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Questions tagged [latin-language]

Use this tag for questions about works of literature originally created in the Latin language, along with the applicable author and work tags.

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7 votes
1 answer
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Why the many accompanying Latin translations of King James VI's elegy for Sidney?

The unexpected death of Philip Sidney in 1586 prompted public outpourings of grief comparable perhaps only to those following that of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. This grief found expression in ...
verbose's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
66 views

is it possible to adapt ancient graeco-roman prosodic styles, forms, principles, modifications into modern verses? [closed]

is it possible to adapt ancient graeco-roman prosodic styles, forms, principles, modifications into modern verses? does anybody know good authors who write in vernacular or modern languages with greek ...
jacklhoward's user avatar
9 votes
3 answers
770 views

Who is the 'pale Titan-woman' in Swinburne's 'Ave atque Vale'?

For those fond of intertextual references, 'Ave atque Vale' by Algernon Charles Swinburne, an English poet's lament for the French poet Charles Baudelaire, is something of a goldmine, being absolutely ...
Tom Hosker's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
301 views

Are these lines by Thomas Nuce a translation and/or taken from a longer poem?

I was reading an anthology called Parnassian Molehill (1953) the other day, in which I found a rather beautiful poem by The Rev Thomas Nuce (1540? - 1617). This is the poem in question: Swift winged ...
Tom Hosker's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
201 views

How should we understand care and nature as laid out by Seneca?

Seneca writes in one of his letters: Unius bonum natura perficit, dei scilicet alterius cura hominis. Which is something like: God is fulfilled by his Nature; but that of the other, man, is ...
Arash Howaida's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
428 views

Vergil or Virgil?

My understanding is that the author of the Aeneid can safely be referred to as either "Vergil" or "Virgil." So this question is not about "how should one refer to him." ...
Quuxplusone's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
465 views

Why was Hugues de Groot also called "Grotius"?

I am currently reading Grotius' De iure belli ac pacis (On the law of war and peace, 1625) in the French translation by Paul-Louis-Ernest Pradier-Fodéré (Le droit de la guerre et de la paix, 1865). At ...
Itération 122442's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
151 views

How much did Alfred the Great translate himself?

I just heard that Alfred the Great, the famous 9th-century king of Wessex who is sometimes said to be the first founder of "England" as a country, was also a translator of literature. ...
Rand al'Thor's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
501 views

What is the difference between the narration of the Fall of Troy in The Aeneid, The Iliad, and The Odyssey?

I have not fully read Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey and I'm only in the Book 3 of The Aeneid. All I know is that in the Iliad, there is the fighting of the Trojan War. In the Odyssey, there is a ...
hope's user avatar
  • 31
2 votes
1 answer
151 views

Full English or French online translation of "De pugna avium"

I am trying very hard to find an English (or if not French) translation of the Carolingian poem "De pugna avium" from Theodulf of Orleans. I found a Latin version in the Bibliotheca ...
Ben's user avatar
  • 131
3 votes
1 answer
325 views

Online Latin version of the "Crater Hermetis"

Is there a Latin version of the Crater Hermetis by Ludovico Lazzarelli available online?
Kevin Marek's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
92 views

Is there a Latin saying equivalent to a line in Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick"?

In the (rather good) progressive rock album "Thick as a Brick" by the British band Jethro Tull in 1978, there are some lines: So! Where the hell was Biggles When you needed him last ...
Laska's user avatar
  • 161
4 votes
1 answer
365 views

Is Ant-Man a Myrmidon?

The Myrmidons, the soldiers from Achilles's homeland of Thessaly who are under his command in the Iliad, get their name from myrmex or ants. Achilles himself is the arch-Myrmidon. In Shakespeare's ...
verbose's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
292 views

Did Isidore of Seville ever claim Roman god of wine, Bacchus, got his name from "baculus" (walking stick)?

On multiple places on-line, including Wikipedia, there is information that Saint Isidore of Seville claimed that the name of the Roman god of wine, Bacchus, got his name from "baculus" ...
FlatAssembler's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
2k views

Does the Greek or Latin "Corpus Hermeticum" exist online anywhere in text format?

Looking for the original latin or greek Corpus Hermeticum online somewhere in text format (i.e. not a PDF). Does such a thing exist?
HareSurf's user avatar
  • 161
1 vote
1 answer
257 views

Where are the Rosicrucian Original Texts in Latin or German (online or offline)?

Looking here, there are 3 or 4 texts which I can only find English translations of online. Do the original German or Latin ones exist anywhere online or off? Fama Fraternitatis Confessio ...
HareSurf's user avatar
  • 161
7 votes
1 answer
174 views

What percentage of Latin texts from Antiquity constitute literature?

I recently asked, What percentage of clay tablets found in Mesopotamia contain literature? and was only able to define an upper limit of 4% literature in the overall corpus texts from the Ancient Near ...
Tsundoku's user avatar
  • 48.6k
3 votes
1 answer
125 views

What are the sources for these six ancient Roman rhetorical tools?

In Speak like a leader, Simon Lancaster says that lessons learned in Roman times about effective political speeches still apply, and it is scandalous that a training in rhetoric is such a rarity. He ...
Christos Hayward's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
319 views

Does this quote by Martial really exist?

On Wikipedia I came across a quote by Tacitus which says: To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. From my ...
FluidCode's user avatar
  • 131
5 votes
1 answer
391 views

A quote supposedly by Jean de La Fontaine

So, my Latin textbook, Hereditas Linguae Latinae, tells me (in the lesson about deponent verbs) that Jean de La Fontaine wrote, at the end of his fable The Cock and the Jewel, a Latin saying Stulti ...
FlatAssembler's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
102 views

A quote supposedly from Gustave Flaubert

So, do some of you happen to know, did Gustave Flaubert really say Pulchritudo vitae in vico, ea videtur solummodo a poetis, ea non videtur a hominibus in vicis. or anything like that? If so, where? ...
FlatAssembler's user avatar
6 votes
3 answers
1k views

What are these letters in Unicode?

From the book Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (A Description of the Northern Peoples), available on Google Books: What are the two highlighted letters in Unicode? What typeface is this? Maybe ...
Joe's user avatar
  • 79
5 votes
0 answers
128 views

How does the theme of fate manifest in 'Njal's Saga', and how does it differ from the theme of fate in the Aeneid by Virgil? [closed]

How is fate/fatalism portrayed in Njal's Saga? And how does it play into the development of the plot? What are some comparisons that can be drawn between fate in Njal's Saga and the Aeneid of Virgil?
Abdulaziz K. Alyahya's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
1k views

What does Thomas More try to do with Greek puns in Utopia?

Thomas More uses Greek puns such as Hythloday that means speaker of nonsense, etc. What is he trying to do? What difference would it make for Greek readers and non-Greek readers?
Binary Yildirim's user avatar
13 votes
3 answers
7k views

In Cupid and Psyche, why does Cupid hide himself from Psyche?

In the myth, Cupid only comes to Psyche in the dark, so she doesn't know who he is or what he looks like. What's Cupid's motivation for hiding his identity? Was he planning to do that indefinitely if ...
gray's user avatar
  • 131
5 votes
1 answer
87 views

Meaning of "The sin of thousands always goes unpunished"?

What did Lucanus mean by "The sin of thousands always goes unpunished" in Book V of Pharsalia?
copper.hat's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
149 views

What/who are the exact sources of inspiration, deriving from Antiquity, for Fables, written by La Fontaine?

I know that La Fontaine's Fables is heavily inspired by Greco-Roman classic literature, especially Aesop's fables, but I'm sure there are other sources of inspiration for La Fontaine's 12 books of ...
user avatar
15 votes
2 answers
3k views

What is up with the oracle's prophecy in the story of Cupid and Psyche?

In the story of Cupid and Psyche, found in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Cupid, sent to wound Psyche with his arrows, falls in love with her himself, and flees. Later, her parents consult the oracle ...
Mark Dominus's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
1k views

How much of the original verse is lost in Fitzgerald's translation of The Aeneid?

I checked out The Aeneid from the library and read it today. I found it a bit easier to read than I'd expected (I guess I expected worse-than-Shakespearean language/turns of phrase) and then I ...
auden's user avatar
  • 4,840
18 votes
2 answers
751 views

Who first referred to Odysseus as Ulysses?

When I was in high school, Homer's Iliad, Homer's Odyssey, and Virgil's Aeneid were taught as a trilogy of sorts. Was Virgil the first Roman to refer to Odysseus as 'Ulysses' or was there another (...
miltonaut's user avatar
  • 671