Literal translation for “Fabula de C. Lentulo”

I’ve now com­plet­ed a rough first draft of a lit­er­al trans­la­tion for our book Fab­u­la de C. Lentu­lo.

The novel­la traces Lentu­lus’s jour­ney from child­hood to adult­hood. Through his every­day experiences—playing with sib­lings, trav­el­ing to Pom­peii, and study­ing in Rome—it pro­vides a win­dow into dai­ly life, mak­ing it a valu­able read for inter­me­di­ate Latin learn­ers.

I’ll make a few more improve­ments over the next few days and then proof­read every­thing one last time, but it should­n’t be too long before we can pub­lish the trans­la­tion.

I’m a big fan of lit­er­al trans­la­tions because they act like a direct bridge to the orig­i­nal text, and that’s exact­ly what I aimed for here. Instead of try­ing to make the Eng­lish sound per­fect­ly smooth or poet­ic, I’ve kept the struc­ture and word order as close to the Latin as pos­si­ble. This way, you can eas­i­ly com­pare the two texts and see how each word and phrase trans­lates.

Anoth­er plus is that since every Eng­lish sen­tence lines up with its Latin coun­ter­part, you’ll nev­er lose your place when flip­ping between the two. So, while it might not always read like a mod­ern Eng­lish nov­el, think of this trans­la­tion as a learn­ing tool designed to help you engage with the Latin more deeply and con­fi­dent­ly.

Have a won­der­ful day!