Laudator Temporis Acti

Tetrastichon authenticum de singulis mensibus = Anthologia Latina 395 Riese, lines 45-48 (December), tr. Michelle Renee Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 74:

Behold! Winter nourishes the seed thrown each year into the plowed earth; all is wet with rain sent from Jove. Now let December call once more the golden festival for Saturn. Now you, slave, are allowed to play [dice games] with your master.

annua sulcatae coniecta en semina terrae
   pascit hiems; pluvio de Iove cuncta madent.
aurea nunc revocet Saturno festa December.
   nunc tibi cum domino ludere, verna, licet.

1 coniecta en Heinsius: coniecti codd.: connectens Baehrens

Roger Pearse, "The December Poems in the Chronography of 354," offers his own translation (he adopts Baehrens' conjecture connectens without mentioning Baehrens). A commenter on Pearse's blog post writes:

If it's not overstepping, I'd suggest the 4-liner might be rendered more poetically, with only minimal cost to the literal sense.

Yearly the furrows connecting seed to earth
Winter feeds and steeps with rain from Jove
Golden returns Saturn's feast in December
Now you with your Lord, Spring, may make mirth

I'm trying to stay true to the original sense and connections, leaning mainly to some alliteration and assonance for some poetic effect, though worked in one rhyme in a nod to English poetic conventions. The 3rd line's a little labored and doesn't scan as well, but I thought the same of the original so didn't worry about it too much. ; )

In line 4 verna has nothing to do with spring. It's the vocative of the noun verna = slave. See the illustrations of slaves in Pearse's blog post.

Google Translate makes the same mistake (with additional mistakes):

Annual furrows connecting the seeds to the ground
Winter feeds; They wet everything with the rain of Jupiter.
Orea will now call back to Saturn, the festival of December,
Now you can play with the master, spring, all right.

Labels: typographical and other errors