Eight girls from St Mary’s school in Calne recently headed off to Bryanston School in Dorset for the annual Latin and Greek Reading Competition, judged by Mr Charles Holland and Professor Llewelyn Morgan from Brasenose College, Oxford.
The organisers were delighted that St Mary’s Calne entered so many students across four different categories, and it was wonderful for the students to spend the afternoon listening to literature that would have been received orally rather than in its written form by the Greeks and Romans.
The feedback from both judges was constructive and informative; they noted the tension between maintaining the rhythm of the meter in Greek and Latin poetry while also conveying meaning, and commented on details such as the nuance of elision and pace and the challenge of conveying Tacitus’ pessimism in a performance.
The girls performed a wide range of texts – from the impassioned and angry outburst of Theseus in Euripides’ Hippolytus, to Andromache’s desperate (and ultimately, unsuccessful) plea to her husband Hector not to fight in Troy, to Horace’s farewell to love and the cynicism of Tacitus narrating Nero’s plot to kill his mother, Agrippina.
“Duelling with the academic elite of the South West, the girls all did themselves and the Classics department proud,” said Mrs Lucy Weeden, Head of Classics. “Particular congratulations go to Heidi who won the Intermediate Greek category; Guinevere and Amelia, who came third and second in the Senior Greek respectively; and Tabi and Silver, who despite being in LV, came joint first in the Senior Latin Prose competition.”
