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Translation of Catullus 51 (c.84-c.54 BC)

by , on Mar 22, 2016

ad Lesbiam

Ille mi par esse deo videtur,
ille, si fas est, superare divos,
qui sedens adversus identidem te
     spectat et audit
dulce ridentem, misero quod omnis
eripit sensus mihi: nam simul te,
Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi
    * * * * * * * *
lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
tintinant aures gemina, teguntur
     lumina nocte.
otium, Catulle, tibi molestum est:
otio exsultas nimiumque gestis:
otium et reges prius et beatas
     perdidit urbes.

 

Catullus 51

That one seems to me the equal of a god
he, were it not ineffable, might surpass gods,
that one, sitting beside you, over and again watches and
hears you laughing sweetly.
This snatches all senses out of
miserable me, for when at once
I look at you, Lesbia, nowt immeasurable is
too much for me.
But the tongue is dozy, a thin fire
runs up my frame, night
dims my two eyes.
Laziness, Catullus, is your ill
In leisure you delight and exult.
Otiosity has long since ruined
kings and beatified cities.

—trans. T. R. Williams

///

Translation of Catullus 51 is a double whammy, a translation of Catullus’s translation, or adaptation, of Sappho 31. Catullus often turned to Sappho as a model, the mantra in classical poetry being not make it new, but make it more of what it is. Catullus felt no anxiety of influence. Influence was to be flaunted. What interests me is not so much how the poet follows his model, expressing jealousy of the man now enjoying Lesbia’s company, it’s where he deviates. Sappho describes the physical effects of jealousy – the sudden rush of blood that ties her tongue and blinds her eyes. Catullus is as cavalier as a court poet, as cool as Cary Grant. His tongue is not tied but dozy. The rush of blood is thin. Oh well, he says, I could undertake anything to win you but I’m lazy. I love you but I love my leisure too. He scolds himself for indolence of a kind that has ruined kings and cities. Three times, stacked one on another, he uses the word “otiose.” His address turns from his beloved to himself. Why? It’s a question scholars worry. To me it looks a bit like the pretended indifference that is typical of the jilted and has been for a couple of millennia.

— Sherry Chandler

 

—
Sherry Chandler has published two volumes of poetry, The Wood Carver’s Wife and Weaving a New Eden, both from Wind Publications.

T. R Williams is a woodcarver who translates Catullus for pleasure.

Pinned

by on Feb 12, 2016

To pierce, to find peace,
it’s all we ever care for.
One solid wire coiled
and carefully caught
brought Walter Hunt
a patent in 1849 as if
no one before had hoped
to pin hard and hold
and leave nothing barbed.
At least till the punk
with a pin through his flesh
snarled a no like a gun
with its safety off, like love.

 

—
George Yatchisin is the Communications Coordinator for the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at UC Santa Barbara. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals including Antioch Review, Askew, Quarterly West, and Zocalo Public Square. He is co-editor of the anthology Rare Feathers: Poems on Birds & Art (Gunpowder Press 2015).

Mural with Matching Sky

by on Feb 11, 2016

Mural with Matching Sky

 

Mural with Matching Sky

On the corner by the pub car park is a new mural
after van Dyck’s Venetia Lady Digby on her Deathbed.
Let me count the ways this work inspired by a portrait
of a dead woman paradoxically fills me with happiness.

Huge and bright and apart from the rose mostly blue,
it’s by the German artist Claudia Walde, aka MadC,
a woman of  bold vision and talent and about the age
Venetia Digby was when she died in her sleep in 1633.

What Claudia did here is such a surprise: a nifty project,
these “old master murals” by street artists talking back
to their chosen works in the gallery have flashed up
on blank walls and gable ends all over Dulwich, but

none has taken my breath, none makes me stop and
smile and ponder each time I see it the way this does –
a mistressful meeting of past and present, private and
public art, death and unrestrained but not unthinking life.

 

///

Links: Venetia Lady Digby on her Deathbed by Anthony van Dyck | MadC | Dulwich Picture Gallery

—
Jean Morris lives in Dulwich, south-east London, UK, where she writes, edits, translates from French and Spanish and takes photos. For the past six months she’s been contributing to the Via Negativa group poetry blog.

found poems

by on Feb 10, 2016

i found a poem
by a copy machine
about a bruised boy
and a mother sleeping
through his pain

i found a poem
in a classroom
about a doctor opening
a file of cold results
and whispering the warm name

i found a poem
at a railway station
etched into chrome
i chiselled it out
and carried it with me
on the train

 

—
Duncan Richardson is a writer of fiction, poetry, radio drama and educational texts. He teaches English as a Second Language part time in Brisbane, Australia. Find him on Facebook.

Reading Whitman on Roque Island

by on Feb 9, 2016

It is unfashionable to honor those who came before us,
and yet I sit in the house
of George Augustus Gardner,
of Isabella Stewart, reading the only book of poetry I can find.
It’s like he speaks to me, here in the drawing room,
to a life lived on the edge of privilege,
on the edge of belonging,
on the edge of a great good fortune.

There are no stevedores now, few butcher boys or drovers
but I hear their song and I remember their voices as my own.
Unlock my soul.
Give me the voice of farmers,
of the unpaid intern trying to grow wiser than her birthright.
Give me the voice of the lobstermen, of the housewife
making jellies in her kitchen, of the ambulance driver
picking up drunks and meth addicts one more time.
Give me the whistling song of the carpenter keeping time with his hammer.

Uncle Walt, your grass is under my feet, your words are in my head.
I know I am an uneasy guest
on this green and holy island.

 

—
Dervishspin lives with her husband and 3 cats in a cohousing community in Berlin Massachusetts. Under her mundane name, Dervishspin studied poetry at Mount Holyoke College with Christopher Benfy and Mary Jo Salter. She has not quit her day job.

Rush-hour

by on Feb 4, 2016

Riding down a busy road in Bengaluru… a street dog standing by the side, suckling two of her puppies… sniffing the third one, lying on its side, dead. The two carry on tugging at her teats.

weekend retreat…
how quiet this world
outside me

 

—
Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy is a psychiatrist from Bengaluru (Bangalore) India, living in England for over a decade. A trained vocalist and a composer in Indian Classical Music, he writes poetry in several languages including Kannada, Sankethi, Tamil and English. He is particularly interested in haiku, tanka and other allied genres. Many of his writings have been published in various reputed journals, and won prizes. For him, writing is not only a means of expression, but also a form of therapy to overcome day to day stress.

Resting

by on Feb 3, 2016

I can smell the sun on your skin
taste the salt sea water left
on your lips
as we lean back
into the afternoon
as though it could hold us
safely in its arms
forever
as though nothing could pull us
out of this light

back to the dim rooms
where debt and obligation
line up in columns
long and dark enough
to occlude our dreams
and no one comes to whisper
sedition in our ears
with words strong enough
to break us back out
into the heat
into the light

 

—
Mary McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. She has only recently come to discover the vital communities of poets online, where there can be a more immediate connection between writers and readers than is usually afforded in print.

Herring

by on Feb 1, 2016

If they are right
and the ocean fills the street
I’ll shut

the door
and watch

for herring
out the window. (Schools

of silver, chandeliers
of thinning

rain.)

The afterimage softly
bleeds out

into nothing,

light and line and melting
sun.

 

—
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco lives in California’s Central Valley, where she works as a librarian. Her poems have appeared in Gnarled Oak, The Mas Tequila Review, Paper Nautilus, Word Riot, Hobart, and The Potomac Review, among others.

the heart’s trails

by on Jan 28, 2016

I
dried tears
leave salt tracks

shed Rorschach faces

nurture memories
released
from hard service
as prison guards

II
roller coaster hearts
fly so fast

vision blurs
breath catches

without focus
tightened muscles
cannot guide

bodies flung
at every curve

& hearts collide
without design

III
in a field
of dried stalks
of past loves

lies a wicker cornucopia
woven from
the hollow reeds at hand

invisible
until spring

 

—
Herb Kauderer is an associate professor of English at Hilbert College, and has published a lot of poetry. More can be found about him at HerbKauderer.com.