Herodotean's log (Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, etc.)

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Re: Herodotean's log (Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, etc.)

Postby Herodotean » Sun Apr 17, 2022 11:04 pm

A translation exercise for Easter Sunday. My source text is the Greek of John 20:1–9:
Τῇ δὲ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ ἔρχεται πρωῒ σκοτίας ἔτι οὔσης εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ βλέπει τὸν λίθον ἠρμένον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου. 2 τρέχει οὖν καὶ ἔρχεται πρὸς Σίμωνα Πέτρον καὶ πρὸς τὸν ἄλλον μαθητὴν ὃν ἐφίλει ὁ Ἰησοῦς, καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Ἦραν τὸν κύριον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου, καὶ οὐκ οἴδαμεν ποῦ ἔθηκαν αὐτόν. 3 ἐξῆλθεν οὖν ὁ Πέτρος καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητής, καὶ ἤρχοντο εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον. 4 ἔτρεχον δὲ οἱ δύο ὁμοῦ· καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς προέδραμεν τάχιον τοῦ Πέτρου καὶ ἦλθεν πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, 5 καὶ παρακύψας βλέπει κείμενα τὰ ὀθόνια, οὐ μέντοι εἰσῆλθεν. 6 ἔρχεται οὖν καὶ Σίμων Πέτρος ἀκολουθῶν αὐτῷ, καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον· καὶ θεωρεῖ τὰ ὀθόνια κείμενα, 7 καὶ τὸ σουδάριον, ὃ ἦν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ, οὐ μετὰ τῶν ὀθονίων κείμενον ἀλλὰ χωρὶς ἐντετυλιγμένον εἰς ἕνα τόπον· 8 τότε οὖν εἰσῆλθεν καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς ὁ ἐλθὼν πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ εἶδεν καὶ ἐπίστευσεν· 9 οὐδέπω γὰρ ᾔδεισαν τὴν γραφὴν ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῆναι.

My rough-hewn version, intended to be more or less idiomatic Latin while mirroring the decidedly non-literary quality of the Greek:
Prima autem hora sabbatorum Maria Magdalene mane venit, cum adhuc tenebrae essent, et vidit saxum a sepulchro ablatum. 2 currit igitur et venit ad Simona Petrum et ad alium discipulum quem amabat Iesus et dicit eis: “Ceperunt dominum e sepulchro nec scimus ubi posuerint eum.” Exivit ergo Petrus una cum altero discipulo et venerunt ad sepulchrum. Hi autem una currebant: et alter discipulus procucurrit velocius quam Petrus et venit primus ad sepulchrum, et inclinato capite vidit lintea iacentia, nec tamen intravit. venit ergo et Simon Petrus sequens eum intravitque in sepulchrum. Et spectat lintea iacentia et sudarium, quod in fronte eius erat, non cum linteis iacens sed seorsum involutum in unum locum: tunc ergo intravit etiam alter discipulus qui primus venerat ad sepulchrum, et vidit et credidit: nondum enim sciebant scripturam secundum quam oportebat eum e mortuis resurgere.

A second, much looser (and dare I say more literary?) Latin version:
Maria Magdalene cum prima hora, bene mane, per tenebras ad sepulchrum venisset, saxum vidit a sepulchro ablatum. Quo animadverto ad Simona Petrum statim cucurrit et discipulum a Iesu amatum, quibus, “Ceperunt dominum,” inquit, “nec pro certo habemus quo in loco eum posuerint.” Quae cum audivisset Petrus una cum altero discipulo, ut famam a muliere reportam experirentur, ad sepulchrum una cucurrerunt; quorum alter discipulus celerius currendo primus advenit nec, cum inclinato capite lintea ibi iacentia animadverteret, intrare voluit. Petrus autem eum sequens, cum intravisset, lintea spectavit iacentia et sudarium, quod antea in fronte eius positum tum non cum linteis iacebat sed involutum in alio loco secretum fuisse videbatur. Tunc alter quoque discipulus ingressus, qui primus venerat, et vidit et credidit. Nam scripturam, secundum quam oportebat Iesum a mortuis resurgere, nondum nacti erant.

The Vulgate, which I didn’t consult until I had produced the two versions above:
Una autem sabbati, Maria Magdalene venit mane, cum adhuc tenebrae essent, ad monumentum: et vidit lapidem sublatum a monumento. 2 Cucurrit ergo, et venit ad Simonem Petrum, et ad alium discipulum, quem amabat Jesus, et dicit illis: Tulerunt Dominum de monumento, et nescimus ubi posuerunt eum. 3 Exiit ergo Petrus, et ille alius discipulus, et venerunt ad monumentum. 4 Currebant autem duo simul, et ille alius discipulus praecucurrit citius Petro, et venit primus ad monumentum. 5 Et cum se inclinasset, vidit posita linteamina: non tamen introivit. 6 Venit ergo Simon Petrus sequens eum, et introivit in monumentum, et vidit linteamina posita, 7 et sudarium, quod fuerat super caput ejus, non cum linteaminibus positum, sed separatim involutum in unum locum. 8 Tunc ergo introivit et ille discipulus qui venerat primus ad monumentum: et vidit, et credidit: 9 nondum enim sciebant Scripturam, quia oportebat eum a mortuis resurgere.

I’m pleased that in some cases my first translation uses the Vulgate’s exact words!
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18-23 April 2022

Postby Herodotean » Sun Apr 24, 2022 3:37 am

Back to the laundry list format, at least for this post.

Latin
  • Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes 1.48–61
  • Erasmus, Colloquia pp. 203–206
Greek
These days, I'm reading the third-century AD work Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus (this week: 2.28–43, 3.1–14). It's a biography of the semi-mythical Apollonius, who seems to have lived in the first century and whose recorded exploits bear certain resemblances to those of Jesus (he was even worshiped as Heracles after his death). In the sections I read this week, he travels to India and has a philosophical conversation with the Hellenized king Phraotes, who conveniently speaks Greek, before heading further east -- farther east even than Alexander penetrated in the fourth century BC -- and meeting the Brahman sages in their castle, which is covered by a cloud that keeps out all unwanted visitors. It's quite the tale.

German
  • Deutschland: Grundwissen und Mehr pp. 204–37. Having finished the sections on German history, I am sad to say that anything before 1918, and especially before 1900, gets very short shrift. I would love to find a book at a similar linguistic level that has the opposite vice and ignores everything after 1945.
  • A-Grammatik pp. 120–23. For some reason, seeing the example sentence “Er sprang vor Freude in die Luft” made me realize that Latin prae + abl. (e.g. prae gaudio) and English “for joy” (e.g. “jumped for joy”) are all parallel structures. It makes sense that the German is not “für Freude” (with accusative). And, if Wiktionary can be trusted, prae and für, along with "for," are descended from the same Indo-European root.
Spanish
I wrote my first post on Journaly. The last time I tried to write in Spanish might have been over ten years ago. It was more fun than I’d expected, perhaps in part because I’ve learned almost all the Latin I know since I last engaged Spanish with any seriousness.

Persian
  • Assimil lessons 20–22.
  • Anki cards for Assimil lessons 1–18 and 22. Thanks to this Reddit post, I have learned how to increase the Persian font size not only for editing but also for reviewing, which is extraordinarily helpful: the Arabic script is hard enough to decipher when it’s in a reasonable size, let alone when it’s miniscule. I am not including transliteration or any diacritics for vowels – following the principle that Anki is for reviewing, not for learning – and, on a whim, I’m using Latin rather than English or French for the translations.
Italian
I read a page or two of long-neglected Machiavelli.

French
Nothing to report.
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24-30 April 2022

Postby Herodotean » Sun May 01, 2022 2:28 pm

Latin
  • Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes 1.62–68
  • Ad Alpes cpp. 1–4 (Latinitium audio).
Greek
  • Philostratus. Life of Apollonius 3.15–34
  • Ephesians 1–4
German
  • Deutschland: Grundwissen und Mehr pp. 238–50
Spanish
Thanks to iguanomon’s recommendation, I’ve started watching Dos Vidas on RTVE+. The story is interesting – something I could imagine watching for its own sake – and I can understand enough of the dialogue to follow the plot, though I still miss quite a bit (RTVE+, unlike RTVE, has no subtitles available for anything at all). I think watching the last few episodes of Presunto Culpable without subtitles helped my listening, and I hope that no subtitles at all for many episodes of Dos Vidas will do the same. Since there are a mind-boggling 255 of them, I won’t run out anytime soon.
I also created a separate Spanish Google account and Chrome profile, primarily in order to create a YouTube home page with videos only in Spanish. That seems to have been mostly successful: only 5–10% of the recommended videos are in English, and of course my subscriptions on that account are only in Spanish. It also means that the Google services I use in that Chrome profile are in Spanish without my having to change the computer’s language for everything. So it’s a sort of mini-immersion environment, at least for receptive skills.

Persian
  • Assimil lessons 23–29
  • Anki cards for Assimil lessons 19, 23
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1–7 May 2022

Postby Herodotean » Sun May 08, 2022 4:59 am

The two full Super Challenges in Latin and Greek are going according to plan. I’m behind on audio for Greek, but I can live with it. I think I can already feel the effects of the increased input. On the other hand, they’ve certainly made my other languages suffer.

Latin
  • Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes 1.68–71
  • Cruice, De viris illustribus ecclesiae pp. 21–41
  • Erasmus, Colloquia pp. 206–22, 227–32
  • Seneca, Epistulae morales 1–6
  • Ad Alpes cpp. 5–11 (Latinitium audio).
  • Various other audio for the Super Challenge.

Greek
  • Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius 3.35–58, 4.1–17
  • New Testament: Ephesians 5–6, Philippians (all), Colossians 1
  • Isocrates, “Nicocles” or “The Cyprians” 1–35 (9 pages); a speech praising monarchy against democracy and oligarchy. I’ll finish it up this week.
  • John Chrysostom, Homilies on I Timothy (pp. 1–16)
  • Various audio for the Super Challenge, mainly Christophe Rico’s almost two-hour recording of Revelation.

German
  • Deutschland: Grundwissen und Mehr pp. 250–64
  • Some Tatort with subtitles.

Spanish
  • Some Dos Vidas, no subs. Some actors are much easier to understand than others.

Persian
  • Assimil lessons 30–31
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8–14 May 2022

Postby Herodotean » Sun May 15, 2022 4:12 am

Latin
  • Cicero, Pro P. Sulla oratio 1–32 (14 pp.).
  • Cruice, De viris illustribus ecclesiae pp. 42–53
  • Erasmus, Colloquia pp. 233–53
  • Seneca, Epistulae morales 7–8
  • Audio: I’m way behind . . .

Greek
  • Isocrates, “Nicocles” or “The Cyprians” 36–end (6 pages).
  • Xenophon, Hellenica 7.1.1–46 (13 pp.). Just as I'm nearing the end, it's starting to get a bit interesting with the entrance of the Theban general Epaminondas, who dies at Mantinea in 362 (at which point Xenophon ends the work).
  • Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius 4.18–36 (15 pp.). Apollonius has just arrived at Rome during Nero's reign and is warned by a fellow philosopher fleeing the city that he should take care, since the emperor hates philosophy and philosophers. Next week I'll find out what he does there.
  • New Testament: Colossians 1–3
  • Audio: way behind . . .

German
  • Deutschland: Grundwissen und Mehr pp. 264–71. I didn't realize just how important federalism is for Germany.

Spanish
Some Dos Vidas.

Persian
  • Pretty much nothing this week. That will change once the semester is over.
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Re: 8–14 May 2022

Postby DaveAgain » Sun May 15, 2022 4:52 am

Herodotean wrote:
German
  • Deutschland: Grundwissen und Mehr pp. 264–71. I didn't realize just how important federalism is for Germany.

Can you please expand on this a little?
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Re: 8–14 May 2022

Postby Herodotean » Sun May 15, 2022 2:26 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
Herodotean wrote:German
  • Deutschland: Grundwissen und Mehr pp. 264–71. I didn't realize just how important federalism is for Germany.

Can you please expand on this a little?

I don't have anything especially profound in mind. I'm from the US, so I'm familiar with the US federal system. I also knew that Germany has a federal system, but I knew very little about it. The book I'm reading is written from a French perspective, though the language is German, so it was contrasting France's very centralized government with Germany's decentralized one. It quoted a statement by Angela Merkel:
Für Deutschland – der Präsident des Bundesrats, Peter Müller, hat es gesagt – ist die Gliederung in Regionen und Bundesländer konstitutiv. Der Föderalismus ist eine der großen Stärken unseres Landes. Er beruht auf einer langen Tradition und steht für Stabilität und Identität, und dies gerade auch in Zeiten schnellen Wandels. Er sorgt für Bürgernähe und hilft, die Potenziale auszuschöpfen, die in den kleinen Einheiten vor Ort stecken.

I didn't know Germans (or at least some Germans) thought in that way about their federal system.
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15–21 May 2022

Postby Herodotean » Sun May 22, 2022 7:28 pm

Super Challenges: ahead on Latin reading, a few pages behind on Greek reading. Way behind on audio for both. I’ll have more time this summer to catch up.

Latin
  • Cruice, De viris illustribus ecclesiae pp. 54–56
  • Erasmus, Colloquia pp. 254–300
  • Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae I (27 pp.)
  • Novum Testamentum: III John
  • Audio: some.
Greek
  • Isocrates Panegyricus 1–53
  • Xenophon, Hellenica 7.2.1–7.5.3
  • Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius 4.37–47, 5.1–19
  • New Testament: Colossians 2
  • Audio: virtually nothing.
German
  • Deutschland: Grundwissen und Mehr pp. 272–76
  • The new Bosch spinoff on Amazon has German subtitles, so I’m watching with those and English audio.
Spanish
  • Some Dos Vidas.
  • I started reading Amadís de Gaula, which I bought probably fifteen years ago with the best of intentions. Will I make it past Chapter 1? Stay tuned . . .
Persian
  • Nothing.
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22–28 May 2022

Postby Herodotean » Sat May 28, 2022 11:40 pm

Earlier this week I finished Xenophon’s Hellenica. I started reading it about a year and half ago, and no, I didn’t find it terribly interesting – I averaged about half a page a day! I decided to read it because (1) it’s an important source for the period of Greek history it covers (the years 411 to 362 or so) and (2) I thought it would be useful extensive reading (Xenophon is one of the easier Attic authors). The first point is simply a fact, but I was quite wrong on the second.

Why was I wrong? I think primarily because I underestimated the amount of background knowledge Xenophon assumed his readers had. Even though I’ve studied ancient Greek literature for years, I’m not intimately familiar with all the toponyms and demonyms that his original readers would have known from childhood, nor do I possess great familiarity with Greek geography beyond the major cities. Xenophon does mention Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Argos, and Thebes quite a bit, but he also expects one to know much more than that. I might compare it to reading a detailed history of the United States that assumes you know where everything is, including not only cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but also Springfield, Lexington (which one? well, you should know!) Reno, Richmond, Austin, Sacramento, and maybe even Tallahassee, Carbondale, and Chattanooga. (And you should also know whether, for example, people from Columbus are more likely to be the ancestral friends or the ancestral enemies of people from Ann Arbor.)

So when it was hard to understand Xenophon’s meaning, it had much more to do with my lack of background knowledge than with the language itself. Parts of Thucydides are like this too. Much of Herodotus is not, since he assumes his Greek readers know little or nothing about, say, Egypt or Babylon. I still like Xenophon and intend to read more of him, but I’m giving him a rest for a while. When I return to him, I’ll probably tackle the Institutio Cyri (about Cyrus the Great) or the Memorabilia (on Socrates).

Super Challenges: a few pages ahead on Latin reading and exactly on target for Greek reading. Way behind on audio for both.

Latin
  • Cruice, De viris illustribus ecclesiae pp. 57–60
  • Erasmus, Colloquia pp. 300–322
  • Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae 2.1
  • Gasparri, Catechismus Catholicus pp. 27–44
  • Familia Romana chs. 1–2, with exercitia. I’m rereading FR and doing all the exercitia mainly for pedagogical interest.
Greek
  • Isocrates Panegyricus 54–67
  • Xenophon, Hellenica 7.5.4–27 (end)
  • Pausanias, Graeciae descriptio 1.1.1–1.5.5 (11 pages)
  • Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius 5.20–5.43 (end), 6.1–13 (about 40 pages)
  • New Testament: 1 Thessalonians 3
German


Spanish
  • Dos Vidas: part of an episode.
  • Amadís de Gaula: a few pages. It’s been a long time since I’ve read early modern Spanish prose. The RAE’s online dictionary is proving indispensable, since the edition I’m using is written for native speakers.
Persian
  • Assimil 32

Edit: left off the final page count for Erasmus.
Last edited by Herodotean on Sun May 29, 2022 9:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 22–28 May 2022

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun May 29, 2022 6:42 pm

Herodotean wrote:Why was I wrong? I think primarily because I underestimated the amount of background knowledge Xenophon assumed his readers had. Even though I’ve studied ancient Greek literature for years, I’m not intimately familiar with all the toponyms and demonyms that his original readers would have known from childhood, nor do I possess great familiarity with Greek geography beyond the major cities. Xenophon does mention Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Argos, and Thebes quite a bit, but he also expects one to know much more than that. I might compare it to reading a detailed history of the United States that assumes you know where everything is, including not only cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but also Springfield, Lexington (which one? well, you should know!) Reno, Richmond, Austin, Sacramento, and maybe even Tallahassee, Carbondale, and Chattanooga. (And you should also know whether, for example, people from Columbus are more likely to be the ancestral friends or the ancestral enemies of people from Ann Arbor.)

So when it was hard to understand Xenophon’s meaning, it had much more to do with my lack of background knowledge than with the language itself. Parts of Thucydides are like this too. Much of Herodotus is not, since he assumes his Greek readers know little or nothing about, say, Egypt or Babylon. I still like Xenophon and intend to read more of him, but I’m giving him a rest for a while. When I return to him, I’ll probably tackle the Institutio Cyri (about Cyrus the Great) or the Memorabilia (on Socrates).

I hear you.
Sometimes as I know you know histories specific to the times or general about Ancient Greek history help in this regard. Robert B. Strassler's Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika offers a list of histories in the Bibliography for the General Reader, pages 521-522. I myself am not familiar with any of those works, nor have I read the several essays at the back of that book that may provide some help.
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