Further to my last post on teaching the Aeneid in translation, I got my Welsh a bit wrong because the e-mail escaped before I had checked it properly. 'Virgil' was 'Fyrsil' or 'fferyll' and 'fferyll' meant also an alchemist or magician (because that is what they thought Virgil was). From this is derived 'fferyllydd' (a chemist or pharmacist) and 'siop fferyllydd' (a chemist's shop or pharmacy). A single 'f' is pronounced like mod. English 'v' and a double 'ff' like mod. English 'f'.
I suppose one could say 'fferyllydd' also means 'a Virgilian'. The Welsh is a difficult word for non-Welsh speakers to pronounce, but it approximates very roughly to 'ferulthlith'. Phew! Glad I got that straight: almost as bad as writing 'habebant' for 'habebat'. Patrick Roper ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
