Roper carissime,
'eminent latinist' quod ais non sum: 'eminent' revera Conington tuus est, cuius commentarium legendum tibi est. Sed tamen aliqua respondeo tibi, a translatione loebiana quam laudas incipiens:
"It was night and on earth sleep held the living
world."
Plane recte in Loeb classical library translatum est et paene ad verbum: It was night = nox erat;
et terris: and on earth (in poematum heroicorum usu scribendi 'terris' 'in terris' significat; sleep held (= somnus habebat, cum hoc loco certe habeo non 'possideo' valet sed 'domino', 'teneo');
the living world: animalia (etymologice est quod animam habet; ergo complexus, seu orbis, mundus, omnium creaturarum viventium).
Sed, quamquam recte transalatum sit a loebiano viro docto, hoc esse tuum 'sleeping earth' esse non potest. Si vere a memoria tua tractum est illud quod dicis, cum ad textus reversus es, errasti et meo iudicio in libro IV constituta memoria tua in origine est.
Certe Vergilius - ut iam Apollonius et Ennius - Homerum imitatur cum ponat in textu suo id quod clarissimus Milman Parry vocavit "formular language" ( rectius hoc dicentum quam - ut ais "typo")vide exempla duo quae attulimus et adde iis etiam
VIII, 26-27
nox erat et terras animalia fessa per omnis
alituum pecudumque genus sopor altus habebat.
De Ovidio perfacile respondeo: Versus quos Ovidii laudas sunt in opere quod "Amores" inscribitur, libro III, eleg. V, versus I-II (scribendum est 'submisit' non "submissit"). Libros Vergilii quos et ego et tu laudamus (III et IV) inter primos a Vergilio scripti sunt. Sed tamen Aeneis tota antecedit opus Ovidii quod "amorees" inscribitur, quia Ovidius rectractavit, correxit et edidit hoc opus anno I post Chr. n., sed compositio eius incepta est XX fere annos antea (id est XIX-XVIII anno a. Chr. n). Illis annis Aeneidos iam libri multi vulgati erant, seu - post mortem divini Poetae - poema totum editum est. Exemplar ergo illius quod 'Formular language' vocatur istud nox erat et terr(is/as) plane fuit; et in Ovidium a Vergilio mea sententia allatum.
>From: "Patrick Roper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: RE: VIRGIL: Virgil in translation
>Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 17:31:01 -0000
>
>Simon Cauchi said, in a response to my posting:
>
> > May I raise a pedantic objection? Patrick's phrase "the idea of the living
> > earth sleeping" is brilliantly evocative, but it seems to me that the
> > Virgilian line conveys something different. The earth's living creatures
> > are sleeping, not the earth itself. Patrick has transferred the epithet
> > (which is implicit in Latin, explicit only in the translation). His
> > transferred epithet is legitimate enough, no doubt, because the phrase
> > exactly conveys the feeling of a poetic nightpiece---which, by
> > the way, I'm
> > sure must be a form antedating Virgil, but I can't cite examples.
>
>I don't for one moment regard this as pedantic and I must confess that I
>often have doubts (as many must) if I have the sense of the Latin quite
>right. I hope it gets righter as time goes by!
>
>I usually use the Loeb Classical 'pony' edition of the Aeneid and the
>translation given there is "It was night and on earth sleep held the living
>world." The phrase "the living world" can, clearly, be understood as either
>the biosphere or the world itself being animate, and perhaps this catches
>the sense implicit in the Latin rather well.
>
>For someone reading alone, away from the scholarly world, some of these
>issues are problematic. Aeneid Book IV, line 539 reads "Nox ruit etc."
>Fairclough and Goold in my Loeb translate this as "Night is coming" but, a
>few lines earlier, dawn seems to be appearing so shouldn't it read "Night is
>going" or similar? But who am I to argue with such eminent Latinists?
>
>Perhaps someone can tell me if I have missed some obvious point.
>
>Having said that, I always try to understand the Latin text direct so that I
>can re-read it comfortably without a crib and I do agree with those who say
>that it is better not to have a crib at all, though this can result, in my
>case, in some fairly dramatic mistranslations!
>
>I must also say that I often find lines totally impenetrable and sometimes
>translators don't seem to have made much headway either, but at least I have
>the satisfaction of knowing I can return to them at a later date.
>
> > And it's singular habebat. Sleep has (possesses) the living creatures of
> > the earth. But habebant was no doubt a mere fumble on the keyboard.
>
>Apolgies for this - it was, indeed, a typo.
>
>While on this topic of poetic nightpieces, I was intrigued by the lines from
>Ovid "Nox erat, et somnus lassos submissit ocellos;/terruerunt animum talia
>vias meum" with its obvious congruencies with Virgil's "Nox erat et terris
>animalia somnus
>habebat". Is this simply coincidence?
>
>Patrick Roper
>
>
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