Catullus

CATULLUS 112

Multus home es, Naso, neque tecum multus homost qui
descendit: Naso, multus es et pathicus.

Literal translation by Celia Zukofsky:
Much a man you are, Naso, and that you much a man it is who 
comes down: Naso, much you are and pathetic/lascivious. 

Cornish edition in the Loeb Classical Library (used by the Zukofskys):
You are many men's man, Naso, but not many men go down town with you: Naso, you are many men's man and minion.

Peter Green (2005):
You're such a macho guy, Naso, yet few other macho guys seek your
company. How so? Naso, you're macho—and a queen. 

The Zukofskys's homophonic version (1969)
Mool ’tis homos,’ Naso, ’n’ queer take ’im mool ’tis ho most he
     descended: Naso, mool ’tis – is it pathic, cuss.

 

Catullus

 

Catullus

Louis Zukofsky and his wife, Celia, experimented with homophonic translations (something pioneered by Pound, I believe) of the Roman poet, Catullus (c.85-54 BC). That is, they tried to get both the meaning and the actual SOUNDS of the Latin across, in English. The results range from the wacky to the impressive. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know Latin—just try sounding out these few lines from poem 8 phonetically:

Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,
et quod vides perisse perditum ducas.
fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles...
(for whole poem in Latin, click here --you can also click through to English translation.)
Then read the first lines of Louis Zukofsky's translation aloud:

Miss her, Catullus? don't be so inept to rail
at what you see perish when perished is the case.
Full, sure once, candid the sunny days glowed, solace,
when you went about it as your girl would have it,
you loved her as no one else shall ever be loved.
Billowed in tumultuous joys and affianced,
why you would but will it and your girl would have it.
Full, sure, very candid the sun's rays glowed solace.
Now she won't love you; you, too, don't be weak, tense, null,
squirming after she runs off to miss her for life.
Said as if you meant it: obstinate, obdurate.
Vale! puling girl. I'm Catullus, obdurate,
I don't require it and don't beg uninvited:
won't you be doleful when no one, no one! begs you,
scalded, every night. Why do you want to live now?
Now who will be with you? Who'll see that you're lovely?
Whom will you love now and who will say that you're his?
Whom will you kiss? Whose morsel of lips will you bite?
But you, Catullus, your destiny's obdurate.

A. E. STALLINGS
---
I think even Catullus would have got a kick out of "Vale! puling girl."
It's a fun experiment that can yield surprising results--maybe it even helps if you don't know the original language.

Sandro Penna

I have found my little angel

amid a shady audience.
Smoking a small cigar
and with shining eyes..

Eugenio Montale

Little Testament

This, which flickers at night
in the skullcap of my thought,
mother-of-pearl trace of a snail
or mica of crushed glass,
isn’t church or workshop light
fed
by red cleric or black.
All I can leave you is
this rainbow in evidence
of a faith that was fought for,
a hope that burned more slowly
than hardwood on the hearth.
Keep its ash in your compact
till every lamp is out
and the din becomes infernal
and a shadowy Lucifer sweeps down on a prow
on the Thames the Hudson the Seine
beating his wings of coal half-
severed from effort, to tell you: It’s time.
It’s no inheritance, no talisman
to calm the monsoons’ blast
on the spider’s thread of memory,
but a story only survives in ashes
and persistence is simply extinction.
The sign was right: he who saw it
can’t fail to find you again.
Everyone makes out his own:
pride wasn’t flight, humility wasn’t craven,
the thin glimmer striking down there

Eugenio Montale

 

Above the Graffitied Wall

Above the graffitied wall

throwing its shade on a few park benches

the bowl of sky appears

resolved.

Who, now, can recall

the impetuous fire sizzling in the veins

of the world? A cold spell, and its impenetrable

forms are dispersed.

I’ll see the docks again tomorrow

the city wall and busy street.

In the burgeoning future the days

bob, anchored like boats in the harbor.

Eugenio Montale

To Spend the Afternoon

To spend the afternoon, absorbed and pale,
beside a burning garden wall;
to hear, among the stubble and the thorns,
the blackbirds cackling and the rustling snakes.

On the cracked earth or in the vetch
to spy on columns of red ants
now crossing, now dispersing,
atop their miniature heaps.

To ponder, peering through the leaves,
the heaving of the scaly sea
while the cicadas' wavering screech
goes up from balding peaks.

And walking out into the sunlight's glare
to feel with melancholy wonder
how all of life and its travail
is in this following a wall
topped with the shards of broken bottles.

                                                                 translated by David Young

Eugenio Montale

Bring Me the Sunflower

Bring me the sunflower so I can transplant it
here in my own field burned by salt-spray,
so it can show all day to the blue reflection of the sky
the anxiety of its golden face.

Darker things yearn for a clarity,
bodies fade and exhaust themselves in a flood
of colors, as colors do in music. To vanish,
therefore, is the best of all good luck.

Bring me the plant that leads us
where blond transparencies rise up
and life evaporates like an essence;
bring me the sunflower sent mad with light.

                                                                 translated by Charles Wright

Dino Campana

Genoa Woman

You brought me a little seaweed
In your hair, and a wind odor
That came in from hundreds of miles away and arrives
Heavy with meaning, smuggled in your tanned skin:
—O the divine
Simplicity of your acrobat's body—
Not love not spasm, but something untouchable,
Necessity's ghost that walks aimlessly
Serene and ineluctable through the soul
And unties it with joy, as though under a sweet spell,
So that the desert wind
Can carry it out through infinity.
How small the world is
and how light it is in your hands.

--Dino Campana

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Seven-Sided Poem

When I was born, one of the crooked

angels who live in shadow, said:

Carlos, go on! Be gauche in life.

The houses watch the men,

men who run after women.

If the afternoon had been blue,

there might have been less desire.

The trolley goes by full of legs:

white legs, black legs, yellow legs.

My God, why all the legs?

my heart asks. But my eyes

ask nothing at all.

The man behind the moustache

is serious, simple, and strong.

He hardly ever speaks.

He has a few, choice friends,

the man behind the spectacles and the moustache.

My God, why hast Thou forsaken me

if Thou knew’st I was not God,

if Thou knew’st that I was weak?

Universe, vast universe,

if I had been named Eugene

that would not be what I mean

but it would go into verse

faster.

Universe, vast universe,

my heart is vaster.

I oughtn’t to tell you,

but this moon

and this brandy

play the devil with one’s emotions

(Translated by Elizabeth Bishop)

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Square Dance

João loved Teresa who loved Raimundo

who loved Maria who loved Joaquim who loved Lili

who didn’t love anyone.

João went to the United States, Teresa to a convent,

Raimundo died in an accident, Maria became a spinster

Joaquim committed suicide, and Lili married J. Pinto Fernandes,

who had nothing to do with the story.

Miroslav Holub

 "Brief Reflection On Death"

Many people act
like if they had not been born yet. But at that time
William Burroughs was asked by a student
whether he believed in an afterlife
and answered
"And how do you know you haven't died yet?"

Miroslav Holub

Brief Thoughts on Maps

“The young lieutenant of a small Hungarian detachment in the Alps
sent a reconnaissance unit out onto the icy wasteland.
It began to snow
immediately,
snowed for two days and the unit
did not return.
The lieutenant suffered:
he had dispatched
his own people to death.

But the third day the unit came back.
Where had they been? How had they made their way?
Yes, they said, we considered ourselves
lost and waited for the end. And then one of us
found a map in his pocket. That calmed us down.
We pitched camp, lasted out the snowstorm and then with the map
we discovered our bearings.
And here we are.

The lieutenant borrowed this remarkable map
and had a good look at it. It was not a map of the Alps
but of the Pyrenees”

Miroslav Holub

Wings

We have
a microscopic anatomy
of the whale
this
is
reassuring
– William Carlos Williams

We have
a map of the Universe
for microbes,
a map of a microbe
for the Universe.

We have
a Grand Master of chess
made of electronic valves.

But above all
we have
the ability
to sort peas,
to cup water in our hands,
to seek
the right screw
under the sofa
for hours

This
gives us
wings.

Miroslav Holub

 

Dreams

They sap man’s substance

as moon the dew.

A rope grows erect

from the crown of the head.

A black swan hatches

from a pebble.

And a flock of angels in the sky

is taking an evening class

on the skid pan.

I dream, so I dream.

I dream

that three times three is nine,

that the right-hand

rule applies;

and when the circus leaves

the trampled ground will

once more overgrow with grass.

Yes, grass.

Unequivocal grass.

Just grass.

Jacques Roubaud

Walker of dead streets

To François Caradec

I am, in Paris, a walker of the dead streets
Of the streets that are no longer, of streets renamed,
Erased, done in, truncated, diminished,
Street of the Social Contract or Street Between-Two-Doors
Where have you gone Sensible Street, Alleyway of the Whippers 
Street of the Red Apple, Street of the Milk Can
Alley of the Doormats, Street of the Great Howler,
Lost Street, Gated Street, Petit Four, Little Fart
Oh beautiful disappeared ones, Of The Mushroom Bed,
Alley of the Three Dead People, Street of the Three Racks,
Street Which Too Much Goes So Hard and Street of the Rottenfield 
Passages! Dead-ends! Paths! Quays! Squares! Laneways
Ignored pedestrian of the indifferent crowd
I walk alone in the Street Where God Was Boiled

                                    Tanslated by Claire Nashar

Promeneur des rues mortes

Je suis dans Paris un promeneur des rues mortes
Des rues qui ne sont plus, des rues débaptisées,
Effacées, trucidées, tronquées, amenuisées,
Rue du Contrat Social ou Rue Entre-Deux-Portes
Où es-tu Rue Sensée, Ruelle des Fouetteurs
Rue de la Pomme Rouge , Rue du Pot au Lait
Ruelle des Paillassons, Rue du Grand Hurleur,
Rue Perdue, Rue Grillée, Petit Four, Petit Pet
Oh belles diparues, De La Champignonière,
Ruelle des Trois Morts, Rue des Trois Crémaillères,
Rue Qui Trop Va Si Dure et Rue du Champourri
Passages! Cul-de-sacs! Chemins! Quais! Places! Sentes
Piéton ignoré de la foule indifférente
Je marche seul dans la Rue Où Dieu Fut Bouilli

Jacques Roubaud

Sonnet 34 Tomb Farewell: immodest death Will rejoice inside us, We his hovel, we his sty Far from our fountains at Tivoli The stars of the heavenly cake Will scatter, lingering above the hills With us underneath, Prevented from everything. We will become mud, With roots sliding over us, Over our hearts, such docile hearts Then time, with nary a wrinkle, Will balance on the peaks Without us, its waxen suns

 

Jacques Roubaud

Sonnet 19

For Phillipe Courrege 

With papers, crayons, ink, colors, with
Signs then words, with rules to assemble
Them, with persistence and the aid
Of habit (but who knows the quiet that

Rusted your power, the white Verlainian sky,
The cries of the schoolboy Author)
You built something more than language, something
Weighty and beautiful, rendering this difficult truce

Between thoughts, speech, and the hand:
Mathematical laborer, I salute
Your example, and I tell the men

Of tomorrow how this cloudwatcher diffused the magic,
How many stand upon the tool you wrought,
Worthy, genial, growing inside the signs

Zbignew Herbert

A ballad that we do not perish

Those who sailed at dawn

but will never return

left their trace on a wave--

a shell fell to the bottom of the sea

beautiful as lips turned to stone

those who walked on a sandy road

but could not reach the shuttered windows

though they already saw the roofs--

they have found shelter in a bell of air

but those who leave behind only

a room grown cold a few books

an empty inkwell white paper--

in truth they have not completely died

their whisper travels through thickets of wallpaper

their level head still lives in the ceiling

their paradise was made of air

of water lime and earth an angel of wind

will pulverize the body in its hand

they will be

carried over the meadows of this world