HUM / REL 293 - Beginning Latin
Course Notes - Week 7
The illustration on page 103 of the Cambridge Course is from the floor of a triclinium in Pompeii. The theme of death was a popular reminder that life was short.
On page 107, the mosaic table top, also from Pompeii, illustrates the theme of the transience and uncertainty of life. Below the skull is a butterfly to indicate transience, a wheel as a reminder that fortune can turn. Above the skull is a carpenter's level and plumb line, To the right is the clothing of a beggar, and to the left is an emperor's purple cloak - beggar and emperor are equal in death.
The vase shown on page 117 was made by the cameo technique - the vase was first made with a layer of white glass over the blue blue glass, then parts of the white glass were carved away, to give the design.
According to the notes for the Cambridge Course, only about 50% of Roman children survived to adulthood, and only about 30% of Romans lived to age 40, and 13% to age 60
In Stage 7 the Cambridge Course continues to give practice in the Imperfect ("was doing something" - continuously, or over a period of time, or repeatedly), and the Perfect ("did something" - one-time event)
Main Source : Cambridge Course Teachers' Materials
Wheelock, chapter 6 introduces the verb "possum", which is just the verb "sum" (I am) with "pot-" stuck on the front. When followed by an "s", the sound of the "t" changed to another "s". Trying saying "ts" and you will probably only hear a "ss"
The prefix "pot-" came from "potis" - able, possible.
Possum can be translated "I am able . . ." or "I can . . .". It is probably best to translate it initially as "I am able . . ." because that will set you up to look for the infinitive "to do something" which is its natural complement.
The title "I do not love thee, Doctor Fell" for the quotation from Martial comes from a student at Oxford University in the seventeenth century.
Dr. John Fell was the Dean of Christ College, Oxford, and had to deal with a student who was threatened with expulsion from the University.
Dr. Fell told the student that he would be allowed to stay at the University if he apologized, and demonstrated his ability with Latin by translating this two-line epigram by Martial.
The student, Tom Brown, replied with the following quatrain :
I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.
I know not why, I cannot tell,
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.
Dr. Fell allowed him to stay at the University, although it appears that Brown eventually left Oxford without graduating.
Tom Brown became a school master, translator, and minor writer of satire and poetry. He died in 1704 and is buried in the grounds of Westminster Abbey in London.
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