Week 5: Augustinus: Confessiones. Background | Background Quiz | Starting Assumptions | Resources | Extras Vocabulary | Etymology | Grammar | Perseus Dictionary | Perseus Tool Reading Overview | Reading Quiz: English | Reading Quiz: Latin Discussion Questions | Latin Composition | Weekly Checklist

Latin Composition

A draft of your composition work (A and B) is due by Friday midnight. It will be returned to your with comments, corrections, hints and suggestions on Saturday. The final draft is due by Monday midnight. Note: This first draft is required: if you do not turn in a draft of the composition by Friday midnight, you will receive no composition credit for the week.

** If you are not an OU student, I will try to mark your compositions as well; send it to laura-gibbs@ou.edu and make sure you put MEDIEVAL LATIN in the subject line **

A. Answer the questions - in Latin...! Please make sure that your email contains both the question and the answer. If you are having trouble with this exercise, check out these Hints for Answering Questions in Latin.

B. Write a small Latin composition on your own. You will choose either to describe a picture or to write a small monologue/dialogue. If you are having trouble with this exercise, check out these Hints for Free Composition in Latin.

• When describing a picture, do not say "in the picture" or "the picture shows"... instead, imagine you are looking at the actual scene itself, and describe the scene ("the sheep are sleeping", "the fox is dead", "the woman is very beautiful"). Examples.
• When writing a dialogue, do not use indirect speech ("Samson says... Delilah says..."), but just write out what the characters say - don't worry, I should be able to figure out who's talking! Examples.

A. Question-and-answer in Latin.

1. Quid in cordibus hominum scriptum est?
2. Ubi erat pirus?
3. Quid pueri porcis proiecerunt?
4. Quare Alypius Augustinum intuebatur attonitus?
5. Quid Augustino dixit Alypius?
6. Quo Augustinus abscessit turbatus?
7. Ubi Augustinus in hortulo se stravit?
8. Unde Augustinus vocem audivit?
9. Quid vox dicit?
10. Quid Augustinus legit?

B. Latin composition

Choose either one description or one dialogue/monologue to write in Latin.

Description: Describe the scene depicted in this image in Latin. You should write 3-4 sentences that are each at least four words long. Please please do not use an English-Latin dictionary. You should have plenty of vocabulary from this week's reading to write your description!

• Augustine's Conversion, 1465.

Dialogue/Monologue: Choose one of the following scenes and write the words you can imagine the characters saying. You should write 3-4 sentences that are each at least four words long. Please please do not use an English-Latin dictionary. You should have plenty of vocabulary from this week's reading to write your description!

• Pueri loquuntur... What do you think Augustine and his friends said to each other on the night that they went and stole the pears from the tree? What did they say to each other to get up the nerve to go steal the pears? What did they say to each other after they had committed their crime?
• Quid censet Alypius? Augustine tells us what he said to his friend Alypius he says that Alypius simply stared at him, dumbfounded (cum taceret attonitus me intuens). What was Alypius thinking as he listened to Augustine? As he observed the way Augustine looked and acted in this frenzy before his conversion? What were the thoughts that passed through the mind of Alypius?