Translating Catullus
32 & 51
Considerations in translation
Source and Target:
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Text and Ideology
Text and Poetics
The Cultural Status of the Text and the
Passage of Time
Translation Strategies
The Weight of Interpretation of Writers and
their Texts (The Question of Style)
From André Lefevere’s Translating Literature, MLA, New
York, 1992.
Translation Tactics: The Illocutionary Level
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Cultural Allusion
Literary Allusion: Word and Thing
Grammar
Scenes and Frames
Evasive Tactics
Neologism
Jargon
Rhyme
Word and Thing
Compensation (Alliteration, Allusion,
Explication, Off-Rhyme)
Gaius Valerius Catullus (84-54 BC)
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From a wealthy family in Verona
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Lived in Rome
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A friend of Cicero
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Lover of Clodia Metelli, a leading figure in
the new movement in poetry (many thought
to be the “Lesbia” of his poems
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Lost his brother in 57 or 56 BC
Sappho 31 (phanetai moi)
Catullus 51
He seems to me equal to gods that man
whoever he is who opposite you
sits and listens close
to your sweet speaking
Godlike the man who
sits at her side, who
watches and catches
that laughter
and lovely laughing — oh it
puts the heart in my chest on wings
for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking
is left in me
which (softly) tears me
to tatters: nothing is
left of me, each time
I see her,
no: tongue breaks and thin
fire is racing under skin
and in eyes no sight and drumming
fills ears
. . . tongue numbed; arms, legs
melting, on fire; drum
drumming in ears; headlights gone black.
and cold sweat holds me and shaking
grips me all, greener than grass
I am and dead — or almost
I seem to me.
Coda
Her ease is your sloth, Catullus
you itch & roll in her ease:
But all is to be dared, for even a person of poverty. . .
former kings and cities
lost in the valley of her arm.
Trans. Anne Carson
Trans. Peter Whigham
Scholarly Considerations
Gender dynamics: Catullus changes to heteronormative love triangle; markers for a
masculine speaker: “misero” line 5, Catullus’ own name in 4th stanza
Historical significance of Sappho 31 for its description of the physical effects of love
Lesbia’s identity: Clodia, Catullus’ lover; reference to Sappho; deviation from text;
places Sappho as beloved as a way of unseating her as speaker
Hypothesis: This is about both translation itself, and Roman relationship to Greek
antiquity and its literature AND about love; Translation as competition or “agressive
and tender” (Steiner); Tradition of deviation in Roman translation; “signature”
Final Stanza: Jettisons “greener than grass”; is it a translation of the poverty fragment?;
is it another poem?; notion of “otium” mentioned 3 times
Catullus 32
1 Amabo, mea dulcis Ipsitilla
Please, my sweet Ipsitilla
7 Sed domi maneas,
paresque
nobis
But at home you would stay, you would prepare also for us
2 Meae delicia, mei lepores,
My delights, my charms
8 Novem continuas futuiones
Nine continuous fuckification
3 Iube
ad te veniam
meridiatum
Command to you I should come at noon
9 Verum, si quid
agis,
statim iubeto
Well then, if anything you will do, at once order me
4 Et si iusseris,
illud adiuvato
And if you command, it
would be of help
10 Nam pransus iaceo et satur supinus
For stuffed I lie and satiated on my back
5 Nequis liminis
obseret
tabellam
Nobody of the threshold if would close the door panel
11 Pertundo
tunicamque palliumque
I thrust through “tunic” and “pallium” too
6 Neu tibi
lubeat
foras abire
Nor to you it might be pleasing outside to walk off
From André Lefevere’s Translating Literature, MLA, New
York, 1992.
Some preliminary issues with the text
Lexical/situational:
Occasion/genre:
1. Addressed to “Ipsitilla”--a pun or joke:
Ipse==herself
Illa=female third person, “that one”
No one has tried to translate it. It’s often been
written as “My very own mistress” or “Mistrissima”
This poem is a parody of the “billet-doux” poem, or a
love letter.
2. The speaker has eaten breakfast, maybe even in
bed. He’s planning the day, and aiming for a visit
from “Ipsitilla,” a Roman prostitute, and he wants a
quick answer. . .
Pallium is a tunic or poncho that Romans
used as both clothing and blanket
From André Lefevere’s Translating Literature, MLA, New
York, 1992.
The notion that she’s a prostitute and this may be
parodic, rather than a traditional love poem, is found in:
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“warning against schedule conflicts in lines 5 and
6”
“direct tone and specific request made in line 8”
“obscene description of the ardent lover in lines
10 and 11”
Text and:
Ideology--omissions for cultural acceptability:
Translation from 1913, “revised in 1950,” “used by
generations. . . as the ‘faithful’ translation:”
I entreat you, my sweet Ipsitilla, my darling, my
charmer, bid me come and rest at noonday with
you. And if you bid me, grant me this kindness too,
that no one may bar the panel of your threshold,
nor you yourself have a fancy to go away, but stay
at home. . . But if you will at all, then bid me come
at once. . . [from Loeb Classical Library]
From André Lefevere’s Translating Literature, MLA, New
York, 1992.
Poetics:
Catullus was at the forefront of a movement of
“younger poets . . . subscribing to a new poetics,
one that took its bearing from the mostly lyrical,
short and epigrammatic, elegant, witty, and
‘daringly’ erotic Greek poetry. . . than from the
mostly epic, often . . . plodding, serious, moralistic,
and patriotic poetry produced by their immediate
Roman predecessors”
This type of poem, the billet-doux, would not have
been considered acceptable poetic material by the
old guard. He was challenging, both in form and
content, what was “worthy of literature. . . by
filtering that experience through a new genre,
considered frivolous and obscene”
The Cultural Status of the Text and the Passage of Time
Translators need to understand the position of the
source text in the source literature and the source
culture; without such knowledge they cannot cast
around for the relevant analogies in the target
literature and culture.
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Element of “reverence” for past figures (thus
omission of poems or parts of poems
Element of radical “newness” and of this
genre (“Alexandrian epigram”) at the time
See the Raphael and McLeish translation (15 in the
packet)
From André Lefevere’s Translating Literature, MLA, New
York, 1992.
Raphael & McLeish
Replacing epigram with “military directive”
Bringing back some of the more obscene material,
as it is now the 1970s and culture has changed
Translation Strategies
Rhyme
Used mostly before 1950
Rhyme can mark “classical” or “older” status of the
text
Post 1970, dominant poetics “admits of both rhyme
and free verse”
Diction can be contemporary or archaic, mixed
with rhyme or non-rhyme for various effects
From André Lefevere’s Translating Literature, MLA, New
York, 1992.
“Translations do not just translate words; they also
translate a universe of discourse, a poetics, and an
ideology. In other words, translators tend to reach
decisions on the translatability of a given work on
a level that is much more encompassing, more
‘global,’ than that of illocutionary language use.”
Catullus’ lyrics fit with our culture’s idea of poetry
in a way Roman patriotic epics do not.
However, some epic writers, like Homer and
Vergil, have been brought forward into today’s
culture.
The Weight of Traditional Interpretations of Writers and their Texts
“Catullus is memorable for more than his sound or his love lyrics, but these are what he is best known
for. . . Translators have to decide whether to make their translation conform to the author’s preexisting
image or to translate him or her in such a way that they expose the image as reductionist and reveal a
new X or Y”
See the Zukofskys’ homophonic translation
From André Lefevere’s Translating Literature, MLA, New York, 1992.
Translation Tactics: The Illocutionary Level
“Translators first develop a strategy for translating
a whole text; on that basis of that strategy they
develop tactical solutions for problems in various
chunks of that text.”
Cultural Allusion:
Literary Allusion:
The “que” at the end of “Tunicamque” and
“palliumque” is an allusion to the epic poets
Catullus rebelled against
“Perdtundo” means “to pierce through” but is also
an allusion to “Dea Pertunda” a goddess involved
in the piercing of virginity
Word and Thing:
Scenes and Frames:
“Tabellam”--line 5; “means ‘panel’ of a door that
supposedly consists of at least two panels”
What images and schemas do you bring into the
poem? See Aiken’s (6) “whim to ride.”
From André Lefevere’s Translating Literature, MLA, New
York, 1992.
Tunic is really a “unisex undergarment”
Translation Tactics: The Illocutionary Level (cont.)
Evasive Tactics:
Neologism:
See Aiken again. (Alliteration, Making vague what
was explicit)
“fututiones”--Line 8; combines something similar
to a verb like the “f” word with high diction ending
similar to “tion” in English, with a plural marker
See Lamb (1) (“slightly archaic diction”)
“It can not be repeated enough, however, that
these tactical decisions on the level of language
have not been prompted by the translators’ sudden
lack of knowledge of Latin. Rather, they are based
on strategic decisions made on a hierarchically
higher level.”
From André Lefevere’s Translating Literature, MLA, New
York, 1992.
“lepores”--Line 2; combines “lepor” meaning
“charm or wit” instead of “amores,” meaning “my
loves,” emphasizing her charm, rather than love
Jargon:
“pransus”--Line 10; means “stuffed” but has a
cultural connotation of a soldier “given a hearty
meal before battle” (Wright “ready for the fray”)
Translation Tactics: The Illocutionary Level (cont. 2)
Rhyme:
Off-rhyme:
Original does not rhyme
See Myers and Ormsby
See Lamb (1)
Word and Thing:
Compensation:
“Whigham has the speaker ‘lolling on / the sofa
here’” to update the particulars; “its very
incongruity forces readers to hark back to the
human universal underlying the culturally
determined situation
Alliteration: Gould’s “continuous conjoinings” to
compensate for lost neologism
Allusion: Lamb and Aiken both add a “carpe diem”
/ “Gather ye rosebuds” type of allusion
Explication: For lack of cultural context, some have
overtly referred to Ipsitilla as a “tart” or other overt
reference to her line of work.
NOTE: Be open to deviations from “word for
word” as the “word for word” does not make for a
poem or a logical communication in English--it’s
just not possible. Make it a poem in English, first
and foremost.
Assignment
For your next essay assignment:
Today: Choose one of the two poems, Catullus 32
or 51, and create your own “translation.” I
recommend reading the word for word and all the
sample translations, and note what you like and
don’t like, then envision the poem you’d like to
make.
--Write 500 words on the choices you made:
It can be funny, serious, like a song, a comic, a
piece of prose; It can be metrical (perhaps
iambic?), free verse, or syllabic (focusing on
syllable count per line).
Be ready to share with the class at 12:00
--Polish your translation
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
what was your basic interpretation of the
poem?
did you include a title?
did you follow any formal constraints?
how did you handle repeated words, madeup words (neologisms), allusions, and words
that refer to things we don’t quite have in
today’s time?
did you try to stay faithful to the original or
put your own spin on it?
what did you like/dislike about the
examples?
what do you like/dislike about your version?
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