Lughnasa College Moon
Again, the quiet. I haven’t put a full push on with the Latin before today, but I could see the end of the Apollo and Daphne story and wanted to get there. So, I’m mentally fatigued, ready for some deep sleep, maybe some interesting chunks of rem.
Book illustrations, especially 19th century illustrations, give me a warm feeling. If they’re good. Sort of aesthetic comfort food. Not great in large doses, but every once in a while, just what’s needed.
Lughnasa College Moon
Finished up the story of Daphne and Apollo. As Daphne changed into a laurel, Apollo grabbed onto her branches and threw his arms around her trunk, feeling her agitated heart still beating there. He declares his love to the tree (Classical humor) and then proclaims the laurel dedicated to him. It will henceforth adorn great achievements including triumphs in Rome and stand before the door to the house of the great Augustus.
(Apollo Daphne Appiani)
On Friday I’m going to renegotiate my relationship with Greg. Not sure what comes next but what we’re doing has become repetitive. I would like now to have a task, an assignment, a sort of final paper, something I could work on over a given period of time and then show to him. Don’t really know what I’m talking about here, but I feel ready to move to a different level or a different set of tasks. Something.
Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
Not as smooth as last session. Now the tutorials seem to go, smooth and relatively mistake free, then clunky, filled with uncertain work. The plateaus were, in the past, obvious and as they were overcome, the terrain of the past was visible. With this plateau, and it sure seems like one in its stubbornness, the past seems to vary from session. That means knowing what needs more attention is difficult.
(Caspar David Friedrich)
This feels like the climb toward the peak where hypoxia can set in, without warning, and force a climber back down if they’re climbing without oxygen. Eventually acclimation triumphs over the thin air or the distress makes it necessary to leave the climb. In this case the peak matters enough to stay up here until acclimatization takes over.
To overextend this metaphor, the view from the peak will be enough to satisfy. That is, book after book of Latin now accessible. Yes, this peak has already been climbed many times, but as any dedicated climber can tell you, until you’ve reached the peak yourself, the mountain isn’t yours.
Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
Today I went from verse 505 to verse 524 in Book I of Ovid, translating as I went, with only two errors and those both nuances I had not yet learned. My confidence grows now with each lesson.
We pay for 8 sessions at a time. Greg and I do a session every two weeks. Or so. The next session on August 23rd will be the 6th in this series. By the final one, the 8th, I’m planning on renegotiating our arrangement, moving toward more working alone, perhaps story by story, developing a polished translation and not contacting Greg until then. Something like that.
(Apollo and Daphne w Peneus. Tiepolo)
Kate reminded me the other day of my original purpose in starting this journey. I wanted to challenge my own belief that I could not learn a foreign language. Translating the Metamorphoses was a goal I dangled in front of myself, a reward for staying with the work. Over time I began to believe that my purpose was to translate the Metamorphoses, but that was not it at the beginning. A metamorphosis, it just occurred to me.
Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
Over the weekend and as deep into this week as I need to go, I’m packing up my former study. I’ve purged one file cabinet and consolidated its content into boxes for moving. A horizontal cabinet awaits attention. A large plastic tub full of art supplies went into the move with care pile. One small bookcase has been emptied and moved. The shop work bench I’ve used for storage is empty, too. That old printer, the one I bought in 1994, is in the truck and ready to go to a recycler. An HP laserjet, it still functions. That leaves three larger bookcases and some miscellaneous things on various surfaces, plus the art on the walls.
(what I hope to create in Colorado, my own version of this.)
When this room has been tidied up, the next and last big push begins. My study. This room has walls of books. Many will go in boxes with red tape, but most will not. The other areas have gone well, but this one will present some difficulty. So many projects. Some of the past, some of the future, some of today. Which ones do I imagine I’ll continue in Colorado? Which ones have enough spark to be valuable in the final third of my life? These are hard decisions for me and packing this room will be both valuable and difficult.
This is a chance to prune my work over the last third of my life, clear out the branches that have grown across each other. Take out that large branch that flourished then died. Increase the circulation amongst the remaining branches so they have air, can breathe. Pruning gives renewed vigor to plants and I hope to achieve the same thing when I pack up these materials, those closest to my heart, leaving behind what I no longer need.
Summer New (Lughnasa) Moon
Kate destemmed and clipped the wispy end off all the gooseberries I picked. Gooseberries are just this side of not being worth the effort. She put them in a bowl with our blueberries, mixed them and made tarts. Tasty. We also had green beans and carrots tonight, one day out of the garden. With fish.
The Latin I reviewed over the last couple of days continues to come more easily. Incremental jumps, consolidation of past learning and, by now, long practice have combined to push me forward. Kate reminded me (I’d forgotten.) that I started on this because I doubted I could learn a foreign language. But, I wanted to try.
I’ve felt for many years the same way about calculus and step by slow step I’m learning pre-calculus through the Khan Academy. Somewhere back in my education, maybe junior high or so, I got into the habit of racing through exams, wanting to finish well ahead of everybody else and have the rest of the time to myself. As I work on these math problems, I find that same self-pressure, a hurry-up attitude has not left me. It gets in my way. I make bone head mistakes, having to take more time going back over what I’ve done. So, I’m slowing down. Making sure.
Why am I doing this? I enjoy challenging myself, pushing myself into strange places, foreign lands. Latin was a foreign country four years ago, though I’m now a resident alien. Calculus continues to be a faraway land, but I’ve found a path and I’m on it. These are different ways of looking at the world, different perspectives. With Latin I’m going deep into an ancient culture and the deeper I go the more mysterious it becomes. I imagine calculus will prove the same.
Summer Most Heat Moon
Latin has begun to feel similar to Kate’s sewing. In her sewing she can work for a bit, accomplish a small part and still feel she’s made progress. Now, I can work for an hour or so at a time (about the limit for me) and move my whole project forward a few verses. At the same time, like Kate and her sewing, I reinforce my skills and reaffirm them, giving me a sense of mastery. The aim is to put many shorter sessions together to make a whole quilt, or an entire translated story.
More and more I’m feeling like I may be on my own by this fall. An exciting and fulfilling feeling.
(Apollo_and_Daphne, Antonio_del_Pollaiolo_)
Summer Most Heat Moon
In regard to work on a new food crop as a part of our move. I want to find a native plant, native to the eco-region of our new home, then work toward domesticating it with as much help as I can get from the academics. As I wrote this, I recalled that there is a Spitler apple, named after a great uncle who developed it. Maybe botany has a gene.
(a possibility, Creeping Thistle)
A pattern for translating the Metamorphoses is emerging. I will translate individual stories whole. For example, the one I’m working on now, Daphne, is in Book I:452-566. The preceding story of the Python was Book I:416-451 and the next one, Io. Argus. Syrinx., Book I:567-745 and the story of Phaethon ends Book I, running from 746-778.
Here’s the method I see from how I’m working right now. I will continue translating a few verses (4-7) a day, hopefully increasing these numbers somewhat over time. While doing these translations, I will consult my usual resources: Perseus, the commentaries, grammars and occasionally the consensus Oxford text going to the english translations only when I’m confused and find myself unable to move forward.
Once I get a story done, I will set it aside for a day to a week while I continue translating into the next story. At some point before a week passes, I will pick up the story from the preceding week and using my notes, retranslate it without reference to the translation I created. If I believe I have as good a literal translation as I can make, I will then proceed to trying for a more lyrical prose translation, one using the best english I can muster. Again, I will proceed by using the resources mentioned above, but not check the english translations.
Only after I have created my best english translation, and then only after letting it sit for a couple of weeks, a month, will I then work with my translation in light of other english translations, resolving conflicts and improving my translation where I can.
I’ve not yet decided whether I want to try to make a commentary or not. It’s a big, big project, but much of the work will be done already and I’m still a naive learner, therefore able to see what another newcomer might most appreciate or need.
When I put together the classics and art history, I find myself where I belong.
Summer Most Heat Moon
While the Olson generations have driven north to the world’s largest lake (by area), I remained behind for my regular session with Latin tutor Greg and lunch with friend Tom Crane.
When I work with Greg now, I sequence out loud the Latin words in the order in which I will translate them into English, then offer my translation. Since so much of my work has involved either Greg’s question and my answers or my translating then listening to Greg’s careful parsing of the grammar, silence confuses me.
Today had lots of silence. It turns out that means he’s translating along with me, waiting for me to go on. Silence, in other words, is good. To get to this level of translating still takes a long time for me. I translate the verses, 4-6 in a typical one hour to one and a half hour session. This involves consulting the online classics website, Perseus, the commentaries by Anderson and Lee, and occasionally checking an English translation if I’m hopelessly confused.
After I’ve done a bunch, maybe 50 or 60 or so, I’ll go back over them, making sure the declension and conjugation notes I’ve written down are accurate and making sure as well that the word I’ve chosen is written over its Latin counterpart. I might be done then, at least for awhile. If, however, there is some time before I have a session with Greg, I may go over them again, writing out a new translation as I read, not consulting my previous work.
When I get down to the serious work here, I imagine the process proceeding much the same. It would differ at the point of my session with Greg. Then I will go through the verses I’m working with and try to create as beautiful an English translation as I can. When I feel I’ve done my best, then I will review other translator’s work on the same passages. At that point I’ll revise again, or not.
I may be at that point this fall. I’m very close right now.
Lunch with Tom is about friendship, about that ineffable, yet essential quality of being known by another and, in turn, knowing. The topics don’t matter, though they do, of course. Today it was grandchildren, visits, friends and, as you might expect, the sixth great extinction on planet Earth.
On this last point Tom and I share a desire to grasp the dilemmas facing the human race right now in fine detail, but also in the larger, broader scope of planetary evolution. I think we agree on this perspective, being human is natural and the things we do as human are, therefore, natural. That’s not to say they don’t have unintended consequences. Nor does it mean that we have to lie down and say, we can’t do anything about that!
Not at all. But flagellation gets us no where.
Summer Most Heat Moon
The deck continues. Ruth’s out building a house using found materials while her Dad drives screws into cedar decking. Kate’s asleep for her nap, but I’m awake, an hour or two shy of a full night’s sleep. Kate’s sister Anne is out pruning the crab apple tree. This Johnson/Olson clan loves working. Or, at least, they work a lot.
Jon kvetches about the heat and the humidity and how Denver is better. But I reminded him of the 107 degree days I’ve experienced out there in August and early September. Oh, yeah. Well, it gets hot some. A dry 107 degree heat will cook a chicken, too.
Meanwhile, I’m downstairs, my head in Ovid, wrestling with declensions and conjugations rather than electric drills and Japanese saws. To each their own.