Poems Found in Translation- internet

I found this site on the internet that does extraordinarily fine translations from poems in other languages into English...here are some ancient Latin ones

NOTE: ADULT MATERIAL

Poems Found in Translation: “Pontano: The Tomb of Massila, the Slave-girl (From Latin)” plus 2 more

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• Pontano: The Tomb of Massila, the Slave-girl (From Latin)
• Catullus: Poem 7 "How Many Kisses" (From Latin)
• Catullus: Poem 32 "Entreaty to a Call-girl" (From Latin)

Pontano: The Tomb of Massila, the Slave-girl (From Latin) Posted: 03 Feb 2014 06:12 PM PST When I think back to the AP Latin curriculum I subjected myself to in high school, I shake my head at what a truncated, gutted impression of Latin literature it gave, as if nothing worth reading were written in Latin after 300 AD. The modern commonplace equation of Latin literature with Ancient Roman literature, and of the Latin language with Ancient Roman Latinity, to the exclusion of the overwhelming majority of things written in Latin throughout history, arbitrarily conceals from non-specialists and students what pleasure is to be had from the great poets of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, many of whom wrote mostly or entirely in Latin. It is also a monument to the staggering stupidity of the assumption of, among others, George Santayana (and belied by Leah Goldberg, Samuel Beckett, William Auld and, well, the overwhelming majority of urbanized, literate, stratified societies throughout pre-modern history) that a literary artist is at their best when writing in some form of the language they speak or grew up speaking.  So, here we have a poem by the great Latin poet Giovanni Pontano comes to us from Renaissance Italy, whose Latin literature is rarely serviced by literary translators. It is also one of the most memorable I have ever read. It functions as an allusive anti-text for Catullus' celebrated elegy for his brother ("Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus", for my translation of which click here.)  Pontano's choice of a slave-girl as the focal point of the piece is not merely an allusive nod to antiquity. Pontano could easily be - and I think actually is - referring to a child he himself fathered with one of his own slave-women. Slavery was practiced in Pontano's romping ground of Naples during the Renaissance (as was the case in most of the Mediterranean region,) and owners could be - and frequently were - quite cruel and brutal. Pontano himself not only owned slaves, but also wrote a work in the service of the status quo titled De Obedientia in which among other things, he comments on how to keep slaves on the straight and narrow.  However, Pontano was also acutely aware of the fact that slaves were often miserable and their humanity treated cheaply. Indeed, this very poem succeeds by making the seemingly insignificant baby slave girl immortally significant. A dead female child of the underclass, the epitome of devalued humanity, is given a dignity in verse that has endured long enough for you, whoever you are, to read it in my 21st century English translation. Pontano gives her the only honor he feels he can, adorning her death with this verse, giving an indirect acknowledgement of how wretched, how painful and how casually neglected a slave's life is - so much so that death is not necessarily overmuch cause for sorrow. There is no grief in these lines. Even the mother accepts her (likely stillborn) child's death in an almost matter of fact fashion. How cheapened life must be, when death scarce seems much of a loss. On a final note: for me, at least, Pontano gives the impression of recriminating himself indirectly by highlighting the joylessness of (his) slaves' lives. Though this may have no more to it than modern American white guilt.  The Tomb of Massila, the Slave Girl By Jovianus Pontanus (A.K.A Giovanni Pontano) Translated by A.Z. Foreman The urn itself speaks I, urn of cremation, speak. The ash is a baby. A slave-girllies in me, born in her home, her father's twin child.  After she died, her mother entrusted her to me, and told me"I bore her myself for you, your daughter to be."  Her in the dark I nourished. Night was her nurse. At the breasts of night she sucked. The breastmilk was sleep itself. She does not speak. Yet bearing witness in sleep everlasting she teaches us how birth is worse than death.  Not one whirled care now wracks her, she's not on the lips of her mother.No wool is put in her fingers to pull apart. She leads an eternal dead of night, without light, without living feeling. Life's obsequies can't oppress her now.  And while I speak myself, this little baby keeps sleeping untroubled. Slumber bathes her in constant rain.  Massila was the name her master gave her. The Muses adorned this place through duteous love of her lord. Here rests Massila. Sleep is the milk she sucks from the breasts of night. But dark and the coffin are her cradles.  Original: Tumulus Massilae Vernulae Jovianus Pontanus 　　Urna ipsa loquitur Urna loquor: cinis est infans, infantula mecum est,Vernula nata domi, nata gemella patri. Hanc mater mihi commendat post funera et inquit:"Ipsa tibi hanc peperi, nata futura tua est." Hanc alui in tenebris; nutrix nox; ubera suxitNoctis, et infanti lac fuit ipse sopor. Nec fatur; verum somno testata perenni,Quam nasci satius vos docet esse mori. Hanc nullae torquent curae, non matris in ore est,Non lana in digitis comminuenda datur; Continuas ducit noctes; lux nulla, nec ulliSunt vitae sensus, munera nulla premunt. Dumque haec ipsa loquor, secura infantula dormit;Illam perpetuo somnus ab imbre rigat. Nomen erat quod fecit herus Massila; CamoenaeOrnarunt domini pro pietate locum. Hic dormit Massila; sopor lac, ubera praebetNox ipsa, at cunas et tenebrae et loculi.

Catullus: Poem 7 "How Many Kisses" (From Latin) Posted: 03 Feb 2014 05:24 PM PST How Many Kisses By Gaius Valerius Catullus Translated by A.Z. Foreman My Lesbia, you want to know how many kisses would be enough to satisfy me? As many as the many grains of sand in silphium-rich Cyrene, which lie between the shrine of Jupiter in heat and the most hallowed sepulchre of Battus.  As many as the stars in still of night watching the furtive lovemakings of men. Only to get from you that many kisses would satisfy your aching, mad Catullus, a number far beyond the reckonings of busybodies or the tongue of envy. The Original:  Quaeris, quot mihi basiationes tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque. quam magnus numerus Libyssae arenae lasarpiciferis iacet Cyrenis oraclum Iovis inter aestuosi et Batti veteris sacrum sepulcrum; aut quam sidera multa, cum tacet nox, furtivos hominum vident amores: tam te basia multa basiare vesano satis et super Catullo est, quae nec pernumerare curiosi possint nec mala fascinare lingua.

Catullus: Poem 32 "Entreaty to a Call-girl" (From Latin) Posted: 03 Feb 2014 01:57 PM PST Poem 32: Entreaty to a Call-Girl  By Catullus Translated by A.Z. Foreman I beg you, be a sweetheart Ipsitilla, my darling, my experienced beauty, call me over to join your nap this afternoon, and if you're willing, do me this huge favor: Don't let some other client lock the door, resist the urge to try and cruise the streets, but stay at home and get yourself prepared for nine successive screws - a fuckathon.  If you'd have me at all, the time is now. I'm on my back in bed, digesting lunch, and my junk's jutting through my cloak and tunic.  The Original: Amabo, mea dulcis Ipsitilla, meae deliciae, mei lepores, iube ad te veniam meridiatum. Et si iusseris, illud adiuvato, ne quis liminis obseret tabellam, neu tibi lubeat foras abire, sed domi maneas paresque nobis novem continuas fututiones. Verum si quid ages, statim iubeto: nam pransus iaceo et satur supinus pertundo tunicamque palliumque.