Language Studies

My Entry

Word Count: 998 words

Not for the first time, I find myself sitting at my desk, cradling my head in my hands, and asking myself that question: “What on Earth was I thinking?” Half-drunk mugs of tepid tea litter the desk-top, testament to my many sleepless nights. Books of all shapes and sizes lie open in front of me, words swimming off the page; I notice one or two reclining on the floor, thrown there in a fit of exasperated temper.

Learning Latin had seemed like a good idea at the time. I loved the Romans, and their Graecus counterparts, and having decided at 21 to become a Classicist, studying the language was the natural first step. My mistake was in thinking I could learn enough to sit an exam in three months. Whilst juggling a full time job, two demanding pets, and all the other merda life likes to throw into the mix. People call me crazy; I prefer to think of myself as ambitious.

I glance at the clock - nearly two am. Credit where it’s due; I don’t usually make it past about ten pm voluntarily. I tell myself this shows dedication. Not insanity. “I’ll just finish this chapter” I decide.

Thus, I bravely soldier on. I make my way through pensa, through exercitia, grammatica Latina, until I can barely remember my own name, or if I am a femina, or what exactly a peristylum actually is. I’m almost there; I’m on the last page, and I can see the finish line. Then I see the heading; Adjectivus Comparativus, and something inside me breaks.

“What the hell does that mean?” I shout involuntarily, sending one of my teacups flying. As I come to the realisation that what it actually means is yet another set of adjective endings to learn, I start to consider just giving up. There’s no way I’m passing this exam. Two weeks away and I’ve discovered a huge hole in my subject knowledge. I feel hot tears welling up, only to have them shocked away by a male voice coming from the corner of the room:

“Calm down, you can do this.” I stare in disbelief at a man dressed in a simple Roman toga, and amazingly, I do calm down. This guy is a senex, an old man with a wise look, but he’s grey and pale, like a ghost. In fact I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what he is. I should be freaking out, but remembering a strange conversation I had at work one night, I know he’s here to help.

We had this elderly lady dining alone, and I spent a long time speaking to her that evening. She was lonely, telling me a lot about her life, and asking me about mine. My Latin studies came up, and a little later, she told me; “You don’t need to worry about the Latin, you’ve got someone helping you.” She proceeded to tell me about the old man standing behind me. He’d been my teacher in a past life, she said. Apparently I was only re-learning a language I already knew. At the time I’d simply dismissed her words, but looking at this man, I recall the goosebumps I’d felt on my neck as she’d spoken, and I find myself smiling.

“Marcus.” Don’t ask me how I know his name. I have no way of explaining anything that happens after that. What I remember of it all is blurry, but I seem to almost faint, slipping away into a world I believe I must once have been a part of.

I’m sitting cross-legged on a sheepskin rug, chanting with a group of children who must be no more than three or four years old. “Unus, duo, tres, quattor, quinque, sex, septem, octo, novem, decem...” I look down and feel shock as I realise that my body is also that of a very young child. Even more surprising; it’s that of a male child. The man towering over us in his toga is clearly Marcus, old and wise, but far more in focus now. He seemed kind to me before, but now he looks strict – a teacher’s face. He winks at me though, and I get this weird feeling of being both here, as a puer Latinus, and of being myself, an English woman who’s apparently having a very bizarre hallucination.

Running through my little boy’s head are many jumbled thoughts – “I want to go and play, I’m hungry, I wonder if father will be home today.” But what’s giving adult me a headache is that his- no, my, thoughts are in Latin, and I understand them perfectly. Sure, it’s a pretty basic train of thought, but it’s still something which might take minutes for me to translate in the ordinary run of things.

Our magister speaks, dismissing us, and we all run off, playing and laughing. We run through thronging streets, racing one another and tripping up a servus. I navigate my way through a city I know like the back of hand, simultaneously marvelling at the beauty of the Roman architecture I know I have never seen before.

I overhear snippets of conversations as varied as they are many; children arguing over who’s the strongest, men haggling over jewellery for their wives, slaves discussing their masters in whispers. From a child’s perspective, there’s the odd word I don’t know, but the flow of conversations drift over me as naturally a wave breaks over the sand. It’s a dizzying world of colours and sounds and sights which are both alien to me and completely natural.

Time passes; I get a Roman meal, a Roman bath, a Roman woman sings me to sleep. I wake as myself; a tired young woman with her head on the keyboard. My teacher is gone, but I know he’ll come if I need him. I feel confidence in myself as I head to my warm, welcoming bed, smiling as I realise I know exactly what a comparative adjective is.