Catullus
Six versions of poem 101
in Spanish and English
Catullus
Carmen 101 by Catullus (c. 84-c. 54 BC) is an elegiac poem addressed to his dead brother. The Here, the Roman poet shows a more intimate side, as compared with other compositions. It comprises ten verses in elegiac distich or couplet (a dactylic hexameter plus a dactylic pentameter), a typical form of Ancient Greek poetry later adopted by the Romans.
Each of the six versions I present here (three in Spanish, three in English) appeared as I dared to keep experimenting with the translation of this poem. First of all, I researched the different ways in which the elegiac couplet had been translated into Spanish. We should remember that the metre of the Latin hexameters and pentameters cannot be reproduced exactly in the Spanish or English languages, since, in the case of Latin, the feet are measured in terms of syllable length; in Spanish and English poetry, syllables are distinguished by stress. However, in there have been some attempts, at least since the late Renaissance, to imitate the structure of the Latin hexameters and pentameters by adapting the two feet that comprise those metres (i.e., the dactyl (— u u) and the spondee (— —)) not on a quantitative, but on an accentual basis. In Spanish, the Latin dactyl (one long, two short syllables) can be readily replaced by a dactyl with one stressed and two unstressed syllables. This is not the case with the spondee, as using two stressed syllables as a basic foot would be outrightly antinatural to Spanish prosody. One proposed solution was to replace the spondees with trochees (one stressed, one unstressed syllable), following the foot’s number of syllables.
Based on these precedents, my first version of Catullus 101 is a Spanish translation that follows the form of the Latin elegiac couplet. Thus, in my version, each hexameter includes, of course, six accents, and each dactyl can be replaced by a trochee, except on the fifth foot, which, according to the Latin hexameter rules, must be dactylic. The Spanish pentameters cannot strictly replicate the Latin pentameters: more precisely, it is impossible to reproduce the fifth foot, whose two halves are divided between the first and second half-lines. However, the Spanish pentameters stick to five regular accents; also, as is the case in Latin poetry, only the first two dactyls can be replaced by trochees. Lastly, any verse may include an unstressed syllable in anacrusis (not featured in Latin verses) to better adjust to the natural prosody of Spanish.
Having finished the first translation, I thought that, given its length and theme, Catullus 101 would fit well with the sonnet form. Hence, my second version, going a little further from the original, is a poem in an archetypical form of Spanish poetry: the hendecasyllabic sonnet. The strophic structure displays the classic consonant rhymes ABBA-ABBA in the first two quatrains and CDC-EDE (one of many possible combinations) in the final tercets.
The third version is a silva, a form I had already used in my translations of the Prophetiae Sibyllarum poems set to music by Orlando di Lasso. The specifics and origins of this idea are better explained there. It is enough to mention that this version is more experimental, as it is meant to impose Latin syntax on Spanish to create, through strangeness, the illusion of reading the original Latin poem. The silva freely employs hendecasyllabic and heptasyllabic verses with consonant and assonant rhymes.
Once I completed these Spanish versions, I wanted to keep exploring the translation of Catullus, so I came up with the idea of crafting three equivalent versions in English. So, the fourth version, the English elegiac couplet, follows the same rules as the first one, imitating the Latin dactylic hexameter and pentameter. The fifth version adopts the typical form of the Elizabethan sonnet, with fourteen verses in iambic pentameter according to the ABAB-CDCD-EFEF-GG rhyming scheme.
The sixth version is, admittedly, quite strange, as the experiment of “Latinising” language may be successful in Spanish —as proved by Góngora—, but the case for English is different. Imitating the characteristically fluid structure of Latin syntax in a language like English, whose lack of inflection makes for a stricter syntax, could be deemed as unfeasible, or indeed bordering on unintelligibility. Be it as it may, the temptation not to leave the Spanish silva unmatched was too strong. After all, having already attempted the more “traditional” translations, who says there is no room for playing around? This last version is a double imitation: on the one hand, it follows the original Latin syntax; on the other hand, it adapts the formal characteristics of the Spanish silva, using iambic pentameters and trimeters (instead of hendecasyllables and heptasyllables) and both perfect and imperfect rhymes.
Carmen 101
Original
Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam adloquerer cinerem,
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,
heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi.
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.
Dístico elegíaco
Tantos los pueblos y tantos los mares por donde he viajado,
vengo, hermano, a estas exequias tan tristes
a darte este póstumo obsequio como ofrenda en tu muerte
y a hablar en vano a estas calladas cenizas,
pues de ti la Fortuna me ha despojado, ¡de ti!
¡Ay, mi pobre hermano, qué injusta te lleva!
Ahora, entretanto, te entrego, según la costumbre ancestral,
esto cual triste regalo en estas exequias:
recíbelo así, empapado de tanto llanto fraterno,
y a ti, hermano, ¡salve y adiós para siempre!
Soneto
Tantos pueblos y mares vi en mi viaje,
hermano, y a estas honras he llegado,
aciagas, por brindarte aquí un recado,
que es a tu muerte un póstumo homenaje.
Y a estas cenizas mudas me sustraje
a hablar en vano, pues de mí arrancado
fuiste, mi pobre hermano, por el Hado.
¡Que me prive de ti, si no es ultraje!
Y ahora, mientras tanto, acepta esto
que por los viejos ritos ancestrales
en tu honra te doy con triste gesto.
Tómalo con mi llanto tan fraterno
que sobre él se vierte a raudales.
Y a ti, hermano, ¡un adiós y salve eterno!
Silva
Por mares muchos he viajado y pueblos
no pocos por venir, hermano, a mohínas
estas exequias tuyas,
para a ti un póstumo donarte obsequio
fúnebre y a las mudas
en vano a hablar cenizas,
por cuanto la Fortuna, a ti, ¡a ti!
te ha arrancado de mí.
¡Ay, pobre mío hermano,
ay, cosa tan indigna,
ser de mí arrebatado!
Ahora, entretanto, esto que, costumbre
cumpliendo de los padres ya la antigua,
triste te entrego por regalo y fúnebre,
recibe con fraterno,
que ingente mana, llanto.
Y para siempre, hermano,
¡adiós y salve eterno!
Elegiac couplet
So many nations have I traversed and so many seas
T’arrive at such doleful funeral rites, my brother,
That I should hand you down this posthumous gift in your death
And speak as well, in vain, to these silence-bound ashes,
Since Fortune has wrenched you (you of all!) away from myself.
Oh, poor brother, unfairly taken from me!
Now, however, fulfilling our ancients’ customs of old,
I bring this sorrowful present to honour your burial.
Take it with brotherly tears incessantly pouring on it.
And now, hail and farewell forever, my brother!
Sonnet
So many are the nations and the seas
I’ve crossed, brother, on to this site adjourning,
That I should come to such sad obsequies
And hand you down this latest gift in mourning;
And too that I should talk, though fruitlessly,
To these unspeaking ashes, for no other
Than you (yourself!) has Fortune wrenched from me.
Oh, how unjustly torn from me, poor brother!
But now, however, I present before
Your grave this doleful tribute, laid in keeping
With our forefathers’ traditions of yore.
Receive it thus: drenched in your brother’s weeping.
To you, brother, with due fraternity,
Hail and farewell for all eternity!
Silva
So many through a nation
And through a sea so many I’ve been borne
To come to these, my brother,
Such sorrowful funeral rites of yours
That I to you a posthumous should proffer
Funerary donation;
And too this mute, in vain,
That I could speak to ash,
Since Fortune from myself yourself has snatched.
Alas, poor, how unjustly, oh my brother,
Taken from me away!
But now, however, these, the ancient by
which customs of our fathers,
are handed down hereby
as sorrowful donation t’ obsequies,
receive with brotherly
profusely flowing tears. And now forever,
my brother, hail and farewell!
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