|
|
English Versions of MARTIAL IV.18
The selections below range from the work of upper school students
to the published versions of professional scholars and/or translators.
Which do you prefer, and why? Please be specific! Can you guess who did which translations?
(You may respond via moo-mail, or via regular e-mail at my school address.)
Where the gate drips near the Vipsanian Columns
and the slippery stone is wet with the constant shower,
on a boy’s throat, as he passed under that dewy roof,
fell water weighted with winter frost; and when it had
wrought the unhappy victim’s cruel death, the frail
dagger melted on the warm gash. What stretch of
power has not ruthless Fortune willed for herself? Or
where is not death, if ye, O Waters, are cutthroats?
Where it rains at the gate
Near the Vipsanian columns
Where the slick stones are damp,
Dampened by unceasing water
Down the throat of a boy
Just strolling beneath the portal,
Fell with vicious vengeance
A vehement icicle.
After piercing his dreams
the soft point melted in the wound
Goddamn you fierce Fortune
When will it ever end for you?
Where is cruel death lacking,
If you, gentle water, can kill.
Near the Vipsanian columns where the aqueduct
drips down the side of its dark arch,
the stone is a green and pulsing velvet
and the air is powdered with sweat
from the invisible faucet: there winter
shaped a dagger of ice, waited till
a boy looked up at the quondam stalactites,
threw it like a gimlet through his throat
and as in a murder in a paperback the clever
weapon melted away in its own hole. Where
have blood and water flowed before from one wound?
The story is trivial and the instance holy
what portion of power has violent fortune
ever surrendered, what degraded circumstance will she
refuse? Death is everywhere
if water, the life-giving element,
will descend to cutting throats.
Where the portal near the Vipsanian pillars dripped
And incessantly wet the slippery stone with water
Through the throat of a boy, walking below a dewy roof,
An overburdened icicle fell in wintry wave:
When it had accomplished the unlucky boy’s cruel fate,
It melted, the soft point of icy spike, in the warm wound.
Why does savage Fortune want to please herself with cruel games?
And where is there not death, if waters can kill?
Where drips the water channel by Vipsania’s portico,
and the stone becomes quite slipp’ry from the fluids ceaseless flow,
there chanced, one wintry day, a boy to pass ’neath Virgo’s gate,
a-gazing at the icicles and thereby met his fate
when one, dislodged by who knows what (a prospect quite remote!)
came hurtling down with willful fall and nailed him in the throat.
And as the boy in death turned cold, the weapon, so they say,
within the gaping wound grew warm and melted fast away.
What will not cruel Fate allow her fancy anymore?
Or where is death not to be found, if water, too, can gore?
|
|