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You know what's awesome about Hobbitus Ille? I mean, beyond the premise. It's that there's a lovely foreword in which the translator explains his reasons and principles for translation, and what people might get out of it. (I had to look up a few of the words he used. God, I love it when that happens.) It's aimed... well. Very much at me, I think. For someone who wants to read Latin for fun, without necessarily wanting to always frolic through the fields of Classical Literature itself. Because it's not like we generally end up with preserved texts from two thousand years ago based on them being a rollicking good story, y'know?
Anyway. I will see how this goes.
I am having way too much fun reading the explanation of why he chose different meters for different sorts of translated songs. Of course the Rivendell elves prefer iambics!
First Chapter: An Unexpected Dinner Party
A hobbit was living in a hole of the earth: neither a foul, dirty, and wet hole, nor occupied with the ends of worms and a filthy smell, nor even a dry, empty, sandy hole in which there was nothing appropriate for being seated or for eating; on the contrary, it was a hobbit-hole, therefore comfortable.
...and, yes, I stopped one paragraph in. I am about to be hit by a great deal of architecture, and Cicero did not prepare me for that type of vocabulary. He just doesn't talk about windows very much.
Anyway. I will see how this goes.
I am having way too much fun reading the explanation of why he chose different meters for different sorts of translated songs. Of course the Rivendell elves prefer iambics!
First Chapter: An Unexpected Dinner Party
A hobbit was living in a hole of the earth: neither a foul, dirty, and wet hole, nor occupied with the ends of worms and a filthy smell, nor even a dry, empty, sandy hole in which there was nothing appropriate for being seated or for eating; on the contrary, it was a hobbit-hole, therefore comfortable.
...and, yes, I stopped one paragraph in. I am about to be hit by a great deal of architecture, and Cicero did not prepare me for that type of vocabulary. He just doesn't talk about windows very much.
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Oh! You might also look at one of the songs; he's actually done some of the comic songs in rhyming Latin, like the Carmina Burana, and they have a lot of repetitive bits, so those might be easier to go over as a class.
frange vitra et catilla!
cultros tunde, furcas flecte!
Bilbo Baggins odit illa --
nunc et cortices incende!
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