"Greek is in the last ditch," writes Sir HENRY NEWBOLT in his _New
Study of English Poetry_; "Latin is trembling at sight of the thin
edge of the wedge." Still a hope of saving Latin--within limits--yet
remains, if the appeal of "Kismet" in _The Spectator_ meets with a
sympathetic response. He asks the readers of that journal "to render
into Latin in two or three words the old cricket adjuration, 'Play the
game.'" He has already had some suggestions, including "_Lude ludum_,"
from "an eminent scholar," but, like the late Mr. TOOLE in one of his
most famous songs, still he is not happy.
In rendering colloquial phrases into the lapidary style of ancient
Rome, I confess it is often hard to improve on the brevity of the
vernacular, though the admonition "to keep your end up" can be
condensed from four words to two in "_sursum cauda_." Again the
familiar eulogy, "Stout fellow," can be rendered in a single word
by the Virgilian epithet "_bellipotens_." A distinguished Latinist
recalls in this context the sentiment of the writer, Pomponius
Caninus:--
_Rebus in adversis comitem sors prospera pinguem_
_Det mihi._
And to the same authority I am indebted for the following version of
"Don't speak to the man at the wheel:"--
_O silete, circumstantes_
_Nautas rotam operantes._
Though Latin is tottering at our schools it occasionally pops up in
unexpected places. For example, not very long ago I heard a popular
comedian introduce his family motto and translate it for the benefit
of a music-hall audience. Latin quotations, even from HORACE, have
gone out of fashion in the Houses of Parliament. Perhaps they will
revive on the stage. The unfair preference for Greek shown by doctors
in the nomenclature of disease is perhaps to be explained by the
value of unintelligibility. Did not DAN O'CONNELL, in his famous
vituperative contest with a Dublin washer-woman, triumph in the
long-run by calling her an unprincipled parallelopiped?
Meanwhile I appeal to the Editor of _The Westminster Gazette_, who,
in his Saturday edition, has done so much to maintain the practice
of classical composition, to offer a prize in one of his periodical
competitions for the best Latin version, of "to buck up," "to stick
it out," "a bit thick," "talking through one's hat," "I don't think,"
"blighter," "rotter," and "not 'arf."
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