[Transcriber's Note:

This text is intended for users whose text readers cannot use the "real" (Unicode/UTF-8) version of the file.

Greek--usually in word derivations--has been transliterated and shown between #marks#. Vowels with macron ("long" mark) have a circumflex accent instead. Vowels with breve ("short" mark, not common) have been unpacked and shown in brackets, as is long "y":

ÂÊÎÔÛ âêîôû [-y] [)A] [)E] ... [)a] [)e] [)i] [)-i] ["anceps" vowel, either long or short]

The "root" and "therefore" (three dots) symbols are shown as [Rt] and [therefore]. Reversed "C" is [C] (in the numeral CI[C] = M).

Except for [Linenotes], [Footnotes] and the symbols noted above, all single brackets [ ] are in the original. Double brackets [[ ]] and braces { } were added by the transcriber.

In some passages, individual letters or syllables within a word were printed in boldface. These are shown with braces as f{a}cio. Elsewhere, boldface is shown with +marks+. Other aspects of formatting, including line numbers, are detailed at the end of the e-text.]

HELPS TO

LATIN TRANSLATION AT SIGHT

by the REV. EDMUND LUCE

With an Introductory Note by the REV. THE HON. E. LYTTELTON, M.A. Headmaster of Eton

'Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento; Hae tibi'erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem. Parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.'

VERGIL, Aeneid, vi. 851 3

'Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam, Profuit iniustis te dominante capi. Dumque offers victis proprii consortia iuris, Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat.'

RUTILIUS, i. 63-6

ETON COLLEGE SPOTTISWOODE & CO., LIMITED 1908

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Whatever controversies may be astir as to the precise objects of a classical training, it will hardly be disputed that if that teaching has been successful the pupils will sooner or later be able to make out an ordinary passage of 'unseen' Latin or Greek. It is a test to which the purely linguistic teacher must obviously defer: while the master, who aims at imparting knowledge of the subject-matter must acknowledge, if his boys flounder helplessly in unprepared extracts, that they could have learnt about ancient life better through translations.

In, addition to the value of unseen translation, as a test of teaching it constitutes an admirable thinking exercise. But so numerous are the various books of extracts already published that I should have seen nothing to be gained from the appearance of a new one like the present volume were it not, as far as I know, different in two important respects from others. It contains six Demonstrations of how sentences are to be attacked: and further, the passages are chosen so that if a boy works through the book he can hardly fail to gain some outline knowledge of Roman Republican history.

As to the Demonstrations, their value will be evident if it is realised that failure in this sort of translation means failure to analyse: to split up, separate, distinguish the component parts of an apparently jumbled but really ordered sentence. A beginner must learn to trust the solvent with which we supply him; and the way to induce him to trust it is to show it to him at work. That is what a Demonstration will do if only the learner will give it a fair chance.

In regard to the historical teaching contained in the extracts, there can be little doubt that the present tendency of classical teaching is towards emphasising the subject-matter as well as the language. It is felt that as training in political principles the reading of Greek and Roman authors offers unique advantages, such as many English boys can appreciate, who are deaf to the literary appeal. The choice therefore of historical extracts in chronological order is an attempt to recognise both the two great aims of classical teaching at once. At any rate there is no reason to suppose that the linguistic exercise is in any way impaired by being combined with a little history.

I should like to direct attention also to the notes given on the extracts, and the purpose they are meant to serve. If no notes had been given some of the passages which are important or interesting historically would have been found too difficult for the boys for whom they are intended. Moreover, most of the notes concern the historical aspect of the extract to which they belong, and are part of the scheme by which the subject-matter of the passage is emphasised. Although the passages themselves are not strictly graduated, the help given in translation becomes less and less as the boy goes through the book; and it is obvious that those extracts which illustrate the later periods of Roman History will be found more difficult than the legends and stories which belong to an earlier age. In cases where no help at all is desired, the Miscellaneous Passages (which are without notes) may be used.

E. LYTTELTON.

ETON: April 1908.

EDITOR'S PREFACE

The aim of the present book is to help boys to translate at sight. Of the many books of unseen translation in general use few exhibit continuity of plan as regards the subject-matter, or give any help beyond a short heading. The average boy, unequal to the task before him, is forced to draw largely upon his own invention, and the master, in correcting written unseens, has seldom leisure to do more than mark mistakes--a method of correction almost useless to the boy, unless accompanied by full and careful explanation when the written work is given back.

Now that less time is available for Latin and Greek, new methods of teaching them must be adopted if they are to hold their own in our public schools. When Lord Dufferin could say, 'I am quite determined, so far as care and forethought can prevent it, that the ten best years of my boy's life shall not be spent (as mine were) in nominally learning two dead languages without being able to translate an ordinary paragraph from either without the aid of a dictionary;' and Dr. Reid could write, 'It is not too much to say that a large number of boys pass through our schools without ever dreaming that an ancient writer could pen three consecutive sentences with a connected meaning: chaos is felt to be natural to ancient literature: no search is made for sense, and the Latin or Greek book is looked upon as a more or less fortuitous concourse of words;' when Dr. Rouse can assert, 'The public schoolboy at nineteen is unable to read a simple Latin or Greek book with ease, or to express a simple series of thoughts without atrocious blunders: he has learnt from his classics neither accuracy nor love of beauty and truth'--it is obvious that, for the average boy, the system of perfunctorily prepared set-books and dashed-off unseens is a failure. The experience of every teacher who is also an examiner, and who has had to deal with public schoolboys, will confirm this; but during twenty-five years' teaching and examining of boys in almost every stage, I have found that translation at sight, taught upon the plan of this book, not only produces a good result, but teaches a boy how to grapple with the bare text of a Latin author better than the habitual practice of translating at sight without any help at all. If the average boy is to be taught how to translate, his interest must be awakened and sustained, and the standard of routine work made as high as possible. The clever boys are, as a rule, well provided for; but, even for them, the methods of this book have been found to be the shortest road to accuracy and style in translation. Moreover by this means they have gained a firsthand acquaintance with Latin literature and the sources of Roman history.

It is impossible here to enter into 'the question of the close and striking correspondence between the history, the literature, and the language of Rome. It was not until the history of Rome threw its mantle over her poetry that the dignity of the poet was recognised and acknowledged. . . . In the same way the life of the Roman people is closely bound up with the prose records, and the phenomena of the Roman Empire lend a human interest to all representative Roman writers.'[1] Considerations of this kind form a sufficient justification of the method here adopted of employing the historical records of Rome as a basis of teaching.

In this book the Introduction (pp. 1-14) is written to teach a boy how to arrive at the meanings of words (Helps to Vocabulary, pp. 1-5); how to find out the thought of a sentence through analysis and a knowledge of the order of words in Latin (Helps to-Translation, pp. 5-12); how to reproduce in good English the exact meaning and characteristics of his author (Helps to Style, pp. 13-14).

In the Demonstrations (pp. 15-58) the boy is taught to notice all allusions that give him a clue to the sense of the passage, to grapple with the difficulties of construction, to break up sentences, and to distinguish between the principal and the subordinate thoughts both in prose and verse.

The Passages have been carefully selected, and contain accounts of nearly all the important events and illustrious men of the period of history to which they belong. They are chronologically arranged and divided into six periods, covering Roman history from B.C. 753 to B.C. 44, leaving the Augustan and subsequent period to be dealt with in a second volume. The translation help given in the notes is carefully graduated. The notes to Parts I., II., III. (marked D, pp. 60-107) are thus intended to help younger boys to deal with passages which would in some cases be too difficult for them; less help in translation is given in Parts IV. and V. (marked C, pp. 108-159); while the notes to Part VI. (marked B, pp. 160-236) are mainly concerned with historical explanation, illustration, or allusion.

Helps to Latin Translation at Sight