Saturday, October 6, 2012

A taste of Cicero

Here's another bit of unadapted Latin. The notes are aimed directly at intermediate students of Latin. It is meant to get you reading the real stuff for the first time. The pages shown are Cicero's de senectute chapters 6 through 9. They're short like Bible chapters.

To set the scene, Laelius and Scipio are talking to Cato the Elder about old age. Most of the dialog is Cato telling the younger men about old age, but it is set as a dialogue. For American readers, de senectute was the first classical text printed in translation in the American colonies. The printer was none other than Ben Franklin. Or at least that's what Wikipedia says.

Cicero has a bad rap for being hard, but de senectute doesn't feel all that hard to me. Maybe it is that it is meant to be a bit more conversational in nature than his oratory. Give your hand a try.
de senectute 6 and 9

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