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And one by one they'll see and they will run
In which I futz around with Lucan. I believe I've managed to err on the side of translation rather than version, because the latter is not what I'm interested in right now, but I still worry it's one of those Venn orphans that happen when you're trying to avoid being the Loeb Classical Library, but the other alternative is Robert Fitzgerald. (I quite liked Fitzgerald when I couldn't read Greek.) I have also realized that I suck at vaguely worded, philosophically reassuring sententiae. This may be a problem; Cato is a Stoic and kind of talks in nothing but.
In any case, the following forty-four lines are the prophecy Sextus Pompeius receives from the zombie oracle in Book 6, after an appropriate corpse has been reanimated by the witch Erictho in an elaborate and disgusting ceremony which I will probably translate next. Note that the degree of whiskey tango foxtrot currently being experienced by the Roman Republic can be measured by the fact that Sulla is here classified as a good guy. All rights reserved to decide I'm still dissatisfied and delete it.
Revoked from the silent river's quays,
I did not see for myself the griefs on the Parcae's loom,
yet all the shades gave me to understand the same:
savage strife assails the ghosts of Rome
and cracks the peace of the underworld with unholy war.
Figures from both sides of Latin history have left
the seats of Elysium and dismal Tartarus; they make plain
what the Fates have planned. The blessed shades
were saddened—I saw the Decii, father and son both
souls offered up to the wars, and Camillus in tears
and the Curii, and Sulla railing of you, Fortune.
Scipio grieves his luckless offspring to be lost
on Libyan soil, Cato the elder enemy of Carthage
mourns the fate of grandchildren who will not be slaves.
Only you, first consul after the tyrants were cast out,
Brutus, did I glimpse rejoicing among the holy shades.
Threatful Catiline, his shackles smashed and broken,
exults with the brawling Marii and bare-shouldered Cethegi.
With my own eyes I saw them cheering, the populists,
those lantern-lawyers the Drusi and the Gracchi, fire-eaters—
hands cramped by knots of indissoluble steel and Dis' custody
applauded and the criminal tumult presses for
the fields of the just. The lord of the unmoving realm
throws open his pale house, he roughs out fetters
from broken stone and strong adamant, readying
the victor's punishment. Take back with you this solace,
young man, that in a peaceable vale the ghosts await
your father and his house, saving a place for the Pompeys
in a tranquil space of the realm, and do not fret over the glory
that goes with a short life—the hour is coming that will blur
all leaders together. So run for your deaths, go down
in pride of your great spirit no matter how small the tomb,
and trample on the ghosts of the Roman gods.
Whose grave the Nile will lave with its tides, whose the Tiber,
is all the question: the generals fight only for their funeral games.
And do not ask after your own fate: the Parcae will give you to know
what I must refrain from. A surer seer will sing it all to you,
your father Pompey himself, in the fields of Sicily,
yet even he unsure where to call you, where to warn you off,
what regions, what reaches of the world to bid you shun.
You poor men, you must fear Europe and Libya and Asia—
Fortune has dealt out your tombs between your triumphs.
You pitiable family, in all the world you will see
nowhere safer than Emathia.
—Lucan, Pharsalia 6.776—820.
In any case, the following forty-four lines are the prophecy Sextus Pompeius receives from the zombie oracle in Book 6, after an appropriate corpse has been reanimated by the witch Erictho in an elaborate and disgusting ceremony which I will probably translate next. Note that the degree of whiskey tango foxtrot currently being experienced by the Roman Republic can be measured by the fact that Sulla is here classified as a good guy. All rights reserved to decide I'm still dissatisfied and delete it.
Revoked from the silent river's quays,
I did not see for myself the griefs on the Parcae's loom,
yet all the shades gave me to understand the same:
savage strife assails the ghosts of Rome
and cracks the peace of the underworld with unholy war.
Figures from both sides of Latin history have left
the seats of Elysium and dismal Tartarus; they make plain
what the Fates have planned. The blessed shades
were saddened—I saw the Decii, father and son both
souls offered up to the wars, and Camillus in tears
and the Curii, and Sulla railing of you, Fortune.
Scipio grieves his luckless offspring to be lost
on Libyan soil, Cato the elder enemy of Carthage
mourns the fate of grandchildren who will not be slaves.
Only you, first consul after the tyrants were cast out,
Brutus, did I glimpse rejoicing among the holy shades.
Threatful Catiline, his shackles smashed and broken,
exults with the brawling Marii and bare-shouldered Cethegi.
With my own eyes I saw them cheering, the populists,
those lantern-lawyers the Drusi and the Gracchi, fire-eaters—
hands cramped by knots of indissoluble steel and Dis' custody
applauded and the criminal tumult presses for
the fields of the just. The lord of the unmoving realm
throws open his pale house, he roughs out fetters
from broken stone and strong adamant, readying
the victor's punishment. Take back with you this solace,
young man, that in a peaceable vale the ghosts await
your father and his house, saving a place for the Pompeys
in a tranquil space of the realm, and do not fret over the glory
that goes with a short life—the hour is coming that will blur
all leaders together. So run for your deaths, go down
in pride of your great spirit no matter how small the tomb,
and trample on the ghosts of the Roman gods.
Whose grave the Nile will lave with its tides, whose the Tiber,
is all the question: the generals fight only for their funeral games.
And do not ask after your own fate: the Parcae will give you to know
what I must refrain from. A surer seer will sing it all to you,
your father Pompey himself, in the fields of Sicily,
yet even he unsure where to call you, where to warn you off,
what regions, what reaches of the world to bid you shun.
You poor men, you must fear Europe and Libya and Asia—
Fortune has dealt out your tombs between your triumphs.
You pitiable family, in all the world you will see
nowhere safer than Emathia.
—Lucan, Pharsalia 6.776—820.
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The lord of the unmoving realm
throws open his pale house, he roughs out fetters
from broken stone and strong adamant, readying
the victor's punishment.
Are you just doing this for fun? 'Cause, if so...damn you.;))
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It may take a couple of days, but I'm working on it!
Are you just doing this for fun?
I am hoping it will turn into a larger project—but, yeah, basically. It makes me happy.
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hands cramped by knots of indissoluble steel and Dis' custody
Holy shit!
Also
So run for your deaths, go down
in pride of your great spirit no matter how small the tomb,
and trample on the ghosts of the Roman gods.
That's awesome.
in an elaborate and disgusting ceremony which I will probably translate next.
*bounces in seat*
Also, Erictho is a cool witchy name. I've always been partial to Endor, but Erictho doesn't have the Ewok connotations...
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This one's got a nose and it's still intimidating . . .
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It's a rather long passage!
Also, Erictho is a cool witchy name.
You can hear an echo of the underworld in it: chthon (χθών) is earth, Erichthonios (Ἐριχθόνιος) one of the mythical, earth-born (autochthonous: out of the earth itself), half-serpentine kings of Athens; one of Hades' other names is Zeus Katachthonios (Ζεὺς καταχθόνιος), Zeus of the underearth. She is not something from the light or the upper air, Ἐριχθώ. Sextus Pompeius is in way over his head.
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Sextus Pompeius is in way over his head.
By definition; necromancy is the crystal meth of the Gods.
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Lovely work, Sonya. Truly.
... do not fret over the glory
that goes with a short life—the hour is coming that will blur
all leaders together.
When your number's up, you're gone? ;->
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Thank you.
When your number's up, you're gone?
It's all one down in the dark.
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Apparently everything has always been better with zombies.
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You write it, I'll read it. I should have Erictho's ritual translated to my satisfaction in a few days.
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and do not fret over the glory
that goes with a short life—the hour is coming that will blur
all leaders together. So run for your deaths, go down
in pride of your great spirit no matter how small the tomb
and
the generals fight only for their funeral games.
I wasn't entirely clear on what these lines are saying:
Cato the elder enemy of Carthage
mourns the fate of grandchildren who will not be slaves.
That makes it sound like he would prefer them to be slaves, though presumably he mourns them because they refuse to be slaves and thus are killed?
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Thank you! I'm working from Shackleton Bailey, but I imagine you'd be fine with Perseus if you wanted to check the Latin out.
That makes it sound like he would prefer them to be slaves, though presumably he mourns them because they refuse to be slaves and thus are killed?
Yeah, the sense of refusal is stronger in the original—non servituri maeret Cato fata nepotis—but I did not want to over-stress it in the English, "Cato mourns the fate of the grandchild who will not submit," "who refuses to serve." I also reserve the right to tinker with the translation whenever I feel like it, so I'll let you know if something more gracefully accurate comes to mind.
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Interesting. Thanks for the explanation. Now I get not only Latin geekery, but translation geekery, so I'm happy.
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Thank you. I don't think I'm as good as Lucan, but I am very glad to introduce you to him!
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Witch, please!
Nine
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Thank you.
Witch, please!
I don't know if Shakespeare ever read the Pharsalia—though I don't dislike Marlowe's translation of Book 1—but some of Erictho's spell-components make fillet of a fenny snake look like apple pie.
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Possibly he did. He admired Marlowe's other work.
Garçon! I'll have the fillet of a fenny snake, à la mode.
Nine
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Nine
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Sweet.
He admired Marlowe's other work.
He'd have read it in someone else's translation or on his own, then; Marlowe never finished more than the first book.
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Nine
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Thank you.
I am about to descend into maudlin remember when we were crazy kids and did this kind of stuff all the time territory, so I'll be quiet now...
*hugs*
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Okay, I have never been told that of anything I've written or translated before. That's wonderful.
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I'm really honored.
i need another ancient icon, don't i
Not that, given this smooth sample, you need much critting ...
---L.
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. . . If this turns into a publishable project, I may take you up on that.
Thank you.
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I need to think about it, for the icon. If I did a Latin poetry one, it'd more likely be Ovid, but a possibility is something from Cato crossing the Libyan desert (that's from, what, book 5? 6? --it's been, um, a couple years) concluding with "Snakes -- why did it have to be snakes."
---L.
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Book 9. Also, *snerk*.
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Please don't delete it? I'd much like to see more, an you'd care to write it.
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I think that's inevitable; I'm already backtracking through Book 6. Thank you.
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I have to admit that I'm rather selfishly glad to hear of this. You're welcome.
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hands cramped by knots of indissoluble steel and Dis' custody
--lantern-lawyer: this is an evocative vocation/derogatory term. And fire eaters?
So run for your deaths
--loved that. Not "run for your lives," but for your deaths.
Also: The lord of the unmoving realm
throws open his pale house, he roughs out fetters
from broken stone and strong adamant, readying
the victor's punishment
--that strikes fear into the heart: the victor's punishment. A new take on damned if you do, damned if you don't.
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I stole it from the French Revolution. It was originally applied to Camille Desmoulins.
And fire eaters?
Challenging, reckless, someone who fights for the sheer joy of fighting. The original is Drusos / legibus inmodicos ausosque ingentia Gracchos, "The Drusi with their excessive laws and the hugely daring Gracchi." Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus were the famous pair of brothers who served as tribunes in 133 and 123 BCE respectively, political reformists who attempted to redistribute patrician lands among disenfranchised plebians and were therefore scrubbed out by the Senate—the elder was clubbed to death in a riot and the younger forced to commit suicide when his political party was declared enemies of the state. Marcus Livius Drusus and his son of the same name were the succeeding tribunes; the father was essentially a senatorial smokescreen, proposing laws so wild, they alienated even Gaius' base among the populares, but the son genuinely managed to come up with even more threateningly radical legislation, like actually granting that land to the plebians and extending full Roman citizenship to the Italian allies. I can't remember what happened to the father, which means he probably just died. The son was assassinated over the citizenship issue, triggering the Social War.
--loved that.
Thank you.