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I was limping for a week, you caught the flu
Because it is impossible to discuss Catullus without Catullus 16. If you watch The Daily Show, this is the poem whose first line was translated on-air last year as "I will sodomize you and face-fuck you." While not terribly poetic, that's perfectly accurate so far as the sexual acts and subject-object positions described by pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo are concerned—the poem being a riposte to Catullus' critics who charge that anyone who writes that much about kissing has got to be a total pussy in bed—which is why almost no one has ever produced a good translation of this poem.
The rest of this post otherwise known as the list of attempts I compiled for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
schreibergasse in March and inflicted on strange_selkie a few nights ago, because why should they be the only ones to suffer? The earliest is eighteenth-century, the last about ten years ago. On the bright side, at least one of them consistently makes me laugh out loud.
I'll treat you as 'tis meet, I swear,
Lascivious monsters as ye are!
Aurelius, Furius! who arraign
And judge me by my wanton strain.
The learned poet, I agree,
Should in himself quite decent be:
But what has decency to do
With his rich hoard of numbers too?
Which then have truest wit and sense
When season'd with sweet impudence;
When they not only can excite
Your prurient boys to salt delight;
But when your greybeards too they move,
Unpliant in the feats of love.
And yet, because my songs of bliss
Are sprinkled o'er with many a kiss,
You censure; and, forsooth, conclude
That I'm effeminately lewd.
But mark; if e'er you should peruse
The wand'rings of my sportive muse,
If haply o'er my luscious page
Your hands should rove in lustful rage;
I'll treat you as 'tis meet, I swear,
Lascivious monsters as ye are!
(John Nott, 1795)
I'll traduce you, accuse you, and abuse you,
Soft Aurelius, e'en as easy Furius.
You that lightly a saucy verse resenting
Misconceit me, sophisticate me wanton.
Know, pure chastity rules the godly poet,
Rules not poesy, needs not e'er to rule it;
Charms some verse with a witty grace delightful?
'Tis voluptuous, impudent, a wanton.
It shall kindle an icy thought to courage,
Not boy-fancies alone, but every frozen
Flank immovable, all amort to pleasure.
You my kisses, a million happy kisses,
Musing, read me a silky thrall to softness?
I'll traduce you, accuse you, and abuse you.
(Robinson Ellis, 1871)
I'll . . . you twain and . . .
Pathic Aurelius! Furius, libertines!
Who durst determine from my versicles
Which seem o'er softy, that I'm scant of shame.
For pious poet it behoves be chaste
Himself; no chastity his verses need;
Nay, gain they finally more salt of wit
When over softy and of scanty shame,
Apt for exciting somewhat prurient,
In boys, I say not, but in bearded men
Who fail of movements in their hardened loins.
Ye who so many thousand kisses sung
Have read, deny male masculant I be?
You twain I'll . . . and . . .
(Richard Burton, 1894)
I will trim you and trounce you, Aurelius and Furius, you infamous libertines, who judge from my verses that I am myself indecent because they are a little voluptuous; for it becomes the true poet to be himself chaste; but it is not at all necessary that his verses should be so. On the contrary, the very thing to give them zest and charm, is that they be a little voluptuous and indecent, and able to excite prurience, I do not say in beardless boys, but in the hardened fibres of veterans in debauchery. You, because you have read of many thousand kisses in my lines, think me effeminate; but do not presume upon my written follies; hands off! or I will give you awkward proof of my manhood.
(Walter K. Kelly, 1927)
I'll show you my manhood—I'll give you both beans,
Aurelius and Furius—you couple of queans!
My trifles are somewhat—well, hardly strait-laced,
And so you imagine the poet's unchaste!
For the priesthood of poets it proper and fit is
To be chaste in their persons—but not in their ditties:
Our stanzas would never be spicy and sporty,
If there weren't a bit loose, and they weren't a bit naughty:
For I don't bait my hook to get youngsters to rise,
But your hairy old buffers with gout in their thighs,
You think, when you read of my "thousands of kisses,"
I'm one of your boudoir aesthetic man-misses:
I'm a man ev'ry inch of me—I'll give you beans,
Aurelius and Furius—you couple of queans!
(F.C.W. Hiley, 1929)1
1. I cannot be the only person in the world who thinks "boudoir aesthetic man-misses" sounds like something awful happened to Dr. Seuss on his way to the forum.
Aurelius, down! you'll knuckle under!
Furius, up! admit your blunder!
For I'm a shameless chap, you say,
because I like my poems gay.
The poet can't be chaste enough,
but verse is made of different stuff.
It owns no art or charm, I claim,
unless it's wanton, void of shame,
and strong enough to aid at need
old hairy doddering spent and lame,
not sprightly lads. But when you read
The Thousand Kisses that I plead,
you think my manhood's gone to seed.
I'm coming down your way, take heed!
(Jack Lindsay, 1948)
Pedicabo et irrumabo
Furius & Aurelius
twin sodomites
you have dared deduce me from my poems
which are lascivious
which lack pudicity . . .
The devoted poet remains in his own fashion chaste
his poems not necessarily so:
they may well be
lascivious
lacking in pudicity
stimulants (indeed) to prurience
and not solely in boys
but those whose hirsute genitals are not easily moved.
You read of a thousand kisses.
You deduced an effiminacy there.
You were wrong. Sodomites, Furius & Aurelius.
Pedicabo et irrumabo vos.
(Peter Whigham, 1969)
I'll have you by the short and curly hair,
Furius and Aurelius, horrible pair,
Bugger and bum-boy! So you dare conclude
Because my verse is wanton that I'm lewd?
Fools! Though the sacred poet should abjure
Grossness himself, his word need not be pure;
Indeed, it will taste dry and dull unless
It's sauced and salted with licentiousness
And has the power to tickle and provoke
Some action—not in boys, I mean old folk
With grey hairs and rheumaticky, stiff hips.
Do you think that just because you read of "lips"
And "a thousand kisses" I'm no man? Take care,
Or I shall "man" you both, horrible pair!
(James Mitchie, 1969)
Piping, beaus, I'll go whoosh and I'll rumble you
pathic Aurelius and catamount Furius,
who mix my versicles with your poor tasties—
the sound is a mollycoddle's, I'm not up
to par for chasteness. But the pious poet
is chaste, his versicles not nailed to his need,
quick to themselves with no lack of decorum,
if the sound models not quite pure for pudency
what incitement it carries passes into
now I won't say hairless boys', but such hoary
necks as endure not quite up to feel lumbar.
Milling thousands of kisses are base or make
me out some mare of a male—you impute that?
Piping, beaus, I'll go whoosh and I'll rumble you.
(Celia and Louis Zukofsky, 1969)2
2. The Zukofskys' translations of Catullus were based on reproducing in English the sounds of the Latin first, the sense second. The results could be anything from sympathetically close to hilarious word salad. For comparable examples in the modern day, see "Joe Cocker's 'A Little Help from My Friends'" or the animutation "French Erotic Film."
I'll bugger you and stuff your gobs,
Aurelius Kink and Poofter Furius,
For thinking me, because my verses
Are rather sissy, not quite decent.
For the true poet should be chaste
Himself, his verses need not be.
Indeed they've salt and charm then only
When rather sissy and not quite decent
And when they can excite an itch
I don't say in boys but in those hairy
Victims of lumbar scleriosis.
Because you've read of my x thousand
Kisses you doubt my virility?
I'll bugger you and stuff your gobs.
(Guy Lee, 1998)
I'm going to rape you front and back,
you queer and you nymphomaniac.
You think you can tell from my verse, because
it is soft, that I must be decadent too.
Of course, a respectable life becomes
a serious poet; his poems, however,
are free, provided they have some wit
and charm, however decadent they
may be, and stir up an itch in their readers,
not boys, I say, but hairy sods,
nether parts of solid lead.
You read about infinite kisses and dare
to think my masculinity slack!
I'm going to rape you, front and back.
(David Mulroy, 2002)
. . . In other words, no one has yet done a real poetic version that doesn't (yeah, the irony) suck. For the non-student of Latin, Craig Williams' more or less work-print translation in Roman Homosexuality (2010) is at least accurate and direct:
I'll fuck you in ass and mouth, Aurelius you pathicus and you cinaedus3 Furius: because my poems are soft little things, you have thought me not very chaste [parum pudicum]. But while the upright poet ought to be pure himself, there is no need for his poems to be; they only have wit and charm if they are soft little things and not very chaste, if they can arouse what itches—not in boys, but in these hairy men who are unable to move their tough loins. So then, because you have read my many thousands of kisses, you think me hardly a man? I'll fuck you in ass and mouth.
3. Pathicus: Latinized παθικός, from πάσχω, to experience, endure, undergo, suffer; a man who takes it up the ass. Cinaedus: Latinized κίναιδος, either a loanword or associated with κινέω, to move, referring originally to a kind of dancer; a man who shakes his ass so you'll know to fuck him in it. Flip a coin to decide whether it's worse from the Roman male perspective to have been forcibly made another man's bitch or to have asked for it.
Otherwise, my favorite translation of the famous first line remains the one in iambic pentameter which Ayelet Lushkov of the Yale Classics Department used to quote: "I'll fuck you up the ass and make you blow me!"
(The Daily Show's Toppington von Monocle loses a few points for fumbling the poet's name, but wins a lot more for popular outreach and general awesomeness.)
Original texts of all canonical 116 carmina along with a rather amazing variety of translations can be found here. Available languages include Albanian, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Castellano, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Frisian, German, Greek, Gronings, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Rioplatense, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, South African, Spanish, Swedish, Telugu, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vercellese, Welsh, and, that godsend to slackers and writers of hendecasyllabic verse, correctly scanned Latin. Site maintained by Rudy Negenborn.
Now off to watch Spice and Wolf (2008) with Viking Zen, where I'd be really surprised if any of this is relevant at all.
The rest of this post otherwise known as the list of attempts I compiled for
schreibergasse in March and inflicted on strange_selkie a few nights ago, because why should they be the only ones to suffer? The earliest is eighteenth-century, the last about ten years ago. On the bright side, at least one of them consistently makes me laugh out loud.I'll treat you as 'tis meet, I swear,
Lascivious monsters as ye are!
Aurelius, Furius! who arraign
And judge me by my wanton strain.
The learned poet, I agree,
Should in himself quite decent be:
But what has decency to do
With his rich hoard of numbers too?
Which then have truest wit and sense
When season'd with sweet impudence;
When they not only can excite
Your prurient boys to salt delight;
But when your greybeards too they move,
Unpliant in the feats of love.
And yet, because my songs of bliss
Are sprinkled o'er with many a kiss,
You censure; and, forsooth, conclude
That I'm effeminately lewd.
But mark; if e'er you should peruse
The wand'rings of my sportive muse,
If haply o'er my luscious page
Your hands should rove in lustful rage;
I'll treat you as 'tis meet, I swear,
Lascivious monsters as ye are!
(John Nott, 1795)
I'll traduce you, accuse you, and abuse you,
Soft Aurelius, e'en as easy Furius.
You that lightly a saucy verse resenting
Misconceit me, sophisticate me wanton.
Know, pure chastity rules the godly poet,
Rules not poesy, needs not e'er to rule it;
Charms some verse with a witty grace delightful?
'Tis voluptuous, impudent, a wanton.
It shall kindle an icy thought to courage,
Not boy-fancies alone, but every frozen
Flank immovable, all amort to pleasure.
You my kisses, a million happy kisses,
Musing, read me a silky thrall to softness?
I'll traduce you, accuse you, and abuse you.
(Robinson Ellis, 1871)
I'll . . . you twain and . . .
Pathic Aurelius! Furius, libertines!
Who durst determine from my versicles
Which seem o'er softy, that I'm scant of shame.
For pious poet it behoves be chaste
Himself; no chastity his verses need;
Nay, gain they finally more salt of wit
When over softy and of scanty shame,
Apt for exciting somewhat prurient,
In boys, I say not, but in bearded men
Who fail of movements in their hardened loins.
Ye who so many thousand kisses sung
Have read, deny male masculant I be?
You twain I'll . . . and . . .
(Richard Burton, 1894)
I will trim you and trounce you, Aurelius and Furius, you infamous libertines, who judge from my verses that I am myself indecent because they are a little voluptuous; for it becomes the true poet to be himself chaste; but it is not at all necessary that his verses should be so. On the contrary, the very thing to give them zest and charm, is that they be a little voluptuous and indecent, and able to excite prurience, I do not say in beardless boys, but in the hardened fibres of veterans in debauchery. You, because you have read of many thousand kisses in my lines, think me effeminate; but do not presume upon my written follies; hands off! or I will give you awkward proof of my manhood.
(Walter K. Kelly, 1927)
I'll show you my manhood—I'll give you both beans,
Aurelius and Furius—you couple of queans!
My trifles are somewhat—well, hardly strait-laced,
And so you imagine the poet's unchaste!
For the priesthood of poets it proper and fit is
To be chaste in their persons—but not in their ditties:
Our stanzas would never be spicy and sporty,
If there weren't a bit loose, and they weren't a bit naughty:
For I don't bait my hook to get youngsters to rise,
But your hairy old buffers with gout in their thighs,
You think, when you read of my "thousands of kisses,"
I'm one of your boudoir aesthetic man-misses:
I'm a man ev'ry inch of me—I'll give you beans,
Aurelius and Furius—you couple of queans!
(F.C.W. Hiley, 1929)1
1. I cannot be the only person in the world who thinks "boudoir aesthetic man-misses" sounds like something awful happened to Dr. Seuss on his way to the forum.
Aurelius, down! you'll knuckle under!
Furius, up! admit your blunder!
For I'm a shameless chap, you say,
because I like my poems gay.
The poet can't be chaste enough,
but verse is made of different stuff.
It owns no art or charm, I claim,
unless it's wanton, void of shame,
and strong enough to aid at need
old hairy doddering spent and lame,
not sprightly lads. But when you read
The Thousand Kisses that I plead,
you think my manhood's gone to seed.
I'm coming down your way, take heed!
(Jack Lindsay, 1948)
Pedicabo et irrumabo
Furius & Aurelius
twin sodomites
you have dared deduce me from my poems
which are lascivious
which lack pudicity . . .
The devoted poet remains in his own fashion chaste
his poems not necessarily so:
they may well be
lascivious
lacking in pudicity
stimulants (indeed) to prurience
and not solely in boys
but those whose hirsute genitals are not easily moved.
You read of a thousand kisses.
You deduced an effiminacy there.
You were wrong. Sodomites, Furius & Aurelius.
Pedicabo et irrumabo vos.
(Peter Whigham, 1969)
I'll have you by the short and curly hair,
Furius and Aurelius, horrible pair,
Bugger and bum-boy! So you dare conclude
Because my verse is wanton that I'm lewd?
Fools! Though the sacred poet should abjure
Grossness himself, his word need not be pure;
Indeed, it will taste dry and dull unless
It's sauced and salted with licentiousness
And has the power to tickle and provoke
Some action—not in boys, I mean old folk
With grey hairs and rheumaticky, stiff hips.
Do you think that just because you read of "lips"
And "a thousand kisses" I'm no man? Take care,
Or I shall "man" you both, horrible pair!
(James Mitchie, 1969)
Piping, beaus, I'll go whoosh and I'll rumble you
pathic Aurelius and catamount Furius,
who mix my versicles with your poor tasties—
the sound is a mollycoddle's, I'm not up
to par for chasteness. But the pious poet
is chaste, his versicles not nailed to his need,
quick to themselves with no lack of decorum,
if the sound models not quite pure for pudency
what incitement it carries passes into
now I won't say hairless boys', but such hoary
necks as endure not quite up to feel lumbar.
Milling thousands of kisses are base or make
me out some mare of a male—you impute that?
Piping, beaus, I'll go whoosh and I'll rumble you.
(Celia and Louis Zukofsky, 1969)2
2. The Zukofskys' translations of Catullus were based on reproducing in English the sounds of the Latin first, the sense second. The results could be anything from sympathetically close to hilarious word salad. For comparable examples in the modern day, see "Joe Cocker's 'A Little Help from My Friends'" or the animutation "French Erotic Film."
I'll bugger you and stuff your gobs,
Aurelius Kink and Poofter Furius,
For thinking me, because my verses
Are rather sissy, not quite decent.
For the true poet should be chaste
Himself, his verses need not be.
Indeed they've salt and charm then only
When rather sissy and not quite decent
And when they can excite an itch
I don't say in boys but in those hairy
Victims of lumbar scleriosis.
Because you've read of my x thousand
Kisses you doubt my virility?
I'll bugger you and stuff your gobs.
(Guy Lee, 1998)
I'm going to rape you front and back,
you queer and you nymphomaniac.
You think you can tell from my verse, because
it is soft, that I must be decadent too.
Of course, a respectable life becomes
a serious poet; his poems, however,
are free, provided they have some wit
and charm, however decadent they
may be, and stir up an itch in their readers,
not boys, I say, but hairy sods,
nether parts of solid lead.
You read about infinite kisses and dare
to think my masculinity slack!
I'm going to rape you, front and back.
(David Mulroy, 2002)
. . . In other words, no one has yet done a real poetic version that doesn't (yeah, the irony) suck. For the non-student of Latin, Craig Williams' more or less work-print translation in Roman Homosexuality (2010) is at least accurate and direct:
I'll fuck you in ass and mouth, Aurelius you pathicus and you cinaedus3 Furius: because my poems are soft little things, you have thought me not very chaste [parum pudicum]. But while the upright poet ought to be pure himself, there is no need for his poems to be; they only have wit and charm if they are soft little things and not very chaste, if they can arouse what itches—not in boys, but in these hairy men who are unable to move their tough loins. So then, because you have read my many thousands of kisses, you think me hardly a man? I'll fuck you in ass and mouth.
3. Pathicus: Latinized παθικός, from πάσχω, to experience, endure, undergo, suffer; a man who takes it up the ass. Cinaedus: Latinized κίναιδος, either a loanword or associated with κινέω, to move, referring originally to a kind of dancer; a man who shakes his ass so you'll know to fuck him in it. Flip a coin to decide whether it's worse from the Roman male perspective to have been forcibly made another man's bitch or to have asked for it.
Otherwise, my favorite translation of the famous first line remains the one in iambic pentameter which Ayelet Lushkov of the Yale Classics Department used to quote: "I'll fuck you up the ass and make you blow me!"
(The Daily Show's Toppington von Monocle loses a few points for fumbling the poet's name, but wins a lot more for popular outreach and general awesomeness.)
Original texts of all canonical 116 carmina along with a rather amazing variety of translations can be found here. Available languages include Albanian, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Castellano, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Frisian, German, Greek, Gronings, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Rioplatense, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, South African, Spanish, Swedish, Telugu, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vercellese, Welsh, and, that godsend to slackers and writers of hendecasyllabic verse, correctly scanned Latin. Site maintained by Rudy Negenborn.
Now off to watch Spice and Wolf (2008) with Viking Zen, where I'd be really surprised if any of this is relevant at all.
no subject
My Latin edition of Catullus has this helpful note on line 1: "The verbs are here not to be understood in the literal sense, but only as conveying vague threats, in the gross language of that day."
no subject
Kenneth Quinn: "Colloquially, te irrumabo was perhaps the basic stereotype, with a meaning somewhere between 'I'll treat you with contempt' and 'go to hell!' . . . We may translate line 1 with Copley, 'Nuts to you, boys, nuts and go to hell'."
no subject
Me too!
The only Catullus I was given to read is "Da mihi basilia mille," way back in Wheelock-driven Latin 1.
no subject