In Flanders' Fields: Writing Latin verse

A version in hexameters for Remembrance Sunday

On Remembrance Sunday people around the United Kingdom commemorate those who served in the two World Wars. In 1915 the Canadian soldier and poet John MacRae wrote this sombre lament for the fallen, In Flanders Fields.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
        In Flanders fields.

How might one set about translating this into Latin hexameters? Remember that the verse form consists of six bars (‘feet’) arranged with both or either form of dactyl (— ⏑ ⏑ or — — ) as follows, so that a verse might sound like the English mnemnonic below:

        1                         2                  3              4            5         6 
     —    ⏑ ⏑   |    —      ⏑      ⏑ | —     —   | —  — | — ⏑ ⏑ | — —
    Everyone knows that 'Survive' was sung by Gloria Gaynor 

First, then, Flanders in Latin is Flandria, a dactyl (— ⏑ ⏑ ). But to say ‘in Flanders’ fields’ requires ‘in fields of Flanders’ (in arvis Flandriae) and the form for ‘of Flanders’ Flandriae (— ⏑ —) cannot stand in a hexameter. We have to ask what a Latin poet might say. Virgil’s famous ‘golden line’ (in his Eclogues) speaks of how the nature-spirit ‘paints (pingit) the hyacinth with yellow marigold’ (luteola pingit vaccinia caltha). So one might suggest “Flanders tinges its fields with blowing poppies”. The lovely Latin word for ‘with poppies’ is papāveribus, which slots beautifully into second place in the line after arva, fields. What about ‘blowing’?  Latin for ‘blown about’ is iactatus: in the third line of Virgil’s Aeneid we learn of Aeneas being blown about (literally ‘tossed’) on land and sea.

So the first line, literally translated “Flanders paints its fields with tossing poppies”, would turn out thus :

       1                  2              3             4             5             6 
—    ⏑    ⏑ | —   ⏑   ⏑| —  '  —| —  — |  —    ⏑ ⏑ | —   —
A r v a   p a p a v e r i bus  iac t a t i s  Flandria  p i n g i t

Notice how the line is articulated with a word break halfway through foot 3 after papāveribus. This is a requirement of hexameter verse: the break (here marked ‘ ) is technically called a caesura (pronounced siz-you-ra).

Each line is subject to similar considerations. Here is my version of all the lines above, with literal translation. It takes just a minute to recite.

Arva papaveribus iactatis Flandria pingit,
qua crucibus sparsis monumenta haec ordine longo 
ponuntur nobis, caelo dum cantat alauda
fortis adhuc, circumque volans vix voce canora 
auditur, strepitum telis mittentibus illuc.
Manes, ecce, sumus. qui paucis ante diebus
vivebamus adhuc, lucem cum sensibus ipsis
hausimus, et solis radios candere cadentis 
vidimus, atque ipsi dilecti exarsimus ultro.
Corpora nostra in morte tenet nunc Flandria terra.

Flanders paints its fields with blowing poppies
where, strewn with crosses, these memorials in long rows
are placed for us; while the lark sings in the sky
still brave, and flying around with tuneful voice is barely
heard as weapons emit a din in its direction.
See, we are the Dead, who a few days ago
were living still, when we with our very senses the dawn
drank in, and the rays of the setting sun glowing
we saw, and ourselves beloved we loved in return.
Flanders earth now grasps our bodies in death.