as that simple text had been, but I was still enamoured by his style. Enfin, we are not here to recollect old school stories. We are here because we want to know how Ovid represents the myth...

What is Miraculous Myths? Miraculous Myths is a new series of blog posts centred around a myth. In this series, I want to give a good overview of a well-known myth by providing my translations and analyses of important source texts (Greek and Latin). Moreover, we will transgress the boundaries of ancient times and approach the myth from more modern retellings and stories. In a way, these posts will combine my skills of translation and interpretation with studies of reception. Thus, it's gonna be more than a mere overview of all the source material or common plot lines, as you can find on many other websites.  How did I come up with the idea? This series of miraculous myths is indebted to the podcast "Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!" by Liv Albert. As the title implies, this podcast is all about Greek & Roman mythological stories with sporadic interviews of professors on other ancient historical topics (her last series was on the Mediterranean Bronze Age). Liv likes...

Prelude I have continued my efforts of translating Tibullus's elegies and after the wearisome wars of the 1.10, I was up for a more open amatory poem directed to the main love interest of the poet, his mistress Delia. Not wanting to go all the way back to the beginning, I split the difference and simply started on elegy 5 which was rather more complex than I thought at first sight. The first 18 lines adresses the poem's ego's feeling of torment about the break-up with Delia, which he finds extra harsh after having done a lot to save her from a harsh disease ( morbus tristis (9) ). Lines 19-36 form an "idyllic vignette", an description of a farm house with wheat-fields, sheepfolds and vineyards, similar to the estate described in poem 1.1. After the forsaken dream starts the second part of the poem, in which there's a change of atmosphere. Here we see how the poem's ego tries to forget his sorrows with wine and woman, but to no avail. And we find out that ...

International Cat Day I have a confession to make: despite being heavily exposed to the internet, I am not a cat lover. Please, don't start to wreak an havoc. It's not like I harnass a profound distaste for cats, but I would simply choose a dog over a cat any day of the week. In fairness dogs are just better companions than cats, but enough of this blasphemy. Today is the International Cat Day (and you know it is important since it has its own twitter hashtag). So in honour of this special holiday, I present to you fable from antiquity that heavily portrays the nature of cats. And frankly, I believe that a cat would act accordingly if it had the opportunity: not that they are deceitful, but they are always following their own best interests. 

One thing is certain. In love and in war, every promise is empty.

After having posted a translation out of the blue on Tuesday , I return to it on Thursday. In today's post, I revisit the genre of Roman elegiac love poetry and how Tibullus fits into that genre. I  will explain why I started with Elegy 10 and how it relates to Tibullus's other Elegies in book 1. To conclude, I will add some remarks to my Dutch translation (and discuss some emendations). Hopefully, you have obtained a better understanding of the poem!

As you have read from the title, this topic will be Tibullus Elegies. This particular work fascinates me and I am going to attempt to translate the first two books into Dutch since the most recent translation is from the year I was born.

A (false) dilemma Not every argument you make can be as strong as you have intended it to be. Other arguments are deliberately false since you know that the view you are upholding is unfeasible (an intentional fallacy ).

Introduction:   It has been a while since I posted something, but I am back with something new for you to chew on: my own rhythmical translation of Ovid's Amores 2.5, the poem known as 'Kisses' or 'No love is worth that much'.

"Finally, all my endeavours to become a funny guy shall not have been in vain for I have found the advice, the theory, that will help me to realise my potential."   Or so, I thought when I started to read Cicero's De Oratore about jokes [2.217-252]. However, in the very first line, Cicero's character Caesar exhibits that there's no particular theory or methodology behind being comical: “however, those who have tried to come up and teach some theory or methodology on this subject (i.e. humour), exhibited themselves so unwitty that you cannot laugh at anything else of them but their failure at being funny .” ( Sed qui eius rei rationem quandum conati sunt artemque tradere, sic insulsi exstiterunt ut nihil aliud eorum nisi ipsa insulsitas rideatur. )

Classicists being classicists: or are we changing? Note beforehand: this post should have been a short anecdote about my fondness for nitpicking, grammatical questions but it turned into a rant about new teaching methods. If you don't get the coherence, it's not your fault: I don't get it either.