Victory! The Firm finally bent to my will and accepted my over-inflated quote (some ten to fifteen times what they pay their usual translators...). Naturally, they billed the extra dollars to the client, so take their usual $1,000 fee (or $25-50 dollars an hour for their services). It doesn't bother me, well, not too much anyway. What does it matter where the money comes from? It is, hands down, the most difficult translation I have ever attempted. This is a good thing. I am getting more exposure to reading actual manuscripts, and by the end of this little exercise I will have learnt much. Fortunately, I have a nice little book (Latin for Local and Family Historians) which covers some of the basics, but the scribal abbreviations are a pain in the backside. Yet nothing worth doing is ever easy. It's is a mental 'work out': no pain, no gain.
I met with the doctor of philosophy today, which was pleasant. Work wasn't too taxing either. My only regret is that when I return home I normally log straight into social media. Tonight I didn't. I signed the paperwork (two contracts and a declaration of identity) then got stuck into transliterating the hand written text, several hundred years old, into clear, legible Latin. It's an agonising and arduous process. Anyway. The point it I missed a call from my dear daughter. I've been eagerly anticipating a chance to speak to the young lady for quite some time, and I missed my chance. Still, what's done is done, and there's always tomorrow.
I'm pretty tired so I have to hit the hay. I would have liked to have finished my translation of To Herennius (techniques for litigation, old-school Latin-Roman style). The current section discusses a penalty for parricide, which held a particularly nasty penalty. The culprit had his face stuffed with the skin of a wolf, had clogs put on his feet, took a beating, was sewn up in a leather sack along with a live snake, dog, rooster and a monkey, while he was naked, then thrown into a cold river. This is first century (Before the Christian Era) justice, old-time Roman justice, not the more humane and decent treatment of convicts we have now in a modern western constitutional monarchy. It also has deeply religious undercurrents. Fascinating stuff. However, my professional commission takes priority: putting food on the table. In truth, it is not actually important when compared to my dear daughter. She ought to be my no.1 priority. Yet it's up to her when she wishes to speak to her father. Fortunately, my own father is a model of what not to do (id est be fretful, dictatorial and smothering), so I learn from his own failings as a father. Even so, the business side of things is not unimportant. Moreover, I have a lot of studying to do.
Even though I actually am a die hard classicist (I love it, more than any other subject), I am actually learning to love the law and everything about it. It is in itself a very interesting subject. Compared to translating medieval charters written in almost illegible scribal abbreviation it's a walk in the park. I have a tight deadline, but when it's all getting to much, I will be able to 'relax' by studying law. At the very least, law is written in the King's English (nowadays at least). Did you know that it was not until 1731 that official church records were (mainly) kept in English? English law has a smattering of Latin, and even a little French, but most of it is in English. I remember when our last female Prime Minister (Theresa May) effaced all of the Latin out of official government records. Reading English is easy, hence why my 'down time' will be spent reading law, as a kind of quaint little hobby side-line. My real business is translating Latin, for which I am well paid. I have a sense of purpose again, an aim, an objective. I'm not merely subsisting in a daily drudge, but have a goal to word towards (even if junior criminal barristers are paid less than minimum wage here, now, in Dark Age Britain - hence why they are on strike at the moment). This is not America, it's Dark Age Britain. Here, the more you learn, the less you earn, and these latest bout of strikes are clear proof of this most evident fact of 'life' (subsistence). Britain is a nation of slaves.
No comments:
Post a Comment