Paris (AFP)

"Fluctuat NEC mergitur"?

The Pleiade Library publishes a "Bilingual Anthology of Latin Poetry" on Thursday, when few readers can yet read Cicero's language.

Few languages ​​have had the honor of entering the prestigious collection of Gallimard editions: in addition to Old French, there has only been English, German, Spanish, Italian and Latin, already, with the complete works of Virgil in 2015.

Faced with four very living languages, the question arises ex abrupto: will this twenty-first century make Latin a truly dead language, deprived ad vitam aeternam of speakers?

"No", answers AFP Philippe Cibois, sociologist, who follows the trends in the teaching of rosa, rosam, rosae.

"On average, all classes combined, 12 or 13% of students learn ancient languages, especially Latin now, very little Greek. It is a solid rock in education and the 7,000 Latin teachers in France are very active to promote their subject ".

"I'm sure there will be many readers who will like to have this Pleiad in their library," he bet.

Without necessarily reading the left page a lot, in original version: "That's all the benefit of subtitling. We appreciate a language without needing to be very efficient".

The volume covers of course Roman literature, starting with Livius Andronicus (3rd century BC), passing through the classics Ovid or Catullus.

But also the Middle Ages, where Alain de Lille has alias Alanus de Insulis, the modern ... and contemporary period, with verses by Pascal Quignard published in 1979, "Inter aerias fagos" ("Among the aerial beeches").

- Baudelaire or Rimbaud -

As Philippe Heuzé, professor of Latin literature at Sorbonne Nouvelle, wrote in an introductory note, Latin poetry "has the remarkable particularity of running over two thousand three hundred years".

"19th century authors have an original production in Latin, such as Baudelaire, or Rimbaud who won a first prize for Latin verses. It is almost militant to remember that such important authors are bilingual poets", notes Pierre-Alain Caltot, lecturer in Latin language and literature at the University of Orleans.

Rimbaud's poem is called "Ver erat" ("It was spring", 1868), and seems to prefigure "Le Dormeur du val" (1870).

"Iacui uiridanti in fluminis ora": "I lay down on the green bank of a river".

"I have a real hope for the future of the language, not without anxiety, but based on the idea that one cannot do without Latin, that without knowledge of Latin one cannot understand what are for example epic, satire, even the writing of history, "says Mr. Caltot.

"The question always arises of knowing what it is for, at a time when everything must pay immediately, and I was going to say that it is of no use directly. Except to cultivate your garden".

But it is a daily struggle, when it is necessary to convince the parents of secondary school pupils to add an optional subject to already loaded programs.

Philippe Cibois would almost do his mea culpa.

"I did Latin from 6th to 1st, in classical high school. At the beginning it was okay, but at the end I was drowned: after my studies I said to myself that Latin, it was necessary to suppress that, that it brought failing students ... And then, when my daughter was old enough to do it, I said to myself that we could not deprive her of that culture ".

Nolens volens.

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