• Tag Archives Ovid

  • The Latin Diaries: Diana and Actaeon

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                             Waxing Bee Hiving Moon

    All morning on 5 verses of the Actaeon story.  I’m not sure now that I’ll make it before May 1st when the Titian exhibit leaves.  I’m aiming that way still.  It’s a goal, but one dependent on my continuing to gain skill as a Latin novice and gain skill fast.  I’ve only now just gotten to the good part where Actaeon has entered the sacred grove, seen Diana and she’s going for her arrows and her bow.  After that?  Well, it’s not good news for our Actaeon.

    Translating Latin, and I’m sure this is true with other languages too, requires holding several different pieces of information in mind, all at the same time.  That’s different conjugations, declensions, clause forms, word meanings (usually multiple for the same word).  The thing I still find hardest is not jumping to a conclusion and locking in a translation.  If I do that, I end up with words that don’t fit and decisions that go down wrong paths.

    The very complexity of it is what appeals to me right now, that and the fact that I’m digging deep into a text and therefore an author and therefore a world that fascinates me, the world that sustained Greek and Roman gods and goddesses.  Ovid challenges this world, challenges it vigorously, with stories of transformation and injustice, but, in a great irony, also propagates it.


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  • An Art Day

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                             Waxing Bee Hiving Moon

    Two tours today, 2nd graders at 10:00 am and a group of seniors from Minnetonka at 1:30.  I took the kids through a mysteries of the ancient world tour.  I love 2nd graders.  They’re eager, uncensored, fun and often bright.  We learned how sculptures lose things that stick out, why the chinese used copper and tin for weapons, that folks have been fighting in Iraq for a really long time and that an artist 20,000 years ago made a small stone sculpture we could recognize today.

    With the seniors we toured Titian, going over, once again, the splendid century, filled with wealth and spices and great artists.  We wandered among these great stories, the Christ child, the Three Kings, the bella donna’s, the courtesan count, the transformation of actaeon into a stag and callisto into a bear.  The museum literally brings the world to us and allows those of who guide there to travel over it ever time we visit.  Today, for example, we went to China, Greece, Iraq, France, Mexico and Venice.  Plus Mexico and, by extension, Italy, Israel and Cyprus.  Not bad for a day’s work.

    This work is such a gift, a license to steal glances at objects made by some of the world’s great geniuses:  Goya, Rembrandt, Titian, El Greco, Bassano, Renoir, Gaugin, Monet, Van Gogh, Rodin.  The list goes on.  I visit Lucretia now as an ancestor who died tragically.  Germanicus, that brave general dying betrayed.  The sick Goya, nurtured by his doctor.  The Sufi crowd working themselves into ecstasy in Delacroix’s painting.  That wonderful brook by Thomas Moran.  Calypso mourning for her lost Ulysses.  So many, so wonderful.  Sometimes it takes my breath right away.

    Is it spiritual?  If, as I am beginning to take it, the spiritual moments are those moments that nurture our Self, that best and richest person we could be, want to be, then, yes, every visit to the museum affords a chance for the Self to grow further into its most creative and full expression, goaded on by others who tapped into the depths of their own Self and who gave us a choice to join them on their journey.


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  • Ovid and Me

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                               Waning Bloodroot Moon

    The Latin work has gone past difficult learning, though there is still that, too, into a different, almost ecstatic place.  Reading the words of another language and making sense, poetry, from them still seems magical to me.  I’m really doing it.  The closest analogy is my first set of glasses that corrected my far vision.  All of a sudden I saw individual stars in the sky.  william-turner-ancient-italy-ovid-banishedThe moment was extraordinary.  What had been a fuzzy, blurred night sky became black velvet set with bright points of light.

    Now it appears I will finish Diana and Actaeon before the Titian show closes on May 1st and I might make my way through Diana and Callisto, too.  I’m enjoying translating the different stories, so I think I’ll move on to Medea, Pentheus and other discrete stories rather than try the full frontal assault I had planned, start with Book I, verse 1 and soldier through to the last verse of Book XVI.

    Another idea that seems possible now is to investigate the Latin texts behind other objects in the museum:  Theseus and the Centaur at the Lapith wedding,  Ganymede and the Eagle,  Lucretia,  Germanicus.  I’m sure there are other objects that have particular Latin texts behind them.  I have no particular reason for doing this except to deepen my knowledge of mythology and of the specific objects in our collection with Latin connections.

    Taking up a new intellectual challenge later in life is not only possible, it’s exhilarating.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Humanities Myth and Story Retirement Writing 📎and tagged

  • Lost In Translation

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                             Waning Bloodroot Moon

    Just wanted to post a notice here that I have several verses of Ovid’s Metamorphosis translated, about a fourth of his version of Diana and Actaeon, the subject of one of Titian’s paintings at the MIA’s current exhibition.  This level of translation is a first pass, so is not meant to be in idiomatic English.  That’s a next step.  I’m excited that I’ve gotten this far.

    The task of translation is far more complex than it appears, involving inevitable personal choices that reflect not the original work, but the mind and culture of the translator.  I suspected this, but now I know for sure.

    This work has become a hobby for me, something I enjoy picking up in spare time, a jigsaw puzzle or a model.

    Those of you who’ve mastered another language or languages, I’m getting to the place, at 64, where I may join you.  I have a lot of respect for any who have stuck the course with another language, we are so inept here in the US.  It’s been a fun ride so far.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Humanities 📎and tagged

  • Union, Yes

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                              Waning Bridgit Moon

    This week had a lot of Latin time.  I made it through ten lines of Diana and Actaeon which Greg and I discussed at length during my tutoring session today.  I need to pay more attention to the verb and its object; when I get that, I get the translation; when I don’t, I make it fit anyhow, the Procrustean bed of my mind.  The work of translation, at least in Latin, lies within my competency level, I can see that now.  All it will require is ongoing attention.  All.  Well.  Good thing there’s a lot in Latin that interests me.

    Madison, Wisconsin.  Politics, the way they work in our country, allow this mercurial swing from one perspective to another in the course of one election.  Republicans seem to need two things in the public arena:  enemies they can flog and to be the enemy themselves.  It’s a peculiar combination, like group sado/masochism with both aspects of S&M in action at the same time.  Enemies right now:  public sector unions, bloated budgets and those that love them, perverters of the constitution–at least they one they read, environmentalists, the environment.  Being the enemy right now:  ruling with a peculiar maliciousness–witness the Wisconsin Governor’s “conversation” with billionaire David Koch,  acting as if the nation were a one party system, theirs, with a pesky group of liberals who act like horseflies and insist on inhabiting seats in their government, choosing a mainstream way of interpreting the constitution, the living document school, and pushing it, in their minds, to the dustbin of history as if it had never existed.

    We need parties that represent different communities and different interests, that’s what politics is for, the mediation of disputes, but our politics don’t work unless respect for the others existence stands as a given. Continue reading → Post ID 9981


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  • Latin and Clergy

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                         Waning Bridgit Moon

    Another opportunity to spend some quality time with Ovid.  Two days in a row with considerable focus on Latin.  I like the continuity, the carry over from one hour to the next, one day to the next.  It feels like things have chance to cement themselves, take  hold.  On the other hand this is still very hard for me, a lot of uncertainty, guess work.

    Spent time today, too, with Leslie, the intern from United Theological Seminary whom I’m mentoring this year.  Learning is such a difficult task, especially at this point, second or junior year, of seminary.  Occupational formation, especially for something as fuzzy as ministry, takes a long time.  Years.  At this point its more confusing than enlightening.


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  • Ante Nixem

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                              Waning Bridgit Moon

    The bubble of calm before the winds begin to blow and the snow to fall.  Predictions have increased the amount from 8-10 to 12-18.  I’ve never outgrown my joy at a snowfall, so I’m looking forward to this one.

    My plan for the snow is this:  Ovid and some reading.  I’m translating the story of Diana and Actaeon right now since Titian painted a large canvas on this theme, a painting now in the MIA for three months.

    The reading right now is Empire, a s0-so novel of imperial Rome.  I’m sure the idea seemed like a winner when the guy started.  Take one non-imperial family and follow them through the years of changing emperors.  If the through in were stronger, it might have been strong, but it’s more like a pastiche.  He throws in well known stories of this emperor or that, trying to palm them off on the reader as if they were imaginative leaps, but I know too much of the history.  The saving grace to the book is that it is a decent survey of the changing fortunes of Rome under emperors from Augustus to Hadrian.  So far.  I’m almost done and look forward to a new novel written with more narrative flair.

    Can you tell I’m sort of caught up in Rome right now?  That’s the way it goes for me.  Ancient China.  Ancient Egypt.  Ancient Celts.  Ancient Greece.  Ancient Rome.


    📂This entry was posted in Humanities Literature Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • 68. My Driver’s License Will Be Good Until I’m 68? Hmmm.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                      Waxing Bridgit Moon

    There are those moments.  Drove over to Ramsey city hall (municipal center sounds much more… what?), walked through the glass doors and the 20 foot high atrium, all in stone and glass, followed the signs and found the License Center.  I filled out a form, missing four questions, handed to the nice lady and she clipped the ear off my current driver’s license, collected my $24 (a fee, not a tax) and took me over to the vision machine.  Wonder of wonders, for the first time in 8 years, I passed.  How about that?  Up against the blue wall, smile.  “Great picture!” the nice lady said.

    The real shocker?  This new license will be good until I’m 68.  68!  How did that happen again?

    Tonight I’ll get a call from the network guy to see if he can walk me through the problem that’s keeping my printer from shaking hands with my two new computers.  Well, sorta new.  Decided I’m going to RTFM the backup stuff.  I really oughta know how to work this stuff, otherwise, what’s the point of backing stuff up?

    End of the week.  Another legcom meeting under my belt, the Titian walk through and some quality time with the exhibit yesterday and today Latin.  My Ovid work drew nice remarks from my tutor.  He essentially agreed with my translation.  As a rough draft.  Which it was.  My English to Latin was a little more fuzzy, showing that I whipped through it faster than is required to do good work.  I’m still working on Diana and Actaeon.  I’d like to finish it before the show leaves.

    Each segment, the legcom, the Titian preparation and the Latin, requires serious prep work.  Makes me feel good, sorta like exercise.  Which, by the way, I gotta go do.


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  • Deeper Into The Text

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                                 Waning Moon of the Cold Month

    We woke up to a new snow, sparkly and still coming down like flour from a flour sifter, gentle but persistent.  These kind of snows freshen up the scenery, cover up the dirty layers with fresh white linens.

    Business meeting.  We’re still feeling our way into retirement finances.  Not doing too bad, but we’re both a bit edgy since its new.  We’re fine, but until we have experience under our belts we’ll have some doubts.  Irrational.  Yes.  Ignorable?  No.

    Finished my English to Latin today and am now about to embark on a new adventure.  I’m going to work on the Ovid behind the two Titian paintings in the new MIA exhibit that reference the Metamorphosis:  Diana and Acteon in book 3:138-255 and Diana and Callisto Book 2:401-503.  This means I’m jumping over the intro for now and going straight into the text about the changes.  Since these paintings will be here a while, they will add some energy to my work.  Should be fun.


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  • Next Week

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                                      Waning Moon of the Cold Month

    With the Latin tutoring session behind me and Chapter 26 coming up, I downloaded a commentary on Caesar’s Gallic Wars with Latin text.  I’m gonna have a shot at it for a while.

    Started my Titian research last week by reading the Grove entry on Titian and checking out other websites and the Met’s timelines.  Printed out some stuff.  Next I’m going to read the catalog to get an overview of the show and to get images of each object in a file so I can reference them as I work.

    Also trying to decide what to do for the Woolly retreat.  One thought is to share my work on Ovid.  Still, it’s pretty inelegant, representing as those first 60 or so verses do the earliest of my work both in learning the language and then attempting translation.  Another is to talk about Big History but that seems pedantic.  I’ve thought about reading the first pages of Missing, just to see what folks think, but it’s low brow compared to the stuff most Woollies read.  Gotta decide sometime soon since the retreat starts on February 3rd.  I head out right after the Titian lecture.

    Another possibility is to share the research process on Titian, let them see what it takes to learn enough to tour a special exhibit.

    I just had another idea as I wrote this:  do an exegetical piece on Jacob at the Jabbok Ford.  About dreams, struggling with the angel of our better selves.  Hmmm.


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