MY LATIN 101 COMPOSITIONS

In September, 1995 I started studying Latin, and I love it--like Milton, I'm rapidly beginning to feel that English is an inadequate language to express myself in next to Latin. Here are two short compositions I've written for class during the semester--unrevised, and reflecting the bizarrely limited vocabulary I had at the time I wrote them. Click on each sentence for a translation into English.

• SEPTEMBER 26,1995

  My first attempt at writing Latin, this sentimental little story won the hearts of my classmates:

  Puella nautam Graecum saepe videbat. De nauta dum feminas iuvabat semper cogitabat. Hodie bellum nautam deportabit, et nauta remanere non potest. Si nautam non videbit, puella vitam tolerare non poterit. Sed nauta Graecus numquam videbat et nunc numquam videbit.

• NOVEMBER 1995

  This, my masterpiece of Latin 101, was inspired by Ovid:

  Ab hosti habebar. Non movere poteram. Nihil videre poteram; nihil erat. Deinde hoc bracchium movere coepit. Erat meum, sed non. Bracchium meum movebatur sed non ab me. Deinde videre poteram, sed oculi non mei erant, non eidem. Omnia videbantur obscura. Sensi omnia: habebar ab hosti, qui me mutabat in aliud corpus.

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