Friday, June 10, 2005

Confessions

Today at lunch I was looking at Augustine's Confessions in Latin, and I had the thought: this seems like it rhymes a lot. I've had a lifetime of rhyme, but only 2 years of Latin, so I wasn't absolutely sure.

Then on my train ride home, reading the preface to a translation of the work, I came across this: "He loved to use rhymes in his prose... The presence of so much rhyming in the Latin diction presents an insoluble problem for the translator. It is impossible to reproduce in another language without resulting in absurdity." (p. x)

I never knew Augustine,
Besides being a major Christian old-timer
Was a big Latin rhymer!

I mean,
Who had any idea that his Confessions
Were more or less rap sessions?

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