Tuesday, October 30, 2018
What a Privilege!
Niall Rudd, "Classics as a Subject,"
Classics Ireland 16 (2009) 49-66 (at 63-64):
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Catullus and the lyrical Horace have always been the translator's despair:
Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,Those are the ipsissima verba of men who have brought pleasure and comfort to their readers for two millennia. And they are still talking to us. What a privilege to be taught their language!
et quod vides perisse perditum ducas.
(Poor wretch, Catullus, cease to act this foolish farce,
and what you see is over recognize as gone.)
Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis,
arboribusque comae.
(The snows have fled, the grass is now coming back to the pastures
and tresses to the trees.)
