Latin is fun!

[deird1]

Because I am a very silly person sometimes, I'd always kinda thought that Latin was a very formal language in which people talked in a really straightlaced way about Matters Of Great Import. After all, Julius Caesar talked in Latin, the Catholic Church writes in Latin, Handel composed songs in Latin - it's clearly a very solemn and serious language, right?

Yeah. Very silly. I know.

This is one of the reasons I'm loving the Cambridge Latin Course: it's opening my mind to the possibilities of this oh-so-fun language. Like this latest bit:

Eutychus in lecto recumbebat; cibum e canistro gustabat. valde sudabat, et manus in capillis servi tergebat. *

(My first reaction was "Eww! Gross!" My second reaction was "Heh. Cool...")

I'm now starting to wonder if there's a Latin equivalent of farce - sort of a Roman Wodehouse? - and how easy it would be to get my hands on it.


* Translation: "Eutychus was lying on the couch, eating food out of a basket. He was sweating a lot, and wiping his hands in the hair of a slave..."
Not the most fascinating prose, but certainly descriptive.

Comments

[swellen.livejournal.com]

For comedy (although not quite farce) try Plautus. His works are online in Latin and English at Perseus. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text;jsessionid=288CA72D8D4F8E20E9F6026B617CF30A?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.02.0032