Hellenika

[sovay]

Greek text courtesy of nineweaving, who scanned it. (I am not sure whether it will display properly on a browser not configured for the font, but since it's Unicode, a quick trip to Perseus may help. If not, there's always the scanned PDF!) Bracketed text courtesy of Martin West's conjectures. Apologies for non-Greek punctuation in a few instances, because this is one hundred percent cut-and-paste, and there's bizarrely no such thing as a raised dot on Perseus. Translation courtesy of me.* Inaccuracies, the same.

ὔμμες πεδὰ Μοίσαν ἰ]οκ[ό]λπων κάλα δῶρα, παῖδες,
σπουδάσδετε καὶ τὰ]ν φιλάοιδον λιγύρον χελύνναν:

ἔμοι δ' ἄπαλον πρίν] ποτ' [ἔ]οντα χρόα γῆρας ἤδη
ἐπέλλαβε, λεῦκαι δ' ἐγ]ένοντο τρίχες ἐκ μελαίναν:

βάρυς δέ μ' ὀ [θ]ῦμος πεπόηται, γόνα δ' [ο]ὐ φέροισι,
τὰ δή ποτα λαίψηρ' ἔον ὄρχησθ' ἴσα νεβρίοισι.

τὰ <μὲν> στεναχίσδω θαμέως: ἀλλὰ τί κεν ποείην;
ἀγήραον ἄνθρωπον ἔοντ' οὐ δύνατον γένεσθαι.

καὶ γάρ π[ο]τα Τίθωνον ἔφαντο βροδόπαχυν αὔων
ἔρωι φ . . αθεισαν βάμεν' εἰς ἔσχατα γᾶς φέροισα[ν,

ἔοντα [κ]άλον καὶ νέον, ἀλλ' αὖτον ὔμως ἔμαρψε
χρόνωι πόλιον γῆρας, ἔχοντ' ἀθανάταν ἄκοιτιν.

About the violet-lapped** Muses' beautiful gifts, children,
and the clear music-loving tortoiseshell, be serious:

but my skin that once was tender, old age has already
seized, and my hair has gone white from dark:

and my heart has turned heavy, and my knees would not bear me,
that once were dancers light as fawns.

I sigh over these things often: but what can I do?
It's impossible for a person not to grow old.***

An example: they say that rose-armed Eos, [. . . . . .]
with desire, once carried Tithonos off to the ends of the earth,

young and beautiful as he was, but in time grey age
caught up with him, who had an immortal wife.

*Very literal, or such to the best of my abilities at the moment. Go read poliphilo for poetry.
**Or "violet-breasted," in the sense of bosom, since κόλπος can mean both; any hollow, any fold.
***More literally, "it's impossible for a person to be never-aging." As differentiated from "ageless"—what never grows, as it never dies; rather than someone who may reach maturity, but never old age, never decay. nineweaving has suggested "unwithering" for ἀγήραος, and I'll buy it.

Comments

[sovay]

I started with Latin in high school and still retain a great fondness for Catullus, Ovid, and Vergil, but the language I'm crazy about is Greek. I'm starting to get that way about Akkadian, but I have nowhere near as much of a facility with the language as I would need justify my craziness at this point.

May I see your version?

Re: hm..

[sovay]

I've got the accents from stealing them off Perseus, so don't worry about it. I have no idea how to handle Greek in HTML other than massive, massive cut-and-paste. : P

Re: hm..

[sovay]

Heh. Thank you. It's yours.

Re: hm..

[olympia-m.livejournal.com]

Really? It had never occured to me. :) I can do modern Greek - obviously, because of my computer's keyboard, but I use Palatino Linotype when I need to use accents in my word documents and that's it! :) Hm - I might check Perseus if I remember it (my memory is so fleeting)

[sovay]

I am almost entirely unfamiliar with the Egyptian underworld, beyond the most basic features: descent of the sun, nightly rebirth, weighing of the heart, the thing that will eat it if you flunk . . . Heavy-duty solar stuff, and don't forget to pack lots of servants. There is a student here who specializes in Egyptian books of the underworld, though, so theoretically I could ask her when she gets back from her dig.

As I learned their names, the earth is Geb and the sky is Nut. But with the annoying tendency of most Semitic languages, Egyptian doesn't write down its vowels; so I am always a little wary of pronounceable versions. Don't even get me started on Hellenized Egyptian names, which is of course what I learned in sixth grade when I decided to teach myself hieroglyphs and failed pathetically. Wait, who's this Ynpu fellow? Where's my old familiar Anubis . . . ?

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

Nut was what the book used, I believe.

'Anubis' certainly sounds better to me, though 'Ynpu' sounds peculiarly appropriate for someone with the head of a jackal.

[not-a-freak.livejournal.com]

I'd just like to say I came here from another journal and your translation is beautiful. Rolled out of bed and it was one of the first things I was directed to - great way to start the day.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Nope, it makes perfect sense. The womb as a chamber hidden in the body, the grave as a chamber hidden in the earth.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. What confuses me is that there is no implication of either field or jar in there, since those are the two most common womb metaphors I recall in the Greek usage. But then, I may have been overexposed to Hesiod.

I only have the Middle Liddell, and it leaves out half of those definitions. Sigh. Lexicon envy.

[sovay]

But then, I may have been overexposed to Hesiod.

Nope, it's all through Sophokles too—the Theban plays, at any rate. Land as grave as mother. Which makes Oedipus' whole thing about lying with his mother a lot mythologically weirder, if you ask me.

I don't think that κόλπος here is very much about wombs, but the usage is attested: to lie in the lap of the earth is to be dead, or unborn.

[dylanbd.livejournal.com]

Hello, that's lovely. Also, go Alan Garner!

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

'Violet-hollowed' could also refer to circles under one's eyes -- maybe this is the Muse of Undergraduates.

Or armpits. Didn't the Buddha's mother give birth from her armpit? This is developing into a wonderfully multicultural orifice discussion.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Hush!

Nine

If you really want to...

[larryhammer]

Sappho's New Song

Seize the flower-folded Muses' gifts,
Girls -- the clear-songed lyre's music lifts

But not for me. My tender body's marked
By old age, my hair's turned white from dark,

My heart's heavy, and my knees are gone
That once let me dance as fleet as fawns.

I complain; but what else is there -- rage?
Being human, I cannot not age.

You've heard how Tithonus had his day:
Rose-armed Dawn loved him, took him away,

Young and handsome then, and yet grey time
Caught him, aged him in an immortal's house.


Very rough -- the meter's crap, the last couplet isn't, and rage is wrenched in for the rhyme by a recent exposure to Dylan Thomas. Needs much work.

---L, ovid's stepson.

[scixual.livejournal.com]

And I followed you here.

Lovely!

[scixual.livejournal.com]

Yes!

Also Xanadu -- the movie.

[scixual.livejournal.com]

"Liddell and Scott's..."

*The* Liddell?

[sovay]

The only Liddell I'm familiar with. I recently found out that Alice Liddell was his daughter—which I hadn't realized at all—if that helps.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

"I am the Dean and this is Mrs. Liddell.
She plays the first, and I the second fiddle."

Yes.

Alice's father.

Nine

[scixual.livejournal.com]

That's the Liddell I was thinking of! Neat that his (and Dodgson's) work is still being read.

[scixual.livejournal.com]

Neat.

...

Uh, is it dorky that *that* is what most grabs my attention in all this?

[sovay]

Not unless I have to feel like a dork for having learned Alice's parentage through an extremely classicist-specific joke . . .

[sovay]

*guiltily stuffs The Annotated Moonwise under a couch cushion*

[sovay]

I don't think κόλπος is ever attested as "armpit"—and even if it were, would you really want to have violet ones?

Re: If you really want to...

[sovay]

If it helps, I like the first line very much . . .