Thanks for this, Joe.
On a related antiquarian manner, has anybody gotten into Mandelbaum's
translation of OVID. A big, thick new book I saw fresh out in a bookstore.
I somehow liked his translation of the Inferno - not because it was modern,
but because it was readable. Where, say the Pinksky seemed contorted,
pinched and, well, unreadable.
But I have never read much Swinburne, Tennyson and that world, either. And I
like the sweet mix of lament and longing here.
Stephen V
Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
> illa cantat: nos tacemus. quando uer uenit meum?
> quando fiam uti chelidon ut tacere desinam?
> perdidi Musam tacendo nec me Phoebus respicit.
> sic Amyclas cum tacerent perdidit silentium.
> cras amet qui numquam amauit quique amauit cras amet!
>
> She is singing: we are silent. When shall my spring come again?
> When shall I be like the swallow so that I may find my voice?
> I have lost my Muse in silence, nor does Phoebus look on me.
> Thus Amyclae, being silent, perished through its voicelessness.
> Tomorrow will the loveless love, the lover will find love again!
>
> =====
>
> Swinburne was no doubt alluding to the anonymous, (probably) late Roman Empire
> poem Pervigilium Veneris, the last stanza of which I've given and translated,
> with some paraphrasing, above. For me, this is the first modern poem: though
> written in technically correct classical Latin, it breathes a spirit which has
> virtually nothing to do with classical antiquity. We are in Europe now, and
> closer to the Elizabethans than to Horace.
>
> Amyclae was proverbial for its silence, one explanation being that, having
> passed a law forbidding false reports of invasion, a true report of invasion
> was suppressed, leading to the fall of the unprepared city.
>
> Robert Graves said that one of his earliest memories was being petted in his
> perambulator by Swinburne. As I recall, he remarks something to the effect
> that "I was too young to know he was a poet, but I knew that he was a public
> menace."
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
>
|