This project means doing shed loads of donkey work. The metadata is a bloody nightmare. It doesn't help that I've just discovered I no longer have access to the University library (no longer being a student there). It's not actually much of a problem, because running a search for 'Nennius' in the OU library returns very few results, by comparison. The same applied to Apuleius' De deo Socratis. Besides, I have enough reading material pulled down for this project, which just means a lot of reading.
I have to do one thing right now: focus exclusively on this project (Nennius) to the exclusion of all else. That is, if ever I want to get this book published any time soon. I figure it's pretty standard work, it just means lots of reading, taking note of meanings of names and places and cataloguing them.
In other news, my estranged father got in touch yesterday. He's getting on, so it is no good being at cross purposes with him, despite our differing philosophical and political views, and any differences we may have had: water under the bridge.
My current workload (one after the other) is this:
Nennius, History of the Britons (trans. Latham)
Boadicea: Queen of the Iceni an epic-play by yours truly
Apuleius, De deo Socratis (trans. Latham).
The rest of my little hobby horses and pet projects can go hang. Necessity forces my hand. Then, once I have completed these little projects, I can start the serious work, namely the astrological/magical grimoire being translated and a book on runelore I am also translating. There is also another book, which, in truth, is much more important than either of these two, but astrology and runelore are more popular than this other work, which is very interesting, but really only to a select group of people. It is also much more difficult to translate, so that's shelved, for now. As for Seneca's Troades or van Gennep's Rites of Passage, the University obviously have no interest in either me, as a scholar, or my translations, so they can go hang. I'll get around to them at some point later, but much like studying at University itself: it is hobby, nothing more, and a very time consuming and extremely expensive hobby at that!
I should like to finish my translation of Scivias by Hildegard von Bingen, but that, again, is just a very costly hobby, and will not bear any fruit. Untranslated works and my original play should be my priority (even if these are done out of a sense of patriotism, certainly Nennius and Boadicea) rather than any mere pecuniary considerations. I have to re-enter Hades this evening, so to speak. Study at University for a dozen years, end up in McDonald's. Great (yeah *coughs*). This is not Renaissance Italy, evidently.
Max.
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