Beth Platte, the Instructional Technologist for Foreign Languages, informed me of this incredible feat of Latin. It’s medieval, but I couldn’t help but share. The following is the first four lines from the Ecloga de Calvis (“In Praise of Bald Men”), a ca. 9th century CE Latin poem by the Frankish monk Hucbald, with a translation by Thomas Klein:
Carmina convitii cerritus, carpere calves
Conatus, cecinit: celebrentur carmine calvi
Conspicuo clari; carmen cognoscite cuncti.
Carmina, clarisonae, calvis cantate, Camenae.
(A brainless bloke has badly abused the bald,
Composing crude carols: so commend in chorus
The blameless bald, and bellow the ballad besides.
Bless now the bald with bright ballads, O Bards.)
The poem goes on for 146 lines in total, and every single word beings with the letter “C”. Monks clearly knew how to have fun.
Here’s a link to Klein’s translation and the full Latin text: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/1v6296zv#page-1