Latin Lover | Hacker News Reader

Latin Lover

newcriterion.com

47 pointsdiodorus11 comments

I am routinely startled and pleased every time I remember that Catuullus was responsible both for one of the most gutting elegies I know of (101) which ends with the well known phrase

    And forever, brother, hail and farewell

.. was _also_ the guy who wrote the angriest and most explicit rebuttal to a critique of his style -- so rude, in fact, that it wasn't printed in translation in english until the middle of the 20th century, because the opening lines are:

    I will sodomize you and face-fuck you,
    bottom Aurelius and catamite Furius,

Which even in this article is alluded to, but not actually printed.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_101 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_16

#16 is my personal favorite [1] - but #85 is a close second:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_85

[1] It reminds me of the spoken-word intro to "Love Sosa" :)

I remember that in my Catullus and Horace class we had to read 16, but my teacher didn't explain pedicabo or irrumabo (and neither did my dictionary), so it was a somewhat strange experience.

Latin was required as part of my program in high school, some 20+ years ago now. It wasn't until tonight that I remembered we weren't supposed to read Catullus. Some of the more adventurous guys (all boys school) would make reference to his poems and our highly conservative teacher would have a fit.

My class studied Catullo and those poems at school some 30 years ago in Italy. I had no idea that there was no English translation yet. Nice to know there is now. Basically they are the only fun poems we studied in the whole Latin literature course. Maybe the Somnium Scipionis too, but for other reasons.

I had an incredible Latin teacher in high school. Regrettably, he never mentioned Catuullus (or perhaps that was saved for the Latin IV and V students...)

I would like to learn Latin. Does anyone know any good free online resources?

First use Duolingo to learn Italian. Then start buying copies of books from the Loeb Classical Library and read the Latin and English text. Then read the Latin, noting the words you can't recognise and study them. Then read the Latin again. Once you can read one book buy another one. You will not learn to write Latin this way but you will end up able to read it.

Or you could try these. I vouch for none of the below free websites. The time investment needed to learn a language is insane and textbooks are cheap, especially secondhand.

http://www.learnalanguage.com/learn-latin/

https://www.lingq.com/learn-latin-online/

http://surfacelanguages.com/language/Latin

Latin is a dead language, dead as it can be. First it killed the Romans, now it's killing me.

Udemy has an introductory course: https://www.udemy.com/an-introduction-to-classical-latin/

Neither online nor free, but the Cambridge Latin courses are justly acclaimed as classics in the Classics.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com