Horace (65 BC – 8 BC)
Odes Book II , 3.
Aequam memento rebus in arduis
servare mentem, non secus in bonis
ab insolenti temperatam
laetitia, moriture Delli,
seu maestus omni tempore vixeris
seu te in remoto gramine per dies
festos reclinatum bearis
interiore nota Falerni.
Quo pinus ingens albaque populus
umbram hospitalem consociare amant
ramis? Quid obliquo laborat
lympha fugax trepidare rivo?
Huc vina et unguenta et nimium brevis
flores amoenae ferre iube rosae,
dum res et aetas et Sororum
fila trium patiuntur atra.
Cedes coemptis saltibus et domo
villaque, flauvs quam Tiberis lavit,
cedes, et exstructis in altum
divitiis potietur heres.
Divesne prisco natus ab Inacho
nil interest an pauper et infima
de gente sub divo moreris,
victima nil miserantis Orci;
omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
versatur urna serius ocius
sors exitura et nos in aeternum
exilium impositura cumbae.
Remember to keep a balanced mind at the heights
of difficulty, and when you’ve won,
temper your insolent joy,
Delius: you have to die,
whether you barely make it through each miserable
week, or celebrate the festive days, lazing
in arcadian meadows, sequestered
in vintage Falernian.
What makes the great firs and white poplars love
to join their branches in shadowy welcome?
Why does the panicky creek struggle to
escape, downhill to the river?
Send for wine and perfume and charming
all too brief rosebuds. Now, while you’re alive
in this world, while the three sisters
still patiently spin. Soon enough,
you’ll surrender the forests you’ve bought up,
and your house, and the country house the yellow
Tiber washes. You’ll give them up, and everything
you’ve piled so high will be divided by your heirs.
If you were a child of the ancient nobility,
it wouldn’t do you any more good to beg
than a pauper loitering under the open sky.
We’re all victims of pitiless Orcus.
We’re all being herded to the same place.
Everyone’s number gets shaken in the urn.
Sooner or later it rolls out, and we’re
on the boat to eternal exile.
Martial (40 AD – 104 AD)
Epigrams Book VIII, 44
Titulle, moneo, vive: semper hoc serum est;
sub paedagogo coeperis licet, serum est.
At tu, miser Titulle, nec senex vivis,
sed omne limen conteris salutator
et mane sudas urbis osculis udus,
foroque triplici sparsus ante equos omnis
aedemque Martis et colosson Augusti
curris per omnis tertiasque quintasque.
Rape, congere, aufer, posside: relinquendum est.
Superba densis area palleat nummis,
centum explicentur paginae Kalendarum,
iurabit heres te nihil reliquisse,
supraque plutcum te iacente vel saxum,
fartus papyro dum tibi torus crescit,
flentes superbus basiabit eunuchos;
tuoque tristis filius, velis nolis,
cum concubino nocte dormiet prima.
Take my advice, Titullus, start living: it’s always
past time for that. Even when you were a schoolboy,
it was past time. But old as you are, poor Titullus,
you don’t even try to live. Polishing every threshold
making your patron calls. Out early, sweating and trading
wet kisses with half the City. Hitting all three Forums,
mud-spattered at the statues on horseback, the Temple
of Mars and Augustus’ Colossus. You’re in a constant
rush every hour of the day. Grab, collect, finagle,
hoard all you can: You’ll still lose it all when you die.
Your proud strongbox is packed with pale coins,
but your heir will swear you left nothing to cover
the notes coming due. While you’re laid out on a plank
or stone and they’re stuffing the pyre with papyrus,
he’ll be arrogantly kissing your weeping eunuchs.
And that sad son, like it or not, will sleep
with the boy you loved best, that very night
- M. Rilke ( 1875 – 1926)
Sonnets to Orpheus Part One, 10
Euch, die ihr nie mien Gefühl verliesst,
grüss ich, antikische Sarkophage,
die das fröhliche Wasser römishcher Tage
als ein wandelndes Lied durchfliesst.
Oder jene so offenen, wie das Aug
eines frohen erwachenden Hirten,
-innen voll Stille und Bienensaug –
denen entzückte Falter entschwirten;
alle, die man dem Zweifel entreisst,
grüss ich, die wiedergeöffneten Munde,
die schon wussten, was schweigen heisst.
Wissen wirs, Freunde, wissen wirs nicht?
Beides bildet die zögernde Stunde
in dem menschlichen Angesicht.
You, for whom I’ve never lost my
feelings, I greet you, ancient sarcophagi
through whom the same glad water of Roman
days flows like a running song. Or one
of those others, vacated in the graveyard –
as wide open as the eye of a shepherd
awakening to joy – flitting with charmed
butterflies – full of quiet and honey inside.
I greet those gaping re-opened mouths
torn away from any doubts,
who know now, what silence means.
We know, friends – or we really
don’t? The choice becomes a hesitant
meditation on the human face.
Poetry (like good translation) is its own explanation, so I don’t want to add much to this sequence. Except to say poems can be an ongoing conversation between those no longer able to converse, even those who don’t even speak the same language.
That said, there is a particular translation nuance worth talking about in the Martial epigram. It relates to the poem’s last lines: tuoque tristis filius, velis nolis,/ cum concubino nocte dormiet prima. Literally: … And that sad son, like it or not, will sleep with your concubino that very night.
David Shackleton-Bailey translates concubino as “your catamite” and his Loeb predecessor, Walter Ker, opts for “bed-boy”. But, I think neither English term poetically exploits the emotional possibilities of concubino (concubinus) which is simply the male Latin form of concubina. The feminine Latin word has come into English largely intact. In Martial’s Rome, a concubine could be a common-law wife, or a married man’s acknowledged mistress with territory of her own, someone closer to his heart than his official wife.
I think, in this epigram, concubino can be read to imply a similar special relationship with a young slave. A slave, because male-male sexual relationships were generally only respectable if the junior/feminized partner was a slave. And while Titullus’ concubino might have remained his inamorato even after outgrowing adolescence, the poem implies he’s still a young enough possession to attract the heir. But beyond this kind of speculation, concubino focuses the poem on one of Martial’s favorite themes – the always teeming Roman crossroads of money and sex. Whether Titullus’ concubino was one of the weeping castratos is for the reader’s imagination to ponder.
Translator’s Note:
Poetry (like good translation) is its own explanation, so I don’t want to add much to this sequence. Except to say poems can be an ongoing conversation between those no longer able to converse, even those who don’t even speak the same language. That said, there is a particular translation nuance worth talking about in the Martial epigram. It relates to the poem’s last lines: tuoque tristis filius, velis nolis,/ cum concubino nocte dormiet prima. Literally: … And that sad son, like it or not, will sleep with your concubino that very night. David Shackleton-Bailey translates concubino as “your catamite” and his Loeb predecessor, Walter Ker, opts for “bed-boy”. But, I think neither English term poetically exploits the emotional possibilities of concubino (concubinus) which is simply the male Latin form of concubina. The feminine Latin word has come into English largely intact. In Martial’s Rome, a concubine could be a common-law wife, or a married man’s acknowledged mistress with territory of her own, someone closer to his heart than his official wife. I think, in this epigram, concubino can be read to imply a similar special relationship with a young slave. A slave, because male-male sexual relationships were generally only respectable if the junior/feminized partner was a slave. And while Titullus’ concubino might have remained his inamorato even after outgrowing adolescence, the poem implies he’s still a young enough possession to attract the heir. But beyond this kind of speculation, concubino focuses the poem on one of Martial’s favorite themes – the always teeming Roman crossroads of money, privilege, death and sex. Whether Titullus’ concubino was one of the weeping castrati is for the reader’s imagination to ponder.
Art Beck’s Luxorius Opera Omnia (versions of the 6th century c.e. Latin epigrammist, published by Otis College) won the 2013 Northern California Book Award for poetry in translation. His poems, essays and translations have appeared in a number of lit-journals, anthologies, small press volumes and chapbooks. From 2009 through 2012, he was a twice yearly contributor to, the poetry magazine, Rattle‘s, since discontinued, e-issues with a series of essays on translating poetry under the byline The Impertinent Duet. The in-progress manuscript for his current project, Mea Roma, a 130 poem selection of Martial, was one of two finalists awarded “honorable mention” in the 2018 American Literary Translators administered Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation. Original artwork by Michael Welsh.