Chekhov’s Mistess

A New Propertius: The Balance Between Translation and Interpretation

John Toren reviews Vincent Katz’s translation of Sextus Propertius’ elegies in the latest Rain Taxi (where you will find reviews by our own Scott Esposito). The first excerpt Toren offers us starts like this:

you jealous creep! Shut your annoying mouth already

and let us go our course as we are, equals!

What do you want idiot? To experience my madness?

Poor boy, your rushing into a hellhole!…

which I found shocking. And then Toren gives us this excerpt from Constance Carrier’s translation of the fifteenth elegy of Book II (in the Norton Anthology of Classical Literature):

To lie and talk there in the lamp’s dark, flickering,

and then to learn ourselves by touch, not sight –

to have her hold me with her breasts uncovered,

or, slipping on her tunic, balk my hand;

to have her kiss my eyes awake and murmur,

Why must you sleep? and make her sweet demand.

And the new translation by Vincent Katz:

As many words as we shared while the lamps were on –

once light was removed, that many bouts ensued!

First she wrestles me with naked breasts,

then her concealing tunic brings delay.

She pushes open my lids, as they slip into sleep,

and says, with her expression, “So, you lie there spent?”

The following wasn’t in Toren’s review, but the law requires me to offer the same passage from Ezra Pound’s now classic rendition (a selection of works called Homage to Sextus Propertius):

Me happy, night, night full of brightness;

Oh couch made happy by my long delectations;

How many words talked out with abundant candles;

Struggles when the lights were taken away;

Now with bared breasts she wrestled against me,

Tunic spread in delay;

And she then opening my eyelids fallen in sleep,

Her lips upon them; and it was her mouth saying: Sluggard!

Wow! Even though Katz’s translation is of the whole [of the elegies] and therefore not directly comparable to Pound’s selective work (maybe why Toren left it out?), Pound’s is tough to beat. Not only is it far more elegant and poetic than the other two (I find Carrier’s dull), Pound’s language feels, if not necessarily close, at least closer to what you might expect from a work originally written in the pre-Christian era.

Just looking at the last two lines of each is telling: Pound’s “Sluggard!” in one word says much more than Katz’s “So, you lie there spent?” Making a “sweet demand” is one thing, posing a suggestive question another, but the playful “Sluggard!” says You are mine! (reminding me of passages in Grave’s translation of Apuleius’ The Golden Ass)

Preceding that final statement, Pound’s “Her lips upon them; and it was her mouth saying:” builds a contrast to make Sluggard all the more effective, while Katz’s “and says, with her expression” falls just as flat as the question it leads to.

Toren points out early in his review that Propertius is notoriously difficult to translate, thus leaving room for the balance between literal translation and interpretation (all translations carry something of both) to tip over toward interpretation.

While none of the above substantially change the meaning of the passage, I would say the first, Carrier’s, is demure while Katz’s borders on being coarse at places and timid elsewhere. Toren characterizes it as vivid and punchy, but based on what I’ve seen, I have to disagree. There are many other translations of Propertius, but from these three, it is safe to say Pound’s, as imperfect a strict translation as it may be, remains the reigning contender.

“The Complete Elegies of Sextus Propertius (Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation)” (Propertius)

“Homage to Sextus Propertius” (Ezra Pound)

Read widely, think well, and write often

comments

[note: comment moved from the post “Thanks for Asking” to here. ed.]

This is actually a response to the Sextus Propertius posting (I couldn’t find a place on the page to add a comment), though I’m delighted to see your sprite looking so spritely: very reassuring, also inspiring of nostalgia, as my sprite now surpasses me in height, having graduated from Pat the Bunny to Madame Bovary in French.

Even though I’ve infused a good dose of coffee, I can’t locate the review of Sextus Propertius in Rain Taxi (the spring issue I think is the most recent I have). I subscribe to RT, but in this just-post-waking state can’t locate the issue in question. Nor could I find it in RT online. Never mind; it will eventually surface.

I’ve rustled up my one translation of the poems of Propertius, by W.G. Shepherd in the Penguin Classics Edition, and his translation of the segment in question (II.15) follows:

“How much we told each other by lamplight,

How great our strife when the light was removed!

For now with bare nipples she wrestled me,

And now procrastinated, tunic closed.

She opened my rolling eyes from sleep

With her lips and said, ‘Will you lie so sluggish?’

What varied embraces shifted our arms! And how

My kisses loitered on your lips!”

Probably more faithful to the Latin, but somehow old Ez manages to capture both lyric and vernacular in his version, and I’m abashed to discover that on my extensive row of various editions of his poetry and other writings and letters, there is no copy of his Homage to SP. A grave lacuna.

Your considerations of the new translations then sent me to my bookcase of Latin and Greek classics, quite a hodge-podge collection, but I do have a lovely copy of Gilbert Highet’s Poets in a Landscape (1975)with an extensive section on Propertius, accompanied by some of Highet’s own translations. I’m now curious whether Highet ever published a more extensive version of SP. The text of his essay is an absorbing read, very much his personal experience of the poems amplified by his extensive knowledge of the historical and geographical context of the poems. Highet considers Propertius a “difficult” poet and the following bit from his essay makes me want to explore the works of this Umbrian poet:

“The abrupt and angular movement of Propertius’s thought does not keep him from being a fine poet. It is one of his chief distinctions. He is the boldest and most original of the Latin elegists. Both his ideas and his illustrations, both his words and the structure of his poems are often recondite, sometimes nearly unintelligible. Yet when they can be understood, they are packed with meaning and emotion, and often filled with delicate and grave music. Even when not fully clear, they have a romantic gloom, and enigmatic melancholy, which is a quality of much distinguished poetry.”

Thank you for bringing Propertius to my attention again. Now I can track down Pound’s versions of the poems, and re-read Highet with fresh attention, maybe even find a copy of the Loeb for my sprite, who is contemplating a combined degree in Classics and English Literature.

    – Norma (04/14  at  06:16 PM)

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About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: April 13, 2005
• Filed Under:
  Wise Men Fish Here: Literature

• Comments:1
• Links to this Post: Technorati

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