Tentative Grades

Here are the tentative grades for the two parts of the final exam and then for the year. Once again, because of university privacy regulations, the student numbers have been reduced to their final four digits and then sorted in ascending order. That means that if your number were 1234567 it would be given here as 4567.

                Unseen Trans.       Final Exam     Final Grade

4061                   D                   A-                 C+
5150 B-                  B+                 A-
5846 A                   A                  A
6269 A                   A+                 A+
6272 A                   A+                 A+
6360 C                   C                   C
6739 B-                  C                   B-
7298 B+                 A+                 A
7969 D                   D+                 C+
8453 C                   C                   C+
8645 B                   C                   C+
9149 A-                  A-                 A-

Final Grades

I will not be able to post the tentative final grades until Saturday. They are tentative because they will take several days to work their way through the system and become official.

If, after the grades are posted, you wish to see your exam, send me an e-pistle and we can make an appointment.

Nunc dimittis

I wish everyone a sound sleep (very very important for processing information--brain specialists advise putting sleep above cramming) and a fresh morning.

I regret the need to have final exams, believe me. As an undergraduate I suffered from monstrous exam anxiety, and, after waking up on the morning of an exam one of the first things I would do was go into the bathroom and throw up. I wish there were another way to assess each student's individual ability at the end of the year, without any opportunity for collaboration or using resources. Virtually every language studied at university expects students to learn some grammar and vocabulary by heart, and the final exam is intended to test that knowledge. I believe it's an unpleasant necessity.

So I will see you tomorrow. I won't wish anyone good luck, since I think you make you own luck. But I will hope that everyone finds calmness and clarity of mind tomorrow morning.

Office hours

My office hours for next week will be Wed., Thurs., Fri. (April 9 - 11), 8:30-10:30.

You may, of course, always send questions to be by e-mail.

Oh yes....

Don't forget to look at my extra notes while reviewing for the exam. They were intended to help you understand the texts and they deal with most of the more difficult bits. So even if you did not use them to help you prepare for class (which seemed to be the case with most students today), they can still be of use.

Final Exam Information

The exam is scheduled for Apr. 14, 9:00 a.m. (3 hours), KIN 205. But check the official schedule closer to the date in case there is any change to the room. Of course those of you who need special accommodation will have received from the Exam's Office specific information about the duration of the exam and the room.

It will cover everything we have read since the last exam, with the exception of the "Epitaph of Agapius". That means:

R.M.L. 9.1: Charlemagne’s Capitulare episcoporum.
9:3 Paul the Deacon
11.1: William of Poitiers
11.3: The book of Winchester
13.1: Baudri of Bourgueil

M.M. 148-150: Robert the Monk

R.M.L. 17.3: Peter Abelard
17.4: Heloise

R.M.L. 15.1: Carmina Cantabrigensia
M.M. 136-7 Cambridge Songs
M.M. 224 ff.: Carmina Burana [I - IV]

As I have said before, don't try to second-guess me. If it is on the list above, it could appear on the exam.

The format will be the same as the previous exams: Latin 327 students will have three passages to translate, plus questions to answer, and Latin 411 students will have on extra passage. As before, I want you to know the authors, titles, and rough dates of all that we have read: once again, you will have to use your intelligence to deal with apparent anomalous information (i.e., if the work doesn't have an author, you can't know it; if a work is dated to a wide possible period, then that's all you can give, etc.). The other questions will be like those on the previous three exams.

In addition, there will be one passage for unseen translation. I expect you to know all vocabulary on the list I gave you at the start of the year [the first link in the first blog entry takes you to an electronic version; here is the link again ]. Words that have occurred several times in what we have covered in class will generally not be glossed, unless they are very strange. Some other words whose definitions you can be expected to deduce from their roots, Latin cognates, English derivatives, etc. will also not be glossed, nor will typical medieval orthographical divergences from classical Latin.

The prepared part of the exam will be worth approximately 70%, and the sight 30%.

I have not decided on my office hours for the exam period: I will post those by the weekend. Of course you are, as always, welcome to send me questions by e-mail, and I will (within reason) answer as many as you need to ask.

Two very short poems from the Carmina Burana

Here are two of my favourites, perfect in their simplicity.

Stetit puella

Stetit puella    rufa tunica;
si quis eam tetigit    tunica crepuit.
Eia!

Stetit puella,    tamquam rosula;
facie splenduit,    os eius floruit.
Eia!

A girl stood in a red dress;
if anyone touched her, the tunic rustled.
Ahhh!

A girl stood, like a rose;
Her face shone, her mouth bloomed.
Ahhh!


Dulcissime

Dulcissime,
totam tibi subdo me!

Oh my sweetest,
I give myself completely to you.

In taberna

NOTE: We did not cover this in class, and so it will not appear on the exam.

Here is some help (much needed--sorry about that) for In taberna quando sumus.

VII. In taberna quando sumus

2. humus: G. is almost certainly wrong here--humus means “earth” and by an easy metonymy, the grave.
sit: why?
4. cui: dative after insudamus: “sweat over.”
5. agatur: why subj.?
6. picerna: I would not put the semi-colon in, since Quid agatur in taberna is almost certainly the subject of quaeratur. That is, the word order in English would go roughly as follows: Est opus ut quaeratur hoc: quid agatur in taberna. 
7. Hoc est opus ut: opus est = “it is necessary.” Hoc can be seen either as nom. with est opus or with quaeratur.
Quaeratur: I would put a period after this.
8. loquar: why subj.?
12. ex his: ludus (which sort of has a plural aspect--gaming)
16. pro Baccho: the bets are drinks.
mittunt sortem: “they cast their lot,” perhaps. It surely refers to throwing dice.
17. Primo ... libertini: “At first, as free men (i.e., men freed from care), because of the price of the wine (ex hac: hac refers to nummata), they drink to the price of the wine.” Here pro is our “to” (drink to [“for, on behalf of”]). In the context nummata might best be translated as “cheap price.”
19. semel: “once again,” i.e., the second time. This is also possibly “plus one more,” that is, they drink twice, or have two drinks, for the captivi. The numbers here could be either “a fourth time, a fifth time...” or “four times, five times....” The former seems more reasonable, and the latter is more outrageous.
captivis: probably prisoners of war.
23. sororibus vanis: given the context, this is probably something the drinkers are happy for, so if the nuns are “worthless” as G. says, it must be that they are worthless as nuns. I would say “naughty nuns.”
24. pro militibus silvanis: for unemployed knights.
25. perversis: probably a play on conversi. The monks have not converted, but been perverted (turned aside from their proper path). Perhaps “straying,” or “errant”.
49. Parum ...: "Six hundred coins last too little when everyone drinks immoderately without limit...”

Carmina Burana

Here are the extra notes for the first four excerpts from the Carmina Burana in Medieval Mosaic. On Wednesday, we will do only I - IV, and VI and VII. We will not do V.

I will post notes on VI and VII later in the day.