HOW THE GRINCHUS STOLE CHRISTMAS

...Seuss's Christmas Classic in Latin By Tracy Lee Simmons Just as we were despairing that today's children, seduced by the Information Age, might never learn to read for pleasure, a new strategy to draw them back to the stacks has emerged: the translation of children's books into Latin...

...I'd translated each sentence with a strict one-to-one correspondence...

...Sat bene intellexit Grinchus noster omnes illic Laetulos In sertis visci suspendendis tunc diligen-ter ac sedulo versari...

...Then again, the lengthening of Dr...

...E spelunca tenebrosa in qua domicilium habebat exile, Invidiosulus noster fronte malitiose contracta Laetopolim infra sitam conspexit, Ubi splendebant multae fenestrae lucer-nis lucentibus luminatae...

...But not here...

...As far back as 1950, a Latin version of Pinocchio, translated by Enrico Maffacini, received a measure of critical acclaim...

...But it's a curious impulse to translate these children's classics into a language not notable for its popular reach...

...But while the challenge of translation may explain why a Latinist would bother to attempt a translation, it doesn't explain why a publisher would publish the results...

...Even the most avid multiculturalists have their limits...

...A bold idea certainly, but not one, to put it mildly, that would have occurred to most of us...

...In all of these, the translators' inventiveness is unmistakable...

...White's classic Charlotte's Web becomes Tela Char-lottae, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland steps through the looking glass as Alicia in Terra Mirabili, Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit emerges as Fabula de Petro Cuniculo, and—most visibly these days—A.A...

...The characters and plot they've borrowed, while the Grinchus is their own...

...Usually, however, composing Latin certifies one's membership amongst an elect, however shrinking...

...The translating team, Jennifer Morrish Tunberg and Terence O. Tunberg, have done a splendid job, practically creating an entirely new poem...

...One at least initially jarring effect is the unexpected expansion...

...And the challenge arises, in all likelihood, from the time-honored school practice of "Latin Composition," in which students were forced to render familiar phrases and well-known passages from modern poetry and prose into tight, syntactically secure Latin...

...The Tunbergs see it thus: Sed Utut res ipsa sese habebat, Sive corde aegro sive calceamentis invidiosulus magis afflictabatur, domi Christi natalis pridie manebat inimicitia erga Laetulos incensus...

...The original Grinch, with its clever, thumping rhythm, is a book of poet-ry—and poetry is typically what gets lost in translation...

...There can't be many of them, but surely they're out there...

...The lines dance...

...Of course, this still leaves one question: What could possibly be the point of a Winnie-the-Pooh rendered into flawless Latin—especially at a time when, despite some pockets of re-ignited ardor, Latin itself has been expelled A writer living in Arlington, Virginia, Tracy Lee Simmons is completing a book in defense of classical education...

...And, should you need a running translation, the Latin story matches the English, down to the evocative drawings accompanying the poetry...

...But if he could read Latin, he would be pleased with what he'd find: a version of the story at least as playful and inventive as the original...

...Then again, there actually may be some people buying these books to read out of love for a richly beautiful language...

...There's nothing like assembling a Latin sentence to make you feel immortal...

...Yet there the shiny volumes beckon from the shelves of the tony book stores that are so attentive to the gourmet-coffee crowd and the style-conscious parents busy raising designer children...

...Quomodo Invidiosulus Nomine Grinchus Christi Natalem Abrogaverit represents the best of the "Neo-Latin" genre, as well as another odd inversion in this age of the child: a child's book that even many adults cannot read...

...Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, translated by a pair of zealous Latin mavens...

...In short, they are the type to make sure their friends know they own such books...

...from so many schools...

...Seuss's wonderful lines may just arise from the Tunbergs' sheer exuberance...

...The typical buyer probably belongs to that legion of the Upwardly Mobile—the type who display their college degrees prominently (the only other Latin in the house), drive a Volvo, recycle religiously, and pledge regularly to PBS...

...they're for adults...

...To say you have rendered a modern book into Latin is saying something...

...A real Latin translator would have realized that Kennedy's rhetoric called for long, high-flown Ciceronian periods, and not the short, Senecan sentences I produced...

...Back when I was taking composition, I volunteered to translate President Kennedy's inaugural address into Latin: Itaque concives mei Americani, ne rogetis quid patria vestra pro vobis facere possit . . . Although I underestimated the work involved by a factor of ten, it proved immensely satisfying and won me an A. I thought I had earned my toga virilis for sure...

...For he knew every Who down in Who-ville beneath Was busy now, hanging a mistletoe wreath...

...It's a safe bet that few of them are reading Virgil or Livy or any other genuine Roman author in their spare time...

...Forming sentences and paragraphs with the requisite precision turned them into natives—or at least that was the idea...

...The act of composition enhanced students' comfort with Latin, increased their confidence, and made the language their own...

...Little will be ruined for the prospective reader, I hope, if I say that this rendition holds no surprises: "GRINCHUS carnem laetior Laetulis laete secat...

...But exactly which adults...

...Obviously, people are buying these books...

...brilliant folks have occupied themselves in worse ways...

...Here's something for that precocious ten-year-old finally bored with TV and computer games...

...For initiates, though, this is a delightful book...

...Quite clearly, these books aren't for children...

...The child who can recite from memory the story of the evil Grinch who tried in vain to destroy Christmas for every Who down in Who-ville might chafe at the alterations...

...Still, it is Latin—Quomodo Invidio-sulus Nomine Grinchus Christi Natalem Abrogaverit—and not particularly easy...

...Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh sweetens itself into Winnie Ille Pu, blurbed in the latest edition as a New York Times bestseller (which it was, back in 1961...

...Winnie Ille Pu saw the light in the early 1960s, and its success prompted Latin renderings of Ferdinand the Bull, The Wizard of Oz, and Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince before the fad withered...

...A Latin Winnie isn't so much to be read as to be seen...

...But the Tunbergs take another tack, one that may derive from the problems they faced creating their new Latin rhythms...

...If you've retained enough of your Latin grammar, the Tunbergs have provided an extensive vocabulary at the back of the book to help you through the thicket of uncommon words...

...But in looking over my work recently, I found that it was a perfect cheat...

...A little digging, though, reveals that this strange urge to chisel children's books into the granite of Latin has been around for some time...

...Latin usually compresses, reducing the number of words required for a thought or expression...

...Marvelous stuff—if you can read it—and the work of two people who know their craft, but clearly it's not for the beginner...

...Consider the following: But, Whatever the reason, His heart or his shoes, He stood there on Christmas Eve, hating the Whos, Staring down from his cave with a sour, Grinchy frown At the warm lighted windows below in their town...

...But who are they...

...A child's book in Latin seems roughly as useful as a Pet Rock...

...But for those who can, it is a frolic...

...For centuries, students dreaded these composition courses, but there were benefits...

...So now, just in time for Christmas, we find the bouncy rhythms and kaleidoscopic wordplay of Dr...

...Nor have Disney's characters been left untouched: Devotees can read volume after brighdy colored volume of the comic-book adventures of Michael Musculus and Donaldus Anas...

...E.B...

...There is, of course, the challenge of it...

...Sounding out each line reveals an astute artistry, even to the Latinless...