Latin and Elitism

So the whole point of this site is that I'm enough of a Latin nerd to want to share my translations, rants and general Latin appreciation with anyone who stumbles onto this site. I really do love Latin literature. I think it's amazing; it gave us some of our greatest speakers, politicians and poets.

However, I've been thinking about what I call a universe-model recently - how one's model of the universe is built up - and I've been thinking about the models we are all given. I consider most, particularly in the sphere of politics, to be outright lying to us - and yet it is difficult, if not impossible, to change them or to think beyond them...It saddens me that we live in lies and may have little or no power to change that.

So what has all of this got to do with Latin? Well, part of the universe-model most of us have is that "the classics" - Greek and Roman things - are great. No question about it. And it's all bound up with what, essentially, a bunch of dead rich white guys think. They had the influence (particularly in Europe), so they dictated what the universe-models should say and passed these models down. That's what came out of discussions I was having about this, at least.

And that really got me thinking about elitism - about whether our appreciation for the classics is elitist, about whether learning Latin itself is elitist. As a Latin lover, these questions trouble me and I must do my best to answer them honestly.

There is no doubt that there are many elitist elements to Latin in that most of what we have in Classical Latin was written by, for or about the elite; Classical Latin itself was a written and declaimed language, not a spoken one, and as such it is bound to be more formal and artificial. Much poetry in Classical Latin is aimed at an educated and therefore presumably rich audience - they would get all the references to various things. Indeed, shows of erudition are very much a part of Latin literature. As it was mostly the rich who would be able to understand or write such things, then yes - Latin literature is absolutely steeped in elitism.

The teaching of Latin and its links to elitism are perhaps more well-known; it was a sign of a "good education" that the poor could not get. Oxford and Cambridge, the two most elite universities, used to require Latin for entry. I could give more examples, but you get the idea.

So far, the situation doesn't look good for Latin; the language itself is soaked through with elitism and its teaching has a long and nasty history of being very much an elitist subject. Does that mean that the study of Latin and the classics is inherently elitist? Should we all stop learning it?

I'm going to go off on a tangent now and say this: I like Roman architecture (well, what's left of it - I think it's absolutely amazing in its aesthetics and how long it's lasted) and history (powerful, rich bastards stabbing each other in the back - who needs TV?). Roman historiography is absolutely shit in terms of objectivity, though, and I don't really care for Roman art.

As for Latin literature, part of the classics and therefore regarded as great? Let me be entirely honest with you: I used to not much like classical literature at all. I found the style too clunky and heavy and just left it well alone - the same as I do with Victorian literature, for example. I don't read Greek, so I still tend to give that more of a miss than I should do (though I'd probably disagree with a lot of the philosophy, for example, I'm still missing out on a lot of ideas), but I enjoy Latin literature more now that I understand the language and can read it for myself in the original, albeit with a lot of hard slog. It's all really to do with how Latin and English are vastly different languages and how the literature reflects that; Latin uses a lot of participles and adjectives to describe and evoke a situation, while in English doing the same sounds clunky - it prefers a flowing style that in Latin might read too simply. Similarly, Latin prose (particularly Tacitus) can get mired in long sentences and complex grammar constructions meant to show erudition. In English, that wouldn't work at all - again, a flowing style and mid-length sentences to get the meaning across are more important than trying to be creative with constructions.

Now I come to the crux of my argument, a direct rebuttal of the notion that learning Latin is elitist. This rests on the idea that learning something associated with the rich is itself elitist, or that learning itself is elitist. That is fallacious and dangerous; just because something has been associated with elitism in the past does not actually mean that it's elitist, and more to the point, learning itself is not inherently elitist. Education is not elitist. It allows for upward social mobility, for a start. Even if that weren't true - even if it didn't have that effect - education itself would not be elitist, but the restriction of education to the privileged would be. See the difference?

Another argument against Latin, used in conjunction with the elitism argument, is that of irrelevance. Latin's dead, they say, and nobody uses it any more. Only toffs have any interest in it!

Well, guess what - I'm not a toff. I have a terrible, hard-edged accent and I hail from the heart of bourgeois blandness. I don't have the money or the connections that a true toff would. Relatively privileged middle-class girl? Yes. Anywhere close to the elite? No. But I have interest in Latin - enough interest to start an entire blog devoted to it!

Is that because it's actually relevant? Well...no. It's useful for learning about language, tropes, love, vulgarity and rhetoric, yes, but that's not the reason I translate and appreciate. It's because - shock horror! - I enjoy this, and I do it purely for the sake of my passion. No other reason. None at all.

There's this terrible notion in the modern world, if not before ng to grasp at scientific straws, not really.modern world came about - I really don't know enough about these things - that everything must have some kind of function or relevance. If it doesn't, its existence I spit on that notion! Not everything in life has to be relevant or have a function. Think of hobbies - painting, strolling in the green woods, playing music. Are any of these things functional? Well, unless you're going to grasp at straws, not really. We do those things because we enjoy them, not because they make us more productive or better workers. We do these things because they make us better or happier people, and our lives would be the poorer without them. The world could get by fine without the study of Latin, I suppose; our infrastructure would still work. But we'd have lost entire cultures by not understanding this language. We'd have lost Ovid, Catullus, Horace, Virgil, Suetonius, Tacitus, Livy, Lucilius, Lucan, Caesar, Sallust, Cicero, Dio Cassius, Cornelius Gallus, Ennius, and so many others. That may not seem like much to you, but we'd have lost so much knowledge right there. We've lost so much already; we can't figure out Etruscan, for example. Our languages are dying out because no-one bothers to learn them anymore, and with that you lose culture and perspective. You lose a part of what makes the world what it is. Maybe that doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but to a person who seeks to understand the world - a person like me - it's not just a big deal, it's a tragedy.

So no, the study of Latin is not elitist. Restricting access to it would be. As for its relevance? Unless you go on to academia, not very - but it's fun and tells us more about the world. It's something you can take with you for life, like art or music - and no-one claims that studying those is elitist. (They claim it's pointless, but they're wrong.) So if you can have your art and music, can we have our Latin?

Hold on, and prepare yourself for more favourable days

"Durate et vosmet rebus servate secundis."

The title really isn't an exact translation - it's something one of my classmates came up with when pressed - but it serves and it is adequate. It's also one of very few inspirational-sounding things I can actually stand, and in context it is actually meant to be inspirational: it rounds off a rousing talk Aeneas gives to his men as they rest and seek shelter in an inlet off the African coast after escaping a storm sent by Juno (epics have complex plots rooted in complex myths).

It's a good line - very spondaic (made up of long syllables) to emphasise that one must plod on, even if the journey's hard, and "durate" (hold on) is emphatically positioned at the beginning of the line, stressing the importance of endurance above all else; "secundis" (roughly meaning favourable) is also emphatically positioned at the end of the line and highlights the reward for endurance.

The two lines following it are also good:
talia voce refert, curisque intentibus aeger
spem vultu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem.

Roughly (and less strangely - Latin has some weird poetic phrases) they translate as:
Speaking such things, though sick with huge cares
he feigns hope on his face, he presses his deep grief in his heart.

It's a beautiful dark phrase, showing that Aeneas can and does say one thing and think another; I like dark undertones. I like the contrast between his message to his men encouraging hope, while he himself is weighed down with worries and pain, and how Virgil brings it out so well.

"aeger" (sick) is emphatically positioned at the end of the line, stressing the fact that Aeneas is sick with huge cares (carisque ingentibus), and "spem" is also emphatically positioned at the beginning of the next line, perhaps raising the audience's spirits before revealing that Aeneas is actually feigning (simulat) this hope. It also makes a nice contrast with another emphatically positioned word in the line, "dolorem" (grief), which by being placed right at the end of the line emphasises that for all the happy faces he puts on, Aeneas is profoundly grieved. His "corde" (heart) is also positioned between "altum" (deep) and "dolorem" in the line, showing how Aeneas's heart is (quite literally) in the middle of all this deep grief.

Ille regit

"ille regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet"

He rules people's minds with his words and softens their hearts.

If you know anything at all about Latin, this is not strictly speaking a literal translation - but it's rough and it gets the meaning across. It's from Book I of the Aeneid and actually refers to Neptune calming the sea after Juno asks Aeolus to release his winds upon Aeneas's fleet in return for taking the nymph Deiopea as wife and Neptune gets massively pissed off - not because he likes Aeneas, but because he dislikes Aeolus and his winds tearing up the realm that is rightfully his. As for why Juno dislikes Aeneas? Because he's a Trojan (Juno is pissed off at Troy because of the Judgement of Paris) and because Romulus, founder of Rome (which later destroys Carthage, the city Juno is said to love most in the Aeneid), is a direct descendant of his.

Yeah, ancient mythology is complex as fuck, Aeneas does some truly stupid things (which is apparently part of Virgilian humour - the poet himself liked his references and wordplay, including puns, as well, and is also supposed to make Aeneas more human and therefore more like an actual relatable man instead of a standard hero), and as for the gods? They're a large, incestuous, dysfunctional and utterly capricious family.

The saddest thing is that this isn't even my field.

Anyway, what was I talking about?...Yes, this quote describes Neptune, but some (for which read my academic tutor at the JACT Latin Summer School) believe that it's set up to eventually describe Aeneas, hence why I included it.

Speaking of my tutor, he has a thing about Virgil - he really does. He's trying to convince us that Virgil is the greatest Roman poet. Now, don't get me wrong - Virgil is great; his descriptions, for example, are breathtaking and much better in Latin than they ever could be (for various reasons to do with the way the languages work) in English. But I find that the Aeneid can also be very staid, in a way, with its preaching of pietas (essentially, super patriotism) and the view that it's just a propaganda vehicle for the Augustan regime, if a particularly elaborate and well-written one. Give me some Ovid any day; give me his wit, his wisdom, his passion, and his mockery. Give me all his talent with none of that adherence to outdated ideals. Sure, his work annoys me at times - I've admitted this - but for all that it doesn't take itself seriously, and that makes it more tolerable.

Of Pyrrha

Image is Ask me no more (1906) by Lawrence Alma-Tadema - very much the classical Victorians-in-togas painter, but worth a look if you like Classics. His paintings are also generally very accurate, which is a plus.

Right. Originally, I assumed I was going to do a nice, normal post, with no original text and a lovely translation. However, the syntax is all over the place here, I want to show you some of my translation methods, and thus I'll leave the original text here highlighted in all sorts of strange colours, which show which parts of speech go with what - particularly helpful when the syntax is not obvious or straightforward, as it rarely is in Latin. Of course, my actual translation is below, so you can just skip to that.

Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
perfusus liquidis urget odoribus
grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?
cui flavam religas comam,

simplex mundiitis? heu quotiens fidem
mutatosque deos flebit et aspera
nigris aequora ventis
emirabitur insolens,

qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea,
qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem
sperat, nescius aurae
fallacis. miseri, quibus

intempta nites! me tabula sacer
votiva paries indicat uvida
suspendisse potenti
vestimenta maris deo.

Who is the slender youth, drenched in liquid scent,
embracing you beneath a pleasing cave
on many a rose, Pyrrha?
For whom do you tie up your golden hair,

simple in your elegance? Ah, how many times will he mourn faith
and the changed gods and, unaccustomed, he will wonder at
the rough open seas
with black winds,

who now, trustful, enjoys you golden,
who hopes that she will be always free, always lovable,
ignorant of the deceitful golden one.
Miserable are they for whom

you shine untouched! The sacred wall
with its votive tablet shows
that I hung up my wet clothes
to the powerful god of the sea.

Propertius

"cuncta tuus sepelivit amor, nec femina post te
ulla dedit collo dulcia vincla meo." (III.15.11-12)

Your love has buried all others, and no woman after you has given sweet chains to my neck.

Sorry for not having posted much - I've had my exams and really not done much translation, but I hope to do more. This is just a quick quote from Propertius that constantly keeps getting stuck in my head, even though I haven't really read any Propertius yet.

I'm not dead yet and neither is my passion for Latin; both are alive and kicking, as the old chestnut would have it. I just need time and energy.

Non ego, ne pecces, cum sis formosa, recuso

I won't lie; I think Ovid is annoying as hell sometimes and also a bit paranoid about women cheating. All the same, this poem, which should be (and is) rather irritating, still manages to make me enjoy it despite myself. I do love his lighter writing - it's very pleasant and almost sweet in a way.

Because you're beautiful, I don't protest that you shouldn't sin,
but that it should not be inevitable for me to know about, miserable;
and my criticism doesn't order you to become chaste,
but, however, it asks that you try to conceal it.
She does not sin, whoever can deny she sinned,
and the fault professed alone makes her infamous.
Who is angry that you confess in daylight that which lies hidden by the night
and you mention them openly as having been made these things which you may do secretly?
A courtesan, about to join her body to an unknown citizen
moves people away by the door-bar set in the way beforehand;
you'll set up for all to see your sins for vicious rumour
and you'll completely go through the evidence of your offence?
Let the mind be better for you, or at least copy the chaste,
let me think you're honest, though you won't be.
Do these, which you do; only deny you've done them,
I spoke modest words, and let it not shame you before me!
There's the sort of place that demands badness; fill it with
all types of delights, let modesty stand far away then!
Once you've left this place, straightaway let all immoral behaviour
be absent, and lay aside your crimes on your bed.
Nor let laying aside your tunic in that place be for shame for you
nor supporting a thigh laid onto a thigh;
There let your tongue be buried in crimson lips,
and let love shape Venus in a thousand ways;
and there let neither voices nor delighting words cease work,
and let the bed's frame shake with playful agility!
Put on a face dreading accusations with your tunic,
and let a sense of shame deny indecent business;
give to the people, deceive me; please let me be mistaken, not knowing,
and let enjoying my foolish trustfulness be allowed!
Why do I so often see letters sent and received?
Why has the first of and inner of the bed been pressed down?
Why do I catch sight of hair being disturbed more than it would have been by
sleep and her neck has love bites?
You only don't lead down your crime to my eyes themselves;
if you hesitate to have consideration for your reputation, have consideration for me!
My mind goes away and I die as often as you confess to having sinned,
and the blood runs cold through my body.
Then I love, then I hate in vain because it is inescapable to love;
then I want to be dead, but with you!
I for my part will investigate nothing, and I won't follow what you'll be planning to
conceal, and being deceived by you will be the equal of a kindness.
If, however, you'll be caught, taken by surprise in the middle of a misdeed,
and if disgraces will have been seen for my eyes,
deny what will have been seen really for me to have been really seen -
my eyes will give way to your words.
The palm of victory is favourably inclined for you to conquer a man desiring to be conquered,
merely let your tongue be mindful to say "I didn't do it!".
Since to overpower with two words falls to you,
if not by your case, win by your judge!

Nox erat...

"It was night, and sleep lowered weary little eyes;

these visions terrified my spirit:

A wood was standing most numerous with the oak tree at the foot of a sunny hill,

and many a bird was lying hidden in the boughs.

A very green open space with a grassy meadow, moist drops of water gently

sounding from down, was at the foot.

I myself was avoiding the seething heat with the leaves of a tree -

but, however, the seething heat was under the foliage of the tree -

look! A white cow stood before my eyes, seeking grass mixed into the

many-coloured flowers,

whiter than the snows, they fell recently at that time,

which time did not yet turn into flowing water;

whiter than milk, which is white with still hissing foam

and has just left the ewe made dry.

A bull was her companion, happily that husbans,

and he pressed the tender ground with his mate.

While he lies and slowly chews the called-back cud

and feeds again on the food fed before,

he had seemed to put down his horned head on the ground

while sleep took away his strength of bearing.

A crow, having glided down with slight wings though the breezes, came here

and sat chattering on the blooming ground,

and dug the chest of the snow-white cow three times, impudent with her beak,

and carried away the white mane with its mouth.

She, having lingered for a long time, left the place and the bull -

but there was a black bruise on the cow's chest;

and when she saw the bulls gathering food far away -

the bulls were gathering the fertile fodder far away -

she took herself off to that place and mixed herself into that herd

and searched the ground for more fertile grass.

Speak, come now, augur, whoever you are, of the night-vision,

if they have anything of truth, what do these visions bring?"

Thus I said; thus the augur spoke of the night-vision,

weighing up the spoken one by one in his mind:

"You were wanting to avoid what with changeable leaves

but you were badly avoiding the seething head that was of love.

The cow is your girl - that complexion is fitted for the girl;

you are the man and you were the bull in the case of the equal cow.

As to the fact that the crow was digging at the breast with her sharp beak,

an aged madam was trying to move the character of your lady.

Because, having delayed for a long time, her cow left the bull,

you'll be abandoned cold on the destitute couch.

The bruise and black blemishes at the foot of the breast at the front

say that they do not lack the stain of adultery."

The messenger had stopped. My blood fled cold from my face,

and deep night stood before my eyes.