Thursday, January 19, 2006

Fabula de lupo qui ad lunam volavit

For the second meeting of my Free University Latin class I had my students write a story. Having gone over basic grammar in the first class, I gave them a list of vocabulary (first and second declension nouns, first conjugation verbs, adjectives, et al) and let them have at it. For simplicity, the present tense is the default, though that reads a bit awkwardly. Translation follows below.

Amica lupum ad lunam iactat. Lupus ad caelum volat, ergo iratus est. Amicam laudo. Dum saltamus cantasmusque in agro, lupus vaccas lunae salutat, quae purpurae sunt; sed alias non salutat, quia mortuae sunt. Agricolam, qui in lunā habitat, lupus culpat pro vaccis mortuis. Lupus cum agricolā pugnat.
Amicam meam rogo per quam viam ad lunam navigabimus.
"Viā magnā et umidā," amica cantat.
"Cur cantas?"
"Quia in tabernā eram."
Gladios magnos portantes viam navigamus. In lunā, cum gladiis saltamus. Agricola lupusque nos laudant. Vaccae purpurae lunae de nobis fabulam narrabit. Finis.

My friend throws the wolf to the moon. The wolf flies toward the sky, therefore he is angry. I praise my friend. While we are dancing and singing in the field, the wolf greets the moon-cows which are purple; but he does not greet the others, because they are dead. The wolf blames the farmer who lives on the moon on behalf of the dead cows. The wolf fights with the farmer. I ask my friend by what road we will sail to the moon.
"By the great wet road," my friend sings.
"Why are you singing?"
"Because I was in the tavern."
Carrying large swords we sail the road. On the moon, we dance with our swords. The farmer and the wolf praise us. The purple moon-cows will tell the story about us. The end.

And who says Latin's dead?

5 Comments:

At 9:59 AM, Blogger Mary said...

narrabit? shouldn't it be narrabunt?

 
At 6:48 PM, Blogger Seosamh said...

oops! good catch, Mary!

 
At 4:04 AM, Blogger Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

Latin Lives!!! I really like your 'blog, Seosamh. :D

Another question about the Latin, if you don't mind. (I'm not trying to split hairs here. It's just that I'm studying Latin now myself.)

If I had been translating the story from English to Latin, I would have written the sentence at the end of the first paragraph as:

"Amicam meam rogo per quam viam ad lunam navigaturi essemus?"

Is that terribly wrong of me, or are both versions acceptable?

 
At 11:51 PM, Blogger Seosamh said...

Both are fine, I think; yours is just a bit more sophisticated than I wanted the class to have to deal with in the second lesson, so I simplified things a bit.

 
At 5:49 PM, Blogger Kirsten P. said...

This MIGHT be ny mew favorite story.

 

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