Celeris Pede retells two major events in Atalanta’s life: the Calydonian boar hunt and the footrace with Hippomenes. Told in alternating perspectives between Atalanta and Hippomenes and different timelines, Hippomenes and Atalanta find themselves bending to and from each other as their stories collide.
Celeris Pede: A Latin Novella is suitable for advanced readers of Latin. At a minimum, it could be used instructionally in the fourth year of a high school program. The first chapter of the novella is available here.
Celeris Pede: A Latin Novella is available on Amazon. It will also be available in classroom or free voluntary reading sets on Bombax Press.
About the Plot of Celeris Pede
Atlanta rages against the confinement she had never experienced as a young heroine who had traveled with Jason and the Argonauts. Her father who had abandoned her at birth has taken her from the life of freedom and adventure to life as a princess. He insists that she must marry. In her fierce anger and a desperate attempt to control her fate, she agrees to compete in a footrace that will change her life.
Hippomenes arrives in Calydon to help his old friend Meleager hunt the Calydonian boar that has rampaged through the countryside killing indiscriminately. He marvels when Jason and the Argonauts also arrive to join the hunt, but then the whispers start because Atalanta has come with them. Hippomenes’ loyalties shift as his Meleager’s behavior deteriorates and as he endeavors to stay true to his core values.
This novella has a nested structure in that the novella alternates between Atalanta’s and Hippomenes’ perspectives. Their respective storylines also occur in different timelines. Atalanta’s storyline takes place during the race while Hippomenes’s storyline takes place during the Calydonian boar hunt. While each chapter alternates between these perspectives and timelines, it is recommendable to pay attention to which storyline and timeline you are in, especially if you return to the book after some time between chapters.
I intentionally structured this book with alternate perspectives for multiple reasons. Atalanta’s slow-burn anger builds as some of the same microaggressions appear in both timelines and some of the events play off each other as the perspectives shift. For example, what Hippomenes chooses to tell Atalanta about Meleager’s death elides some of its horror, and how Atalanta remembers a key event with Hippomenes appears after Hippomenes himself experiences that same event. The details of these events bend toward and away from each other, and callbacks are common throughout the novella. I also felt strongly that Hippomenes needed to be the narrator for the Calydonian boar hunt so we could see Atlanta from outside her own perspective as various men, Hippomenes included, respond to her presence.
In writing this book, I did take some liberties with the myth. For example, I omitted Venus who plays a central role in traditional versions of this myth, such as Ovid’s, as it is she who provides the apples to Hippomenes. In my adaptation, Hippomenes would prefer to be anywhere but near a god or goddess. Further, the reference I found to Hippomenes participating in the Calydonian boar hunt was small, but I was so enamored with it, I could not abandon it once the idea of a prior acquaintance entered my head. In addition, some myths exist where Atalanta and Meleager have a relationship, but I made that a one-sided infatuation.
Note: This novella has violent scenes and scenes in which the threat of rape is a palpable reality.
About the Vocabulary and Grammar
Celeris Pede is about over 22,500 words long, and it uses 807 total words to encompass that length. Of those 807 words, 34 are glossed words that do not appear frequently, 25 are proper nouns like names of people or cities, and 224 additional words are words I consider to be clear cognates. Because of the expected age of the reader, generally expected to be a senior in high school at least, I did consider some words to be readily understandable cognates that I would not consider to be as understood at lower levels of Latin instruction. Students, then, need to have a rich, deep understanding of 525 words to read this novella.
At a minimum, this novella could be used in Latin IV in a four-year program in high school. However, this novella contains dark themes, more vocabulary than in a traditional novella, sophisticated grammar, and a complex structure, all of which may make reading this book challenging without sufficient support. It could be appropriate for extensive reading by university-level Latin students, teachers, and those with sufficient experience with the language.
Despite the vocabulary load and the advanced level, I did still write this novella with the goal of limiting vocabulary to further students’ ability to read and comprehend the story independently—just ask my editors about the words that I dug in on adding. I made extensive use of both Dickinson College Commentaries’ Core Vocabulary as well as Essential Latin Vocabulary. I aimed to have as many words as practicable appear in these two lexical resources to ensure that students who are reading this novella are being exposed to high frequency words in Latin literature. Although not all words appear in these two resources, I did make careful decisions about which vocabulary to include or excise based on these lists and chose between synonyms based on which word occurs more often in Latin literature. Further, I freely used clear cognates based on the assumption that advanced readers of Latin would have a more robust vocabulary in English and would better recognize unknown Latin vocabulary as a result, such as frīgidus and oblīviōsus.
Although I tried to ensure some repetition of all vocabulary words, I was more forgiving of using some words less often in this novella due to its intended level. At the same time, I did choose vocabulary words that had similar root words, such as spectō, īnspiciō, and respiciō. Due to the length of this book, the traditional index is omitted, but the complete dictionary is included. Irregular comparative and superlative adjectives appear with their positive forms and are not counted as separate words. For example, in the dictionary, good would appear as: bonus, bona, bonum (melior, comp.; optimus, sup.).
About the Artwork
This novella does not contain interior artwork.
The cover of this novella is by michaelangeloop on iStock. Should you wish to purchase the image yourself, its photo ID is 503085111 and available here. I made minor edits to the image to make it suitable for the cover of this book.
Sara Rude-McCune created this wonderful timeline of events in Atalanta’s life. She is a freelance artist and runs Project Shiro Studios.
About the Text Features
Celeris Pede: A Latin Novella contains a complete dictionary of all the vocabulary in this novella. This dictionary offers all the principal parts. The dictionary notes how frequently the words appear in Latin Literature according to the Core Latin Vocabulary or Essential Latin Vocabulary. Unlike other novellas published by Bombax Press, there is no index containing all the words in their unique forms. This decision was made due to the length of this novella as well as its advanced level.
If you would like to review the vocabulary used in Celeris Pede: A Latin Novella, the dictionary is available here.
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