That is childhood nostos for me! Firstly, for the first few lines that my mother used to recite to me as a very small boy, although I didn’t understand them. And then to a Sixth Form inter school Classics evening, long ago, where I read this poem to the assembled students, not, I’m sad to say, with your elegance!
A pearl of isles, a pearl of a translation. The 'limping iambic' is a wonderful discovery, I am reading this just after arriving home to Paris from a harrowing week in Ukraine -- that penultimate drift, perfectly like falling into bed. Merci !
recitatio et translatio tuae me valde delectant! hoc parvum carmen Catulli perpetuam quandam animo meo spirat atque desiderium vehementer Arcadiae commovet amissae. o carissime Catulle!
Especially in the antepenultimate line “Salve, O venusta Sirmio, atque ero gaude”, as the multiple elisions have the effect of slowing the line down. At least that’s how I read it!
Or another girl. It was wonderful to listen and read. And seeing Catullus switch from singular to plural, from "I" to "we", when he reaches the "desired bed", my fantasy mistranslation is that "Lydiae" is the genitive of her name, so "the waves of Lydia's lake", which enjoy a spot of undulation, is a double entendre.
That is childhood nostos for me! Firstly, for the first few lines that my mother used to recite to me as a very small boy, although I didn’t understand them. And then to a Sixth Form inter school Classics evening, long ago, where I read this poem to the assembled students, not, I’m sad to say, with your elegance!
It will always be my favourite poem of Catullus.
I’ve visited Sirmione and the grotto and it is indeed exquisite
A pearl of isles, a pearl of a translation. The 'limping iambic' is a wonderful discovery, I am reading this just after arriving home to Paris from a harrowing week in Ukraine -- that penultimate drift, perfectly like falling into bed. Merci !
A delight; thank you for the perfect summer poem.
🙏
Thank you. So this is where the Tennyson comes from.
"Sweet Catullus's all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio."
Hard to say who was the better poet!
Yes, what a pearl of a translation. Thank you for an uplifting homecoming. I wish I could say my mother recited those lines to me! But no such luck.
Wonderful: thank you. I always learn so much from your postings.
So pleased!
recitatio et translatio tuae me valde delectant! hoc parvum carmen Catulli perpetuam quandam animo meo spirat atque desiderium vehementer Arcadiae commovet amissae. o carissime Catulle!
gratias tibi semper
benigne dicis!
It is one of my favourite Latin poems, with the Choliambic metre suggesting the dragging of weary feet after a long day of travel.
Nice thought!
Especially in the antepenultimate line “Salve, O venusta Sirmio, atque ero gaude”, as the multiple elisions have the effect of slowing the line down. At least that’s how I read it!
I had almost as much joy in listening to you as Catullus did on returning home to his bed (too bad Lesbia wasn't in it!)
She will be😆
Or another girl. It was wonderful to listen and read. And seeing Catullus switch from singular to plural, from "I" to "we", when he reaches the "desired bed", my fantasy mistranslation is that "Lydiae" is the genitive of her name, so "the waves of Lydia's lake", which enjoy a spot of undulation, is a double entendre.
nescioquo modo nomen ‘aestatem ‘ cum ‘perpetuam quandam’ caeca oblivione devotus’ omisisse videor. mea culpa!
nescioquo modo nomen ‘aestatem ‘ cum ‘perpetuam quandam’, “caeca oblivione devotus,” omisisse videor. mea culpa!
‘animam’ intellexi quasi <animam> animo per haplographiam omissum
benigne dicis.