The Library
Remus's Recommended Reading
I must pause yet once again. O, my child-wife, there is a figure in the moving crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in its innocent love and childish beauty, Stop to think of me-turn to look upon the Little Blossom, as it flutters to the ground!
I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again with Dora.
~ Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. …it remained to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee before daylight from a house that was no longer mine… […] Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged. […] The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
He fled in terror, reached the silent fields,
And howled, and tried to speak. No use at all!
Foam dripped from his mouth bloodthirsty still, he turned
Against the sheep, delighting still in slaughter,
And his arms were legs, and his robes were shaggy hair,
Yet he is still Lycaon, the same grayness,
The same fierce face, the same red eyes, a picture
Of bestial savagery. One house has fallen,
But more than one deserves to. Fury reigns
Over all the fields of Earth. Let them pay for it, and quickly!
So stands my purpose.
Part of them approved
With words and added fuel to his anger,
And part approved with silence, and yet all
Were grieving at the loss of humankind...
~ Ovid, Metamorphoses (translated by Rolfe Humphries)
Let us first understand what we mean by the word magic. Magic is a mystery and we call a thing a mystery because we do not understand it. ...One kind is created by man, wherein he produces things which are magical or mysterious to everybody but himself because to him they are simple results due to natural causes which are manipulated by him.
~ Loϊe Fuller, "Lecture on Radium"
January 20, 1911, London, England
Oh, what the hell. Have some chocolate.
Latin Glossary
(ongoing)
- abnormis sapiens . abnormally wise; wise without learning (Horace)
- amandus . one to be loved
- amantem . loving
- armus meo spiritu . ghost on my shoulder
- audi, benigne Conditor . o merciful creator, hear
- auribus tenere lupum . I hold a wolf by the ears (Terence)
- caeterus . remaining (left behind)
- caligo . mist
- callidus . artful, clever, expert, etc.
- canis major . the great dog
- cantamen . spell
- certus es . are you sure?
- consocius . n. companion, ally; adj. united
- cura ursus . care + bear
- eheu non iterum . oh no, not again
- grata . welcome
- in . in(to)
- iocari . to joke
- juvenis . youth
- lar . home
- lumen . light
- lupinus . lupin/lupine/wolflike
- magister . teacher
- novilunium . new moon
- patronus . protector
- persta atque obdura . be steadfast and endure (Horace, Sermonum 2:5)
- plenilunium . full moon
- relegandus . exiled
- reputata Fides est nobis peccatoribus, Nunc et in morte . our faith Is reckoned to us sinners, now and in death (Angelic Salutation / Ave Maria)
- sona si latine loqueris . honk if you speak Latin
- tantaene animis caelestibus irae . is there so much anger in the minds of the gods? (Vergil, Aeneid I.11)
- tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito . do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it (Vergil, Aeneid Book VI)
- veneficus . wizard
- verte me videre . "turn to look at me"
Other languages:
- Alles, was wir geben mussten [German] . "everything we had to give" (title of the German translation of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go)
- Chaire, kecharitōmenē, o Kyrios meta sou (Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ὁ Κύριος μετὰ σοῦ) [Greek] . "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee" (Luke 1 28)
- Melete [Greek] . "practice", "study" (Boeotian muse of meditation)
- Melpomene [Greek] . "melodious one" (Muse of Tragedy)
- Mneme [Greek] . (Boeotian muse of memory)