AP Vergil

I am teaching AP Vergil this year, and I have a student who is trying to write in meter. I check his work, show him his mistakes, and he comes back with more mistakes than before. He is a rather smart guy, and he does not give up easily. I like to see his efforts, but I feel that somehow, his time might be spent better in other Latinic pursuits. I want to encourage him to pursue communication through other means until his vocabulary and his awareness of meter are more consolidated. So, I wrote a little poem for him in dactyllic hexameter. His latin name is Tertullus. I need some feedback.

Tu, Tertulle, loqui nunc visne aut scribere metro?
non facile est mihi simpliciter fandum vacuumque
verbum adipisci, verum est insanum modulate.

How's my meter? Have I missed anything? I am concerned about the use of "metro" and "modulate." Does the poem make sense to you? Any suggestions for word choice? Thanks!
Magister Coke

Fall at Bryn Mawr

 


There are about 30 more where that came from, freshly uploaded to Flickr.

My favorite is the bottle of Lion's Head by an ivy covered tree. Nothing beats it for $11 a case. 

Not funny, but relevant.

Not funny, but relevant. 

Illuminated Manuscripts at the NY Public Library

Illuminated manuscripts, because they are handmade and often contain miniature masterpieces of painting on paper, seem to belong more to the art museum than to a public library.

But a hundred of them are on display in the library's dimly lit D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman Exhibition Hall on the first floor of the stately building at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. This is the cream of the library's 300 or so illuminated books. It includes Bibles, prayer books, atlases, scientific texts and romances, dating from the 10th to the 16th centuries.

Sounds like fun ... if you're a NERD!

(...which I think we all are.)

For Magister Coke

Magister: Last night as I was walking down Fratelli Bonnet I saw Father Foster through the back window of a bus. I know it was him; the briefcase and clean-shorn head are unmistakable. I thought about trying to track him down to say hello on your behalf, but ultimately did not. Apologies.

On a somewhat unrelated note: last night I also watched an old episode of Seinfeld called 'The Cafe'. Toward the beginning of the episode, she keeps repeating the phrase casus belli because she had just read it in a book and wanted to say it. George persists in asking what it means, and she replies, 'It's just a Latin phrase, George; it doesn't mean anything'--and this right before she boasts of her 145 IQ!

The Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life

... and in this case death:

A UNIVERSITY student died after being hurled 100ft through the air by a medieval-style "trebuchet" catapult, an inquest heard yesterday.

Kostydin Yankov, 19, an Oxford University student, suffered multiple injuries and serious spinal damage when he fell short of the safety net.

. . . . . . . . . .

The device is based on the trebuchets used in medieval times to hurl rocks and dead animals over castle walls during sieges. It uses a tonne of lead weight to give a see-saw effect and propel volunteers hundreds of feet into the air.

German abbreviation question

I've come across the abbreviation a.O. in a German article and I think it must mean the same thing as a.a.O, 'am angeführten Orte,' which is essentially ad loc.

Does anyone know for certain? Reference works have been absolutely no help.

The Oldest Opus Reticulatum in Rome

This specimen, so far as I know, is the oldest extant bit of opus reticulatum in the city of Rome. It formed part of the structure of Rome's first permanent theater, the Theater of Pompey. It now forms part of the basement of a restaurant.



This same restaurant has a nice model reconstruction of the theater:

10,000 Hits!

The Campus should reach 10,000 hits today, and that's no small feat.

I attribute it to things like this: someone found us yesterday by searching Yahoo for 'funniest aminals.' (Yes, aminals ... not animals.)

And you know what? We came up as number 9.

(See the previous posts in the sidebar if you're not sure how that happened.)