ET CETERA

Latin class revisited. This time it's not a chore

Maia Lee-Chin, whose book, Et Cetera: An Illustrated Guide to Latin Phrases (Andrews McMeel), was published last year, got more out of Latin class than I did.

But she admits it didn't just happen. "I was forced to enroll in Latin. I considered dropping the course several times, especially while translating Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallico. I couldn't understand his long-winded explanations of wartime strategies, and I had no love for Roman history," wrote Lee-Chin.

"Something changed when I first translated the Aeneid from Latin to English. I was struck by the kinship I felt for Aeneas," she said.

Lee-Chin, a 2021 graduate of Holy Cross College, outside Boston, was the first Black woman to be named a Fenwick Scholar, the school's highest academic honor.

I wish I had known a girl like Maia when I was taking Latin classes all those years ago. But then I was introduced to the subject at Boston Latin School (where I spent the seventh grade), at a time when only male students attended.

Lee-Chin's book, beautifully illustrated by Italian artist Marta Bertello, takes 50 Latin phrases, translates them, and then provides a brief backstory (usually just a few paragraphs) to give a taste of Roman history and a glimpse at the life that flourished behind those turgid phrases.

Take omnia vincit amor, for example. "Love conquers all" isn't a line from a 60s song but originally from one of Vergil's poems "that paints an idyllic portrait of rural life in the Roman countryside," noted Lee-Chin.

It is not the rallying cry modern readers imagine, she stated. It's a warning from a poet (Gallus) on his deathbed: "We cannot defeat love, and so nos cedamus--let us yield to it."

"Pining over the mistress while she pursues another, (Gallus) embodies the servitium amoris--'the enslavement of love' and his dying words admit his defeat," Lee-Chin said.

We never got stories like that when I was in Latin class.

Another thing, Vergil is supposed to have written just one line of poetry a day. He compiled 10 poems but that output was dwarfed by the 24 books that Homer produced, said Lee-Chin, stating her love for Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey.

( An interview with the author can be found at https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1950812/episodes/16623292-et-cetera-an-illustrated-guide-to-latin-phrases-by-maia-lee-chin )