Poem 5
by Catullus (circa 84-54 BC)
translated from Latin by Mary Jane Myers
Ah, Lesbia, lust’s our sweet pastime.
Old codgers censure us en bloc.
Their gossip’s worth not one thin dime.
Dawn always breaks in each epoch,
but our span’s brief. Life’s suns soon set,
we slumber in perpetual night.
Kiss me a thousandfold, again,
vast hundreds, thousands: tongue me, bite!
whilst we lose track of where or when.
The furies who spin Fate’s roulette,
bollixing up the count, can’t train
an evil eye on our love nest—
their envy merely stokes our zest!
Latin Original
Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus invidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.
Poem 101
by Catullus
translated from Latin by Mary Jane Myers
For weeks I’ve journeyed, crossing far-flung seas and lands
_to find your grave. With weary trembling hands
I offer formal gifts, as grieving Romans must,
_and futilely address your voiceless dust.
Since Fortuna’s wrenched your vibrant soul from mine,
_alas my brother, severed your lifeline,
accept this sacrifice, our fathers’ ancient rite
_bequeathed to us, gifts for our human plight,
soaked with my tears, tears of this fathomless travail.
_Adieu forever, brother. Hail, farewell.
Latin Original
Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem.
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,
heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi,
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.
Mary Jane Myers resides in Springfield, Illinois. She is a retired JD/CPA tax specialist. Her debut short story collection Curious Affairs was published by Paul Dry Books in 2018.
These are probably the most famous of all the poems of Catullus, and for good reasons: they are perfect gems of versecraft, direct in their emotional appeal, and two examples of love — one sexual, and one familial. The translations here are both faithful and graceful.
Translating the hendecasyllables of Poem 5 as English tetrameters was a good choice. The Latin is playful and tight, and the English follows that style. The lines of Poem 101 are much more stately and formal, and rendering them into alternating hexameter lines and pentameter lines works out perfectly.
It’s curious how sometimes one line or even one phrase of a poet’s literary corpus will become “immortal,” in that it gets accepted into usage by everyone. The closing words of Poem 101 (“hail and farewell”) are that case with Catullus, just as “gone with the wind” are in the case with Ernest Dowson.
Dear Joseph
Thank you for your kind words. I’ve finally attempted a few translations. Quite challenging!
Most sincerely
Mary Jane
Mary Jane, you’ve done the marvel of making more and more of Catullus 5, and thereby making the translation a new poem of your own in English. This is a risk for a translator to take, because it’s a matter of adding to the original words–but with the purpose of expressing the original freshness. For Catullus, the count’s the thing, but when you come to it after hundreds or thousands of earlier translations, you choose not to spend so many words as he does on counting. The original word “envy” suggests to you “furies who spin Fate’s roulette” in a numbers game, despite there being no furies (furia, erinnys) or fate (fortuna, parcae) in Catullus. Thereby you’re able to contrast in a livelier way his censure of the severe seniors beginning the poem, with envy of so many kisses at the end.
I also like the contrast of “atque,” which you may not have intended in pairing these celebrated pieces. When I think of Catullus, “vivamus atque amemus” naturally leads to “ave atque vale.”
Margaret
Thank you for your thoughtful knowledgeable comments. How challenging this “translation game” is!
I researched the “evil eye,” the essence of which is a sustained gaze by the jealous evil-spell caster. It was believed that if one could distract the gazer (by, for example, making the gazer lose track of the “count” of the blessings bestowed on the fotunate one) then the spell might be broken. I believe Catullus’s readers would have understood this connection implicitly. I decided to make that connection more explicit for modern readers. Because of that decision, my translation perhaps leans more to the “imitation” side of the translation/imitation “spectrum.” That is, I’ve added a bit to Catullus’s actual lines.
The word “roulette” of course is from the 18th century gambling game–but the roots of roulette are in the ‘rota Fortunae’– the Wheel of Fate or Wheel of Fortune. The Romans of Catullus’s time bet on the outcome of a spinning wheel.
Most sincerely
Mary Jane
Boldly and explicitly expressed on Poem 5, Mary Jane!
Thank you Margaret! It’s great fun translating the explicit language of Catullus!
Most sincerely
Mary Jane
I enjoyed your poems, MJ, though alas, I can offer no learned appraisal of them.
Thanks for the reads.
Thank you Paul for your gracious comments.
Most sincerely
Mary Jane
The greatest value of translation accrues to the translator, who goes into another’s culture and comes up with something of his or her own. It extends one’s vision, as Ms. Myers has done in this pair of from the end of the Republic to the famous pair of the Horatian oeuvre from the Golden Age.