Cambridge Classics Association Latin Prose Reading (online) Competition Winner
Congratulations to Shaun Abraham (10N) who won first prize in the Intermediate Section of the Cambridge Classics Association Latin Prose Reading (online) Competition for his rendition of one of Pliny the Younger’s letters (V.5 – see below). The Cambridge University Orator, Professor R. J. E. Thompson who judged the competition wrote that the passage allowed “the reader to express character and emotion.”
This letter is typical Pliny, combining humour with philosophy; we are left in no doubt that the self-satisfied Pliny knows his work shall outlive him. He was right, we are reading it right now!
PLINY, An alarming dream comes true (Letters V.5)
Gaius quidem Fannius id quod accidit multo ante praesensit. visus est sibi per nocturnam quietem iacere in lectulo suo compositus in habitum studentis, habere ante se scrinium –ita solebat. mox imaginatus est venisse Neronem, in toro resedisse, prompsisse primum librum quem de sceleribus eius ediderat, eumque ad extremum revolvisse; idem in secundo ac tertio fecisse, tuncabisse. expavit et sic interpretatus est, tamquam idem sibi futurus esset scribendi finis qui fuisset illi legendi: et fuit idem. quod me recordantem miseratio subit quantum vigiliarum, quantum laboris exhauserit frustra. occursant animo mea mortalitas, mea scripta. nec dubito te quoque eadem cogitatione terreri, pro istis quae inter manus habes. proinde, dum suppetit vita, enitamur ut mors quam paucissima quae abolere possit inveniat.
Indeed, Caius Fannius had had for a long time a presentiment of what was to befall him. He dreamt in the quiet of the night that he was lying on his bed dressed for study and that he had a writing desk before him, as was his habit. Then he thought that Nero came to him, sat down on the couch, and after producing the first volume which Fannius had written about his crimes, turned over the pages to the end. He did the same with the second and third volumes, and then departed. Fannius was much alarmed and interpreted the dream to mean that he would leave off writing just where Nero had left off reading, and so the event proved.
When I think of it, I feel grieved to think how many wakeful hours and how much labour Fannius toiled through in vain. I see before me my own mortality and my own writings. Nor do I doubt that you have the same thought and anxiety for the work which is still on your hands. Let us do our best, therefore, while life lasts, that death may find as few works of ours as possible for him to destroy.
