While we're on the subject of jilted lovers, I thought I would post my
favourite jilted-lover poem. This is by Catullus, the Roman/Latin
satirical poet.
The genius of the original lay in its ability to bring together wild
shifts in tone, diction, and register-- the poem starts out with all
this very pompous, mock-heroic language, as he sends out Furius and
Aurelius with a message for his ex-love. Then it shifts towards the very ugly
penultimate stanza ("motherfucker" is, apparently, not
inappropriate for the word "moechis", which is supposed to be a very
nasty and crude word even in the Latin) and-- the final surprise, the
poem suddenly ends in a vulnerable, quiet way. Furius and Aurelius are
recurring characters in Catullus-- he hates them and thinks they are absolute
idiots, but he always prentends to entreat them and sets them up for a fall.
I had to do this translation below as an assignment/exercise for a
class. We were given some commentary, the original Latin, a
word-for-word "trot", a guide to pronounciation and metre (the latter of
which-- in Alcaic stanzas-- we had to transpose as closely as possible
into stress-based English), and previous translations. Suggestions for
revision are welcome.
Vivek
p.s.-- why don't people post their translations from the South Asian (or other)
languages? Translations are poems too, especially if you at least try to
imitate /find an equivalent for the sound patterns of the original, not so?
Catullus XI
Furius and Aurelius, old pals of Catullus,
whether he might penetrate as far as the Indies
whose distant oriental shores resonate from
the bombilating waves
or meet the Hyrcanians or flesh-weak Arabians;
whether to Scythians or arrow-armed Parthians
or all the way to that deep-coloured delta stained
by the seven-mouthed Nile,
whether he might scale the supernal Alps,
following in the great Caesar’s memorial wake,
across the Gallic Rhine, across the horrible sea
to primitive Britons—
yes, all of that, you my chums, who would go there with me,
who would prepare for whatever the gods might decree,
do please apprise my darling of my less
than good wishes:
hope she’s well, and thriving, with those multifarious
motherfuckers she holds in her cunt three hundred
at a time, loving none but spasmodically
blowing their loads.
And tell her not to count on my love anymore;
it’s her fault our love failed, like a flower on the edge
of a brimming meadow, brushed
by the passing plow.
needawriter wrote:
>
>
> In Memoriam
>
>
>
>
> I look back and I see
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