Composing Latin Verse in the Trenches

Echos du Monde Classique/Classical Views XLIII. n.s. 18. 1999.83 COMPOSING LATIN VERSE IN THE TRENCHES H.H.HUXLEY "So I stayed and tried to compose Latin epigrams. which was. in those days. my way of killing time-{)n ceremonial parades. for instance. or in the dentisfs chair. or at night in the trenches when things were quiet." (Robert Von Ranke Graves. Goodbye To All That. chapter 19). Unfortunately. we have only one example of Robert Graves' versification . and it does not show our author at his best. It is quoted by Graves in his splendid account of his war-service. and is the first line only of "a maledictory epigram on astrapping young curate." The author's own translation follows the Latin: o si bracchipotens qui fulminat ore clericus "0. if the powerful cleric who fulminates with his mouth" "I tried to remember whether the i of clericus was long or short. and couldn't; but it did not matter [my italicsl. because 1 could make alternative verses to suit either case." Here is his alternative: o si bracchipotens clericus qui fulminat ore As the e of clericus is long and the i short. neither hexameter scans; one could also object that bracchipotens is not found in Latin. but the formation is sound and the idea biblical; cf. Psalm 88.14 (Vulgate) tuum bracchium cum potentia. Graves went to Charterhouse with a scholarship. though his preference was for Winchester. The deciding factor was that Winchester had a daunting Greek grammar paper. and the boy had never mastered those baffling verbs '(11\11 and 'lcT11\11. Had he become a Wykehamist , he would soon have learned that in the important adjectival suffix -IKOC the iota is short. However. we might not then have had "I, Claudius" and his other books and poems. UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRlDGE ...