Univocalic lipograms

Further to yesterday's post, here's a univocalic, lipogrammatic (if that's even a word) translation of Catullus 85 (just to see if I could).

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

We detest her, yet we feel glee. Seek ye the key, re: these resentments? We're rejected, dejected, demented.

It could use a bit of work; the second half of the first line is pretty awful, and the whole of the second line is barely a paraphrase, let alone a translation. Any suggestions?

The opening of the Aeneid could work with the letter 'a' - 'A chant: arms and a man...'

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Nymphae, Laurentes Nymphae

Question 2

“nymphae, Laurentes nymphae, genus amnibus unde est,
tuque, o Thybri tuo genitor cum flumine sancto,
accipite Aenean et tandem arcete periclis.
quo te cumque lacus miserantem incommoda nostra
fonte tenet, quocumque solo pulcherrimus exis,
semper honore meo, semper celebrabere donis
corniger Hesperidum fluvius regnator aquarum.
adsis o tantum et propius tua numina firmes.”

How has Virgil infused these lines with a sense of religious awe and reverence? (5 marks)

Eunoia

I read a review of what sounds like a fascinating book in the paper on the weekend. Here are some excerpts:

Eunoia. Sounds like a urinary tract infection, doesn't it? It's not. It's Greek for "beautiful thinking" and is the shortest English word to contain one instance of each of the English vowels. An appropriate title, then, for a book devoted to fetters of its own making...

Eunoia is a collection of "univocalic lipograms" - a verbose, tautological way of saying it contains texts each of which is devoted to one particular vowel. There are only five vowels so it's a shortish book...

"A" tells the story of Hassan Abd al-Hassad, an Agha Khan, who dies a painfully asthmatic death amid mildly magical events. ("A fantast chants 'abracadabra' as a mantra, wags a wand and (zap) a sandglass cracks.") "E" is a retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of Helen. ("She feels neglected... regrets her wretchedness... nevertheless, she keeps her deepest regrets secret".) "I" begins and ends with "I" ("Writing is inhibiting. Sighing, I sit, scribbling in ink this pidgin script")...

Underpinning all of it is a central paradox, which is best summed up in a final end-note: "The text makes a Sisyphean spectacle of its labour, wilfully crippling its language in order to show that, even under such improbable conditions of duress, language can still express an uncanny... thought."

Lipograms go back as far as the Greeks, some of whom seem to have had an aversion to the 's' sound (the Greek letter sigma). The Roman poet Fulgentius also managed to write a history of the world (De aetatibus mundi et hominis) with each chapter omitting a different letter. If you're interested to know more, there's an interesting column here giving a brief overview of lipograms in Greek and Latin.

[Update: Yann Martel has also written a review]


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• Roman Word Play

Belli Signum

I recently gave my year 12 class an assessment task on Aeneid VIII; over the next couple of days I'll post some of the questions, and my own responses. Feel free to criticise my answers, or to add anything to them. Here's the first one:


ut belli signum Laurenti Turnus ab arce
extulit et rauco strepuerunt cornua cantu,
utque acris concussit equos utque impulit arma,
extemplo turbati animi, simul omne tumultu
coniurat trepido Latium saevitque iuventus
effera. Ductores primi Messapus et Ufens
contemptorque deum Mezentius undique cogunt
auxilia et latos vastant cultoribus agros.

How has Virgil used language to convey the dramatic preparations for war in this passage? (4 marks)
Virgil has used a range of language techniques to effectively convey the chaotic preparations for war amongst the Latin peoples. This is obvious from the opening line. Virgil has used a long sentence (from ut belli to iuventus effera), containing multiple subordinate clauses to create the impression of frenzied action. The tricolon in lines 1-3, emphasised by the repetition of ut… utque… utque, give the passage a dramatic build up, before we reach the focus of the sentence in lines 4-5. These lines also contain an abundance of verbs (extulit, strepueunt, concussit, impulit, coniurat, saevit, cogunt, vastant), many of them in the present tense, which convey the dramatic action of the scene, and create a vivid picture in the reader’s mind.

Spelunca Caci

Perhaps the cave of Cacus looked something like this...

This is how Virgil describes it in Aeneid VIII:

iam primum saxis suspensam hanc aspice rupem,
disiectae procul ut moles desertaque montis
stat domus et scopuli ingentem traxere ruinam.
hic spelunca fuit vasto summota recessu,
semihominis Caci facies quam dira tenebat
solis inaccessam radiis; semperque recenti
caede tepebat humus, foribusque adfixa superbis
ora virum tristi pendebant pallida tabo.

Now first of all look at that cliff, all overhung with rocks, and see how the great bulk of the mountain has been scattered far and wide, and how that cave lies deserted and how the crags speak of some great destruction. Here was the cave, sunk deep down into a vast cavern, where the dreadful form of the half-human Cacus used to live, inaccessible to the rays of the sun; the ground was always warm with fresh slaughter, and, fixed to the haughty door frame, hung the faces of men in gloomy decay.

(Aeneid VIII, 190-197)

If you imagine some dismembered heads hanging by the entrance I think it's not a bad match.

A Day in Pompeii

If anyone is going to be in Melbourne over the school holidays it will be well-worth visiting the Melbourne Museum, which is hosting an exhibition called A Day in Pompeii. Here's what their website says:

A Day in Pompeii takes visitors back in time to experience life and death in this cosmopolitan city. The exhibition features hundreds of exceptional objects that laid buried in Pompeii’s ruins for over 17 centuries. Included are room-size frescoes, marble and bronze sculptures, jewellery, gold coins and everyday household items – all of which evoke the richness and culture of daily life in the Roman Empire’s favourite vacation resort.

Most poignant and dramatic, however, are the body casts of the volcano’s victims, frozen in their last moments: a couple in their final embrace, a man clutching a cloth to his mouth, a fleeing slave with his ankle manacle still in place, a dog struggling on its chain.

There's also a short video on the website, which is worth watching.

The whole thing sounds great, but I don't think I'll be able to make it myself. If only it were coming to Sydney as well...

Hearts and Minds

Here's an interesting (at least to me) exchange from Column Eight over the past couple of days:

A cry from the heart, literally, from Fee MacGregor of Randwick: "My son is getting married in August to the lovely Anna. The wedding will take place at Lewes Castle in Sussex (not far from Hastings), and my husband was asked to design a card. He chose to make it look like a panel from the Bayeux Tapestry. He wanted to have something in Latin on the card, along the lines of 'From opposite sides of the world - two hearts joined', the sort of thing which, when translated, will draw sentimental sighs from the fairer sex and involuntary retching from those who despise public displays of affection. Can you translate? In my translator program 'heart' always comes out as 'viscus' or 'pectus', but if you convert that back it comes out as 'chest', or viscus can come out as 'entrails', which is slightly off the mark. We have been trying for weeks to find a Latin scholar." Any takers?

Des Cahill, MA (Latin), of Manly is one of many readers to offer a translation of "From opposite sides of the world, two hearts joined", for the Bayeux Tapestry wedding card... "Adversis partibus orbis terrae duo corda coniuncta."

There are, of course, myriad other interpretations, including this, from Zenon Alexander of Balmoral. "My alma mater, Sydney University, solved this problem long ago by adopting as its motto 'Sidere Mens Eadem Mutato', loosely translated as 'One at heart though poles apart', referring to its relationship with Oxford University. 'Mens', the mind or intellect (or heart), is emotionally more poetic than 'entrails'." Who are we to doubt the classical credentials of a man named Zenon?

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Smith," writes none other than Elizabeth Smith of the Blue Mountains, "and I am a first year Latin student at Macquarie University... I was able to do a translation into classical Latin of 'From opposite sides of the world - two hearts joined'. It reads as: 'Ab adversi lati mundi - duo animi conveniebamus'. The translation of 'joined' is a bit tricky, as to whether they would like the infinitive - to join, or in the past tense, have joined. In any case, the infinitive meaning is 'convenire', the literal meaning, 'to come together'. Anyway, I hope this is right, as I'm sure my professor reads Column 8 and I'll be reprimanded if incorrect." Don't worry about the prof, Elizabeth - you're already better at Latin than Column 8 ever
will be.

There are lots of words for heart/mind/soul in Latin which are often used interchangeably. here are some of them:

anima: soul, spirit, vital principle, life, breathing, wind, breeze, air

animus: mind, intellect, soul, feelings, heart, spirit, courage, character

cor: heart, mind, soul, spirit, intellect

mens: mind, reason, intellect, judgment, plan, intention, frame of mind, courage
pectus: breast, heart, feeling, soul, mind

spiritus: breath, breathing, air, soul, life

viscer: entrails, innermost part of the body, heart
viscus: soft fleshy body parts, internal organs, entrails, flesh

For the record, I would probably translate the phrase something like adversis terris, animi coniuncti, which may not be exactly right, but at least has the virtue of simplicity. I think animi is probably the most appropriate word for hearts in this context, though why I say that I'm not sure- none of the others feel quite right.

For the dangers of using internet translators see these Latin tattoos.

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On Translating the Aeneid

I'd never read the introduction to David West's translation of the Aeneid, but as I was looking for something else I picked it up and a line caught my eye. I read the sentence, then the paragraph, then turned back to read the whole thing. I was particularly struck by what he wrote about the aims of his translation:

When Peter Schidlof died, one of the other members of the Amadeus Quartet was asked what their approach had been, and he replied: 'Loyalty to the spirit and the letter.' As a translator I think of the letter and the spirit. I have tried to be utterly faithful to everything I see and hear in the Latin, the rhetoric, nuances, colour, tone, pace, passion, even the peerless music of Virgil's verse, which Tennyson thought 'the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man'. This, of course, is impossible, as Neruda well realizes:

Now it is clear that this couldn't be done -
that in this net it's not just the strings that count
but also the air that escapes through the meshes

Pablo Neruda, 'Isla Negra', trs. Alastair Reid

My second aim has been to write readable English which does honour to the richness and sublimity of Virgil's language - ebullient, for example in the utterances of Aeneas at the games in Book Five, charged with grief for the death of Marcellus at the end of Book Six and ringing with the courage and cruelty of war in the four great last books. Another impossible task. But if it is to be attempted, the translator must be ready to jettison the idiom of Latin and search for the English words that will carry as much as possible of the spirit of the Latin.

By this creed there are two great sins: to fall short of Virgil through sloth or ineptitude or self-love; and to write what is dull. If it is dull, it is not a translation of Virgil. This version admits defeatin every line, but where it seems to abandon some feature of the Latin, I hope it is always in an attempt to respond in living English to the poetic eloquence of its great original.

Loyalty to the spirit and the letter is good advice for anyone attempting a translation of the Aeneid, or indeed any other Latin text. It's a hard balance to strike (impossible even), but nonetheless something worth striving for.

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Latin spell-checker

I'm not sure if anyone else will be as excited by this as I am, but I just downloaded a Latin spell-checker for word. Not that I ever make spelling mistakes, but it will at least get rid of all those annoying squiggly red lines. I've given it a brief test, and it really works!

If you like the sound of a Latin spell-checker, you can get it from this site.