ecce!
in pictura est puella romana, nomine Cornelia. etiam in pictura est puella romana, nomine Flavia. Flavia cantat, dum Cornelia sub abore sedet.

Cornelia laeta est.

It's (oh, fuck) almost 23 years since I started to learn Latin, and I can still recite the first page of Ecce Romani I with terrifying accuracy...

Ditto Thomas' "Adlestrop", and Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow" - though why so much depends on the latter mystifies me still, almost a quarter of a century on.

Tim Sagar and Peter Cash, my Latin and English teachers, have a lot to answer for.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 10:10, 19 replies)

No wai!
Jesus Christ.

That's bringing back a flood of memories.

I need a drink.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 10:16, closed)

Wai!
Is that because you also had Ecce Romani, or because you've just realised that we went to the same school? (The latter would indicate the former, of course...)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 10:18, closed)

We also had Ecce Romani.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 10:29, closed)

Quintus et Caecilius ambulant in horto (was that from that one?)
I'm sure there was a Sextus too. Was he a slave? Or am I making that up?

It's so confusing as we started on Ecce Romani, and then moved onto a different one.
( prince-igor si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 10:21, closed)

So did we.
Two years of Ecce Romani, then the Oxford Latin Course.

Sextus was in there, I think, as was a fair amount of walking into (and in: accusative and ablative respectively) the garden. The slave in ER was a British man called Davus. Davus iratus est. I think he might have tried to escape, too, and was branded FUG as a result. Quite a brutal textbook, that.

Quintus was a character in the OLC; without having had to translate a passage about him going to the forum to buy a copy of The Republic, I'd possibly never have become interested in philosophy myself, would not have read it when I was 16, would not have studied it at university, and would not be doing the job I now do.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 10:25, closed)

Quite a chain of events!
I have the republic on my bookshelf, but only to look clever. Is it one I should read then? I only bought it because I'd read an extract where he rambled on about music that amused me, but I still haven't got round to tackling the whole thing.

About every three months I pick one of these shelf-decorating books and actually read it. Last one (well okay a pair) was the Wealth of Nations and Moral Sentiments. And my word it's more interesting reading both of them. If a little confusing.
( prince-igor si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 10:29, closed)

The Republic has its moments,
but in my opinion Plato is more important for what he inspired than for anything that he did in his own right. A lot of important stuff can be traced back to him, and he's the earliest philosopher from whom we have anything like a significant body of work - but Aristotle is a much more coherent thinker on the whole.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 10:36, closed)

Generally my philosophy reading is pretty poor
and overly influenced by whether Bertrand Russell had anything nice to say about them in the History of Western Philosophy...
( prince-igor si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 10:45, closed)

I disagree...
... well, actually, i don't. What you said there was spot on. But I'd still recommend Plato over Aristotle: they've both been studied, picked apart, put back together, and essentially superseded over the last ~2400 years; but Plato has the advantage of actually being a relatively enjoyable read for the amateur philosopher. Aristotle is about as fun as reading someone's lecture notes.
(Xpic needs a kick up the arse., Tue 5 Jul 2011, 9:38, closed)

Caecilius brings back memories...

( snee held his breath since, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 11:21, closed)

Wasn't Quintus the cook?

( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 18:39, closed)

If there was a Quintus,
I'd assume he'd've been Sextus' older brother...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 21:12, closed)

I only did Ecce Romani.
The boys were Marcus and Sextus, I think. Sextus was a puer molestus who irritated the English slave and fell in the piscina.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Sat 2 Jul 2011, 8:09, closed)

This made me giggle like a loon, for some reason!
(The way Lampito described it, not EC itself).
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Sun 3 Jul 2011, 18:45, closed)

I have a wild and passionate love for it.
As a leaving present my Latin teacher of all 7 years at school gave our class copies, as we had been the last year to do it.

There's a video on facebook. There's lots of screaming.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 4 Jul 2011, 8:01, closed)

Fucking hell.
Look! In this picture is a Roman girl called Cornelia. Also in the picture is a Roman girl called Flavia. Flavia is singing, whilst Cornelia sits under a tree.

(Is that right? It's been nearly 20 years since my first Latin lesson, which comprised reading through the 'Ecce! Romani' books).
I started learning Ancient Greek for a while, but have forgotten everything except "Dikaopolous". Which is the name of a farmer who wants to plough a field, but there is a large stone in the way. He enlists the help of his servant to lift the stone away, and then he ploughs the field. Riveting stuff, I think you'll agree.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 14:50, closed)

You missed out a bit!
etiam in pictura est villa, quae Cornelia in aestate habitat. Cornelia est laeta quod iam est in villa.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 15:40, closed)

Oh, yes...
It's all coming back to me now...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 1 Jul 2011, 21:11, closed)

ecce romani
god no, i remember this.

marcus and sextus ..doing stuff in the garden with flavia and aurelia, someone falls in the piscitummy fishpond thing. I much preferred the Peter and Jane books, they had a nice Red Setter.
(a girl called harry, Wed 6 Jul 2011, 10:59, closed)