Kevin's Classics

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 ...

When I read poetry, it is often either Greek or Latin, and preferably short. That's one of the reasons I like Greek epigrams as they meet both criteria. Hopefully you can appreciate these three poems too. There is not much to say more, rather than I have chosen them for their theme on love. The titles are my own as are the translations.

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.