Dicebas quondam...

Once you used to say that you knew only Catullus,
Lesbia, and you didn't want to hold Jupiter dear before me.
Then I loved you not such as a common man loves his mistress,
but as a father loves his sons and sons-in-law.
Now I have known you: wherefore, although I burn ardently,
you're but by much cheaper and more worthless to me.
How can that be? you say. Because such a hurt
forces a lover to love more, but to want well less.

I hope I got the sense of this poem right - it's one of the most touching ones. It tugs at my heart-strings at least. This is what I like about Latin, especially Latin poetry; because of the way the language works, relying very little on syntax and a lot on inflection, it becomes very expressive - especially as you can play all sorts of fancy tricks with word order that are difficult or impossible in English. Another thing I tend to find is that Latin likes participles; this makes the language very descriptive as well. I don't know if it's the Latin or my wildly overactive imagination, but I can picture things very vividly in Latin and less so in English.

Quite a lot of these poems are about love. This is less to do with me being a sap and more to do with the book I'm working out of - yes, I use books, not the internet, and I don't do these poems in any particular order. Normally I wouldn't be seen dead with love poetry, but this stuff is so ridiculously good that I pass over the "love" part and just concentrate on the "poetry".

I wouldn't say that Latin is necessarily difficult to translate - as long as you have a strong handle on grammar and you keep practicing it's quite straightforward - but it's very, very different from English. Oh, of course we share some words (particularly inkhorn terms and scientific terminology), but if anything English is more Germanic than Romantic (note: I'm not a linguist, I'm just using some of my little linguistic knowledge). The grammar, the syntax, in fact the whole way Latin is set up is very different to the way English is set up. I almost certainly haven't covered everything (in fact I definitely haven't covered everything), but just as an example, Latin is highly inflected, English isn't. Latin doesn't rely much on syntax to get a message across, English does (just think of how bad this would sound if I mixed all the words in a clause up - Latin could get away with it just fine). All this can make it very difficult to keep the sense of the original Latin.

Another problem is that casual Latin constructions sound like very formal, old-fashioned English - and then there's the age-old task of the translator in deciding just how free to be with the language. It may not sound like much of a problem to those who don't translate, but to those who do it's a massive quandary. Translation is essentially a very complex balancing act between trying to translate accurately and trying to translate well - and the more complex the texts, the more difficult this balancing act gets. I haven't got any Latin qualifications yet and I do this for myself - so if the poems sound stilted to you, just remember how inexperienced I am and how difficult getting a good translation can be.

Vivamus, mea Lesbia

I attempted to cross-post from Vivat Libertas (the post in question can be viewed here), but I sort of managed to fail epically at that task. I've translated the poem, but all the analysis I put into it must be viewed there.

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
and let us value all the rumours of sterner old men
at one as.
Suns can set and return;
when brief light sets once,
we must sleep in unending night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then yet another thousand, then a hundred.
Then, when we've made many thousands,
we'll mix them up, lest we know,
or lest anyone could give us the evil eye
since he may know there were so many kisses.

Cui dono?

I know that's not the actual title, I just like to make up cutesy little abbreviations sometimes. Considering it's the first poem of Catullus's libellus, I thought it was appropriate to start with.

To whom do I give a charming little new book
just now finished off with dry pumice-stone?
To you, Cornelius; for you were accustomed
to thinking my jests of some importance;
now then when you, one of the Italians, dared
to set forth every age with three tomes
Learned, O Jupiter, and industrious.
Wherefore have yourself whatever this whatever kind of little book;
which may, O patroness virgin,
remain for more than one everlasting age.