Kalamazoo and Other Happenings

SO, after a hiatus I return. In this time I have been driving myself crazy with classes and Latin and paper writing and paper giving and whatnotall.

I had the good fortune of giving a paper at the International Congress of Medieval Studies, which I know I've mentioned, but I am still pleased to know that I have actually done it. It went quite well, actually, I think. Amazingly, nearly 20 people showed up to our session at 8.30 Sunday morning. It was a dreadful time to have to give a talk at, but it still went over quite well.

I am now trying to sort out how to get one more half-credit of linguistics so that I can graduate. I may end up needing to do so in September, but that will be fine.

In happier news, I have begun reading Planet Narnia, by Michael Ward. In the first few pages, I am on the whole quite impressed and look forward to reading further. We need more scholars discussing the medievalism of C. S. Lewis. I strongly suspect that his Narnian Chronicles are not anywhere near so inconsistent nor haphazard as they have been accused of being. I shall try to remember to write up a review of the book when I finish it.

Avianus

So it's been a while since I've posted. And I feel like posting something, so you're all going to get what I've been translating. This is the first story of the Fabulae Aviani, the Fables of Avianus. It's written in elegiac couplets with internal rhyme in a number of places.

I.
DE NUTRICE ET INFANTE

Rustica deflentum parvum iuraverat olim,

Ni taceat, rabido quod foret esca lupo.

Credulus hanc vocem lupus audiit et manet ipsas

Pervigil ante fores irrita vota gerens.

Nam lassata puer nimiae dat membra quieti.

Spem quoque raptori sustulit inde fames.

Hunc ubi sivarum repentem lustra suarum

Ieiunum coniunx sensit adesse lupa,

'Cur,' inquit, 'nullam referens de more rapinam,

Languida consumptis sic trahis ora genis?'

'Ne mireris,' ait, 'deceptum fraude maligna

Vix miserum vacua delituisse fuga.

Nam quae praeda, rogas, quae spes contingere posset,

Iurgia nutricis cum mihi verba darent?'

Haec sibi dicta putet, seque hac sciat arte notari,

Femineam quisquis credidit esse fidem.

And here translated:

I.
ON THE NURSE AND THE INFANT

Once upon a time a countrywoman swore an oath at a small child crying,

That unless it be silent, it would be a meal for a rabid wolf.

A credulous wolf heard this voice and, watchful, remained,

Bearing the vain vows before those doors.

For the boy gave his weary limbs to excessive quiet.

Also, thence, hunger bore away hope for the plunderer.

When a she-wolf, his wife, sensed this creeping, starving one

To be near by the den in their woods,

She said, 'Why do you drag no plunder according to custom

O weak food-bringer, thus drag jaws with wasted cheeks?'

'Lest you wonder,' he said, 'that deceived by malignant fraud,

This wretch was hardly hidden in empty flight.

For what spoil do you ask, what hope was able to seize,

When the words of the nurse gave me lies?'

Let him suppose this said to him, and know this to be written

In this work, whosoever has believed a woman to be true.

Huh... so, to be honest, I hadn't quite finished translating this before I began typing it up here. Honestly. For finishing it up I got a little help from a finished translation to make sense of some portions that were just not making sense to me. If you have any suggestions, do let me know!

I think I may post something on scansion soon, as many people have trouble with it, and it's one thing that I know I am decent at in Latin.

[Edit: Thanks to my DLF for some corrections on the translation!]

School Again, School Again

So I'm back to the grind of school. This semester is shaping up to be interesting, and hopefully more fun than last semester. Certainly busier than last semester.

I spent the other day in Waterloo doing research for Kazoo, and it was most productive. I'm looking forward to spending more time working on it. Also, I think my Medieval Child class will be a very good one for me to have taken in the future. I just get a very good feeling about it right now and I'm looking forward to it. Really, all of my medieval studies right now I'm looking forward to and enjoying.

To sleep for now, but I will try to update more often, especially as I'm doing more school stuff again.

Projects and Panic, Oh My!

So I've been organising my ideas for an MA thesis idea. I'm a little nervous, because so far the idea hinges on something that I haven't looked into nearly close enough. (Not entirely, but enough that I would need to re-think some ideas if it turns out I'm wrong.) I strongly suspect that fables are telling of cultural assumptions about people, but I don't have any evidence or theorists who support this idea to reference yet. Once I have that, I will feel far more comfortable pushing my ideas forward regarding fables and disability. I suppose that means once I've read a section of Metzler's book and I've done some homework that is actually due for classes and grades and such (Classes? what? I have to do work other than my personal projects to pass and graduate? dang...)

Here's hoping I'll survive this next month of projects and maybe I'll be able to find these useful things for my own work.

Adoration, and Classes, and Wedding! Oh my!

I am going to have a very busy year, this next year. Right now a small group of us at the Newman Centre are planning a weekly Eucharistic adoration service. Many churches have adoration services, including Newman (on Fridays at 1pm), but less common is a service where there is music involved. It's certainly not new, but it's not extremely common, either. We are still sorting out exactly the format and pattern of music and silence, but we are looking to combine those two elements in the adoration service. There was one thing that struck me as interesting. From what I can tell, it was suggested that there might not be a demand for an adoration service, especially as the one that they already have does not have an overwhelming attendance. To that, two things came to my mind: first that 1pm on a weekday is not the most accessible time slot by any stretch of the imagination; and second, that just because there has been no perceived demand does not mean we cannot create a demand. If it is made, they will come.

I also thing this may be a good way for me to keep myself praying in a regular manner. Sure, I go to church every week, but that time is like tithing, in a sense. It is time and prayer given willingly, but it is entirely expected that I give them, because they are not mine to withhold. Other prayer and time are fully free gifts, and they are good gifts to give, and good to spend with God. And I feel I have not done so well at that this past while. So in addition to my looking forward to worshiping in this manner and getting something like this going at Newman, the accountability involved in organising such a time would be good.

The next major thing I have is that I just finished shopping for classes. And it was something like dragging the bottom of the barrel for the degree I'm less enthused about. At the end of the day I am taking The Medieval Tradition, Celtic Spirituality, and The Medieval Child to finish my Medieval Studies degree, and Canadian English, Psychology of Language, Advanced Phonology, Advanced Syntax, and Disorders of Speech and Language to finish my Linguistics degree. The Psychology of Language class is rather a last minute addition. I had planned to take Introduction to Semantics, if only to have another 200-level arts class instead of a 300-level science class, but it conflicted with the time that Eucharistic Adoration is at. So we will see how it goes. The first semester will be five classes and almost entirely Linguistics, save for the year-long The Medieval Tradition (nothing like leaving the intro course until last, right?). And then the second semester will be four classes and almost entirely Medieval Studies, save for Advanced Phonology. I hope that it will all go well. And I am very sad not to have room for a Latin class. Well, technically, I do, but I'd rather relax with only 4 classes. We will see if I decide to drop in a 200-level Latin just so I can read 30 lines a night and it'll all be Caesar, having built bridges, killing Gauls.

And then, to top it all off, I need to start planning a wedding and making phone calls (anxiety!!!) and all that jazz. I should really get on finding a photographer very soon.

Library Trips and School Plans

So yesterday I spoke with MOC, the programme co-ordinator for Medieval Studies at St. Michael's. He says I only need two more classes in that major to graduate, so I will be doing the intro course (what a way to end!) and I may do a thesis. The thesis depends on my finding a sufficient corpus to work with as well as someone willing and able to supervise me. I'm thinking about doing a thesis on disability in fables in the middle ages. MOC says that it sounds like a very good idea, but agrees that I need the groundwork first. So we'll see.

And today I went to the library and photocopied a large portion of Brian Copenhaver's Hermetica, namely the Asclepius as well as as many notes as I could before my photocopy card ran out. So I took the book out as well to see if there is some of the introduction I should copy as well. Then I grabbed Peter Dronke's edition of Bernardus Silvestris's Cosmographia, as well as Winthrop Wetherbee's translation of it, as well as Brian Stock's book, Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century. After Confession I shall take them home and begin working, I hope.

On the Medieval Book Mid-Term

Someone pointed out to me, today, that if I can write a mid-term, which I did not study for save for briefly glancing at one example which might be covered, after having stayed up most of the night working on and stressing over a Latin presentation and still feel like I did well on it, I should pay attention. To be fair, I was fortunate and the example of Insular Half-Uncial I pulled up in a Google search was from the Lindisfarne Gospels, which was one of the facsimiles we were given a sample of to examine on our test. As soon as I saw the question asking us to comment on one of the facsimiles, I just recorded what I remembered from looking online a few minutes earlier, that the Latin is in Insular Half-Uncial and the English glosses are in Insular minascule. That said, it was fun hunting down what was abbreviated and what was not and commenting on that.