The various and mostly anonymous authors responsible for the collection of poems now known as the Carmina Burana were a motley assortment of disaffected monks, students and clerici vagrantes (‘wandering […]
Monthly Archives: November 2012
Dies Irae – The Requiem Sequence (contributed by Mark Walker)
Attributed to Thomas de Celano (1190-1260), the Dies Iræ is arguably the most famous and most evocative Medieval Latin poem. It describes in vivid detail the Last Judgement, the summoning […]
Letter – Heloise (c.1100-1163) to Abelard (contributed by Mark Walker)
The story of the ardent love affair between fiery philosopher Peter Abelard and his brilliant young student Heloise has been preserved in their remarkable letters to each other: Abelard’s autobiographical […]
Horace Odes 1.9 (Contributed by Nicholas Debenham)
In World War II General Heinrich Kreipe, the German military Governor of Crete, was kidnapped by the British in a daring raid by a Special Operations Executive team, led by […]
Homer Iliad 1.334-363, 16.1-19, 18.70-77 (Contributed by Tom Brown)
I loved the passage about the removal of Briseis, followed by Achilles’ tearful appeal to Thetis, when I first read it at school (c. 1967), but it was only 40 […]
Latin Ode to the London Olympics (contributed by Bijan Omrani)
This Latin Ode to the London Olympics is written in Sapphics in imitation of Horace’s Carmen Saeculare. Horace’s original was written in honour of the Secular Games (Ludi Saeculares) a […]
Tacitus Annals 1.61-62 (contributed by Sophie Mansell)
Who is not left with a lingering image of the whitening bones after reading this passage? It provides a haunting break in the narrative of Annals I as Germanicus and […]
Virgil Georgics 4.67-87 (contributed by Ian Peel)
Mankind has had an affectionate and symbiotic relationship with bees since the beginning of time. Einstein has been credited (alas, probably erroneously) with the suggestion that the final demise of […]