QUOTE: From Latin class today:
Instructor: "Now Latin has six forms for the infinitive..."
Girl sitting behind me: "Of course it does."
Yes, frustration is approaching the boiling point, as we've been working with participles for the week thusfar, and they still only seem to marginally make sense. I take some solace in the following bit of Augustine (Confessions, Bk. 1 Ch. XIII):
"adamaveram enim latinas, non quas primi magistri, sed quas docent qui gramatici vocantur"
which I translate roughly to be:
"I fell in love with Latin indeed; not the Latin of my teacher, but rather that which the great writers teach*."
In other words, he prefered translation to grammar, just like I do.
*literally, "that which by those called grammarians teach," but I rather take this to be a play on words: he didn't like the Latin taught to him by his "primi magistri," which was repitition of forms (grammar properly speaking), he liked the Latin which was written by people who created Latin grammar (e.g. Virgil)
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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