VOL. XII

CATULLUS 31.12-13

Salve, o venusta Sirmio atque ero gaude;
gaudete vosque, o Lydiae lacus undae.

Feeling that every lover of Catullus will welcome all possible light upon these two lines, especially the second, I am putting down here three attempts at interpretation which may not be accessible to every one.

In 1895, Professor R. Y. Tyrrell, in his volume entitled Latin Poetry, 110-111, wrote as follows:

The translation of the > inimitable ode to his villa at Sirmio has been attempted over and over again, but never, as I think, with anything like success. I would only observe that I think the last three lines have not been fully explained. I would render the lines:

"Rejoice, bright Sirmio, in thy master's joy, And you, ye wavelets, merrymen of the mere,

Smile all the smiles ye have to greet me home". Ludius is a "merryman", or "tumbler", and Scaliger saw that under lidie of the MSS. there lurked this original and natural comparison of the tumbling wavelets to "merrymen". Certain waterfalls in England are still called merrymen by the local peasantry; and one of R. L. Stevenson's clever tales is called "The Merry Men", taking its name from a waterfall which plays a part in the story. In Plautus, when the lover prays the bars of his mistress's door to leap up out of their sockets and let him in, he cries, "Be merryandrews for my sake".

Professor Tyrrell had in mind Plautus, Curculio 147-155:

Pessuli, heus pessuli, vos saluto lubens,
vos amo, vos volo, vos peto atque obsecro,
gerite amanti mihi morem, amoenissumi,
fite caussa mea ludii barbari,

sussilite, opsecro, et mittite istanc foras
quae mihi misero amanti ebibit sanguinem.
Hoc vide! Ut dormiunt pessuli pessumi
nec mea gratia commovent se ocius!

Respicio nihili meam vos gratiam facere.

It may be remarked that a play on words akin to that in ludii barbari occurs in Bacchides 120-124:

LY. An deus est ullus Suavisaviatio?

PI. An non putasti esse umquam? O Lyde, es bar

barus!

Quem ego sapere nimio censui plus quam
Thalem,

is stultior es barbaro Potitio,

qui tantus natu deorum nescis nomina.

In these two passages the Lydians are treated as Greeks, that room may be made for the familiar joke by which the Romans, in Plautus, are treated as barbari.

The sense to be given to ludius in Curculio 150 is made plain also by Aulularia 626-627:

continuo meum cor coepit artem facere ludicram atque in pectus emicare.

No. 15

In 1899, Mr. Hugh Macnaghten, Assistant Master at Eaton College, published an interesting little volume entitled The Story of Catullus (London, Duckworth and Co. 82 pages). On pages 47-49, he wrote of our poem as follows:

The poem, apart from its charm, is full of interest, as the earliest example of the sonnet. Calverley saw this long ago, and his version of it in Verses and Translations is singularly beautiful. why the Lydian lake? Here again Calverley, who renders it 'the golden mere', and Calverley alone, has interpreted the poet aright. Catullus, we must remember, had just returned from Asia Minor, and he can hardly have failed to visit the Pactolus, the golden Lydian stream, and when he sees the Lago di Garda before him and realizes perhaps more fully than ever before its full charm and beauty, he feels that the true Lydian waters of gold are not in Asia far away, but close to his own Sirmio in the dear Italian lake. One other allusion to this passage is interesting. Tennyson in his Sirmione poem speaks of himself as 'gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda lake below'. I have often wondered what meaning he gave to Lydian. Is it possible that the music of the waves suggested to him soft Lydian measures? It may be so: but I do not think that Catullus intended this. Yet no one understood Catullus so well as Tennyson or loved him more: witness his 'tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years ago".

In 1911, the Countess Evelyn Martinengo Cesaresco published a volume entitled The Outdoor Life in Greek and Roman Poets and Kindred Studies (London, Macmillan. Pp. x+290). The whole volume is of interest and importance to students of the Classics, Greek and Latin both. But there is space at present to refer to just one section, that bearing on Catullus 31. In the course of a chapter entitled Nature in the Earlier Roman Poets (79-95), the author writes of Catullus (89-94). Of the Sirmio poem she speaks as follows:

It is easy to imagine that the "all-butisland Sirmio" had been the Elysium of his childhood, his first glimpse of a southern fairyland, so that the charm of earliest associations combined with the delightful feeling of possession in rendering it so dear to him. He had gone there as a boy with that brother whose loss he was one day to mourn in helpless sorrow among the olives under which they both had played. The poem to Sirmio is the most ideally perfect of all "poems of places", and the truest. Two thousand years are annihilated by Catullus's beautiful lines; they have the eternal novelty of Nature herself. The blue lake of Garda laughs in its innumerable ripples as it laughed with the household of the young poet in joy at his return. Those who have heard the wavelets lap the stones of Sirmione with a musical rhythm will always be tempted to interpret the much-disputed epithet of "Lydian" in the sense of "softly sweet in Lydian measures"-the sense of "Lydian hymns", "Lydian harmonies". It would seem that Tennyson so interpreted it. Certainly, Lydian was a term more commonly applied to music than to anything else. But among scholars "golden" (from the golden stream of Lydia) has more advocates. In a picturesque sense this would not be ill-adapted. Sirmione is the one spot from which the lake does look, at times, actually golden, because it there takes the sunset rays when the sun is close to the horizon; in the higher, mountaingirt regions "argentine"-the gran' tazza argentea of Carducci-suits it better. For the theory that Lydian means "Etruscan" (the Etruscans believing themselves to have come from Lydia) there is this to be said: unquestionably there were Etruscan colonies on the lake; the name of the village of Toscolano bears living witness to the fact and there are other proofs. Scaliger did not know of these colonies though his father was born on the lake of Garda and should have heard of Toscolano. The great Latinist ridiculed the idea of the "Tuscan lake", and made a suggestion of a clerical error in which many have followed him. But the waters will remain "Lydian" to the end!

I am venturing to print the following translation of this poem of Catullus:

'Fairest gem of isles, Sirmio, and of isle-like lands, of all that in limpid pools or in the sea's illimitable sweep by either Neptune are unborne, how gladly, how joyously, I come to see you, scarcely myself believing mine own witness that Thynia and Bithynian plains I have left behind and that I see you in perfect safety. Oh what is more joyous than to loose the chains of care, when the soul lays aside its burden, and, wearied by toil in far off foreign places, to come to our own hearth and to find rest on the dear couch we missed so sorely?

Here is a thing that in its single self is perfect compensation for toils so grievous. Hail, lovely Sirmio, welcome thy master with rejoicing! Hail, ye also, ye waters of the Lydian lake! Smile, every smile my house contains!'

PRACTICAL LATIN

C. K.

This paper was written, not because the hearers need to be instructed about the Latin situation, but because we are dissatisfied with our results and it is always worth while to think over our processes to find which are stimulating and valuable and which are deadening and not worth the cost. Every object, like a military objective, has its price in the death list, beyond which we can not wisely go. Like business experts we want to find, and, having found, to eliminate, all lost motion and wasted effort. Our greatest waste is involved in monotonous memory-tasks which do not develop original thinking. The Brahmin type of scholar cannot win first place at Oxford and is still less adapted to America.

The literary study of Cicero and Vergil proceeds smoothly and delightfully after the mechanical difficulties of the language are somewhat mastered. Caesar, it has been said, is the graveyard of Latin. Naturally Graveyards are always filled with those who are least fitted for the struggle of life, and the Latin weak

SO.

This paper was read at the Twelfth Annual Meeting of The Classical Association of the Atlantic States, held at the Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, May 4, 1918.

lings are discovered in Caesar. No one can justly complain at present that the Gallic War is uninteresting. It is the most modern subject in the curriculum. Nor can any one justly complain that it is unprofitable. Cicero said that Caesar's orations were like pictures hung in a good light. Caesar's sentences are the same. A year's acquaintance with Caesar's style is in itself something of an education in the art of writing. The Gallic War, then, is not to blame. The trouble is with the immaturity of the pupils and with the obstacles inevitable in the conquest of a difficult language. The pupil cannot go all the way to meet the Latin; the Latin must come at least half way to meet the pupil.

In the study of English, teachers feel that formal grammar is not worth the labor which it costs. We, however, cannot omit it. This paper raises the question whether we cannot change the more formal features of such training into something more vitalizing and valuable, and more easily understood. Are we bothering our younger pupils with technical terms for which they see no need and which neither they nor their educated fathers understand? There is no magic in these names, and yet they are often used as if they were the very Open Sesame to classical learning. 'Relative clause of characteristic' and 'Dative of service' have such an erudite sound. Of course terms may become useful in later stages, but merely as short ways of referring to matters already well understood; but why not encourage younger pupils to explain thought-relations in their own natural way of speaking? Simple familiar words will force them to have clearer ideas. We shall quickly find that Latin is distinctly favorable, rather than unfavorable, to originality.

We have an ambitious program. We endeavor to intrepret thought exactly in one language with the intention of expressing it well in the other. This is a better result than is secured in the English class-room. We need not claim too much virtue for our high standards. We are forced to them by the change of idiom involved in translation. That is why we say 'Study Latin to study English'. Probably American boys and girls, on the average, do not understand one-third of the English which they see, hear, and speak, as well as they would have to understand English for translation between English and Latin. We just assume that pupils understand their own language. As a matter of fact they do not. Fortunately we have to wage an unremitting warfare upon all misconceptions and nonconceptions. If the unsuccessful English pupils were all dropped, there would be as fat a churchyard in English as in Latin-and for the same reason. What success would a student of Caesar grade have in paraphrasing the English Classics? The English examinations of The College Entrance Examination Board call forth some strange answers even from final candidates. As this fatality is largely due to youth and retarded development of the speech faculty, teachers allow it to continue, trusting the cure to time-and perhaps to Latin.

One trouble with our syntax is that we keep talking about words, words, instead of about the things and the acts which they represent. The power to imagine and visualize should be our main reliance. The makebelieve imagination which is so strong in little children appears to go into eclipse with the dawn of self-consciousness and adolescence, and our pupils have not attained the maturer imagination which consists of vivid and effective representation in the mind of material presented to the senses. Advanced students fail constantly in Sight Translation because they fail to go back of the words to what the words stand for. Latin study is a fine developer of the imaginative faculty; such development need not wait for the Vergil year. Even in vocabulary work the students should be encouraged to carry in their mind word-pictures, not magic word-equivalents, which frequently prove to be stumbling-blocks-the cause of the common amusing mistranslations. One of my boys wrote a few days ago, 'sanare means "to make a sound"'. Did he confuse it with sonare or did the dictionary say "to make sound"?

I am so afraid of this insidious disease that I constantly ask a boy to illustrate a word instead of giving an English meaning. Perhaps he will vacate his chair for vacare. Then his error can be corrected. If he actually executes the idea of imperare, quaerere, confirmare, he will notice whether he has to deal with an order, a question, or a statement.

Before speaking further of practical explanations of syntax I wish to say something about the preliminary step to clear perceptions, namely, putting more meaning into forms.

In appreciation of connective endings the results of First Year Latin are not commensurate with the time spent. Is practice directed to the right object? Is not the glib recitation of paradigms often called success when it is accompanied by very little skill in interpretation and less in the quick production of forms? The connective effect is the all-important element. What connection has a thing when the thing is given alone? Would it not be practical never to give a connective ending except in actual connection? 'Of an army' is meaningless: 'the commander of an army' is intelligible. If the hours of meaningless repetition were devoted to the use of forms in actual relation to other words, the first study of connected text might not be so much like starting Latin over again. The conversational method meets this, but with a more extended object than I have now in mind. We could profitably study ways to make forms quickly and safely. The more short processes, the better. Doubtless the Roman boy knew them all. Modern teachers have considered them as infra dig. The recitation of paradigms is responsible for much wrong accentuation, which it is difficult to eradicate. I have even known teachers who defended amó amás, amát because it helped pupils to learn! The suggested improvement would do away with the coasting style of reciting forms. The children would have to think, and the teacher as well.

Let us study economy of effort. For instance, we can teach adjectives and nouns as one job. Can we not reduce the quadruple task of learning four conjugations to the simple knowledge of the one general system by which all verb-forms are made? There are only a few dozen endings and auxiliaries to learn. In order to make my point practical, I may seem to lean toward the popular rather than toward the traditionally scientific-without, I hope, any sacrifice of valuable truth. If 'popular' connotes common sense and understanding and the saving of monotonous, unthinking memory-words, it will be welcome.

The

Let me illustrate some feasible condensations. forms of the present indicative are naturally the most worn by constant service in speech, and yet even this tense has essentially the same plan in all verbsactive or passive subject-endings on the present stem, with no auxiliary, as in the simple English form. The differences in formation do not prevent all being learned as one job and the explanations promote alertness and teach the way in which the written language is made from the spoken-the real-language. Latin study needs more tongue and ear work as compared with eye work. We seem to see a language with a literary and systematic basis, subjected to careless speech and accentuation until the easier pronunciation became the accepted spelling. Informal explanation of such changes prepares pupils to understand how the spoken Latin changed into French, Italian, and Spanish. Pupils have no difficulty in seeing that amā-o makes amo; mone-o, moneo; audi-o, audio. They see how mitteris holds its own; and mittetur is spoken more easily as mittitur; that in the theoretical present mittentur (popularly accentuated on the first syllable) the half mute e sound becomes u before n. No one changed it; it changed itself.

The plain past indicative certainly does not call for four conjugations.

In the future indicative we shall have to note two styles, one for verbs with a broad vowel a or e; and one for the short e and the sharp i verbs -- bo, bis, bit; am, es, et (some verbs like capio have a short 1 in the stem, accidentally, as it were, not significantly, before the short e ending, so that they sound sometimes like a real i verb).

For the present subjunctives the distinguishing sound is a -except that verbs which have this sound in the present indicative must use a different one to make the present subjunctive. Any pupil will say that it must be e. I have never heard anyone say that it is amont, amunt, or amint.

The plain past subjunctive may be made by the same method in all verbs: the whole present active infinitive plus the subject-ending. Explanations would not be study material. They could be brought out from time to time to remove practical difficulties until the more valuable facts become familiar. The aim is to start the habit of making forms synthetically by auxiliary syllables. In this way each part will have its special meaning and become associated with a special idea.

Passive perfect passive participle

perfect passive passi participle to catch.

This graphic form of presentation is easy The analogies help a great deal. Pupils, even as people in general, would rather make a form than remember it. When they make a form synthetically, the meaning leads the way and the result is more likely to be correct, because it is produced step by step. The auxiliary part needs the first and most attention. It is a good habit to say it first as-esset, rogavisset; -erit, cognitum erit. The stem is not so hard to manage. That the forms were not sensed en bloc, but rather in component parts, is indicated by the freedom with which auxiliaries were used in the development of the Romance languages from the sermo plebeius. If students confuse the names imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect, use the words progressive past, present perfect (or plain past), and past perfect until the association is fixed. The aorist use of the perfect need not seem strange. If I have sent a letter, then I sent it. If popular speech felt the need of the second expression and it was not in the system, of course the present perfect would be the tense to do this double duty.

The imperative need not to be studied under four conjugations. Ama andamate look as if they were just the present indicative amas and amatis with the final s dropped. There is the same resemblance in other languages. The subject pronouns are often used with these imperatives just as in the indicative. The fact that the present passive imperatives are so much like the present indicatives would suggest that the active imperative was similarly formed. Amaris makes amare (Quintilian). All pupils see that you cannot say 'Forward, march' to a person who is not present; that the formal -to (really tod) is like the Ten Commandments; that such a law could be stated in the second or the third person; that scio and memini, from their meaning, could have no present imperative; that memini could have no imperative unless the endings were added to its only stem, the perfect.

Infinitives are alike in the four vowel types. The contracted present passive infinitive would not naturally arise from amári, monéri, or audiri, but might from mítteri. Pótesse becomes posse; and férere, ferre. Vólere explains itself as volere, volele, volle, velle.

Without entering into a discussion, the writer states that he finds among reliable scholars some authority for regarding -erim and sim as practically the same; also-issem and essem as practically the same. The aorist ending i has a natural reason for existence which is less applicable to the participial adjective with sum.

Participles have no differences of formation in different conjugations. It looks as if the original system provided an active and a passive adjective, concerned chiefly with voice. An active adjective would be best adapted to present time, the passive adjective to past, because it applies to that which has had something done to it. The future active adjective of likelihood looks as if it were almost an afterthought. Was it made on the perfect passive participle as being the most prominent adjective type?

over.

The verbal adjectives and nouns are made in the same way in all conjugations. The similar names gerund and gerundive make confusion and they might be introduced late and very gradually until such danger is There are, however, contrasts enough to keep them apart: gerund, 4 forms, gerundive, 36; gerund, short word, gerundive, long word; gerund, noun, gerundive, adjective; gerund, active, gerundive, passive. The gerund never agrees. It takes the same complement as the other active forms of the same verb. The gerundive can always be distinguished by the agreement characteristic of an adjective. As previously remarked, such matters come in not so much as instruction, but more as vitalizers -vitamina.

The complicated order of phrases and clauses occasions many difficulties in syntax work. I suspect that some teachers never make any real attempt to solve it and leave the pupil to feel that it is all a hopeless tangle. On the contrary, the system is plain and logical, and the more carefully the text is arranged the easier it is to find a reason for the order. The order of arrangement is a very practical guide to much of the syntax. Several devices have appealed to me. The best is the onion. It solves nearly all formal order. The queue style does not give trouble. It is suitable for impromptu talk and epistolary writing, where no one considers the material worth elaborate treatment. In the involved order the thought is placed in layers within layers like the onion. The outside is the larger and inclusive idea, the inner more and more detailed. When pupils learn to notice the beginning of a new clause, the rest is easy. My Caesar pupils are young enough so that we can use primary tricks. I sometimes have a small bell rung for every new clause. More complex sentences are quickly explained by drawing concentric circles on the board. Sometimes there are five or six. The same principle is followed in packing the inner modifiers of phrases and clauses within the inclosing ideas. It is a matter of great difficulty in translation to connect phrases and clauses with the right leader. They seem to manifest a steady loyalty to what is beyond. Whatever may be said about taking in the Latin thought in the idiomatic order, no experienced translator can select the natural English prepositions until he has in mind the things modified, which usually follow the modifier. The sentence deepens, as it were, toward the middle. The subject is stated early; where its most remote modifiers end, you meet the remotest modifiers of the verb beginning-the onion structure.