Talk:Catullus 51

Untitled
This is a much better translation, and is actually more literal. Literal translations should translate idioms into the exact equivalent idiom of the target language, not simply offer a word-for-word rendering. Word for word translation is for machines and middle and high school students, generally. I'm going to post my translation below for discussion.


 * That man seems equal to a god to me.
 * That man, if it is not profane, above the gods
 * He who sitting across from you
 * Repeatedly listens to you laughing sweetly,
 * Which destroys the senses of wretched me
 * I have seen you, Lesbia, nothing is beyond me
 * But my tongue becomes immobile,
 * A flame goes down my weak limbs,
 * My ears ring with their own sound,
 * Both my eyes are covered with darkness.
 * Leisure, Catullus, is trouble for you:
 * In leisure you gambol about and celebrate:
 * Leisure has destroyed kings before
 * And prosperous cities.

Billy Blythe 12:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Line 8
I am by no means an expert on Catullus, but from what I know line 8 of this poem has been lost. The text used here before I removed it was merely a scholarly suggestion based on Sappho's poem which Catullus has translated into Latin. The line and its corresponding translation are thus a only a possibility, not an actual line of Catullus.

Thus, quoting it as an authentic part of the poem, without any explanation, is misleading, especially since there are other suggestions for this missing line(such as "uocis amanti" "getture uocis" etc.) and nobody knows for certain what it was.

Therefore, I removed this line and left it empty, similar to the way it appears in the Oxford Classical text edition of Catullus' poems, which, to the best of my knowledge, is considered one of the most reliable editions.

If anybody has the time, and feels confident enough, to add a new section about the missing line and explain the different suggestions, that will be great, but please leave the the line in the actual text clear. Tal642 (talk • contribs) 16:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC).

Faulty translation?
Your translation is faulty, unfortunately. It is not "My eyes are covered by a twin night" but: my twin lights (i.e. eyes) are covered by night!"

Birgit.remmel@skulin.fo Cand.mag. in Latin, English, Spanish and Faroese 212.55.41.156 22:29, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No, the translation is correct! The final vowel of 'gemina' is long, meaning it is ablative singular feminine, agreeing with 'nocte' rather than 'lumina'.

El barty 13:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Edits
So that I may become a better contributer, I was hoping that someone could explain why the following sentence was deleted [03:37, 25 January 2008 72.93.134.79] from the section regarding strophe 4: "There is a parallelism with the opening line of the poem and the closing two lines of the third strophe; it begins with 'videtur,' literally 'he is seen' and the would-be ending has blindness and possibly death with night covering twin lights." Also, why was the hyperbole "... superare divos" to surpass the gods, was removed. I'm fine with it not being there, just wondering the reasons Also, regarding "although Catullus adds his own coda," Sappho's poetry is in fragments, at least to the best of my knowledge, so it may not have been an addition. Thank you for responding! 69.124.137.249 (talk) 02:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)