My First Latin Lesson
By Constance Cassinelli, Inland Empire Branch
I was five years old when I had my first Latin lesson, and didn’t know it.
As a child I spent weekends at the Cassinelli farmhouse that my great grandfather Nicholas built in 1876 Ohio. There was no heat at night and little during the day. Ten of us crowded into three bedrooms, doubled up on beds, and slept under six inch thick layers of small flower patterned comforters.
I snuggled between my two Saint Ursuline Academy studious aunts in an old Renaissance Victorian bed that had a tall, carved headboard.
The elderly aunts, Mamie and Annie, who shared the second antique bed in that crowded room, snored non-stop. At some point, their disturbance was ignored. We learned to sleep through it.
Occasionally, one of them slid out the metal chamber pot that had been stored under their bed. The tin lid rattled when removed each time one of them needed to use the substitute potty. While the rooms were dark, the narrow irregular staircase that led down to the bathroom on the first floor was pitch black and unsafe, especially for the old ones.
Snoring continued.
“Amo, amas, amat,” my fourteen-year-old aunt Gladys said.
“What?” I asked but she didn’t respond to me.
Instead, she repeated herself again and again, “Amo, amas, amat?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, but she seemed stuck on repeating amat, amat, amat.
My Aunt Geege, her older sister, joined in with, amamus, amatis, amant.
“What, are you talking to me too?” I asked of this aunt, but she did not respond either.
“Amo, amas, amat,” Aunt Gladys repeated.
Aunt Geege crankily responded, “Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant,” and rolled over. She yanked on her covers and continued her sleep.
The next morning the family gathered around the massive oak table in the kitchen over a breakfast of toast, apricot preserves, bacon and heavily peppered eggs basted in bacon fat.
I recited “Amo, amas, amat,” and paused.
“Where did you hear that?” Gladys asked.
“From you.”
“What?”
Geege interrupted smugly, “Oh yes, the old ones snore and you do talk in your sleep.”
“Amamus, amatis, amant,” I struggled through having no idea what it meant.
“I never said that,” Geege responded defensively.
“Yes you did,” my little voice said. “You both did. What does it mean?”
My Aunt Gladys explained, “It is Latin. The verb that means ‘to love’ was conjugated. It means I love. you love, he, she, it loves, we, you, and they love. You hear our priest recite other words in Latin every Sunday during mass at Our Lady of Loretto.” She gave me a big hug.
“Young lady, we do not talk in our sleep or snore.” Geege said firmly.
“Never?” I asked.
“No, never,” Geege said. “That never happened.”
“Okay,” I said thinking it best to drop the subject.
Aunt Annie, who usually didn’t hear that well asked, “Were you two girls conjugating Latin verbs in your sleep again last night?”
Twelve of Constance Cassinelli’s stories have appeared
in IECWC Fresh Ink. Three are featured
in the Inland Empire California Writers Club 2019 Anthology.
Socalwritersshowcase recently ran an excerpt from
Cayenne and the Diablo Kid, her first novel.