At 2:17 PM -0600 4/24/03, Rebecca Seiferle wrote:
>Wasn't it you, Alison, quoting the line of Catullus to Lesbia the
>other day? yes, you were saying the sibilant s's that made the line
>like a kiss weren't possible in English, so perhaps your Latin is
>good enough to render this poem in Latin? I've forgotten all my high
>school Latin, or at least whatever claim I might make upon it.
Sorry, I should have written out the whole poem, because I wasn't
only talking of that line. It's about the only thing that remains of
my Latin, I always liked it so much, and though I've forgotten all my
declensions I can still sort of shadow-read Latin, with an en face.
V
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, ateque amemus
rumoresque senum seueriorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis.
soles occidere et redire possunt;
nobis, cum semel occidit breuis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mile, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum;
dein cum milia multa fecerimus
conturbabimus ille ne sciamus
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit
cum tantum sciat esse bassiorum.
V
We should live, my Lesbia, and love
and value all the talk of stricter
old men at a single penny.
Suns can set and rise again;
for us, once our brief light has set
there's one unending night for sleeping.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then still another thousand, then a hundred.
Then, when we've made many thousands,
we'll muddle them so as not to know
or lest some villain overlook us
knowing the total of our kisses.
(Trans Guy Lee)
best
A
--
Alison Croggon
Editor
Masthead Online
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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