Monday, January 27, 2014

Material covered by the second midterm (Feb. 3)

I have omitted Boethius, which leaves a rather modest amount of Latin.

M.M. pages 60–62: Boethius [oops; should, of course, not be there; emended Jan 29]
pages 71–75: Pope Gregory I (sections B, and C)
pages 77–80: Venantius Fortunatus
pages 81–85: Isidore of Seville (sections A, B, and D)
R.M.L. 6.3: St. Andomnan
M.M. pages 86–88: The voyage of St. Brendan
pages 89–90: Vita Sancti Ciarani de Saigir
R.M.L. 7.2: St. Bede
(a): Ecclesiastical History

[Fourth-year students: Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, excerpts]

Remember: anything from these passages, however difficult they are, might appear on the exam. I will again ask you to parse certain words, identify certain constructions, and explain certain medievalisms. I will ask you to identify, where possible, the author and the approximate date of the passage. In some case the date of the passage will have to be the rough dates of the author. In other cases the dates will be a rather wide range (e.g., The voyage of St. Brendan).

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Extra notes for Bede's Ecclesiastical History, R.M.L. 7.2.a.iii

Here are the extra notes for the third passage from the Ecclesiastical History.

To clarify about the midterm, only the bits from Gregory the Great in M.M. that we went over in class (B and C; A appeared on the second assignment) will be eligible to appear.

(Note: the link was fixed at 9:20 p.m., Jan. 23. Sorry about that.)


Friday, January 17, 2014

Extra notes for Bede's Ecclesiastical History, R.M.L. 7.2.a.ii

Here are the extra notes for the second passage from Bede's Ecclesiastical History in R.M.L.

And since these entries are so short, a pretty picture: a page from an early manuscript of the Ecclesiastical History.



Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Extra notes for the Life of Saint Ciaran of Saigir


The notes for the life of Saint Ciaran (Kieran) are longer than those I posted for Brendan, so I have put them in a handout rather than take up space here in the blog.

Please remember to consider writing the Classical Association of Canada Latin sight exam on the 24th.


Thursday, January 9, 2014

Extra notes for The voyage of St. Brendan


line

2: subvenit: see your dictionary for a sense that fits and what case it also associated with it. I'll quote Cassell's: "to come up to aid, to succour, relieve. Absol.; Cic., Liv., etc. With dat.: circumvento filio subvenit, Caes.; patriae, Cic...." 
3: vires, not viros
7 – 8: faciamus opus divinum: perform the divine service
8: hîc
Pasche = Paschae [p. x, A1]
12: ultra: adv., word order is uidere terram ultra, that is, ultra oves, or even sub ovibus.
14: necessaria: neuter acc. pl. substantive, “things that are necessary,” i.e., “necessities,” “supplies.”
15: secundum: preposition
18: ligatura:  a typo--it should be ligaturam, as good editions have. [A previous version of this note was deleted Jan. 13].
21: Qui = illi, as often.
22: parassant: syncopated form (for which, see R.M.L. O.9 and A&G §181).
24: hec = haec
26: meriti: I suspect the perf. dep. part., nom. pl., probably sc. estis. The dative mihi would then be either one of the general category of datives with “special” verbs (often meaning things like favour, help, believe, persuade, envy, threaten, vel sim.): see A&G §367 ff. Or it could be the type of dative regularly seen with adjectives meaning fitness, use, service, and likeness: ``deserving from me.` Finally, it could simply be a dative of reference, more specifically the sub-category sometimes called a dative of disadvantage (there is a dative of advantage, too).
28: eleuato illo de terra et dato osculo: two ablative absolutes joined by et.
33: sue: = suae; sue resurrectionis modifies missas: missa sue resurrectionis.
34: hec = haec
42: que = quae
42-3: contra occidentalem plagam: i.e., contra plagam alterius insulae, and so the new island is itself "to the west." Note that there are two nouns spelled plaga: one with a long first a, meaning "blow" or "stroke," and one meaning "a flat surface."
45: magne = magnae
46: uise = uisae


Note: I will not point out only less familiar orthographic changes in future passages.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Some odd spellings in Adomnan, and a reminder


ii.
line 15: = ancillulam < ancella
[lines 17 - 18: quae ... sunt acta is one relative clause, closed by the verb, as usual]
31: = integram
33: = aegritudinem
34: = aegrotis

It has been a long time since November. What we went over in class will be fading more each day. Please try to make the time now to start looking over material from November, just to keep it fresher.

Monday, January 6, 2014

Fourth-year students and Einhard

I will announce it in class today, but unless anyone greatly objects, I will drop the last page of the Einhard from the extra material for fourth-year students. I think the six pages are enough.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Modifications to the course outline for the winter term, 2014 [revised Jan. 5]


[This is a revised version of the original posting of 4:22 p.m., Jan. 4. It replaces that previous posting, so please read it. The changes are also in red.]

Please note the following important additions:

The midterm will be on Feb. 3 and will be the same format as the previous one. In addition to what we read this month, it will include the readings from Medieval Mosaic pages 71–75 (Pope Gregory I [sections A, B, and C], 77–80 [Venantius Fortunatus], and 81–85 [Isidore of Seville].

The assignments will be due on Feb. 10 and Mar. 10, and handed out on the previous Wednesday.

(The final exam will still be in the formal exam period, and scheduled by the registrar’s office. I have virtually no say in when it will be.)

On Dec. 5 I posted a list a list of readings for the start of term. I will hand out a fuller one in about two weeks. Meanwhile, here they are again:

M.M. pages 84–85: Isidore's Chronicle
R.M.L. 6.3: St. Andomnan
M.M. pages 86–88: “The voyage of St. Brendan”
pages 89–90: Vita Sancti Ciarani de Saigir
R.M.L. 7.2: St. Bede
(a): Ecclesiastical History
M.M. pages 99–101: St. Cuthbert (“Letter on the death of Bede”)
R.M.L. 8.1: Epitaph of Agapius
[M.M. pages 107–109: Alcuin (I would like you to skim this on your own--it is a fairly easy read and will help you work a bit on deducing meaning from context)]
R.M.L. 8.3: St. Gregory of Tours
9.1: Charlamagne’s Capitulare episcoporum
9.3: Paul the Deacon


Key for practice sight translation

Here is the key for the practice sight translation I posted on Dec. 17.