Virent Ova! Viret Perna!!: Green Eggs and Ham in Latin

C’mon! Try them, in Latin. Sam-I-am’s smiling enthusiasm for the seemingly unappetizingly tinted green eggs and ham is undaunted, despite repeated disdain shown by an unnamed, dour disparager. Sam will not give up, though, and offers the dish over and over, proposing that it be sampled under sometimes whacky circumstances and in odd locales (with a goat, on a boat, in the rain, on a train, in a box, with a fox, etc.). In the end Sam does get the grumpy disparager to take a taste—if only to get Sam off his back. The disparager’s demeanor quickly changes to all smiles when he discovers to his surprise that disdained green eggs and ham are, in fact, quite tasty. Sam-I-am, yet another delightfully plucky Seuss protagonist, allows both adults and humans to look—with the objectivity humor so adeptly affords—at our all-too-human tendency towards knee-jerk negativity in response to anything that is new or different. Special Features Dr. Seuss’ perennial favorite, Green Eggs and Ham, is here rendered in spirited Latin: in trochaic rhythm with rhyme in the last two syllables, a sprightly verse-form that goes toe-to-toe with Seuss’s whimsical drawings. Virent Ova! Viret Perna!! is a true delight—Latin as it is infrequently experienced: fun, exhilarating, ebullient. This Latin-language edition is a welcome, all-occasion gift, a delightful way to revisit a treasured tale, and an enjoyable way to refresh your high school Latin. Fast-moving Latin translation that echoes the lighthearted spirit of the original Original artwork of Dr. Seuss Latin-to-English vocabulary Note on “How to Read these Verses”