Catullus 93, 38, 111
Jan. 22nd, 2020 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
essivecaseI asked for random numbers between 1 and 116 inclusive on twitter - thank you to Ell, Gray, and Ben for flinging these ones my way! Slowly trying to flex my poetic muscles by translating some Latin poetry, and thought I'd begin with an old fave, Catullus.
My style of translation, or at least the one I'm working with now, is all about maintaining sentiment and linguistic resonances with the original Latin, while not necessarily staying perfectly true to their grammar, and throwing out some of the artificial formality you'll find in all the old school translations of Latin. These three poems, as many of Catullus' do, contain references to his friends and acquaintances (and others) by name. Catullus was the master of the (usually nasty) namedrop. So I guess I'm being subversive by removing those references, but mostly I thought, after looking at how I'd translated the poems, it was pointless for me to use my words as a vehicle for his complaint to Caesar, when he already said it so eloquently, and in words Caesar would have understood. There's certainly room for more contextually grounded translations, but when I'm just messing around with language, I feel that the namedrops don't add anything. So here are the three poems, and hopefully I'll be translating more in days to come!
Content warnings: poem 111 mentions incest.
93
i’m not caught up wanting to please you, though you’re in charge of me,
and i don’t care what kind of man you are, brilliant or boring.
38
things are bad, friend, things are bad for me,
things are bad, laborious, like i’m some kind of hercules,
and worse, worse, with the days and the hours,
and you — though it’s nothing, it’s easy —
have you spared any kind words to comfort me?
i hate you, this is how you love me?
i’d even be happy with a few pleasantries,
when i’m sadder than a poet’s tears.
111
darling, a life bound to one man only
is a joy of marriage above all other joys:
but give in to whoever you want, however you can,
rather than mother your father’s brother’s boys.
My style of translation, or at least the one I'm working with now, is all about maintaining sentiment and linguistic resonances with the original Latin, while not necessarily staying perfectly true to their grammar, and throwing out some of the artificial formality you'll find in all the old school translations of Latin. These three poems, as many of Catullus' do, contain references to his friends and acquaintances (and others) by name. Catullus was the master of the (usually nasty) namedrop. So I guess I'm being subversive by removing those references, but mostly I thought, after looking at how I'd translated the poems, it was pointless for me to use my words as a vehicle for his complaint to Caesar, when he already said it so eloquently, and in words Caesar would have understood. There's certainly room for more contextually grounded translations, but when I'm just messing around with language, I feel that the namedrops don't add anything. So here are the three poems, and hopefully I'll be translating more in days to come!
Content warnings: poem 111 mentions incest.
93
i’m not caught up wanting to please you, though you’re in charge of me,
and i don’t care what kind of man you are, brilliant or boring.
38
things are bad, friend, things are bad for me,
things are bad, laborious, like i’m some kind of hercules,
and worse, worse, with the days and the hours,
and you — though it’s nothing, it’s easy —
have you spared any kind words to comfort me?
i hate you, this is how you love me?
i’d even be happy with a few pleasantries,
when i’m sadder than a poet’s tears.
111
darling, a life bound to one man only
is a joy of marriage above all other joys:
but give in to whoever you want, however you can,
rather than mother your father’s brother’s boys.
