Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Dia Otia Again
I'm indebted to Karl Maurer for what follows (I've added the Latin stanza by stanza with his translation).
Michael, that's a charming poem by Honorato Fascitelli that you posted last Thursday — but does not the translation by Aldington seem rather horribly loose? E.g. he wholly omits the third stanza (perhaps because it is hard* and he didn't understand it), and in the last stanzas he seems wholly to miss the point. Here's what sense I seem to make of it:
(1) Sacred Citron-trees of the grove of Annia, and sacred Spring running on bright feet through the Grove, and Shrine that the gentle Headland has on its sacred hill,
Annii nemoris sacra
Citria, & liquido sacer
Fons fluens pede per nemus,
Quodque colle habet in sacro
Mollis acta sacellum: 5
(2) and you, Rustic Gods and Goddesses sprung from Juppiter, to whom the cool Grove and the Spring on the ridge, and the illustrious Altar have been fitly dedicated,—
Vosque agrestia numina,
Dii deaeque genus Jovis
Frigidum quibus est nemus,
Fonsque jugis, & inclyta
Ara rite dicata: 10
(3) if fitly in a bristling Grove, where the Spring is far distant, hanging over the sea, any altar dedicated above a steep hill catches you!—
Rite si nemore horrido
Fonte seposito procul
Imminens pelago capit
Ulla vos super arduo
Ara colle dicata: 15
(4) how aggrieved and complaining I leave you, how gladly and happily I revisit you! and in divine leisure, rejoice to hide myself in your tender breast!
Quam relinquo dolens querens,
Quam reviso volens lubens
Vos ego! & tenerum in sinum,
Dia ad otia, gaudeo
Memet abdere vestrum! 20
(5) whether I delight in hiding under the leaves of the black grove and, in flowing brief tunic, in chilling at the light breath of the West wind,
Sive sub nemoris nigri
Delitere comis juvat
Et fluente brevi in tuni-
ca ad vagi Zephyri levem
Frigerarier auram: 25
(6) or in loitering by cool hollows of the sweetly babbling spring, and with now this, now that, slow hand in pushing the water that entices sleep.**
Sive dulce loquaculi
Fontis ad gelidos specus
Sessitare, & aquam hac & hac
Somnuli illecebram manu
Usque pellere lenta. 30
(7) Then I would weary [gravem], now of strolling with a garrulous lute, now of descrying from the ridge of the hill the sails of a thousand passing ships,
Tum modo spatiarier
Garrula cithara gravem:
Collis e specula modo
Mille cernere puppium
Vela praetereuntum: 35
(8) when with heavy heat the Dogstar rages on land and sea, or when the Great Bear is free from burning Hyperion, struck by frost and gloomy darkness.
Cum calore Canis gravi
Terra & aequore perfurit
Fervidoque Hyperione
Arctos icta vacat gelu,
Tristibusque tenebris. 40
* The third stanza is hard; but seems to me a kind of parenthesis, qualifying 10 ‘rite dicata’. (I.e., “If one can call ‘fitly dedicated' any altar dedicated in such a place”.)
** ‘somnuli’ seems an objective genitive with ‘illecebra’.
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Michael, that's a charming poem by Honorato Fascitelli that you posted last Thursday — but does not the translation by Aldington seem rather horribly loose? E.g. he wholly omits the third stanza (perhaps because it is hard* and he didn't understand it), and in the last stanzas he seems wholly to miss the point. Here's what sense I seem to make of it:
(1) Sacred Citron-trees of the grove of Annia, and sacred Spring running on bright feet through the Grove, and Shrine that the gentle Headland has on its sacred hill,
Annii nemoris sacra
Citria, & liquido sacer
Fons fluens pede per nemus,
Quodque colle habet in sacro
Mollis acta sacellum: 5
(2) and you, Rustic Gods and Goddesses sprung from Juppiter, to whom the cool Grove and the Spring on the ridge, and the illustrious Altar have been fitly dedicated,—
Vosque agrestia numina,
Dii deaeque genus Jovis
Frigidum quibus est nemus,
Fonsque jugis, & inclyta
Ara rite dicata: 10
(3) if fitly in a bristling Grove, where the Spring is far distant, hanging over the sea, any altar dedicated above a steep hill catches you!—
Rite si nemore horrido
Fonte seposito procul
Imminens pelago capit
Ulla vos super arduo
Ara colle dicata: 15
(4) how aggrieved and complaining I leave you, how gladly and happily I revisit you! and in divine leisure, rejoice to hide myself in your tender breast!
Quam relinquo dolens querens,
Quam reviso volens lubens
Vos ego! & tenerum in sinum,
Dia ad otia, gaudeo
Memet abdere vestrum! 20
(5) whether I delight in hiding under the leaves of the black grove and, in flowing brief tunic, in chilling at the light breath of the West wind,
Sive sub nemoris nigri
Delitere comis juvat
Et fluente brevi in tuni-
ca ad vagi Zephyri levem
Frigerarier auram: 25
(6) or in loitering by cool hollows of the sweetly babbling spring, and with now this, now that, slow hand in pushing the water that entices sleep.**
Sive dulce loquaculi
Fontis ad gelidos specus
Sessitare, & aquam hac & hac
Somnuli illecebram manu
Usque pellere lenta. 30
(7) Then I would weary [gravem], now of strolling with a garrulous lute, now of descrying from the ridge of the hill the sails of a thousand passing ships,
Tum modo spatiarier
Garrula cithara gravem:
Collis e specula modo
Mille cernere puppium
Vela praetereuntum: 35
(8) when with heavy heat the Dogstar rages on land and sea, or when the Great Bear is free from burning Hyperion, struck by frost and gloomy darkness.
Cum calore Canis gravi
Terra & aequore perfurit
Fervidoque Hyperione
Arctos icta vacat gelu,
Tristibusque tenebris. 40
* The third stanza is hard; but seems to me a kind of parenthesis, qualifying 10 ‘rite dicata’. (I.e., “If one can call ‘fitly dedicated' any altar dedicated in such a place”.)
** ‘somnuli’ seems an objective genitive with ‘illecebra’.
