Lesson video

Salvete, omnes! Salve, magister! this is the translation lesson for the unit on neuters, specifically on neuter plurals.

♪ You must remember every day ♪ ♪ Neuter plurals end in A ♪ ♪ Neuter plurals end in A ♪ ♪ Neuter plurals A, A, A ♪ Okay, make sure you remember that, because we're going to be looking at loads of neuter plurals.

Not just that, but we're going to be translating a fantastic story taken from the Odyssey.

However, we're not allowed to call him Odysseus, no, no, no, 'cause the Romans had a special name for Odysseus.

They called him Ulysses.

So let's have a look and see what Ulysses is getting up to in this lesson.

Practise translation, Ulysses and Circe.

Our learning objectives are: Can I translate fluently a Latin passage containing singular and plural neuter nouns? And have I consolidated previous core vocabulary? Press pause if you need to for what? That's right, if you've not got any of these things, press pause, go and get them.

Well done for bringing the right things, if you did do that.

Let's have a look at some of this vocabulary.

You'll be familiar with this format.

These are the 14 mandatory words, the 14 words that they're the most frequent and the most difficult words that will be coming up in the passage that you will be translating on your own today.

You must have them at your fingertips in order to be able to translate that passage.

We're going to focus on these four here.

Now, three of these we had a brief look at in the previous grammar lesson on neuter nouns.

Let's look at them again in more detail.

Let's have a look.

So the first one here is "comes", which is not a neuter noun, "comes" is third declension masculine, and I believe it can also be feminine.

Now, derivation is a no-no, except for the English word, concomitant, all right? High expectations.

We'll see what that means in a sec.

What's interesting about "comes" is, though, very, very conveniently and coincidentally, the two translations both have com on the front.

And so "comes" is your companion or your comrade, not to be confused with "amicus", all right, which is just your friend.

We'll be looking at Ulysses, otherwise known as a Odysseus, today, all right? And he has his "comites" with him, he has his men, or his companions.

Note that this is the plural here.

What's tricky about "comes" is it's one of those third declension nouns, like "miles", where it sort of looks, it's a singular form, looks plural, 'cause of that es ending.

That's not plural.

"Comes", singular.

"Comites", with an extra syllable, is the plural.

Next up.

Now we've seen this one already on the previous lesson.

"Caput".

We get English words like capital, captain and decapitate.

Capital is the sort of head city in a country.

Captain is the head of something, and decapitate is when you lop, it's when someone has their head cut off.

And "caput" is a head, all right? Do we see how it goes to "capit" in other forms, forms other than the nominative and accusative singular? And then that's what makes it into decapitate, for example, in terms of the journey, this 2000-year journey from Latin to English.

Don't confuse "caput" with "capio".

Cap-io, "capio", is I take, that's where we get the English word I capture.

Just 'cause that's a cap on the front, you wouldn't confuse captain and capture in English, would you? So why would you confuse "caput" and "capio" in Latin, right? That's a verb, that's a noun.

"Corpus" we also did before.

English words like corpse, or a nice one here, if you incorporate something, it means you literally bring it into the main body of something, because "corpus" means body.

And "nomen", you should know this one already, really.

"Nomen" we know means name.

Nominative, nominate.

Nominative actually comes from "nomen", because if you nominate someone, you give their name.

"Nome" means name.

There's this extra little thing now.

Now, in the past I've been giving you, I've been cribbing, "nomine", meaning called, but now I'd like you to learn it actually as an extra bit of vocab.

"Nomen" means name, but "nomine", literally, this is the ablative case, by name, ie, called.

"Nomine", called.

Let's have a look at these words.

So, first things first, I'd like you to just press pause here and just read.

As always, do not worry for a second if you can't remember all of them off the first reading.

That's what this lesson is here for, it's what the next couple of minutes are for.

But just press pause, familiarise yourself with the 10 words that we didn't look at there.

Okay.

Now, hands completely free, let's have a look and see how we do on this quizzing.

And "comes" means what? "Comes" is a companion or comrade.

What's the difference between "caput" and "corpus"? Good.

"Caput" is your head, "corpus" is the body.

What's the difference between "do" and "donum"? Good.

So "do" is a verb in O, O-S-T.

So that's, the verb is I give.

A "Donum" is a noun, a neuter noun, meaning a gift.

Don't look at that and think it's just gift, all right? That's your verb there, "do".

Now, oops, we, ♪ We must remember every day ♪ ♪ Neuter plurals end in A ♪ ♪ Neuter plurals end in A ♪ ♪ Neuter plurals, A, A, A ♪ Okay, "capita" is what, therefore? Head or heads? ♪ Neuter plurals end in A.

♪ So it's heads.

"Corpora" is body or bodies? ♪ Must remember every day ♪ ♪ Neuter plurals end in A ♪ So it's bodies.

"Villa", though.

Mm, I've given you the clue.

Think about it.

"Villa" is singular.

If I just told you, without the context of neuters, if I just said, "What's "villa" mean?" You would say "house." This is first declension nominative singular.

It's not been changed in the way that "corpus" has been changing into "corpora".

That's a plural, isn't it, bodies.

"Villa", even though it's a thing, it's feminine, it's first declension.

That's singular, just the one house.

"Verba" is what? ♪ Neuter plurals end in A.

♪ That is "verbum", it's just the one word and it's been changed to make "verba", which is plural, words.

"Comites" is companion or companions.

Which one? Good, plural.

So "comes", just the one, "comites" is companions.

"Nomine", does "nomine" mean names? Does "nomine" mean names? "Nomine".

Shaking heads, it doesn't.

What does "nominee" mean? Tell me it means? Good! It means called.

Nice.

"Statim" means which of these three? I always ask this.

So, "statim" does not mean now.

It means immediately.

Good.

And "iterum" means what? Did we get it? "Iterum" means? Again.

Good.

If you reiterate something, you ask it again.

All right.

So "iterum" means? Again.

Good, we're fine then.

What's "iterum" mean? It means again.

If you want me? Yeah, fine.

"Iterum", again.

"Iterum?" "Iterum?" Fine, okay, you get the idea.

It means again.

If you reiterate you ask something again.

What's the difference between "tamen" and "sed"? Good.

So, "tamdem" means finally, "tamen" is however, and "sed" is but.

What's the difference between "tum" and "ubi"? "Tum" is going to be then, "ubi" is when.

Now, we did "iterum", we did "statim".

What's the difference between "statim", "quoque" and "iterum"? So, "statim" does not mean now, it means immediately.

"Iterum's" when you ask something, if you reiterate you ask something again, "iterum", again.

And "quoque" is also.

"Do", does "do" mean, which tense, what's the tense there, "do"? Good.

So, "do" is present tense.

Now, have a guess.

What's "dedi" mean? Answer in two.

And good.

So this is an irregular duplicated perfect stem, it's like "curi" from "curo".

And so "dedi" is I gave.

I was giving would have a bar in there, it would be "dabam".

"Non erant" at the beginning of a sentence, what happens? Good.

So it can be there were not, as opposed to they were not.

And "statim", miming to me.

Let's bring me in.

Mime "statim" to me to me after three, two, and it will be? It will be immediately.

Not, that one's now, immediately, "statim", immediately.

Good.

Point "ad caput".

Point "ad caput".

It's going to be pointing? At your head, good.

Point "ad caput".

Good.

And then mime "comes".

What's a "comes"? Good.

A "comes" would be your, would be your companion, not your friend.

That's your "amicus".

"Comes", your companion.

Okay, right, pen at the ready, what do these 14 words mean? Writing one to 14 down the margin, pressing pause to complete this vocab quiz in three, two, and go.

Okay, now switching to a different colour pen.

How did we do? Let's have a look.

There you go.

Great.

Okay, now back to hands-free.

It's time for me to just tell you a little bit about what's going to happen in today's story.

What is the context? There's one thing here that is quite tricky and we just need to sort out right now, and that is this guy's name.

So, you'll be familiar, hopefully, from your English lessons, or just from, you know, your knowledge of the world, that there is a Greek hero who's from a place called Ithaca, and he is called Odysseus.

Now, the Romans occasionally, this happened pretty much all the time with their gods.

You're familiar with the idea that the Romans called the Greek god, Zeus, Jupiter, for example.

Sometimes with people, with heroes, that name change also happened.

And the Romans didn't call a Odysseus Odysseus.

The Romans called Odysseus this name here, Ulixes.

So, after Ulixes.

Ulixes.

Now, where things get even more difficult is this next jump, which is that when in English we write the name, the Roman name, Ulixes, we change things a bit and it becomes Ulysses, like that.

Okay, so that's what he's called in Latin.

And the English version of Ulixes that Roman Latin word, is Ulysses.

Do we see that? There's three names you have to deal with here.

Odysseus, that's the easy one, Ulixes, Latin name, and Ulysses, English version of Ulixes.

Right, the rest of it should all be fine.

This is a fantastic piece of art here.

I mean, look at this, because it gets all the elements of the story into one piece.

Now, Odysseus, otherwise known as Ulixes or Ulysses.

You will remember I mentioned he's from Ithaca.

I mentioned that he is a Greek.

He fights in the Trojan war and after defeating the Trojans and destroying Troy, he starts to head home.

Does he get home in a couple of weeks? No! It takes him another 10 years.

He has all sorts of bother that he encounters on the way.

And one of his adventures that he has, his sort of trials or tribulations that he has in his wanderings on the way back, is to do with this character called Circe.

Circe.

Circe.

Now, Circe is, he didn't know that at the beginning, right? They don't know, but Circe is a "saga", she is a witch.

It's a Latin word for witch, okay? And what's happening in this picture, as you can see.

Now, the painter of this has sort of conflicted all the events into one moment, which is what happens in Greek vases sometimes.

Here is Circe here.

It might not look like a woman, but don't worry about it.

And she's giving this "comes" here something to drink.

And then what's happened? Is he just a normal human? No! He's starting to transform into an animal, isn't he? All right? We can see down here from this canis, that Circe sort of has a way with the animals.

She is able to, I suppose, like Orpheus, right, to communicate with animals, and to get them to like her, because of the way this dog is lovingly gazing up at Circe there.

But maybe that dog was a person, I don't know.

Now, that's not the whole story, though, because what about this guy? Can we see over here, this one isn't being transformed into an animal.

He's actually running, you see where the direction of his leg is, he's running over in this direction.

And this guy has called Eurylochus.

Eurylochus.

Eurylochus.

Good.

And he is a "comes", he is a companion of Ulysses, or Odysseus, who doesn't drink whatever this is.

And that's where I'm going to leave the story.

Because over on this side, when we get to the side of the vase, we get to Odysseus over here, or Ulysses, and we'll find out what he's going to be doing in order to solve this problem today.

Here's another version of the same image, where you can see that Circe is more obviously a female character.

And there's Ulysses there.

There's the magic potion.

No dog in this one though.

Right.

How much of this has gone in, though? Let's have a look.

So, which of these people is also known as, or more popularly known as Odysseus? Point out that one in three, two, and Ulixes, or Ulysses.

Which of these is a companion, is a companion of Ulysses? It is this guy.

Say his name for me.

Say his name.

Okay, let's have a go.

Eurylochus.

One more time.

Eurylochus.

Good.

And then which of these ones is able to ♪ talk to the animals ♪ That might have to, is that copyright infringement? Which of these likes to talk to the animals? It is Circe.

Correct.

Lovely.

Right, shall we have a little look? Now, we're going to look at the paragraph you're going to be translating in a second.

And we're going to look at three tricky things.

The first tricky thing is this sentence here, which has a particularly difficult form of some neuter plurals, but also bear in mind, there's one, there's one, there's a neuter.

It's going to to be neuters all over the place in this passage, okay? Right, now, as I said, two, now, I haven't mentioned it yet, actually, so every mistake you see over the next three instances has two, every mistranslation has two mistakes in, all right? And our first one is this one, "in capitibus".

It's not exactly the same sentence as the one we just saw in the pink circle.

I've changed it.

I'm not going to give you the same things.

That would spoil all the fun.

But here we have a sentence which is similar, which is, "In capitibus erat sanguis." There's two mistakes in the mistranslation, "Onto their heads it was blood." I mean, one, it doesn't make sense, but why doesn't it? Why doesn't it? Tell me, 10 seconds, what's wrong with it? Go.

Two, one.

And what do we think? So.

Our first thing is to do with this "in" here.

And we've not done any explicit work on this in this sec, so I've chucked you in the deep end a little bit here.

But you will remember from a couple of units back, we did loads of work on the preposition "in", whether it's plus the accusative or plus the ablative.

And here, what makes more sense? If you're not a hundred percent sure, but you should be, about accusative and ablative, just think what makes more sense, "Onto their heads" or "on their heads"? And in this case, actually, because this is ablative here, "on their heads" makes more sense.

I think it's worth, you're going to see it.

And one more time before you start translating, just remembering the phrase "in capitibus", "on their heads".

"In capitibus." Good.

Now, you'll remember "in", plus accusative, into "in" plus ablative, "in," all right? So "in villam", "into the house", "in villa", "in the house", all right? Now, the next thing's that's tricky is "erat", here.

Now what this student's done is they've gone, "Well, I know "erat", first word, means "there was", but here it's not the first word, 'cause "in" is the first word.

So I'm going to go for "it was"`, 'cause it means "he's sure it was".

And actually though, however, what I should say is I should amend "erat", first word, to actually say, if "erat" comes before the nominative, just "sanguis", "erat" comes before the nominative, then you go for "there was".

So actually instead of having "it" here, I'm going to across that out, it should be a nice "there", okay? So actual translation, "in capitibus erat sanguis", "on their heads there was blood".

It's a bit grizzly.

It won't be as grizzly as that, don't worry, in the actual story.

So that's your first one.

Let's just see if that makes sense.

What's the different between "in villam" and "in villa"? Good.

This one's accusative, so that's motion into, so that's "into the house", "in villa".

You're staying still in the house.

What is the difference between "in capita" and "in capitibus"? What's this mean? Good.

That's your motion onto, and then "in capitibus", "on their heads".

"In capitibus", "on their heads".

One more thing.

"Non erant" beginning of a sentence, means what? Good.

"There were not".

"There were not", all right? The second thing we're looking at that's tricky is sentences like this one where you might not have a nominative in there and you're going to have to go to your verb to make it make sense.

Our second example is as follows.

Two mistakes, all right, there's always two mistakes.

And here, this person has translated "ad Ulixem festinavit", as "to Ulixem hurried." Ten seconds.

What's wrong with that? Go.

One.

And let's have a look.

So, first thing that's tricky is, let's have a look.

What's his name, okay? Even if this person had written to Ulixes, I still would have had an issue.

He's called not Ulixes, or not Ulixem, but tell me.

Ulysses.

Do we remember how to spell it? Hmm, okay.

He's called Ulysses.

If you couldn't remember how to spell it, then pause the video now and just write that word out a few times.

U-L-Y-S-S-E-S.

♪ U-L-Y-Double-S-E-S ♪ Ulysses, all right? So that's one mistake there, it should be "to Ulysses".

Now, hurried here, does Ulysses hurry? Does that make sense? No.

So this person has neglected.

, they've done well beginnings.

Look, we've got to, we've got Ulysses, we've got hurry.

That's done.

But they've neglected this bit of step two.

Person, "festinavit".

E, esti, it.

I, you.

Good.

He or she.

And in this one, I'm going to tell you, it is in the story, a male character that's doing the hurrying, so it's in fact going to be, he, I'll do it, I'll write it out like this.

"He hurried".

So the whole thing together will be "he hurried to Ulysses".

"Ad Ulixem festinavit", "he hurried to Ulysses".

Got it? That's step two, that's step three.

Okay.

Let's have a look at some, what's that? Now, "verba dicebant," what's that mean, therefore? It's going to be, now, "they were saying the words".

I always talk about this in these lessons.

If your first word is accusative, which this is, is it's a thing, anyway, the words I'm going to be doing, the verb, means actually that's going to come the end.

If it's the first word in Latin, it's going to come at the end of your translation in English.

So, they were saying words.

All right, next up, and our third thing is tricky, perfect tenses.

Tricky, perfect, two mistakes.

What two has this person made? "Circe vinum dedit et comes bibit." Two mistakes, 10 seconds.

Go.

Two.

One.

And zero.

Okay, so our first thing we're going to look at is "dedit".

Do you remember from the quiz? "Do" is "I give" and "dedit" is "I gave", a regular perfect sense.

So how are we changing "gives"? We're going to make it perfect tense.

So, "Circe gave".

So we get rid of "gives" and make it "gave".

"Wine" is fine.

Now, I said there's two mistakes because, and there are, even though you might think there's three, 'cause actually this is the same type of mistake "Dedit" should be "gave".

Now, "bibit" could be present tense, but, actually, given that that's perfect tense, this is also irregular perfect tense.

Circe gave wine and drank.

It's going to be not drink.

Yeah? So this goes and we get.

Now, "Well, Mr Ferber, there's two mistakes there, so, actually, clearly, it's finished." Have we got all the mistakes? There's one more.

Where is it? Let's have a look.

♪ Doot doodle oodle oodle loot doot duh.

♪ Oh no, look at this! The person made the the classic "comes" error, "Oo, there's E-S on the end, I think it's plural." No, it's not.

"Comes", singular or plural? "Comes" is singular.

What is the plural of comes? Do you remember? Remember? Lovely! It's "comites", is your plural, "companions".

So this is just a one.

And we're there.

So, "Circe gave wine," or the wine, "and the companion drank," full-stop.

Happy? Of course you are! Right, let's have a look at this actual translation, reading together.

I'm going to move myself over here.

So, "Olim tempestas ingens Ulixem et comites in insulam novam portavit.

In insula, comites villam in silva invenerunt." "Olim," once upon a time, a "ingens," a huge "tempestas" a huge storm, way over to our verb here.

"Ve", carried, "Ulixem." "I think his name is Ulixem, Mr Ferber," carried what's his name? Good.

How do you spell it? Try and remember it quick.

U-L-Y-double-S-E-S, good.

Carried Ulysses and his, just the one companion? And his companions.

Now, great sentence this, it's got loads of things to practise.

"Into an island", "or onto an island", that M on the end? M is accusative, so therefore it's going to be motion towards, "onto an island".

And it's nova, it's.

It's nova, new.

Whole thing together.

Long sentence.

Once a huge storm carried Ulysses and his companions onto a new island.

"In insula," is that going to be "into an island"`, "into or onto the island", or "on the island"? That one, do we see, that's an ablative, so that's "on an island".

On the island, "comites", the companions, found a house.

Into the wood? They found a house in the wood.

That one, you get the sense, ablative.

"Multi ursae et tigres feroces ad eos festinabant et caudas movebant.

Tum femina, Circe nomine, e villa venit et donum dedit, venum optimum, sed ubi comites bibebant, Circe virga capita tetigit." Oh no! Right, let's have a look.

"Multi ursae," many.

Now, ursa you may have encountered, an ursa is a is a bear.

And what are these animals, obviously? And tigers, and they're "feroces".

Many fierce bears and tigers.

When they get to the house, right, they were hurrying towards them.

And what are they going to do? And then they "caudas movebant".

They, in fact, wag their tails.

They were wagging their tails, because they are, well, maybe they're Circe's tamed animals.

Maybe they're, could be something else.

"Tum", then, a "femina", a woman called Circe, came from her house, or from the house, and she "donum dedit." What was dedit? She? Good.

She gave a gift.

And what's the gift? It's "vinum optimum," the best, or really good, or excellent wine.

But when the companions "ba," when they were drinking, what did Circe do? She touched their head.

So, "capita".

♪ I must remember every day ♪ ♪ Neuter plurals end in A ♪ So she touched their heads with a "virga," with a magic wand.

What's going to happen? So, over to you for the middle paragraph for translation.

Press pause, off you go.

Let's see what happens.

And if you've done that one, have a look at that final paragraph, translating that for me, pressing pause here.

Right.

Different colour pen.

How was that? Let's see how we did.

So, immediately, now, if you just wrote the bodies, their bodies probably a bit better, but the bodies is fine.

Their bodies were bristly.

On their heads, how would I say, there were not noses, but "rostra", snouts.

What's going on? They were not saying words, but they were grunting.

Circe, a witch, over to our verb, turns the companions into pigs.

One companion, however, did not drink, called Eurylochus.

Immediately, he.

Well done if you got to this bit.

Do you remember we did this with "festinavit"? He fled to Ulysses.

Ulysses, when he heard, now, "the words" is absolutely fine.

When he heard the words, hurried to the house.

Circe again gave wine, and Ulysses drank.

Then Circe also "quoque", touched his head with the wand.

He's going to be a pig too, isn't he? Well, let's find out.

Let's have a look.

"Ulixes tamen vir manebat.

Ubi Ulixes ad villam ambulabat, deus Mercurius herbam dedit.

Statim gladium cepit.

Circe timuit et comites ad viros iterum vertit.

Unus tamen, nomine Gryllus, manere porcus volebat.

Cur? Rogatis? Quod porc bella non faciunt." Okay, let's have a little look here.

So, "tamen," however, Ulysses was remaining.

He stayed or was staying as a "vir", as a man, 'cause what happened? Well, when Ulysses was walking to the house, "deus Mercurius," who's that? The god, Mercury.

The God, Mercury, the messenger god, "dedit", gave him a magical herb.

"Statim", immediately, he "cepit", his head, is that his head, "cepit"? No.

Good.

He took his sword.

Circe feared, was afraid, and the, if you go over the verb, she turned the companions back, or again, to "viros", back into men.

"Unus tamen," however, one of them, called Gryllus, Gryllus, he "volebat", he wanted, good, to stay, or to remain as a pig.

Why? "Rogatis".

O-S-T, mus, tis.

Why do you ask? Well, "quod", because "porci", pigs, they "non faciunt bella." Always a "bellum" from the last lesson.

"Bellum" is a war, because pigs, because animals, don't make, or don't wage, wars.

Now, I've not made this up, all right.

There was a sort of, essentially, a kind of a bit of fan fiction of the Odyssey, about one of his companions, who was this guy called Gryllus, who begged Circe to actually let him stay as a talking pig, because he thinks that animal life is in fact more noble than human life.

All right? So you can take that with you as a bit of a, a bit of, I dunno, sort of Odyssey fan fiction.

I didn't make it up.

I wish I did.

The ancient Greeks made up that little bit about Gryllus.

Okay.

Right.

Once you have marked and corrected your answers, complete the exit quiz.

There'll be a question on Gryllus there for you to have a look at.

Other than that, all that's left is for us to say "valete" to one another.

Really well done on that one.

On the next unit there will be more adventures of Ulysses, all right, So keep your eyes out for them.

And I will see you there.

♪ Valete, valete.

♪.