Rough draft of Book I translated into the literal and the figurative and available online

[bedtime]

As many regulars here have seen, I am in the process of translating Caesar's De Bello Gallico (book I). There was some interest in having access to all the chapters, and as I have finally found a way to share it, it is now free to be viewed.

I wrote it (with the help of LD Forums! ) to be used as an easy, quick, and carefree side-by-side english and latin translation that one can read before bed or when one is wanting to read latin but is feeling lazy and does not want to rifle through pages for vocab and grammar info.

You may note that there is a book called Caesar Completely Parsed which does just that, but this book has the following advantages over it:

• It is available as a PDF, txt, epub, doc... and was made to be easily converted into other formats
• It can be viewed comfortably on a tablet or phone
• It may be edited, merged, or added onto
• The text is not derived from a facsimile, so it is crisp and clear and can be changed
• The text (PDF, txt, doc...) is selectable and able to be easily copied
• The font is coloured which helps with distinguishing differing parts of text
• It is fully public domain, and free, and will remain so
• Some translations have the vocab at the back of the book. Some have same page or sentence vocab. This has same phrase vocab which is directly under the phrase, along with notes on grammar—no flipping back and forth!
• All chapters are broken down into numbered sentences which may be read as a whole in the original macronized latin. This is vital as one must be able to read the full sentence before translating it correctly. It may also be used in a PDF in such a way as to allow point and click answers (which I have yet to do). Right below is a phrase by phrase break down which is sensibly arranged according to conjunctions.

Please note that the book is still a work in progress, and that I have only one year of latin experience. This is basicially a learning project for me. It is currently completely translated into the literal and the figurative, but it was rushed, and I've not taken the time to double-check for mistakes (of which there are likely an embarassing number), nor have I added the many essentials which books generally have; it is just bare bones at present.

The layout still needs to be formatted correctly for consistancy as the first 28 chapters or so differ slightly from the remaining, and I would like to add more dictionary definitions.

The book can be viewed or download here if anyone is interested.

Enjoy!

 

[Callaina]

A couple things about the title:

- Volumen is neuter, so interpretatus should be interpretatum;
and
- a bedtimus should be a bedtimo.

 

[bedtime]

A couple things about the title:

- Volumen is neuter, so interpretatus should be interpretatum;
and
- a bedtimus should be a bedtimo.

Thanks, I will fix it soon.

* Edit * The reason I say soon is that whenever I edit the main file, I have to upload the book again, and this causes the text to be unavailable for a time, so I prefer to do this when I get enough suggestions. As for now the text title on the website is changed.

 

[Dantius]

"anglicus" in "ad verbum in anglicus versum" should be "anglicum".
"absentes" should be "absentia" to agree with "verba".
In the last one, "verba" and "positae" do not agree.

 

[Dantius]

Those seem to me like ablatives of separation, as it divides the Gauls from the Aquitani.

 

[Dantius]

Inconsistent order of principal parts. In most of your definitions the perfect stem comes before the supine stem, except for this one.

 

[Dantius]

Inconsistent spelling of "cotidianus". In the text up top it has one t, in the definition it has two t's.
(that's all I have time to look at today, but I'll keep looking at it in the future.)

 

[Dantius]

Overall though it looks well done.

 

[bedtime]

Those seem to me like ablatives of separation, as it divides the Gauls from the Aquitani.

Hmmm, you seem correct here, but now I'm questioning the book that gave me this info.

Inconsistent order of principal parts. In most of your definitions the perfect stem comes before the supine stem, except for this one...

...Inconsistent order of principal parts. In most of your definitions the perfect stem comes before the supine stem, except for this one.

Good eye! And btw, I like the picutre quoting!

I've made the changes and added a new file. It may take 30 minutes or so to populate.


Also, I changed the entire book/chapter/sentence numbering of every chapter heading and sentence marker (up to chapter 30) as I find it makes searching easier.


Ex.

CAPVT​

I.II.I​

​

​

I.II.I. ...

I.II.II. ...

I.II.III. Id hoc facilius iis persuasit, quod undique loci natura Helvetiicontinentur...


Now a person could type "I.II.III" and be guaranteed to arrive at book I, chap II, sentence III. Although this may seem a little overboard, I found that it is extremely helpful when rifling through a txt file. Previously, I found I was having to scroll back up to the top of the chapter to find out where I was. Now every sentence has this information.

Tell me what you think guys.

 

[Dantius]

"anglicus" in "ad verbum in anglicus versum" should be "anglicum".
"absentes" should be "absentia" to agree with "verba".
In the last one, "verba" and "positae" do not agree.

You still haven't changed this.

 

[Dantius]

Rather strange to put "Caesar" into these, as any Latin writer who knows basic grammar or style would do these.
For the first one, just say "Clauses of Purpose are most often..."
For the second one: "As often, the adjective (here a relative adj.), is placed before the preposition"
etc.

 

[Dantius]

"persuadet" has a footnote marker after it but no footnote.

 

[bedtime]

You still haven't changed this.

I remember changing it, but it seems I didn't save it properly.

Rather strange to put "Caesar" into these, as any Latin writer who knows basic grammar or style would do these.
For the first one, just say "Clauses of Purpose are most often..."
For the second one: "As often, the adjective (here a relative adj.), is placed before the preposition"
etc.

Almost all grammatical notes are just copy/paste/format from another book. And I, too, found it a trifle strange. I wil fix these to be more in line with latin in general when I come across them. It's not a top priority of mine, but it will get done eventually.

"persuadet" has a footnote marker after it but no footnote.

Added the definition. Thanx.

 

[bedtime]

Just wanted to let you guys know that I have not abandoned the De Bello Gallico forum—I have been working on this book several a day for the past month.


Here is an update for those interested:

• Draft for all literal and figurative translations, as well as a decent number of footnotes and definitions have been completed for all chapters of Book I.
• Complete revision of text format as I have just started using Openoffice.
• Clickable chapter links in PDF for all 54 chapters; both on page and built into PDF's book mark system.
• Clickable footnotes up to chapter 4 (the remaining footnotes are all present, but they need to be formatted)
• Headers have been started, though I need to read up on how to change them to different chapters; they contain the B.C. date of the current page, chapter title, and book/chapter number. The footer has the page number
• Section for credits and a dedication.
• New PDF is just 1.7 mb @ 550+ pgs (vs 20 mb+)—Super quick loading and scrolling! Pics have much better resolution as the file is now rendered in lossless.
• Text is now configured in such a manner that it will never be cut off at the end of the page (which results in having to flip pages back and forth)
• Pages in publishable format A5 (8" x 5") with spine space, so you will see margins flip-flop slightly if reading in PDF

Much of what remains is looking over the latin and doing a massive amount of formatting.


Here is an updated copy (PDF format is also available):

https://archive.org/details/LiberIDraft

 

[bedtime]

You'd almost think I scared everyone away.

After going back and reviewing the beginning chapters, I could see why; there were so many small, silly mistakes that I overlooked in my haste to get it done.

I'm also thinking maybe my copyright upset people? Keep in mind that the PDF will always be free and that I am only asking people not to sell this book, as perhaps some time in the future I may pay for an editor and publish this professionally, the PDF and ebook would be free—Anyone know a decent latin editor?

At present I am mostly concerned with format and functionality input; after I add all the vocab, I will begin to post specific questions on content.

I would like some input now on how it looks. I am hoping that it is user friendly, fun and easy to read, and informative—one thing I don't like about many latin texts is flipping through pages endlessely to look up grammar and definitions, and this book solves that for the most part with same page footnotes.


The current state of the book is:

• All chapters are readible and have full literal and figurative translations in addition to direct oratio recta latin text (when applicable)
• I have attempted to add the vocabulary for every word, which will appear once per word (regardless of sense of the word.) and have added most vocabulary up to chapter 12.
• All vocabulary definitions come directly from L & S or the Lewis Elementary dictionary and should all be in their proper senses.
• Several clickable A & G grammar rules (in PDF format) have been added and will appear, with a short rule outline, once per rule per chapter, and will appear as a mere ref. number for the remainder of each chapter. They can be looked up in the back of the book or in the A & G guide.
• There are approx. 3000 footnotes, including definitions, at present.

The book can be viewed here:
https://archive.org/details/LiberIDraft

 

[bathtime]

Big update to the book. If anyone would like to check it and comment on layout and format, it would be greatly appreciated.

Changes:

• Several textual changes made to translations
• New Vocabulary section at the back
• Several new vocabulary entries added (both entries and senses)
• Added many vocabulary references to DBG in definitions
• Fixed much of the formatting in the Appendix section
• New beautiful Adobe Garamond font
• Changed and updated Creative Commons Copyright both in type and appearance; now 4.0
• All text kerned and spacing better optimised
• Footnote formatting has been fixed (to be made more consistent)
• Tables and titles better optimised
• Changes to margin sizes to better reflect the average book
• Under the hood changes such as sectioning of all chapters, streamlining of document styles and characters, and decorrupting of the file through copying contents... All leading to a vastly decreased document loading time (12s vs 90s) and decreased file size (2.1 vs 6mb)

I had Lulu print this book. It has been sent out and shall arrive shortly. It is ONLY a draft, but I wanted to have it in the paper to check font size and general appearance. I do not plan to sell this book.

https://archive.org/details/DeBelloGallico

What do you think? Anything I can add or change?

 

[Dantius]

It's good, and you've definitely put a lot of hard work into this. It seems like a helpful very comprehensive resource and I'm sure that even if you don't intend to sell it you've definitely learned a lot and improved your skills in the process of making it. Anyway, here are some comments on things I think could be improved (or things I like)
Initial impressions:

• It should be de verbo on the front, not de verbum.
• The proportion of notes to text on each page is such that I lose track of what's going on in the text after spending so much time reading the notes. Perhaps after each chapter/chunk you could have a page with just the Latin text and a fuller accompanying translation so that readers can easily re-read it as a unit for comprehension of the narrative.
• I like this design:

• I feel like this book is constantly screaming at me with all the capitalized notes:

It's kind of stressful to read, and the red color doesn't necessarily help.

Some more specifics:

• 
  I don't think it's really necessary to tell you that an adjective has a comparative and superlative since most adjectives do - if you really want such things it would probably be better to only note the adjectives that don't have comp. and sup. forms.
• ad is inconsistently glossed on two consecutive pages:

Also, what's "Error: Reference Source Not Found"?

• extremus is listed as "ADJ. SUP." but proximus is just listed as "ADJ.". Both are superlatives.
• 
• The stuff about interfectus est is a bit misleading/unhelpful here because that's talking about the reasons for the formation of the perfect passive tense, but you've just said that est...divisa is not perfect passive. It would be better to put a note about uses of participles as adjectives or something.

 

[Dantius]

Regarding the green translation, if you're rendering it as passive, you should be consistent and say "another [is inhabited] by the Aquitani".
I don't see the need to render it as passive at all; you can mostly preserve the word order actively as well and it sounds better to me: "Gaul is divided into 3 parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit...".

I don't like adding the et into the translation because I think asyndeton is something that should be preserved in the translation; it doesn't sound too wrong in English.

 

[bathtime]

It's good, and you've definitely put a lot of hard work into this. It seems like a helpful very comprehensive resource and I'm sure that even if you don't intend to sell it you've definitely learned a lot and improved your skills in the process of making it.

If perchance the LD community wanted to make this a special project and help edit it, I have no issue with selling it and donating all proceeds to the LD forum. It wouldn't make much, but it might be a great way to get people together.

It should be de verbo on the front, not de verbum.

Fixed.

The proportion of notes to text on each page is such that I lose track of what's going on in the text after spending so much time reading the notes. Perhaps after each chapter/chunk you could have a page with just the Latin text and a fuller accompanying translation so that readers can easily re-read it as a unit for comprehension of the narrative.

Are you saying to have an uninterrupted translation of a sentence or paragraph at the end of the broken down bits? So as to see what it looks like altogether?.. I like the idea; though, it would add many pages to the overall text—the printed book can only have a max of 800pgs, so something would have to go. As to having footnotes at the end of each chapter, I do like the same page notes better: the whole point of them is that the reader does not have to flip back and forth, but if someone else agrees, I could easily change this and have this new version be the one that is posted on archive.org; it only takes the a few seconds to impliment anyways.

I like this design:

Good, I'll keep it then. I was wondering if it had any appeal.

I feel like this book is constantly screaming at me with all the capitalized notes:

It's kind of stressful to read, and the red color doesn't necessarily help.

Notes that are grammar related were put in small caps, so as to be immediately known as such. The red colour was merely chosen as to be different with the other text so that it would not look all the same. At the touch of a button I can make all this text a regular case, and I can change the colour. I like the red, but I will look into different colours. Again, if I am to make this change, I would need someone else to chime in to be sure that there is a consensus.

Some more specifics:

I don't think it's really necessary to tell you that an adjective has a comparative and superlative since most adjectives do - if you really want such things it would probably be better to only note the adjectives that don't have comp. and sup. forms.

Agreed and changed for entire document.

ad is inconsistently glossed on two consecutive pages:

Fixed.

Also, what's "Error: Reference Source Not Found"?

Sometimes moving things around and formatting them cause a link to be lost. I fix these as I see them. This one is fixed now.

extremus

is listed as "ADJ. SUP." but proximus is just listed as "ADJ.". Both are superlatives.

Fixed. I will go throw the document and add the 'sup.' to all superlative adjectives that are defined when I can work in the time.

The stuff about interfectus est is a bit misleading/unhelpful here because that's talking about the reasons for the formation of the perfect passive tense, but you've just said that est...divisa is not perfect passive. It would be better to put a note about uses of participles as adjectives or something.

Agreed and fixed. I merely took that part of the note away and added pertinent examples instead.

Regarding the green translation, if you're rendering it as passive, you should be consistent and say "another [is inhabited] by the Aquitani".
I don't see the need to render it as passive at all; you can mostly preserve the word order actively as well and it sounds better to me: "Gaul is divided into 3 parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit...".

This is odd. I looked at the English translation on Perseus, and indeed, it wasn't in the passive either. Most of the literal text is copied from it without any change, but somehow this got mixed up. I fixed it.

I don't like adding the et into the translation because I think asyndeton is something that should be preserved in the translation; it doesn't sound too wrong in English.

I removed the et and replaced it with a footnote referring the reader to A&G §601c (a note pertaining to asyndetons).


Thank you for taking the time to write out all these suggestions. I admit, that I have rushed through this work and have not taken the time to look for inconsistencies. I can post the changes to archive.org in a few weeks (they will suspend my account if I change it too much, as they have done the last two times ). If you want, I could try posting a .pdf.zip file to the site. That way it would not have to completely reupdate the book and they may be less apt to suspend my account.


***EDIT***

Okay, I've just changed the footnotes to a dark gray, and it seems to be growing on me. I also tried making the small caps which seemed to yell out, into regular form, and I think you were right.

What do you think of small capping only the very first part of the vocab entries (e.g., the 'adj.' and root of the word) as such?:


nōbilis, -e, ADJ. (GNA-), that is known, well-known, famous, noted, celebrated, renowned; High-born, of noble birth, noble (usu. of families from which the high offices of state had been filled)

In any event, the entries would be made such that they could be changed either way with the press of a button.

Question: would it be worth specifying if an adj. as a positive (as with 'pos.')?

 

[Matthaeus]

Not sure whether this was mentioned already, but it would also be ideal and cool if all U's in the Latin text were changed to V's.