This is the
way both my dad and my great Italian/Latin teacher used to re-arrange the
beginning of the “De Bello Gallico” written by the emperor Julius Caesar around
the years 57 – 58 b.c.
In fact
this is the exact, original way this war-reports starts:” Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres” when both
my dad and my great teacher would say it in a more melodic way, that’s this: “Gallia divisa est omnia in partes tres”.
This is
actually my most beloved text in Latin language I ever studied and translated;
do know that Caesar didn’t used to be the only writer who was given to learn
this language at school (Liceo) Virgil,
Horace, Seneca, St. Augustine and so on, depending on the chosen teaching
direction of the teacher (professor).
Then – of
course there were always the so called sadistic
professors of “(Catholic) religion” – bible in Latin………..of philosophy
- Scipio, Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca, and Epithet – and even the professor of
mathematics with the original writings in Latin of Pitagora and even Galileo
Galilei, who no matter that he spoke and wrote in the most correct and original
Italian language – don’t forget that the first “official” Italian happened because
Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy all in the Italian language as it was
used by the people at all class levels in Tuscany – however he had to write his
scientific observations and about his studies in Latin because it used to be
the official language of the Vatican (empire) for centuries.
In short
for someone like me who chose to attend the “Liceo Scientifico” rather than the
“Classico” one, I got my share of classical authors to translate from Latin
into Italian (my
mother tongue), but
– as it happens to everyone – one specific writing got stuck in my brain and
heart or the “De Bello Gallico”.
Rather than
bore you with the original Latin text of the introduction of the “De Bello
Gallico” I just put here the link in orange
of a website that contains the entire report of the war against the Germans
with – at its side – the translation in English, that’s so well done that I
feel somehow proud to have found something like this, without really looking
for it.
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