Edward Adolf Sonnenschein

“ For a dead language is still a language, and cannot be properly grasped unless it has some contact with living lip and living ear. Let the pupil then become accustomed from the first to reading Latin aloud, and to reading it with intelligence and expression. It is a habit which does not come of itself; but to teach it goes a long way towards making the language live again, and acts as a most valuable support to the memory. Let anyone try learning a little modern Greek, and he will appreciate the difference between remembering the accents by ear and remembering them by the eye alone. ”

“ Speaking of the course as a whole, we may say that the learning of grammar should proceed side by side with the reading of a text. The old view, which is far from extinct at the present day, though it is rarely carried out in all its rigour, was that the pupil must learn the rules of the game before he attempts to play it. The modern view is that just as in whist or hockey one learns the rules by playing the game, so in the study of a language one learns the grammar best by the reading of a simple text. ”

“ Virtue is often held up for admiration, and vice painted in revolting colours or derided. The plots of Plautus also are more varied than those of Terence. We have from him one mythological burlesque, the Amphitruo, and several plays dealing with domestic subjects like the Captivi, Cistellaria, Rudens, Stichus and Trinummus; but most of his plays depend for their main interest on intrigue, such as the Pseudolus, Bacchides, Mostellaria. In the Menaechmi and, as a subordinate incident, in the Amphitruo we have a “comedy of errors.” ”

“ While it is of importance that the pupil should come across nothing which might react disadvantageously on his future composition, it is mere pedantry to insist on any exalted standard of literary excellence. The writer who works under the limitation imposed by the conditions of the problem should not attempt any high style of diction; it is sufficient if his Latin is up to the standard of such isolated sentences as usually form the mental pabulum of the beginner, though it might well be somewhat higher. ”

“ And further, to run over all the declensions without proper understanding of their meanings and uses with and without Prepositions is a real danger, as begetting all sorts of misconception and error—so much so that the muddled pupil too often never learns the syntax of the Cases at all. No doubt all the Declensions and Conjugations must be learned before a Latin author is attacked. But when a few of them have been brought within the pupil’s ken, he finds little difficulty in mastering the others in a rapid and more mechanical fashion. ”

“ Where he varies his plot on lines of his own by amalgamating the plots of two distinct Greek comedies (e.g. in the Miles and the Poenulus) the result is generally not happy; and the romanization of the plays by way of allusions to towns in Italy, to the streets, gates and markets of Rome, to Roman magistrates and their duties, to Roman laws and the business of Roman law-courts, banks, comitia and senate, &c., involves the poet in all the difficulties of attempting to blend two different civilizations. ”

“ For English pupils learning Latin the reconciliation ought to present little difficulty; but nearly every great nation of Europe has its points of contact with Rome, and therefore its opportunities of constructing Latin Readers which are national in more senses than one. On the modern side they may be patriotic in tone, and inspired by that love of nature which appeals so directly to the youthful mind ”

“ It is sometimes forgotten that mental training is not synonymous with the inculcation of a mass of grammatical forms which only burden the memory, and that the habit of reading with care and fluency is itself a mental discipline of the highest value. ”

“ We may miss the finer insight into human nature and the delicate touch in drawing character which Terence presents to us in his reproductions of Menander, but there is wonderful life and vigour and considerable variety in the Plautine embodiments of these different types. ”

“ All Latin authors as they stand, are far too difficult to serve as a basis of study for beginners: and they are also, I may add, not well adapted in respect of subject matter and sentiment to appeal to the mind of the very young. Caesar may no doubt be made interesting to a boy or girl of twelve by a skilful teacher with the aid of maps and pictures. But, after all, the Gallic War can never be what it was never meant to be, a child’s book. The ideal “Reader,” which should be the centre of instruction during the early stages of a young pupil’s course, should be really interesting ”

“ But still the old rule of “festina lente” would warn the teacher not to impose too great a burden on the young or even the adult beginner; it is no light task to learn simultaneously forms and their meanings, vocabulary, and the fundamental facts of syntax. It must be admitted that the method which I am advocating is a slow one at first; but it is sure, and binds fast. The method of preliminary grammar might be called the railroad method. The traveller by rail travels fast, but he sees little of the country through which he is whirled. The longest way round is often the shortest way home ”

“ A fair vocabulary is acquired—without effort—in the course of reading; for the learning of new words, especially if they are chosen so as to present obvious similarities to English words, is a task eminently within the powers of the youthful mind ”

“ The dates of the rest of the extant plays, here given in alphabetical order, are quite uncertain, namely, Amphitruo, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi, Casina, Curculio, Epidicus, Menaechmi, Mercator (probably later than the Rudens, as shown by F. Marx) , Mostellaria, Persa, Poenulus, Rudens, Trinummus (later than 194 B.C.; cf. novi aediles in l. 990) . Of the Vidularia we possess only the fragments contained in the Codex Ambrosianus.
The plays of Plautus are all based on Greek originals. ”

“ In my opinion, existing manuals are disfigured by a disproportionate amount of lifeless Accidence. The outcome of the traditional system is that the pupil learns a multitude of Latin forms (Cases, Tenses, Moods) , but very little Latin. That is to say, he acquires a bowing acquaintance with all the forms of Nouns and Verbs—such as Ablatives in a, e, i, o, u, 3rd Persons in at, et, it, and so forth—before he gets a real hold of the meaning or use of any of these forms. But, as Goethe said in a different connexion, “What one cannot use is a heavy burden” ”

“ Varro's statement (in Priscian ix. 32) , deinde ad Siculos se applicavit. It is possible that Plautus may have been working on the lines of the old comedy in the tell-tale names which he is so fond of inventing for his characters, such as Polymachaeroplagides (Pseud. 988) , Pyrgopolinices (Mil. 56) , Thensaurochrysonicochrysides (Capt. 285) —names which stand in remarkable contrast to the more commonplace Greek names employed by Terence. ”

“ There should be no preliminary study of grammar apart from the reading of a text. The declensions and conjugations, learncd by rote apart from their applications, cannot be properly assimilated or understood, and often prove a source of error rather than enlightenment in subsequent study. They have to be learned over and over again—always in doses which are too large for digestion, and the pupil has meanwhile been encouraged to form a bad habit of mind. ”

“ De oratore, iii. 12, 45) ; though from the lips of slaves and other low persons in the plays we no doubt hear expressions which, while they are quite in keeping with the characters to whom they are allotted, would have shocked the ears of polite society in the 2nd century B.C. The characters in his plays are the stock characters of the new comedy of Athens, and they remind us also of the standing figures of the Fabulae atellanae (Maccus, Bucco, Dossennus, &c.) ”

“ In the middle ages Plautus was little regarded, and twelve of his plays (Bacchides–Truculentus) disappeared from view until they were discovered (in the MS. called D) by Nicholas of Treves in the year 1429. Apparently some early archetype had been divided into two volumes, of which only the first (containing eight plays, Amphitruo–Epidicus) had escaped oblivion or destruction. After the revival of learning Plautus was reinstated, and took rank as one of the great dramatists of antiquity; cf. Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1. ii. 420, where Polonius says, “The best actors in the world ... ”

“ The pupil who has mastered this book ought to be able to read and write the easiest kind of Latin with some degree of fluency and without serious mistakes: in a word, Latin ought to have become in some degree a living language to him. ”

“ D, now in the Vatican, containing the Amphitruo, Asinaria, Aulularia half of the Captivi and the last twelve plays: to the same family belong the following less important MSS.: E (at Milan) , V (at Leiden) , J (in the British Museum) , O (in the Vatican) .
Editions.—The editio princeps, based mainly on a transcript of D, was printed at Venice, 1472: the first scientific text, based on B, C and D, was that of Camerarius, completed 1552, in whose steps followed Lambinus (with a commentary which is still useful) , 1576; Taubmann, 1605-1621; Pareus (a meritorious edition) , 1619 and 1623 ”

“ And the forms of the adjective taken by the different classes of nouns are called by the same names.
In order to know to which class a noun belongs (and therefore which form of the adjective it takes) , observe the following rules:-
Nouns of the 1st Declension are feminine, except those denoting male persons, which are masculine: thus insula, casa, ōra, amita, are feminine; agricola, nauta, poēta, incola, are masculine. ”

“ A continuous narrative from beginning to end, capable of appealing in respect of its vocabulary and subject matter to the minds and interests of young pupils, and free from all those syntactical and stylistic difficulties which make even the easiest of Latin authors something of a problem.
2. A work which shall hold the true balance between too much and too little in the matter of systematic grammar. ”

“ There must be many University teachers who, like the present writer, feel dissatisfied with the scrappy and haphazard knowledge of the classics commonly presented by students reading for Pass degrees. ”

“ And the careful reader will take note of occasional touches of serious thought, as in the enumeration of the ten deadly political sins (Persa, 5 55 seq.) and allusions to ethical philosophy (Pseud. 972 seq.; Stich. 124; Trin. 305 sqq., 320 sqq., 363 seq., 447; Rud. 767, 1235-1248, &c.) . ”

“ In the present book I have dealt directly with only three declensions of Nouns and Adjectives and the Indicative Active of sum and of the 1st Conjugation (incidentally introducing some of the forms of Pronouns, and those forms of the Passive which are made up with the Verb-adjectives, as in English) ”

“ That would depend altogether on the aim which the writer set before himself. There is plenty of room within the limits of the first declension and the first conjugation for the training of the mind in habits of accurate thought and expression ”

“ I herewith express my cordial thanks to those teachers who have pointed out to me misprints or omissions in the vocabularies—in particular to Professor Postgate, Mr. F. E. A. Trayes, Mr. R. S. Haydon, Miss A. F. E. Sanders. These oversights—not very many in number—have all been corrected in the present issue. ”

“ Syllables closed by two or more consonants are mostly long, as in vīLLa, luSCinia, iNTeRDum, paRTem, uMBRa, feneSTRa; so too are syllables containing a double vowel, as in nAUtAE. But many syllables ending in a single consonant and containing a single vowel are also long, because the vowel is itself a long vowel: these vowels are marked in the text and vocabularies of this book. Thus beata and antiqua have the middle syllable long, and are therefore marked beāta, antīqua: and it is because the middle syllable in each of these words has a long vowel in it that it is accented (beáta, antíqua) . ”