What Latin text should I tranlate?

August 27, 2004 10:26 PM

What's a good text to translate to get my increasingly rusty Latin back into shape?

So you know where I stand, or at least once stood: I have read, in substantial part, the Aeneid and the Georgics, a good selection of Horace's odes and Catullus' poems, and excerpts from de Bello Civili and some letters by Cicero (both from the textbook Finis Rei Publicae). The last of those, the Georgics, was two and a half years ago, and it hasn't really been exercised since then (though at the time I could translate it at a pretty good rate). I don't really want to repeat what I've already read.

posted by kenko to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

Pro Caelio, Cicero's defense of Marcus Caelius Rufus. It's not too hard, my Latin III class translated most of it last year, and Cicero's a little bit amusing at some points.
posted by thebabelfish at 4:35 AM on August 28, 2004

Metamorphosis?
posted by RavinDave at 5:34 AM on August 28, 2004

Catalogs like Signals and A Common Reader often carry Latin translations of quirky modern books (Winnie the Pooh, The Giving Tree, Harry Potter), so I'd suggest maybe getting on their mailing lists. Also, be sure to check out the Listmania Lists on the Amazon pages linked above.
posted by silusGROK at 7:25 AM on August 28, 2004

Loeb Classical Library editions are available online, at your library, can be paged through at your local B&N or better used bookstore. Browsing through them casually in person might be a good way to sense what level of difficulty you're actually looking for.
posted by gimonca at 9:41 AM on August 28, 2004

Marcus Aurelius' Meditations?
posted by vers at 1:53 PM on August 28, 2004