Aurelius, Father of Appetites (21)

Hendecasyllablics

Aurelius, Father of Appetites,
—Not for these things alone but for everything
That has ever been and which will ever be—
You want to fuck my love, it’s not a secret,
You are always near and making jokes with him,
Everything you do you’re sticking to his side.

Its for nothing! I’ll get to you while you’re still
Planning your betrayal and you’ll sooner suck my cock!

I’d not say anything if you’d keep him fed,
But it pains me to see the boy is learning
From you how to go hungry and thirsty both.

So give up while you may with some virtue left
Else you’ll get your way, but sucking on my cock.


XXI

Aureli, pater esuritionum,
non harum modo, sed quot aut fuerunt
aut sunt aut aliis erunt in annis,
pedicare cupis meos amores.
Nec clam: nam simul es, iocaris una, 5
haerens ad latus omnia experiris.
Frustra: nam insidias mihi instruentem
Tangam te prior irrumatione.
Atque id si faceres satur, tacerem:
nunc ipsum id doleo, quod esurire 10
me me puer et sitire discet.
Quare desine, dum licet pudico,
ne finem facias, sed irrumatus.

A Modest Favor (15)

Poem 15
Hendecasyllabics

I entrust to you my love and, so, myself.
Aurelius I ask a humble favor:
That, if you’ve ever wished within your heart to find
Something which is chaste and not at all corrupted,
Then you’ll guard this boy for me with all your virtue.

And I don’t mean to say from the general public
They don’t worry me, who pass by in the street,
Pacing here and there about their daily business,
I fear you much more with that cock of yours,
Its a threat to all the boys, both good and bad.

So stir your loins whenever it should please you
Often as you wish, cocked when out-of-doors,
One exception I modestly will insist:
If a wicked thought should seize you in a frenzy
Drive you straight toward some big mistake, you weasel,
That you end up taking a shot at what is mine,
Well then you shall be most sorry for your fate:
With your feet tied down and port open wide
Radishes and mullet-fish will run you through.


XV

Commendo tibi me ac meos amores
Aureli. Veniam peto pudentem
Ut si quicquam animo tuo cupisti
Quod castum expeteres et integellum
Conserves puerum mihi pudice,
Non dico a populo—nihil veremur
Istos, qui in platea modo huc modo illuc
In re praetereunt sua occupati—
Verum a te metuo tuoque pene
Infesto pueris bonis malisque.
Quem tu qua lubet, ut lubet, moveto
Quantum vis, ubi erit foris paratum:
Hunc unum excipio, ut puto, pudenter.
Quod si te mala mens furorque vecors
In tantam impulerit, sceleste, culpam,
Ut nostrum insidiis caput lacessas,
A tum te miserum malique fati!
Quem attractis pedibus patente porta
Percurrent raphanique mugilesque.

A Gift to be One-Upped (14)

Poem 14
Hendecasyllabics

Because I love you more than my own eyesight,
Calvus, funny-man you, for this gift you’ve sent
I won’t detest you with Vatinian-strength hate.

But what have I done, what have I said ever
For which you should ruin me with such foul poets!
Gods above strike harsh against whatever client
It’ was that sent you such abysmally bad stuff.

If, as I suspect, this newfound gift was sent
By the schoolteacher Sulla then in fact
I’m not so put off, I am actually quite pleased
That your labors have not gone unrewarded!

Great Gods a sinfully awful little book.
No doubt you have sent this to your Catullus
That he should, without delay, perish. And today,
Saturnalia, the best day of the year!
No, this will Not stand, witty friend, like this,
For when the sun comes up I will run to the
Booksellers cases and grab all the poisons there
Suffenus, Caesius, and Aquinius
And with these repay the torture I have gone through.

Good Bye, meanwhile, get away from here
Back to where from you dragged those wicked feet,
The ailment of our times, those piss-poor poets!

14 b

If you, by any chance, who shall be the readers
Of my folly-filled poems and then not shudder
When your hands draw near to us

XIV

Ni te plus oculis meis amarem,
Iucundissime Calve, munere isto
Odissem te odio Vatiniano:
Nam quid feci ego quidve sum locutus,
Cur me tot male perderes poetis? 5
Isti di mala multa dent clienti,
Qui tantum tibi misit impiorum.
Quod si, ut suspicor, hoc novum ac repertum
Munus dat tibi Sulla litterator,
Non est mi male, sed bene ac beate, 10
Quod non dispereunt tui labores.
Di magni horribilem et sacrum libellum!
Quem tu scilicet ad tuum Catullum
Misti continuo ut die periret,
Saturnalibus, optimo dierum! 15
Non non hoc tibi, salse, sic abibit.
Nam si luxerit ad librariorum
Curram scrinia, Caesios, Aquinos
Suffenum, omnis colligam venena
Ac te his suppliciis remunerabor. 20
Vos hinc interea valete abite
Illuc, unde malum pedem attulistis,
Saecli incommoda, pessimi poetae.
…
Si qui forte mearum ineptiarum
Lectores eritis manusque vestras
Non horrebitis admovere nobis…

To Furius and Aurelius (11)

Poem 11
Sapphic Strophe (!)

Furius and Aurelius: Catullus’ Men—
Whether to the furthest of India thrusts he,
As far-resounding Easterly sea-waves
Pound at the shore,

Or among soft Arabs or Caspiani,
Sakas, Parthians with their arrows drawn or
Even to where seven-mouthed River Nile
Darkens the Ocean,

Cross the massive Alps he may trek someday
Eyeing tokens earlier left by Caesar,
Gallic Rhine-Land, horrible British woad-dyed
At Ends-of-the-World

All these, come what may at the will of Heaven,
You who are set to attempt right beside me—
Go, deliver this little note to my girl,
A not so good note:

I hope she lives well with her many boyfriends
Three-hundred of them whom she straddles at once,
Loving none she again and again will pound
The groin of each one,

Let her no more count on my love as before,
Which she has cut down with her faults like a
Flower at the edge of a field touched by
The plough passing by.


Carmen XI

Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli
Sive in extremos penetrabit Indos
Litus ut longe resonante Eoa
Tunditur unda,

Sive in Hyrcanos Arabasve molles 5
Seu Sagas sagittiferosve Parthos,
Sive quae septemgeminus colorat
Aequora Nilus,

Sive trans altas gradietur Alpes,
Caesaris visens monimenta magni, 10
Gallicum Rhenum, horribile vitro ulti-
Mosque Britannos,

Omnia haec, quaecumque feret voluntas
Caelitum, temptare simul parati,
Pauca nuntiate meae puellae 15
Non bona dicta:

Cum suis vivat valeatque moechis,
Quos simul complexa tenet trecentos,
Nullum amans vere, sed identidem omnium
Ilia rumpens, 20

Nec meum respectet, ut ante, amorem
Qui illius culpa cecidit velut prati
Ultimi flos, praetereunte postquam
Tactus aratro est.

This is a fun little meter. I'll post soon how to read it.

A Curios Invitation (13)

A Curious Invitation
Poem 13
Hendecasyllabics

Fabullus you will feast well at my table,
Some day soon, my friend, if the Gods permit it—

IF you’ll just bring plenty of things to eat
And don’t be without a dazzling young date,
And the wine and wit and dinner entertainment,
If you bring these things, I’ll say again, you Charmer
You’ll feast well; you see, your friend Catullus’
Money bag is full, plenty full—of cobwebs.

In return you’ll get the purest form of love,
Or! Perhaps something sweeter and more tasteful?
For I’ll give you the perfume which my dear girl
Was given by the Venuses and Cupids!

When you inhale it you will beg the gods
To make you, my friend, one gigantic nose!



Carmen XIII

Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me
Paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus—
Si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam
Cenam, non sine candida puella
Et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis; 5
Haec si, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster,
Cenabis bene; nam tui Catulli
Plenus sacculus est aranearum
Sed contra accipies meros amores,
Seu quid suavius elegantiusve est: 10
Nam unguentum dabo, quod meae puellae
Donarunt Veneres Cupidinesque;
Quod tu cum olfacies, deos rogabis,
Totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.

Rebuking Poor Humor (12)

Rebuking Poor Humor
Poem 12
Hendecasyllabics

Asinius Marrucinus does an uncouth thing
With that left hand of his while at drinking parties:
He snatches the napkins of distracted guests.

You think this’s funny? You’re wrong you worthless dolt.
How base a thing to do, Nothing witty about it.
Don’t trust me on this? Ask your brother Pollio,
He would surely give a talent if he could
Somehow undo your embarrassing behavior,
For he’s a boy whose filled with wit and good humor.

So, either expect three hundred of my verses
Or return to me the napkin you’ve snatched up.
This doesn’t stir me up so much for its value,
But because it’s a memento from my friends.
Fabullus and Veranius sent the things to me,
Saebatan Napkins, as gifts from Hispania,
And I am forced to love these gifts in place of my
Little Veranius and my dear Fabullus.


Carmen XII

Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra
Non belle uteris, in ioco atque vino:
Tollis lintea neglegentiorum.
Hoc salsum esse putas? Fugit te, inepte:
Quamvis sordida res et invenusta est. 5
Non credit mihi? Crede Pollioni
Fratri, qui tua furta vel talento
Mutari velit; est enim leporum
Differtus puer ac facetiarum.
Quare aut hendecasyllabos trecentos 10
Exspecta, aut mihi linteum remitte,
Quod non me movet aestimatione,
Verum est mnemosynum mei sodalis.
Nam sudaria Saetaba ex Hiberis
Miserunt mihi muneri Fabullus 15
Et Veranius; haec amem necesse est
Ut Veraniolum meum et Fabullum.

May Update

So There has been a bit of a hiatus. I've finished the semester, managed grades I'm pleased with and even received recognition from my department which is always nice. When I returned to this project, after weeks of term papers, finals, authentic academic pursuit, and looked at what I'd done, I realized: This isn't what I need. I've been putting together some big ideas for my thesis these past weeks, these radio-silent weeks, these ponderous weeks, and though I'm not ready to commit my plan to paper, I do know that the translations I'd posted here wouldn't work for it--I had, too often, used my own words instead of Catullus'. That sort of translation has its place, don't get me wrong, it's just not what I need.

Some have suggested that a translation of Metered Latin will always turn out badly because one will always have to resort to padding out the lines. However I realized this sort of suggestion generally comes from someone who has never attempted a metered translation, OR who has tried and failed at it. Now if I tried to, say, paint a painting, and it came out just terribly, and I kicked it and said "Painting life-like pictures is Impossible!" would you say "Oh, is it? Ah. Good thing I didn't waste my time trying." See?

So that said, I have decided to translate Literally, abandoning the Audenesque rhyme-schemes and other conventions of English poetry I had tried to inject, but have continued to use the meters of Catullus. Indeed I think these latest poems are more fluent metrically than ever.

So what I've posted are rewrites of poems 1,2,3,5,7,8 and 9, and poems 4 and 6 for the first time, all translated literally enough for academic commentary, and with what I would consider fairly good Latin metrics. I hope to continue doing a row a week, ie, by next sunday 11-17, then 21-30, etc. With 61-70 being alloted more like 3 weeks as has the long poems.

Meanwhile, a big part of this project has been learning about Catullus. I'm currently reading Wheeler's Catullus and the Traditions of Ancient Poetry, based on a series of lectures he gave in the 1930s. They are incredible, incidentally. I'm also reading Marilyn Skinner's Blackwell Companion to Catullus, whose articles are all very recent (2000's). What I've found is that the arguments in the field going on today are the exact same ones as were going on in the 30s.

Anyway,

Bonam Noctem, et Bonam Fortunam