Personally I like the 'freer' 'translations', Robin.
Do you know CK Stead's versions of Catullus, in his fine volume,
Geographies? I think you'd like them. Set, of course, in late 20th C New
Zealand. Take the last few lines of this one:
Catullus loves her
as the lone lawn daisy
loves
the Masport mower.
I see your free translations working that open ground, & enjoy that
modernization.
I know of a few translations of Anacreon:
Barbara Hughes Fowler's, in Archaic Greek Poetry, seem rather strained,
translatese.
Diane Rayor's, in Sappho's Lyre, feel a bit looser, more addressed to
contemporary readers of poetry, as do those of Peter Bing & Rip Cohen in
Games of Venus (which also show the lost phrases etc, with ellipses).
You seem to think none are that good. Do you know these last two?
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
Why poetry? And why not, I asked,
my right brain humming sedition.
Phyllis Webb
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