Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Honey Extraction Moon<\/p>\n
A Latinate day.\u00a0 The am found me back in Pentheus, a story in the third book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.\u00a0 I remember the story from the English version, at least in part.\u00a0 Pentheus gets torn apart by his mother and her fellow Bacchantes while they are in the grip of a Dionysian frenzy.\u00a0 As I’ve been translating this story, it’s clear that Pentheus is a tragic figure from Ovid’s perspective, a man’s man faced with hordes of soft, sweet smelling boys worshiping a God of irrational behavior.\u00a0 Romans were not much into ecstasy unless it involved warfare or the circus.<\/p>\n
They were orthopraxic in their religious views, at least most Romans were, that is, they believed that right rituals performed at the right time for the appropriate deity trumped everything else.<\/p>\n
I have begun, in a modest way, work on the commentary.\u00a0 I set up some files in Notes but made no entries.\u00a0 It’s difficult for me, right now, to know what makes sense, but I’ll figure it out.<\/p>\n
My next hurdle is to translate the Latin into idiomatic English.\u00a0 Sometimes I can get there, often not.\u00a0 To do that I need to have a solid understanding of the grammar–not yet–and a feel for how the Latin makes its meaning, not there either.\u00a0 At least I’m no longer staring at the words on the page as if they were hieroglyphics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Honey Extraction Moon A Latinate day.\u00a0 The am found me back in Pentheus, a story in the third book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.\u00a0 I remember the story from the English version, at least in part.\u00a0 Pentheus gets torn apart by his mother and her fellow Bacchantes while they are in the grip of a … Continue reading A Latinate Day<\/span>