I was really excited that it was Cicero since I'm turning into a Latin nerd (as a side note I looked like I actually knew my stuff when Cicero came up in my MARS seminar last week). However, being the Latin nerd I am slowing turning into, id mei animo nocet to see a Cicero quote in English (thanks Wheelock!). So I scoured the internet (looked at the first 10 results on Google), and then thought, Hey, I've learned most of these words, I can probably do a bad translation of this. As such, here is my translation (though I've substituted locus instead of "room" as I had trouble finding a satisfactory word for "room", and "place" still gets the message across):
I read a quote recently in Les Miserables that was very interesting to me because Hugo described is as being written in "barbarous" (or "dog") Latin. Hugo was discussing a superstition in the region of Montfermeil that the devil had chosen the forest as his hiding place for his treasureand would bury it at night and the one who came upon his treasure would meet certain death. Tryphon, a Norman monk/sorceror, was said to have written the following about the superstition:
As, nummas, lapides, cadaver, simulacra, nihilque."
My basic understanding of this quote is "he digs, and finds treasure in the dark ditch, coins, corpse, phantoms, and nothing."). Even to me this seems like terrible Latin, and makes me appreciate Wheelock that much more. Ugh.
Finally, I have to share this, as someone obsessed with all things British (esp Corrie):
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