Index issues with Perseus Aeneid English translation

Todd Phillips

I'm not a Latin scholar or anything, but I was looking the Aeneid texts and I noticed that the Perseus English translation may have a bad index.  The translation tends to take more space and so the lines are not one to one, however they are numbered as if they are one to one.  The Logos index ("Vergillus") seems to assume they are one-for-one, and so entering a reference (like 'Vergilius, Aeneid 1.8")  takes the Perseus English translation to the wrong spot.

This is not a problem with the Loeb Classics translation. It takes a different approach and does not number the lines of the English.  Rather it provides numbers per paragraph, and this prevents the index from getting out of sync.

The problem starts early in the text and you can see it by line in the image below, where Musa/Muse is named.  The Logos Perseus resource (on the right) has it further down the page. 

The problem is compounded further in the text as the offset gets greater until the relevant section is not even visible in the window.  Here, the character of Laocoon is mentioned at 2.201, but no where is he to be found in the Perseus translation window.  The Loeb translation, though, syncs up correctly.

Interestingly, the Perseus website at Tufts does not number every line like the Logos Perseus version does, and the website version also takes a paragraph approach to the references. This makes me think that maybe the line numbers on the Logos version were add mistakenly, and this caused the index to be applied wrongly?  Here we can see that "Vergilius, Aeneid 1.8" goes to the correct line on the website:

As does reference 2.201:

This seems to say that the Logos index is wrong.

I like the Perseus translation.  It has a more classic feel.  I hope it can be made to sync up right.

Todd Phillips

I edited the original post.  I updated the second example to better show the problem. 

Todd Phillips

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/847638#Comment_847638

Bump to Faithlife.  Maybe someone might care.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/848347#Comment_848347

I care.

Greg F

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/848347#Comment_848347

Except for a couple of occasions, I've never seen Faithlife fix any of the many typos I've reported in the Loeb volumes (which people pay a pretty penny for), so I can't imagine they're going to spend internal resources cleaning up a product they give away for free. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

While they're at it, they could do a batch search and replace for ου', replacing them with the correct οὐ.

Kyle G. Anderson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/848354#Comment_848354

Thanks for the explanation Todd. I understand the issue as you explained and I think I know what is happening on our end.

I've passed this along to our resident Perseus expert. He's on his honeymoon right now so he won't be able to look at it for at least another week.

As a word of caution any updates to Perseus titles are the exception and not the norm but in a case like this I want to analyze what can be done via programmatic means.

Todd Phillips

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/848602#Comment_848602

Kyle G. Anderson said:

Thanks for the explanation Todd. I understand the issue as you explained and I think I know what is happening on our end.

I've passed this along to our resident Perseus expert. He's on his honeymoon right now so he won't be able to look at it for at least another week.

As a word of caution any updates to Perseus titles are the exception and not the norm but in a case like this I want to analyze what can be done via programmatic means.

Thanks.  I understand about Perseus. Depending on how the Perseus source data is formatted, this could be a manual process to correct.  I do think this is a significant, visible resource in that collection, and Faithlife would do well to make it work.  Hopefully it's an easy fix.