James Joyce

This non-Latin poem is a skit on the nursery rhyme, “Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross” by James Joyce who wrote it to promote a chapter that he was publishing of Finnegans Wake – Anna Livia Plurabelle is Dublin’s river Liffey personified. Joyce belongs on Pantheon Poets for his debt to Homer, and if you do not know this little piece, I think you will like  it.

A literary exercise or a cry of pain? Either way, Horace’s ode to jealousy packs a powerful punch into a short poem. In the illustration by John Singer Sargent, the furies are tormenting Orestes.

Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.

In a culminating moment, the conflict between the gods which has obstructed Aeneas’s attempts to found the new community that will become Rome is resolved. Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here, and see the illustrated blog post here.

In a moment of the highest importance for the future of Rome, and the plot of the Aeneid, Juno finally relinquishes her enmity towards the Trojans which has seen the city fall and Aeneas harried over land and sea. Her consent is made easier by Jupiter’s agreement that the identity of the people who will become the Romans will remain Italian, and not be subsumed into the speech and customs of the Trojans.

Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.

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