AVE, Herald readers! I would have translated the whole of that bombshell opening sentence into Latin but, even with the vast cheating resources of the internet before me, I’m not going to risk it beyond yon “ave” (hail/welcome).
Judging by recent correspondence on the Letters Pages, this newspaper is read by well-educated citizens who remember well their Latin from school, which is awkward and off-putting when you want to have a ham-fisted go at it yourself.
Despite two years of it at my state school, and taking it again later at an evening class, I still can’t translate one whole sentence of Latin anywhere I encounter it (you know, in Lidl and the like).
READ MORE: Campaign to make state school pupils Latin lovers
Yet I retain a vestigial love for it and the whole classics thang. I don’t know why. I suspect it all started with the movie Jason and the Argonauts. At school, I loved the nuggets of ancient history – Julius Caesar, Roman geezer, squashed his nose in a lemon-squeezer – more than the tortured and alien linguistics.
Later, I’d fond memories of my Latin teacher, the late Donald McLaren, a fine, friendly, gentle classicist, though it’s fair to say that, trauchling doon the road together of a morning, we discussed football more than the gerundives of obligation: “Ave, ave, the Hibs are hic!”
The Gerundives of Obligation: great name for a prog-rock band. I witter thus in the wake of news that moves are afoot to revive classical education in state schools across Caledonia. What did I do upon reading this? In the words of Roger McGough’s agreeable translation of Julius Caesar’s veni, vidi, vici: I came, I saw, I concurred.
Why would you not study Latin or, more enjoyably, make today’s younglings study it? They say it’s dead but so is 90 per cent of what kids study, or might as well be if they don’t use it. Looked at thus, maths and science were more dead to me than Latin.
READ MORE: Campaign to make state school pupils Latin lovers
But “classics” isn’t just Latin or Greek. As Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson, of King’s College London, said yesterday, it’s about “exploring the rich diversity of daily life in the ancient world”, including literature, art, architecture, history and culture.
It makes no sense in our education system to ignore an early civilisation that formed so much of our own society.
Attempts to get classics back into the curriculum crop up annually and never amount to much, which is odd since the ancient world still appears frequently in popular culture. As Professor Matthew Fox, of Glasgow University, noted in The Herald yesterday, primary pupils love the ancient world as presented in stories, films and video games.
Every year, populist books with a light and airy tone appear, attempting to prove classics ain’t dull. From my own shelves I pluck: It’s All Greek to Me; Love, Sex and Tragedy – Why Classics Matters; Amo, Amas, Amat … And All That.
They sit like perky Millennials among older, dustier efforts whose earnest tones proclaim lofty reverence: The Glory That Was Greece; The Grandeur That Was Rome; Hellas: The Forerunner.
I was educated as that sort of stuff was clambering into its death-bed, but there was still a whiff of Empire about the classics (nothing to do with the aforementioned Donald, but implicit in the texts and culture), a notion of superior civilisation, though it was all quite decent and supposed to prepare us for the sort of public service abhorred in today’s prosaic, profit-heavy times.
Today, we’re told that classics isn’t elitist, but you’d have to ask why fee-charging schools – elitist, whatever they say, in both purpose and consequence – still feature it prominently.
READ MORE: Campaign to make state school pupils Latin lovers
In my experience, it doesn’t take much for the snobbish mask to slip.I remember the pelters I got online for saying I enjoyed the film Troy. Were my critics snooty? Yes, they were. Mind you, I only managed 20 minutes of that new BBC series about Troy, so it’s all about opinions.
Other claims for classics are that it teaches you critical and analytical skills, which is arguable I suppose (i.e. – id est – I lack the critical and analytical skills to evaluate the claim), and that it helps in understanding English grammar. Maybe. But I think that’s intuitive.
While they came up in Latin, I don’t know what a subjunctive or an ablative is in English, nor do I understand any other terms of grammar. I just get on and write the ruddy stuff.
And, as I get on, I’ll always return to classics, fondly remembering the ambition of my hero (apart from his politics, class and bloodsports perversion) Harold Macmillan, the 1950s prime minister, to spend his latter days quietly engaged in Latin translation. Lucky him, if he could make out a word of it. But that isn’t really the point.
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