hodie Legonium stat illis cum civibus qui in viis orbis terrarum demonstrant amorem odium semper superare.
Today Legonium stands with those citizens who in the streets of the earth are demonstrating that love always overcomes hate.
orbis terrarum globe of lands
See you all tomorrow!
A man and a woman are approaching as quickly as possible. The attention of the police officer briefly distracted, Jessica seizes the opportunity.
I am reminded today of Apollo and Daphne, a terribly sad slice of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which the skilled hunter Daphne is pursued by Apollo, caught up in his own selfish desires. It is scattered throughout with forms of the Verb fugio, fugere, fugi, fugitum to flee, as Daphne attempts to save herself. Whether or not she succeeds is determined by your own interpretation of the poem’s ending. I feel that, sadly, she does not.
Here are, I think, all uses of the Verb fugio in Daphne’s story. If you wish to read it for yourself, you will find that it also contains cognate words like the Noun fuga escape and the Adjective fugax avoiding. The lines are number. The complete story appears between lines 452 and 567 of Metamorphoses, Book I.
protinus alter amat, fugit altera nomen amantis 474
One [Apollo] immediately desires, the other [Daphne] flees the name of her desirer.
fugit ocior aura
illa levi neque ad haec revocantis verba resistit: 502-3
She flees faster than a light breeze, nor does she halt at the words of him calling her back.
sic aquilam penna fugiunt trepidante columbae, 506
Thus the doves flee the eagle on nervous wings [literally: feathers].
nescis, temeraria, nescis,
quem fugias, ideoque fugis: 514-5
This is Apollo speaking: You do not know, rash one, you do not know from whom you flee, and thus you flee.
plura locuturum timido Peneia cursu
fugit cumque ipso verba inperfecta reliquit, 525-6
Peneia [another name for Daphne] fled him on frightened leg just as he is about to say more, and leaves behind the unfished words along with him himself.
‘I am not able to do that,’ Jessica responded. ‘I ask you. Allow me to flee.’ Then Miranda heard a sound and turned herself to investigate.
Today’s page, like yesterday’s, contains an Imperative Verb, but this one looks a little different; da give! Don’t be put off by its length – it’s just a shorter word is all. What interests us here is that, unlike yesterday’s lege, crede and sine, it ends in a –a.
Verbs, you see, belong to families. There are four families of Verb, and each member of a family behaves in the same way as its kin, and in a slightly different way to members of other families. We call them First, Second, Third and Fourth, but we could just as easily call them Frey, Greyjoy, Stark and Targaryen. You will also hear of a Fifth or Mixed family, but it is not really a family in its own right; it’s more like the Third and Fourth families combined to form a new House – Stargaryen? I think I’ll stop now…
To see how each family behaves a little differently (but not all that differently) from other families, here is a comparison of the various Imperative Verb Forms. Remember that all* members of the same family will behave in the same way.
Family Verb Singular Imperative Plural Imperative
Frey (1st) do, dare, dedi, datum da give! date
Greyjoy (2nd) video, videre, vidi, visum vide see! videte
Stark (3rd) lego, legere, legi, lectum lege read! legite
Targaryen (4th) audio, audire, audivi, auditum audi listen! audite
Mixed capio, capere, cepi, captum cape seize! capite
* Okay, there are just a few outliers. duc! lead! fac! do! dic! speak! and fer! carry! And, mirabile dictu, I just Googled Stargaryen. Turns out it’s a thing!
Again, however, Miranda blocked Jessica. ‘How does she know my name?’ she thought to herself. ‘Give me the suitcase,’ she said to the woman.
Today’s page contains two Imperative Verbs. An Imperative Verb is a Verb used to give a command. There is an example in the heading of this very post; read – in this context - is an Imperative Verb. Do it!
So what does an Imperative Verb look like in Latin? Well, it looks quite a bit like a Present Tense Verb, which is not at all surprising. After all, if you are telling someone to do something, there is no time quite like the now.
Take lego, legere, legi, lectum for example. lego means I read. To order one person to read we simply say lege! If there is more than one, we say legite! It’s that simple. In our story, Jessica asked Miranda to trust her; Trust me! she said. The Verb that means trust is credo, credere, credidi, creditum. The appropriate Imperative, therefore, is crede, as Miranda is only one person. Jessica would have said credite if she had been speaking to a pair or a crowd. The mi, by the way, means me.
Later Jessica asked Miranda to allow her to leave; allow me! she said. The Verb that means allow is sino, sinere, sivi, situm. The appropriate Imperative, therefore, is sine, as Miranda is only one person. Jessica would have said sinite if she had been speaking to a pair or a crowd. The me, by the way, means me and fugere means to escape.
You may well be wondering why both mi and me mean me. It’s a good question for another time.
Jessica was watching Miranda intently. ‘I am not your enemy, Miranda. Trust me, I beg you. Allow me to escape.’ Jessica again tried to run.
This week is a very exciting week for Classics in my home town of Sydney. It is the week that Sydney University is playing host to the 23rd Latin Summer School. Here are some details from the Summer School’s own website;
The Latin Summer School, held annually in January at the University of Sydney, was founded by the late Professor Kevin Lee and Dr Trevor Evans. It attracts over 200 students of all ages, from 13 up. It consists of daily tutorial sessions on a wide selection of Latin texts (provided) at all levels from beginners to advanced. The tutorials are conducted by experienced teachers from universities and schools in NSW and ACT.
In addition, there is a series of lectures: a choice of two or three each day, except for the first day when there is traditionally a key note lecture. These lectures cover a wide variety of topics of classical interest. Exceptionally, the key note lecture will be replaced in 2017 by a performance of a shortened version of Plautus's comedy Menaechmi, staged by Dr Anne Rogerson and students from the Latin Department at the University of Sydney. The performance will be in Latin with English surtitles.
One of the things that impresses me about the Latin Summer School, is that people of all ages are grouped together to indulge in their love of Latin. In our classes there are school students about to begin their final year of high school together with classists with decades of experience. Then there are those returning to Latin after a significant hiatus. One gentleman comes to mind, who last studied Latin back in 1956. There are even two women who have come straight from a one-week intensive Ancient Greek Summer School – my hat goes off to them! Today a student from a local high school told me that he was enjoying spending time with people who saw Latin as a hobby rather than a subject.
If you are a Sydney resident who has never attended the Summer School, I highly recommend it. If you are planning to trip to Australia, you might want to line it up with this wonderful event.
Jessica got up and grabbed the suitcase from the ground. She tried to escape Miranda, but the police woman (public guard) obstructed her. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘What is in the suitcase?’
veni vidi vici I came, I saw, I conquered is among the very best known of Latin phrases, second only perhaps to et tu, Brute! It is attributed to Caesar by one historian, Appian of Alexandria, and two biographers, Suetonius and Plutarch. Let us look at what each had to say;
Appian: Agitated by Caesar’s approach, [King Pharnaces of Syria] repented, and when Caesar was twenty-five miles away sent ambassadors to arrange peace, who took him a golden crown and foolishly offered him Pharnaces’ daughter in marriage. When Caesar discovered what the gifts were, he advanced with his army and walked forward in conversation with the ambassadors until he reached the defences of Pharnaces’ camp. Then he simply…leapt on his horse, and as soon as the war-cry was uttered, routed Pharnaces and killed a large number of his men, although accompanied by only about 1 000 cavalry who formed a vanguard with him… And his dispatch to Rome about the battle ran: ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’ Book II. 91
Suetonius: Caesar’s first and most glorious Triumphal Procession was for the victories he gained in Gaul; the next for that of Alexandria, the third for the reduction of Pontus, the fourth for his African victory, and the last for that in Spain; and they all differed from each other in their varied pomp and pageantry… Amongst the pageantry of the Pontic triumph, a tablet with this inscription was carried before him: I CAME, I SAW, I CONQUERED; not signifying, as other mottos on the like occasion, what was done, so much as the speed with which it was achieved. Life of Caesar, 37
Plutarch: On leaving that country and traversing Asia, he learned… that Pharnaces, using his victory without stint, and occupying Bithynia and Cappadocia, was aiming to secure the country called Lesser Armenia... At once, therefore, Caesar marched against him with three legions, fought a great battle with him near the city of Zela, drove him in flight out of Pontus, and annihilated his army. In announcing the swiftness and fierceness of this battle to one of his friends at Rome, Amantius, Caesar wrote three words: I came, saw, conquered. In Latin, however, the words have the same inflectional ending, and so a brevity which is most impressive. Life of Caesar, 50
Note that Plutarch, who wrote in Greek, admired how snappy veni, vidi, vici sounded in Latin. Each of them is the First Person Perfect Tense Form of these three verbs; venio, venire, veni, ventum - video, videre, vidi, visum - vinco, vincere, vici, victum. You may remember that the Third Principal Part of any Verb is the First Person Perfect Tense Form. vidi I saw appears on today’s page.
Miranda ran to Jessica without delay. ‘How do you have yourself [i.e. How are you?]’ she asked her. ‘What were you doing? I saw you descending from the roof.’
The story required Jessica to accidentally let go of the rope, but I was at first uncertain how to express this idea in Latin. Here is a little of the process that helped me arrive at an (I think) acceptable solution. I was comfortable with accidentally, which is commonly expressed with casu, the Ablative of casus. The historian Nepos wrote casu accidere to happen by accident and Tacitus wrote casu procidere to accidentally fall forwards. The Noun casus itself means a falling down, and by extension an accident. So I guess the Ablative casu might be considered an Ablative of Manner. How did it happen? It happened casu by accident, accidentally.
The expression to let go of took a little more work. It is, for starters, an expression that has a wide range of uses in English. You can let go of an animal that has been caught in a trap, let go of an idea that has been keeping you up nights, or let go of a rope that you are descending from a rooftop. I needed a phrase that expressed the last. Scouring dictionaries for various uses, it seemed that the most appropriate Verb would be resolvere to unbind, untie, loosen, open, release, free and that the full expression would be Jessica released the rope from her hands.
This was the bulk of the work done. The rope funis would be the Object of the Verb and would therefore be written in the Accusative Form, funem. And as Jessica released the rope from her hands, an Ablative would be required, manibus. Grammarians call this an Ablative of Separation. This left me with the final expression, funem manibus casu resolvit. All that now remained was to run the expression by a couple of people whom I much admire for their Latinitas Latin style, Latinity. I thank them for their help, and am happy to say that it passed their scrutiny.
Jessica, shocked by the unexpected shout, accidentally let go of the rope and fell to the ground. The stolen suitcase was lying beside her.
The sides of a Lego modular kit are, as a rule, not as beautiful as their front and back. To use an expression my mother uses, they can look a little hodge-podge. You see, when putting interesting details on the inside of a room, the outside often pays the cost. Take a look at today’s picture. Inside the Montanus is an attractive block of black wall, upon which hang the cues for the pool table. It looks great! But it means that the same block of black wall must also exist on the outside, where it makes no sense at all. To be fair, the modular kits are made to be pushed up against one other, so this rarely causes a problem. But on occasions like this, it does.
Luckily we live in the age of digital manipulation. I was able to make a minifigure that looked more or less like the iconic Bansky piece of an anarchist throwing flowers. The flowers came with a Hippy minifigure I bought at a Lego fair about eight months back. The face mask came with the Lego Bank. I took the photo with my phone (I took it from above, the minifigure is actually lying on my desk), then ran it through about six of those drawify apps that you can get for your phone. I picked the best one, and voila! A Bansky.
But sliding down the rope, Jessica was sighted by our Miranda, guarding her town below. ‘Hey!’ Miranda shouted.
