This, Terry, is not a translation. This is a poem bases on a poem, that tames the original and subverts it. All very post modern.
All very banal.
There’s this boy Rufus
in your class and he is so cool,|
everyone wants to play with him.
But half the time,
he is writing poetry,
not just on scraps of paper
but in handmade books
all bound together
with bits of leather
and ribbon. Ribbon!
Everyone wants to play with him,
but he is writing poetry.
And the poems are so bad,
a new entrant could do better.
But he is never happy,
unless he is writing poetry.
And you should see him then,
the sun shines on him,
his eyes go all cloudy,
his ears are all deaf,
he chews pencils into shreds,
stares through walls,
through the teacher,
and when he writes,
his hand whirls across the page
like a swarm of locusts,
he breathes in great gusts
of air, his hair
flops over the page,
he’s like some sort of god!
Who cares about the poetry,
you all want to be poets.Anna Jackson
Anna Jackson can do what she likes with Catullus. Because we can pull it back and look at the original. The translation from this website into English is horrible. Jackson is correct in that a new entrant could do better. But this is the original.
Suffenus iste, Vare, quem probe nosti,
homo est venustus et dicax et urbanus,
idemque longe plurimos facit versus.
Puto esse ego illi milia aut decem aut plura
perscripta, nec sic ut fit in palimpsesto
relata: cartae regiae, novi libri,
novi umbilici, lora rubra, membranae,
derecta plumbo et pumice omnia aequata.
Haec cum legas tu, bellus ille et urbanus
suffenus unus caprimulgus aut fossor
rursus videtur: tantum abhorret ac mutat.
Hoc quid putemus esse? Qui modo scurra
aut si quid hac re scitius videbatur,
idem infaceto est infacetior rure,
simul poemata attigit, neque idem umquam
aeque est beatus ac poema cum scribit:
tam gaudet in se tamque se ipse miratur.
Nimirum idem omnes fallimur, neque est quisquam
quem non in aliqua re videre Suffenum
possis. Suus cuique attributus est error;
sed non videmus manticae quod tergo est.Catullus
(A better translation)
Varus, yon wight Suffenus known to thee
Fairly for wit, free talk, urbanity,
The same who scribbles verse in amplest store—
Methinks he fathers thousands ten or more
Indited not as wont on palimpsest,
But paper-royal, brand-new boards, and best
Fresh bosses, crimson ribbands, sheets with lead
Ruled, and with pumice-powder all well polished.
These as thou readest, seem that fine, urbane
Suffenus, goat-herd mere, or ditcher-swain
Once more, such horrid change is there, so vile.
What must we wot thereof? a Droll erst while,
Or (if aught) cleverer, he with converse meets,
He now in dullness, dullest villain beats
Forthright on handling verse, nor is the wight
Ever so happy as when verse he write:
So self admires he with so full delight.
In sooth, we all thus err, nor man there be
But in some matter a Suffenus see
Thou canst: his lache allotted none shall lack
Yet spy we nothing of our back-borne pack.Sir Richard Francis Burton, 1894
Catullus is calling Suffenus a fool. A fraud. A pretender: a poseur. There is nothing cool about him: it is all a front. This level is missing from Jackson: her poet is a child to emulate: we should all be poets. The ancients would disagree, for to them poets were prophets, and the craft was hard earned.
Perhaps in our post-modern relativism we are now all Suffenus. We lack criticism. We all want to be poets. Perhaps Jackson, who does read the older poets and knows better, is not writing to children, and we miss the satire. If that is the case, then she does write truly in the spirit of Catullus.
Be First to Comment