All the Latin in Ulysses

[kev67]

James Joyce was a talented linguist. I have read quotes of German (I think), Italian, Spanish and French; no Irish, slightly surprisingly, but lots of Latin. As it happens, I have been trying to learn Latin for the past few months. I took Latin at school, but entirely failed to master the grammar. I still scraped a C in my O level, but that was only because I memorised about ten pages of translation of the Aeneid. I wish when I started reading this book I had started copying down all the Latin quotes. Then I could try working out what it all means. It seems pretty complex Latin.

[Danik 2016]

I am not able to recognize Irish but maybe Joyce saved it for "Finnegans Wake" which dives still more into Irish traditions. At least so I was told.

[kev67]

Irish is a pretty sounding language. Irish schoolchildren in the south learn it, but it is not used in conversation much. The only time I remember hearing it spoken was when I was on a site visit to their national television studios. There were some folk musicians in the waiting room speaking it. f think Enya might have sang in it. I have actually heard more people speak Gaelic, which is a very similar language. I walked into a pub in Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides and everyone was speaking it. Walked straight back out again. I heard someone speak it on the west coast of Scotland. Gaelic does not have many speakers however. My problem with those languages is the spelling. Siobhan is pronounced Shevorn, while Niamh is pronounced Nyeve - why?

[Poetaster]

Joyce was culturally a catholic, I don't remember any of the Latin from Ulysses - I read it ages ago, but I can't imagine much of it would not be Medieval/Church Latin. There isn't really a massive amount of difference between Church Latin and Classical, just the vocabulary and generally less rigid grammar. Can you post some examples?

[kev67]

As examples, there is a line on p555: ‘Per deam Partulam et Perundam nunc est bibendum!’
There are also a couple of sentences of German on that page: ‘Deine Kuh Trübsal melkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters.’

On p527 there is a juicier bit of Latin: ‘Talis ac tanta depravatio hujus seculi, O quirtes, ut matres familiarum nostrae lascivas cujuslibet semiviri libici titillationes testibus ponderosis atque excelsis erectionibus centurionum Romanorum magnopere anteponunt.’

I think I even found a bit of Irish on p613: ‘sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan capall.’

[Danik 2016]

If you need any help with the German, here we are, kev. I hope it is possible to relate the metaphorical milking and drinking the milk of the cows to the context.

[kev67]

I thought Euters meant udder, but I did not know what Trübsal meant.

I looked up the Irish phrase using google translate. It means skenl inn ban a walking stick without a horse. So it does not even make sense when it is translated.

[Danik 2016]

Yes, "Euter", here in the possessive case, means "udder". And "Trübsal"= "melancholy"."You were milking your cow`s melancholy. Now you are drinking the sweet milk of her udder."

[kev67]

I thought Trübsal was the cow's name. We'd give cows names like Buttercup or Lily back before farming was industrialised.

So that's two phrases translated, although they still do not make literal sense. Only about 300 to go.

[Danik 2016]

You are right, kev. It was an oversight, sorry. The exact translation is:"You were milking your cow Melancholy. Now you are drinking the sweet milk of her udder."

[kev67]

I noticed all the Latin, and all the other foreign language, has dried up in the previous 100 pages or so. Now I have got to last 50 pages, Molly Bloom's bit, I don't suppose there will be any more, since she does not even use punctuation. Ho hum.

[kev67]

I am trying to remember whether the Romans used punctuation. I don't think they did. I read somewhere that punctuation is actually an Irish invention. Perhaps Molly Bloom's lack of punctuation is a brilliantly ironic comment on literature from Classical times not having any. I think Latin at least had spaces between the words; I am not sure Ancient Greek did. At least they wrote with vowels, unlike written Hebrew.

[Danik 2016]

Finishing "Ulisses" is a feat!You will soon been one of the select few that achieved it.

I just took my copy in the hand as I am in search of a new book. But... it´s not only it´s extension. One has to wind oneself through so much, until one arrives at the Molly Bloom famous grand finale.

[Danik 2016]

I forgot: the lack of punctuation in the Molly Bloom part serves a certain purpose, which you probably will discover, when you come to the end of it. The last paragraph is very explicit.

[kev67]

I forgot: the lack of punctuation in the Molly Bloom part serves a certain purpose, which you probably will discover, when you come to the end of it. The last paragraph is very explicit.

I think some of that is printed on the cover of my copy of the book. Thirty pages into her soliloquy and she's drawn breath once.