Classics and translation

I’ve been reading poetry again. Sappho and Catullus this time. Now, you may wonder why those two in particular, and the explanation is very simple. The two books were lying on top of eachother on a bookshelf, and when I saw them I felt the need to read some of it again.

Reading the classics always makes me wish I could read latin and greek. Or in the case of Black Marigolds which is one of my all-time favourite poems, sanskrit. Of course when I read Goethe I get the urge to learn German, Cervantes Spanish and so on and so forth. I always wonder if the translations I have to contend with are good enough, if they’re accurate, if they manage to capture everything the writer wanted to express.

Some translations are so wonderful, it’s hard to imagine the original could rival it, but one just never knows. Unless you’re like someone I know, who I wish I could still call a friend, and then you just learn to read the language to verify. He’s just amazing. He can read around 15 languages, several of them languages I had never even heard of, long since dead. He taught himself sanskrit when he was 19, which to me is just mindboggling. I digress, the genius of others has a tendency to distract a little.

At the moment the poem below is my favourite Sappho poem, or rather my favourite fragment. I don’t think unrequited love, or secret love has ever been described more vividly.


He is more than a hero
he is a god in my eyes--
the man who is allowed
to sit beside you -- he

who listens intimately
to the sweet murmur of
your voice, the enticing

laughter that makes my own
heart beat fast. If I meet
you suddenly, I can'

speak -- my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,

hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body

and I turn paler than
dry grass. At such times
death isn't far from me

Sappho

And just for fun, here’s the same fragment translated by someone else. I suspect the second one is closer to a literal translation, but since I can’t read Greek I can’t be sure.

Like the gods. . .

In my eyes he matches the gods, that man who
sits there facing you--any man whatever--
listening from closeby to the sweetness of your
voice as you talk,

the sweetness of your laughter: yes, that--I swear it--
sets the heart to shaking inside my breast, since
once I look at you for a moment, I can't
speak any longer,

but my tongue breaks down, and then all at once a
subtle fire races inside my skin, my
eyes can't see a thing and a whirring whistle
thrums at my hearing,

cold sweat covers me and a trembling takes
ahold of me all over: I'm greener than the
grass is and appear to myself to be little
short of dying.

But all must be endured, since even a poor [

Sappho


If anyone wishes to express a preference for one or the other, I’m curious to know.

(Jan 9, 2006)