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| + | //The Serpent and the Fire// (pp. 577-578) \\ | ||
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| + | ====== Catallus, translated by Zukofsky ====== | ||
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| + | The first three lines are taken from //Catallus 8// of a Latin poem of 19 lines, written by the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catallus. It is widely recognized for its initial notes ([[https:// | ||
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| + | //MISER Catulle, desinas ineptire,// | ||
| + | Poor Catullus, it's time you should cease your folly, | ||
| + | //et quod uides perisse perditum ducas.// | ||
| + | And account as lost what you see is lost. | ||
| + | //fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles,// | ||
| + | Once the suns shone bright on you, | ||
| + | //cum uentitabas quo puella ducebat// | ||
| + | when you used to go so often where my mistress led, | ||
| + | //amata nobis quantum amabitur nulla.// | ||
| + | she who was loved by me as none will ever be loved. | ||
| + | //ibi illa multa cum iocosa fiebant,// | ||
| + | There and then were given us those joys, so many, so merry, | ||
| + | //quae tu uolebas nec puella nolebat,// | ||
| + | which you desired nor did my lady not desire. | ||
| + | //fulsere uere candidi tibi soles.// | ||
| + | Bright to you, truly, shone the days. | ||
| + | //nunc iam illa non uult: tu quoque impotens, | ||
| + | Now she desires no more-; neither should you desire, poor madman, | ||
| + | //nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser uiue,// | ||
| + | nor follow her who flies, nor live in misery, | ||
| + | //sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura.// | ||
| + | but with resolved mind, endure, be firm. | ||
| + | //uale puella, iam Catullus obdurat,// | ||
| + | Farewell, my mistress; now Catullus is firm; | ||
| + | //nec te requiret nec rogabit inuitam.// | ||
| + | he will not seek you nor ask you against your will. | ||
| + | //at tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla.// | ||
| + | But you will be sorry, when you are not asked for. | ||
| + | //scelesta, uae te, quae tibi manet uita?// | ||
| + | Ah, poor wretch! What life is left for you? | ||
| + | //quis nunc te adibit? cui uideberis bella?// | ||
| + | Who now will visit you? To whom will you seem fair? | ||
| + | //quem nunc amabis? cuius esse diceris?// | ||
| + | Whom now will you love? Whose will you be called? | ||
| + | //quem basiabis? cui labella mordebis?// | ||
| + | Whom will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite? | ||
| + | //at tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.// | ||
| + | But you, Catullus, be resolved and firm. | ||
| + | </ | ||
| + | </ | ||
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| + | The rhythm of the poem stresses on the last few syllables or beats, as suggested in the Choliambic style of verse. Louis and Celia Zukofsky carry the rhythm and melody of the original while also sticking to the poet's meaning in their translation. The words they carefully pick for the translation are not far off from the Latin words, as [[https:// | ||
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| + | ==== Interpretation ==== | ||
| + | Interpreting Catullus' | ||
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| + | Now she won't love you; you, too, don't be weak, tense, null, | ||
| + | squirming after she runs off to miss her for life. | ||
| + | Said as if you meant it: obstinate, obdurate. | ||
| + | Vale! puling girl. I'm Catullus, obdurate, | ||
| + | I don't require it and don't beg uninvited: | ||
| + | </ | ||
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| + | **Latinate vocabulary** | ||
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| + | * [[https:// | ||
| + | * [[https:// | ||
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| + | Homophonic constraint pulls out the latinate vocabulary available in the English language. Despite the apparent feature of this poetic constraint to favor the Classic tongue of Catullus, the Germanic stretching of "love you; you, too" pulls the line longer than the rest, and makes the declaration " | ||
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| + | The plain reading of the poem lets the reader know that the dialect registers of Scottish G. S. Davies (from 1912), a more accessible accent to mimic or mock or play with in the phonic repository of a contemporary American English reader. The parallel of which a classics scholars might have out of reach in the word of linguaphobic speakers of English without a memory—alas, | ||
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| + | ===== Some Notes on Translation ===== | ||
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| + | from // | ||
| + | {{: | ||
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| + | What do we do when the translation becomes so much a new text so separated from the original written by the Roman poet, Catullus (c.85-54 BC). Perhaps the translation should deviate the most from its source, its most immediate common ancestor, that the lineage is direct through source attribution, | ||
| + | “one scholar, while refusing to cite it by name, describes it as presenting “a Catullus who seems to have stepped from the pages of Finnegans Wake” (Quoted in John Ferguson, Catullus, New Surveys in the Classics, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988, 40.) Translation as commentary on the meaning of the poem depicted through a transcription of symbolic language from one symbol system to another, in the Zukofsky’s case, Latin to English, the written word, that is, the vocabulary along with the grammatical categories of knowledge that denote “Latin” as Latin and “English” as “Hey man, can you teach me about Catullus” rather than “He him ðæs lean forgeald!” | ||
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| + | Catullus is thus variously and simultaneously the poet of tender sentiment and scandalous mores: an edition published in Edinburgh in 1961 left out one third of the corpus on the grounds that it was “unfit for commentary in English”. The poems then present a particular challenge to translators, | ||
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| + | What is the responsibility of the translator, the literary scholar, the reader, what is the point of uninhibited speech? | ||
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| + | This poem invites us to turn the critical gaze away from the autobiography of the author, or the subject of Catalus and his contemporaries as people in an anthropological or historical sense. [Signal phrase] “Translating Catullus, in the way that the Zukofsky’s propose to do it, is rather a way of holding the lyric subject at a distance, in the sense that voice arises here out of the application of a set of rules, a translation protocol” (Eastman 4). In other words, the poetic voice from the twentieth century has space to arise out of the distance between “author” and “translator” between “Latin” and “English”—a distance that distinguishes Catallus’s language, his literary latin as a distinct subject, in-part, but distinct from, the author and his time and his place; this decentered subject lets Zukofsky’s poetics take center stage. A reader who doesn’t give a hoot about Latin Classics can approach Zukofsky’s new literary creation, written in the genera of translation. | ||
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| + | =====External links===== | ||
| + | * [[https:// | ||
| + | * [[https:// | ||
| + | * [[https:// | ||
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| + | ===== References ===== | ||
| + | Eastman, Andrew. Estranging the Classic: The Zukofskys’ Catullus, Rendre étrange(r) le | ||
| + | classique : le Catullus des Zukofsky, Revue Lisa, vol. 7, no. 2, 2009, pp. 117-129, https:// | ||
| + | Link : https:// | ||
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| + | Stallings, A.E.. "Miss her, Catallus? | ||
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| + | {{tag> | ||
