Readings for Monday

First, a general reminder that you must pay close attention to Sidwell's notes. They will alert to you oddities that will otherwise cause your brains to hurt.

RLM 1.1(b) second paragraph: "quaestionibus" has to be taken as something like "troublesome points," "issues of dispute," "disputed points" ("things that provoke questions"; within its classical semantic range). The "de" at the start is, I think, more likely introducing the subject: "As for those ...." "Unusquisque" is nominative. "As for those issues that are read but not, by chance, understood, let each ...."

RLM 2.1(i).2 (line 2): "Qui septenarius sacratus numerus": "septenarius" means "containing seven", but here must simply equal "seven". "This sacred number of seven", "This sacred number, seven,..."
          (lines 2-3) "si matutino ... tempore": make sure you read Sidwell carefully on this. What he means by "all depends on tempore" is that "primae" etc. are genitives governing "tempore": "at the time of prime".
          (lines 9-10) "matutinis .... completorio": in contrast with the previous list, these are all ablatives of time.
        2.1(ii).1 (line 1): "Iam ... digessimus": "We have already arranged..." (from "digero").
                     (line 3): "Deus in adiutorium": as you might deduce from the italics, these are titles of hymns or parts of the Mass.
                     (line 7): "Kyrie eleison" in modern spelling (from the Greek: "Kyrie" is a vocative meaning "Lord", and "eleison" an aorist imperative second person singular of the verb "have mercy," "pity"; Κύριε ἐλέησον). These are the first words of the Mass.
                                  "missas": from the last words of the Mass, "ite, missa est."

RLM 2.3 (line 25): "Aequalis" is vocative.
               (line 29): "Praesepe" is nom.

Reading Medieval Latin 1.1(b), line 1

I hope only a few of you have still to prepare for the next class, but if you haven't, I thought I should add a note on "custos sacrarii" in the first line of the excerpt from the Rule of St. Isidore. "Sacrarium" means "shrine", and I presume the phrase amounts to "the sacristan."

Abbreviations in the extra reading for fourth-year students

I have noticed two abbreviations in the notes for the extra reading for fourth-year students. On line 22, page 172, "A&G" refers (I would hope, "of course") to Allen and Greenough, and "LS" on line 25 is "Lewis and Short".  "LL" is "late Latin."

The "big" Lewis and Short

One of the links to the right takes you to the "big" Lewis and Short (officially A Latin dictionary founded on Andrews' edition of Freund's Latin Dictionary, revised enlarged and in great part rewritten by Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short), dating originally from 1879 but subsequently revised and updated. As I have said, because of its inclusion of later authors than the Oxford Latin Dictionary, it is the standard dictionary for those working in late antiquity and the early middle ages. It is still in print and is available from Amazon.ca for $282. At abebooks.com used versions start at $79 (plus shipping) and rapidly rise after that. But I have a copy (1962 impression) in very good condition that I would sell for $75 Canadian. If anyone is interested, please see me.

Monastic Hours

If you are interested in seeing how the Divine Office has survived into modern Catholic use (there are, of course, also Anglican monasteries), you can visit this web site. Across the top (or down the left-hand side: it seems to vary by day) are listed the hours currently observed: Matins ("Morning prayer"), Terce, Sext, None, Vespers (Evening), and Compline (Night). The "Office of Readings" has replaced Prime and may be said at any time during the day. The site also offers a brief explanation of the structure of the liturgy. This is a decent hypertext book of hours.

The Divine Office is written in a book (usually several books) called a breviary. The famous medieval books of hours were condensed versions of the Breviary for personal devotional use. Books of hours are some of our richest sources for illuminated manuscripts. This is a good brief introduction to books of hours, and at the same site you can go through several complete books. Wikipedia has some very good illustrations from a range of books, and separate entries on a fair number of specific books (such as the very famous Très Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry).

The Anglican Church has a unique Evensong service, originally a conflation of Vespers and Compline. The BBC offers weekly choral Evensong broadcasts.

First extra reading for Latin 410 students

Here is the first extra reading for Latin 410 students (from, K.P. Harrington, Medieval Latin, 2nd ed., rev. J. Pucci, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press): a letter by pope Gregory I. I think I have picked something with relatively few medieval oddities. You will have to work on mostly on your own (or with other students). You can come and see me and ask specific questions, but I won't go over it word-by-word as we do in class. By all means use a translation to check your work. Remember that a passage from this handout will appear on the first exam for translation by those of you who are Latin 410 students, and that means that you will also have more material to translate within the same time as Latin 327 students. The remaining two extra readings will be a bit more challenging.

And all flesh shall see it together ...

Those of you who experienced first-year Latin with me know that I sometimes manage to get intolerably confused when I'm tired. But that's no excuse for the fact that that wonderful chorus from Handel's Messiah (fourth number of the score: "And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.") did not come screaming to mind when we read Isaiah 40:5 "et videbit omnis caro pariter" today and set me straight. And of course caro could not be accusative.  I know I didn't read it that way yesterday. So a big juicy mea culpa from me.

In case you haven't noticed, there is a link to the REED Anglo-Latin word book to the right under the useful links. You can download it as a single file for easy reference.

Reading list for fall term

I will stand hand out the remaining hard copies in class on Monday, but I'm posting an electronic version in case you lose your printed one.

Salvete, discipuli Latinitatis medii aevi

Here is the link for the vocabulary list.

Allen and Greenough 1905 version.

Greek and Roman texts at the Perseus Project.
          If you scroll down the alphabetical list, you will find "Latin Vulgate." Check out the 50th Psalm
(you get there by clicking on "Psalms", and then the number [here labelled "Chapter" on the left of the screen,] or entering the number in the field roughly in the middle of the screen near the top). Here is a direct link to the third verse (first of the text given in Medieval Mosaic). Note the third grey box on the left of the screen "View text chunked by." If you choose "chapter" you should get the whole psalm. If you don't, put "50" in the search field. Regardless, once you have the text of the psalm up there, you can click on each word to link to a series of possible definitions (if there can be more than one), which will in turn will usually let you choose from several dictionaries (usually Lewis & Short and the Elementary Lewis). You can also search other Latin texts for the same word. Using this can help you translate more efficiently.
          Browse around the site and you'll find other useful tools.

Finally, this site (link to Psalm 51) does seem to have some sectarian allegiance, but it offers a useful tool for those reading the Bible. One can view on a verse-by-verse basis twenty-eight different translations, and a few commentaries. If you get stuck, it might be helpful. Just note the differences between translations and the fact that they cannot all be equally accurate. Note that you use the directional arrows near the top (next to the printer icon) to move forward and back verse-by-verse. This is only one of many web sites where one can view parallel texts or translations of the Bible and I have mentioned it simply as an example of what is available if one looks.