Latin text

“ The Latin pieces are lusciously elegant: but the delight which they afford is rather by the exquisite imitation of the ancient writers, by the purity of the diction, and the harmony of the numbers, than by any power of invention or vigour of sentiment. They are not all of equal value ”

“ Severely addicted, as I must be supposed to be, to versification of the stricter and more classical order, I must confess my sympathy with those who take extreme delight in the sacred Latin poetry of the Middle Ages, in which that language seems for the first time to have put forth its full power, and, in wholly discarding imitation, to have become inimitable itself. ”

“ For scholars who follow, as we have tried to, the intellectual and the deeper emotional life of the Middle Ages, the Latin literature yields the incomparably greater part of the material of our study. It has been our home country, from which we have made casual excursions into the vernacular literatures. ”

“ It is perfectly absurd to speak of the humanizing effect of Latin and Greek, the grand literatures which they contain, their poetry, their philosophy, their history, the enormous influence which they have had upon the literature, poetry, philosophy, the whole tone of thought prevalent among civilized nations—I say that it is perfectly absurd to advance all these arguments, when the only condition which could make them valid is wanting. ”

“ The Latin word ‘spiritus’ had not only its abstract meaning of ‘cheerfulness,’ or ‘courage,’ but also its concrete sense of ‘breath;’ whereas, in modern languages the word has only an abstract sense, and it is only by a knowledge of its etymology that we can get at its material origin. The result of this loss is most complete when a modern, formed upon an ancient language, is no longer in direct communication with the roots of the words used. ”

“ And Latin,—the voice of Empire and of Law, of War and of the State,—the best language for the measured research of History, and the indignant declamation of moral satire; rigid in its constructions, parsimonious in its synonyms; yet majestic in its bareness, impressive in its conciseness; the true language of history, instinct with the spirit of nations, and not with the passions of individuals; breathing the maxims of the world, and not the tenets of the schools ”

“ Notwithstanding that the period in which he flourished was remarkable for its number of men, who, by their genius and learning revived the golden ages of ancient literature, he was admitted by all to be without his equal, be it in erudition or intellect, power of writing or intimacy with Latin. ”

“ Why should Latin give them a deeper insight into the philosophy of language, and introduce them to a literature and history which may raise them above the narrowness or the extravagance of their own age, and the language of the New Testament be forbidden, as too exhausting a labour, a toil fruitful only of imbecility or death? ”

“ Translation by C. W. Goodchild in Praeco Latinus, October, 1898. PART II WORDS AND FORMS LESSON I FIRST PRINCIPLES 19. Subject and Predicate. 1. Latin, like English, expresses thoughts by means of sentences. A sentence is a combination of words that expresses a thought, and in its simplest form is the statement of a single fact. Thus,
In each of these sentences there are two parts:
2. ”

“ A help to the poet’s meaning.—The more you know of the principles of scansion, the better able you will be to understand and appreciate the skill with which a great poet varies his metre and chooses his words.
11. Help through a Study of the Period in Latin.—One great difference between English and Latin Prose is that, while modern English is to a great extent a language of short, detached sentences, Latin expresses the sense by the passage as a whole, and holds the climax in suspense until the delivery of the last word. ”

“ Yet the Latin language is still the necessary foundation of one half of human knowledge, and the forms created by Roman genius underlie the whole of our civilisation. So long as mankind look before and after, the name of Rome will be the greatest of those upon which their backward gaze can be turned. ”

“ For exercising the intellectual faculties, and for awakening and developing a sense of the fundamental properties of a good style—namely, correctness, precision, and brevity of expression—there is no doubt that Latin with its limpid clearness, its rigorous precision, and its absolute definiteness of meaning, is a better object of study than Greek with its multitudinous forms and particles, the import of which is matter rather of skilled conjecture and artistic feeling than of logical analysis. ”

“ Latin, also, to continue the same metaphor, has other characteristic features of hard substances—gravity, solidity, and momentum or energy. It is a fit language for embodying and expressing the thoughts of an active and practical but not an imaginative and speculative people. ”

“ Latin, the consecrated language of all Christendom, farther beautified with the sparkling ornament of rhyme, was the appropriate garb wherein to clothe their hallowed thoughts; but this, while it gives to their compositions eternity and universality, goes to shut out very many from reaping ghostly advantage therefrom. ”

“ Why study Latin? The foregoing paragraphs make it clear why Latin forms so important a part of modern education. We have seen that our civilization rests upon that of Greece and Rome, and that we must look to the past if we would understand the present. It is obvious, too, that the knowledge of Latin not only leads to a more exact and effective use of our own language, but that it is of vital importance and of great practical value to any one preparing for a literary or professional career. ”

“ In a Latin sentence the most emphatic place is the first; next in importance is the last; the weakest point is the middle. Generally the subject is the most important word, and is placed first; usually the verb is the next in importance, and is placed last. The other words of the sentence stand between these two in the order of their importance. ”

“ The word-order is modern with scarcely a trace of the antique. Perhaps we may say that he wrote Latin like an Englishman of vehement temper and great intellect. He is powerful in continuous exposition; yet instances of his general, and very striking statements, will illustrate his diction at its best. In the following sentence he recognizes the progressiveness of knowledge, a rare idea in the Middle Ages:
[Pg 180] “Nam semper posteriores addiderunt ad opera priorum, et multa correxerunt, et plura mutaverunt, sicut maxime per Aristotelem patet, qui omnes sententias praecedentium discussit.” ”

“ In this greatest of world's decisions it is the spirit of the Latin that triumphs again—the sanest, suavest, noblest tradition that the earth has ever known, under which men may work out their mysterious destiny. ”

“ O, good my lord, no Latin! I am not such a truant since my coming, As not to know the language I have liv'd in; ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the increase in the knowledge of Latin was mainly such as a mature man may realize within himself, if he has kept up his Latin reading, however little he seem to have added to his knowledge since leaving his Alma Mater. ”

“ A literature like classical Latin, which is from first to last in statu pupillari, which, with whatever strength, deftness, elegance, even originality at times, follows in the footsteps of another literature, must for the very life of it have a critical creed of order, discipline, moderation. ”

“ Well, then, gentlemen, there is another thing I enter my protest against, and that is Latin verses. I do not think the history of poets is so prosperous that the end and object of mankind should be to make as many young people as possible poetasters. One of the least profitable of the little talents that a man can have is that of scribbling verses, and yet years of our lives are taken up in the attempt to teach us to write Latin verses, which, after all, are a mere cento of expressions stolen from different authors, the meaning of which we may not ourselves know. ”

“ One who undertakes to express the thoughts of antiquity in modern idiom goes to his task with his eyes open, and has no right at every stumbling-block or pitfall to bemoan his unhappy fate. So also with the particular difficulties presented by the great founder of Latin style—his constant use of superlatives, his doubling and trebling of nearly synonymous terms, the endless shades of meaning in such common words as officium, fides, studium, humanitas, dignitas, and the like—all these the translator has to take in the day's work. ”

“ Latin is a wholly dead tongue, and except in a degenerate form not by any means an easy one to learn, for its genius is wholly opposed to the genius even of those modern languages which are most closely allied to it. ”

“ We have many such courses of philosophy in the Latin language. They are the work of patient writers, who carefully collected and methodically condensed in their books the learning and the wisdom of centuries for the benefit of those who needed an introduction to the philosophical discipline. ”

“ In the first Place, it is to be set forth in pure and choice Latin Words; which to do is no mean Piece of Art: For there are a great many, who do, I don't know after what Manner, affect the Copia and Variation of Phrase, when they don't know how to express it once right. ”

“ The use of Latin words often gives clearness and melody to style; and instead of a violent effort to Saxonize his writing, an author should clothe his thoughts in the diction that is most fitting and expressive. ”

“ In studying the Greek and Latin classics, we shall be continually led into error, unless we note the difference between the meanings attached in them to certain terms, and those we now attach to corresponding terms. ”

“ The vices of our author's style, and his ambitious affectation of ornament, are condemned by most critics; but some of the points which strike a modern reader as defects evidently arise from the alteration which the Latin language had already undergone since the days of Livy. ”

“ The Latin prose of Tacitus and Cicero, the verse of Virgil and Horace, are like a Greek statue, or an Italian cameo—you have not only exquisite beauty, but also exquisite precision. You get the thought into your mind with the accuracy and precision of the words that express numbers in the multiplication table. Ten times one are ten—not ten and one one-millionth. Having got the idea into your mind with the precision, accuracy, and beauty of the Latin expression, you are to get its equivalent in English. ”

“ But there was an earlier Latin literature, a literature truly Latin, which has wholly perished, which had, indeed almost wholly perished long before those whom we are in the habit of regarding as the greatest Latin writers were born. That literature abounded with metrical romances, such as are found in every country where there is much curiosity and intelligence, but little reading and writing. All human beings, not utterly savage, long for some information about past times, and are delighted by narratives which present pictures to the eye of the mind. ”

“ What pleased one found little sympathy in the other. During the Middle Ages learned men talked, wrote and thought in Latin, and when it was proposed to translate the Scriptures into the language of the masses these men held up their hands in horror. ”

“ Should any one seek here for an account of every kind of verse used by the Latin poets, all we can say is—we wish he may get it. As it behoveth no one to be wiser than the law, so it behoveth not us to be wiser than the Eton Grammar. ”

“ What is the difference between the indicative and subjunctive in their fundamental ideas? How is purpose usually expressed in English? How is it expressed in Latin? By what words is a Latin purpose clause introduced? When should quō be used? What is meant by sequence of tenses? Name the primary tenses of the indicative and of the subjunctive; the secondary tenses. What Latin verbs are regularly followed by substantive clauses of purpose? What construction follows iubeō? What construction follows verbs of fearing? How is consequence or result expressed in Latin? ”

“ I think that to speak the Latin language with elegance, to understand it readily, and to use its various idioms and phrases correctly, is for a literary man both useful and interesting; but the amount of study and practice which it requires is considerable and should only be undertaken by those who are younger than myself, and who have more leisure time to devote to the acquisition of such accomplishments. ”

“ It must be inquired, however, what amount of originality could belong to any, even the most original, Romantic literature in the middle ages. In all Romanic countries compositions in the vernacular began to appear While the custom of writing in Latin was still preserved by uninterrupted tradition. Even during the most barbarous periods, when intellectual life was at its lowest, it was in Latin that sermons, lives of saints more or less apocryphal, accounts of miracles designed to attract pilgrims to certain shrines, monastic annals, legal documents, and contracts of all kinds were composed. ”

“ Classical studies are one of the most powerful means of intellectual and moral influence on the Anglo-Saxon and German civilisations that the Latins possess, representing under modern conditions, for the Latin nations, a kind of intellectual entail inherited from their ancestors. ”

“ At the beginning I purposed, with God's help, to make the sentence as true and open in English as it is in Latin, either more true and more open than it is in Latin; and I pray, for charity and for common profit of Christian souls, that if any wise man find any default of the truth of translation, let him set in the true sentence and open of holy writ, but look that he examine truly his Latin bible, for no doubt he shall find full many bibles in Latin full false, if he look, many, namely new ”