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It looks like I'm translating Catullus this summer, for lack of a better idea and because, hey, I have a copy of The Student's Catullus anyway. (Which is the sort of thing one accumulates when one is prone to impulse buying in the textbook section of the university co-op.) I'm going to do my best to go through these poems in order, but I may skip exceptionally boring or difficult ones.
But not the exceptionally dirty ones, because where would the fun be in that? I will, however, give a warning for those ones.
To start with, I'm going to try to replicate line breaks very roughly in the places where they occur in the actual poems. I am not going to try to do anything with meter or rhyme, because I'm more interested in accuracy than displaying my own poetic cleverness. However, in many places "approximately accurate line breaks" and "English that does not sound hideously awkward or outright ungrammatical" are going to be at odds, and in those cases I'll defer to the latter.
Catullus 1
To whom do I give a witty little new book,
polished with dry pumice?*
To you, Cornelius; for you generally think
that my nonsense amounts to something,
when now you alone of all Italians dared
to explain a whole age in three volumes--
by Jupiter, skilled and laborious ones!
So have for yourself whatever sort of little book
this could be; may this, O maiden patron,**
remain forever, for more than one generation.
---
* The ends of a rolled scroll were polished smooth with pumice before being sent off; it’s also referring to the metaphorical polishing of the poetry.
** The invoked muse, as is traditional.
But not the exceptionally dirty ones, because where would the fun be in that? I will, however, give a warning for those ones.
To start with, I'm going to try to replicate line breaks very roughly in the places where they occur in the actual poems. I am not going to try to do anything with meter or rhyme, because I'm more interested in accuracy than displaying my own poetic cleverness. However, in many places "approximately accurate line breaks" and "English that does not sound hideously awkward or outright ungrammatical" are going to be at odds, and in those cases I'll defer to the latter.
Catullus 1
To whom do I give a witty little new book,
polished with dry pumice?*
To you, Cornelius; for you generally think
that my nonsense amounts to something,
when now you alone of all Italians dared
to explain a whole age in three volumes--
by Jupiter, skilled and laborious ones!
So have for yourself whatever sort of little book
this could be; may this, O maiden patron,**
remain forever, for more than one generation.
---
* The ends of a rolled scroll were polished smooth with pumice before being sent off; it’s also referring to the metaphorical polishing of the poetry.
** The invoked muse, as is traditional.
From:
no subject
http://www.swarthmore.edu/academics/classics/medieval-latin-open-online-course.xml
(I'm assuming your Latin is not rusty, but hey, Crusades.)
From:
no subject
From:
no subject