So who is that guy, reeking of cheap cologne,
Flirting and fawning all over you
With a bundle of roses and cliches,
In that dark secret garden nook
(Where we can all still totally see you)?
Is it for him you’ve done up your hair
All simple, yet sophisticated?
Poor dope. Well, I’ll tell you this:
He’ll soon learn how quickly things can change.
How calm and placid waters can churn
With unexpected, furious storms.
Sure, for now he’s off in la-la land
Dreaming the sweet and silly dream of love
Seeing nothing but your smile and
Conveniently overlooking any gathering clouds.
He’s screwed - same as all the other boys
Who set sail, like him, so unprepared.
And I, with this poem tightly clenched,
Reveal my watery garments dripping now--
An unwilling priest paying unwilling tribute
To the pitiless God of the sea.
I was reading 1.5, and went circling around for translations which might capture the spirit of the thing -- and chanced on this. Which I really rather like: certainly far more than I like a lot of the "translations" which are, as so often with English translations of latin, stilted.
ReplyDeleteCouple of questions. Why "cheap" cologne? The image seems to me to be one of absurd attempts at sophistication by the inexperienced, but I don't see why the cologne needs to be cheap. (And is "flirting and fawning" strong enough for "urget": it's a strongly physical word, much closer to f**king than to flirting?)
I don't find the second half as strong. "La-la land" and "sweet and silly dream" don't seem fresh to me (though I do very much like the "he's screwed" line).
And in the final stanza I did a double-take on "reveal my watery garments dripping now" -- which I'm afraid made me think someone had pissed their pants! I think it's the "reveal". Obviously a difficult stanza to make sense of because of the rather specific (and lost) cultural context. I'm not sure about the "unwilling" either; to me the last stanza of the original is stoical (I don't mean that in a technical sense): when you are my age you will realise that life is full of misfortune and you just have to deal with it. "Unwilling" and "pitiless" seem to strong: H is resigned, and the gods of the sea are not especially pitiless, just as arbitrary as anyone else.
Anyway, I hope you don't mind a bit of critical reaction. Overall I have to say I really liked your interpretation: at least it's worth reading (unlike so many).
I really appreciate your feedback, especially our critique of certain sections! If you read any of the others I have up here, it will become clear to you that I am a total amateur with almost no Latin, so it's not surprising that my interpretations miss out on some of the subtleties of the original words. Ultimately, what I'm doing is taking my small knowledge of the original meaning, correlating it with various other literal translations and various English versions along with some of the critical commentary, and the combining that with my own experiences to make something new. I don't presume to speak for Horace, I'd prefer to leave that to a scholar! In the end, the voice is mine with a heavy mixture of Horace. Some of the other Odes I've done on here are only vaguely similar to the original at all.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I love your feedback on certain sections. I'd never considered the "watery garments" suggesting the narrator has pissed his pants, which made me laugh. Part of me wondered if that's such an inappropriate image though, in a freakish kind of way it almost fits. I also didn't realize "urget" had that connotation - I had imagined the narrator watching Pyrrha and her new guy being very lovey-dovey and over-the-top flirtatious, but its a whole new image if they are really being more aggressively physical. I've been thinking about doing Horace's jealousy ode, so its reminds me of that. I'll consider adjusting that line, even though "flirting and fawning" is so fun to say. I guess I had the narrator decide the cologne was "cheap" as a kind of sum-up of his opinion of the new man.
And I think you are pretty much right that Horace is more stoic than I am, and that's something I think I see in all of my interpretations. I've even tried to go for it on some of the more serious odes, but my own passions tend to break through. Perhaps I'm just not old enough yet to really get it, though as Horace would say that's a problem that will be easily fixed.... with time.
Well, I really liked what you did with this: I got that you weren't aiming for a perfect translation, but for a real poem -- and I'd rather have the power of that than the lame emptiness of so many translations.
ReplyDeleteIn the Latin (though mine's rusty) there are definite overtones of the sensual, if not the erotic, at least to my ears. That makes sense for me, because I guess we have all spent time imagining ex-lovers with other people.
FWIW, if you are interested, here's mine. I think the third stanza is weak, though. (And obviously a different interpretation from yours: which is not to say better.)
* * *
In your love nest, what young lover,
laid on roses, sticky with perfume,
presses his slender body against you?
Is it for him you bind your hair up,
strawberry blond, elegantly simple?
How many times he’s going to weep
for the fickle ways that life will treat him –
for the faithless ways that you will cheat him!
Again and again he’ll be knocked sideways
when black squalls lick quiet ripples to sudden roughness.
But, unsuspecting, for the moment
he takes his pleasure in his golden girl:
always available, always desirable – so he imagines,
barely conceiving a change in the weather.
(How you dazzle the poor suckers
who haven’t been around the block with you!)
And me? I’ve fixed a votive dedication
on this temple wall, to tell my story:
I’ve taken off my dripping clothes,
and hung them in surrender
to whatever god controls the sea.
I love it! Especially "sticky with perfume" (ew!), the "treat him / cheat him" pair and the "poor suckers" line. I also love that he's surrendering to "whatever god controls the sea" which really brings out the weary apathy and stoicism you were talking about. I decided to go a different, probably more modern route, and equate Pyrrha herself to a fickle and cruel god of the sea. However, yours feels more in keeping with what seems to me to be sort of a Roman attitude: the gods are cruel and arbitrary and play games with human emotion and what are you going to do about it? Nothing, just surrender and have some wine and write a melancholy ode. Good stuff!
ReplyDelete