Wednesday, July 27, 2011

De Suo Libro

Here is another distich by John Owen, with an English translation by Thomas Harvey, 1.3:

De Suo Libro
Hic liber est mundus: homines sunt, Hoskine, versus;
Invenies paucos hic, ut in orbe, bonos.


This Book is as The World: as Men, The Verse:
Good Verses Here, as There good Men, are scarce.

The vocabulary is keyed to the DCC Latin Vocabulary list. There are two words in this poem that are not on the DCC list:

Hoskinus (Hoskini, m.): Hoskins
versus (versūs, m.): line of verse, poetry

bonus -a -um: good
dē: down from, about, concerning (+ abl.)
hic haec hoc: this; hōc: on this account
hīc: here; hinc: from here
homo hominis m.: human being
in: in, on (+ abl.); into, onto (+ acc)
inveniō -venīre -vēnī -ventum: find; discover
liber librī m.: book
mundus -ī m.: world, universe, heavens
orbis -is m.: circle; orbis terrārum: world
paucī -ae -a: few
sum, esse, fuī: be, exist
suus -a -um: his own, her own, its own
ut, uti: as (+ indic.); so that, with the result that (+ subj.)