"sceptrum, i, neut. Sceptre; phallus; kingship."
A small example of why I've missed Latin during the past fortnight of GREEKORAMA. The day after I make my offer for Cambridge (yeah, see how I dropped that in) I'm already translating Aeneid 9 like a good little loser. What can I say, I'm so excited.
Bryanston never had a chance. If I'm completely honest, the way I'd been imagining G(r)eek camp - as a kind of two-week long Arvon-for-classicists staying in the kind of school that apparently needs its own Greek theatre - meant that it could only ever have been an anticlimax. I mean, I had a really good time: I learnt shitloads of Greek, obviously; I swam in the pool; I drank gallons of coffee; I sang in the choir; I went on biscuit rampages; I drank in the bar, I attempted to dance on one leg in the "rave cave" (a joke of a room where they have strobe lights and one CD that they play every single night) and when I had too much work in the evenings I joined the library crew which was conveniently situated right above the rave cave. I went to all the lectures, which were mostly fantastic: they included Edith "I'm mad, me!!" Hall being her feminist self, and David Raeburn doing a reading from Homer, Euripides and Callimachus which was one of the most amazing things I have EVER seen in my life. I also sat by the pond, pratted around in the Greek theatre, played cards, and danced to the Macarena right through the building. I did not swim in the fountain, have sex in the bushes, pass out in a corridor or get hospitalised or expelled. (Some people did.) And I made lots of nice friends without actually bonding with anyone. One forlorn Plato-sodden night I texted this to Immy and she texted back saying, "Dude, you're not looking for a life partner" and she had a point.
So it wasn't the TWO-WEEK LONG BACCHANALIA a few people had hinted it would be, but I got a lot out of it and I MAY come back next year. If someone else pays...
(On the way home, by the way, our coach crashed into a car in a village called Nether Wallop. Because no one was injured this is allowed to be hilarious.)
This coming month, I have to wade through lots of Virgil and Cicero. I think Latin will always remain my true love.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
That actually sounds well fun, wish I spoke Greek now. I don't understand how people can have sex in bushes. I mean... they're all spiny?
Post a Comment