Not being on call for Chairlady Mao 24/7 and still having a couple of months to burn on my deadline for the old ball and chain means I've been taking it easy for a little while, and instead of editing, I've been translating Latin. It's my not-so-secret little project and I'm making good progress. It's almost a hundred pages of pretty harsh Medieval Latin (some words, albeit a few, are quite rare, and certainly very late Latin). If I'm honest, I am not a medievalist, I'm a classicist, so I translate in the classical style. For example, many Latin books state that the subjunctive mood in Medieval Latin must always be omitted and rendered into the present mood instead. This is absolute nonsense. Just because some obscure Latin grammar book from the Dark Ages (which probably didn't even have much circulation) may have stated this preposterous 'rule', does not mean that it should be followed to the letter. Why? Because in both Nennius' History of the Britons and Hildegard von Bingen's Scivias (to name but a few, Walter Maps also springs to mind) there are several sentences where the same verb, appears in the same sentence numerous times, sometimes in the indicative mood and sometimes in the subjunctive mood. Therefore, why would Nennius or Hildegard bother to inflect both verbs differently if they (apparently) 'have no meaning'? However, there are some Medieval Latin rules I do stick to. For example, in Classical Latin (although I have also seen this 'rule' broken in antiquity), the preposition in before a noun in the Accusative case means 'towards, into, on to' or even 'at', but in before a noun in the Ablative case means 'in, on, among'. In Medieval Latin this is not so (according Ronal Latham's Medieval Latin Word List). For example, the Nicene Creed begins with credo in unum deum which does not mean, "I believe towards/into/on to/at one God" but means "I believe in one God". It's horses for courses.
In any case, I've rendered this book I am translating (which is fascinating by the way, I am becoming more and more of an astrologus by the day) into clear, readable English, with copious footnotes elucidating the nuances or alternative interpretations as best I can. I will still have a lot of reading to do (and I mean a shed load, with a complete table of every conjunction and configuration of the planets and constellations which appear in the book I'm translating, hand written beside me at all times, so if I spot the same conjunction or configuration [and there are potentially thousands] in Ptolemy or Manilius or Dorotheus then I will duly make a note of it, and add it to my translation).
Speaking of Dorotheus, I had not realised, but reading through it, the tables in the book were actually a part of the original manuscript (albeit written in Classical Arabic), so I have decided against including little pictures and charts, because they are not a part of this translation.
Today I went into town early, and had a lovely lunch and sat and did my translation, by hand. The weather was nice, and I actually prefer the company of books to people. Sure, I am sociable, and engage in conversation when the opportunity arises, but I prefer to be quiet now that I am older, and simply get on with my work.
Speaking of which, I was in that... place, and it did make me think that I really shouldn't be there, at all. I remember being at the Care Home and quoting Juvenal (in Latin, of course) on my break and one carer said, "You shouldn't be working here washing up." The same thing happened at that... place, when I once brought my guitar in and played a song I had written for my ex-fianceé, when my colleague said, "You shouldn't be working here." Yet this is Dark Age Britain, not Elizabethan England. Education has no meaning here, nor does talent. It wouldn't matter how talented or well educated one may be here. The game is rigged, invitation only (tax free offshore havens, trust funds, read Bullough's Moneyland to know more about this), by a group of nobby pricks that never did a day's work in their sorry lives. But that's okay. The fact that I hold a master's degree in Classical Latin, yet my job entails precisely the same duties I did when I was working at age 14, now I am 43, says more about Dark Age Britain than it does about myself. 'Meritocracy' is not a word which exists in Dark Age Britain, only countries outside of it.
Take Stalin for instance, my landlord. He is lazy, idle, a clodhopper, has no education to speak of, hasn't worked in years. He said to me once in his provincial Farmer Palmer accent, "Ooh arr, an' your Laaatin don't know nuffink about plaaantin' potatoes and carrots." (It was my idea that he should have a vegetable garden, by the way). I said nothing at the time, but rested quietly, safe in the knowledge that there are in fact many great books on the art of agriculture in the Latin canon, all of which grace my book shelves: Cato, Columella, Varro, even Pliny wrote about how to manage fields, as did his nephew (though he was more about villa management). Not only that but in ancient Greek too, there are excellent examples of agricultural practices. One has to think only of Hesiod's Works and Days. I remember thinking that Stalin's plants must be thirsty in the summer heat, and suggested that instead of him watering the plants in the evening, when the sun sets (he usually only gets up in the afternoon), he should instead water them in the morning, because of the humidity which permeates the atmosphere at night. (Remember, I lived outside for 15 years...). He said, "Ooh arr. No, don't wanna do thaaat." We looked it up. Sure enough, the very best time to water plants is first thing in the morning. Yet he still waters them last thing at night, and sows seeds too late in the year! (And he wonders why they don't come up! Ha!).
Education here is merely a form of stigma, ridicule, nothing more. Academics are marginalised. Stalin is higher up on the social scale than I am, effectively, often calling me a 'peasant' or a 'barbarian'. He is also better off than I am. Yet this is not Elizabethan England, it's Dark Age Britain. That is the way things are here.
Max.
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