Translation Trashbin - 26. Ad eundem, or "More of the Same"

Oh tempora! Oh mores! Hehe,  I couldn`t hold back a little Cicero to your comment on the painting.

But seriously your translation is magnificent. One can feel the turmoil the poet might have been into, writing the original version. You brought those words perfectly in the English language. Instandly the picture of a young man and the poet formed in my mind.

And the painting and your comment to it are so fitting. I had to laugh. 

Thanks for this treasure in the evening (for me evening).

 The painting is quite striking and it suits the poem you translated precisely. You bring alive the randy Renaissance in Varchi. 

5 hours ago, Lyssa said:

Oh tempora! Oh mores! Hehe,  I couldn`t hold back a little Cicero to your comment on the painting.

But seriously your translation is magnificent. One can feel the turmoil the poet might have been into, writing the original version. You brought those words perfectly in the English language. Instantly the picture of a young man and the poet formed in my mind.

And the painting and your comment to it are so fitting. I had to laugh. 

Thanks for this treasure in the evening (for me evening).

Yes, what high times and low morals indeed! From ancient Rome to the Italian Renaissance, to today -- things don't really change. I could have slipped some version of this poem in my Mojo, as something Kohl wrote to seduce his student Rolf (or perhaps better yet, as something the student Gordon wrote to seduce his teacher Kohl ) 

The original poem strikes me as very playful, which is the element I tried to bring out most in my rendering. One aspect I sidestepped -- but that undoubtedly got Varchi into hot water with his student's father -- is the sexual undertone. In Latin, the very word for boy, puer and its variations, brings up manifold sexual possibilities. Those are not so easy to translate into English, and I doubt they would have been clean enough to do in Italian either, so this may explain why the poem exists in the Latin in the first place.

Thanks for your help on this, and for pointing me in the direction of Cicero's love poems to Tyrone. They keep so much knowledge away from us queer boys    

On 6/18/2019 at 11:26 AM, Parker Owens said:

 The painting is quite striking and it suits the poem you translated precisely. You bring alive the randy Renaissance in Varchi. 

Reading about Varchi is like reading some of Shakespeare's source material. There's an anecdote where the handsome young poet was being let into the palazzo by one of his teen-boy students at night, every night. When the father found out, he shut up the lad like a princess in a tower and had a group of thugs teach the poet "a lesson" (had him beaten). But the poems to the boy never stopped  

these translations always amaze me
i've barely mastered English and here you are translating all of these wonderful pieces 
this one is a little sexy and very fun
you keep doing these, AC, and i'll keep reading them
 

12 hours ago, mollyhousemouse said:

these translations always amaze me
i've barely mastered English and here you are translating all of these wonderful pieces 
this one is a little sexy and very fun
you keep doing these, AC, and i'll keep reading them
 

Thank you, Molly. You're a peach!

And my folder with these rather random translations is quite full, so many more will be coming. Thanks again for your support ❤️ 

20 hours ago, AC Benus said:

Yes, what high times and low morals indeed! From ancient Rome to the Italian Renaissance, to today -- things don't really change. I could have slipped some version of this poem in my Mojo, as something Kohl wrote to seduce his student Rolf (or perhaps better yet, as something the student Gordon wrote to seduce his teacher Kohl ) 

The original poem strikes me as very playful, which is the element I tried to bring out most in my rendering. One aspect I sidestepped -- but that undoubtedly got Varchi into hot water with his student's father -- is the sexual undertone. In Latin, the very word for boy, puer and its variations, brings up manifold sexual possibilities. Those are not so easy to translate into English, and I doubt they would have been clean enough to do in Italian either, so this may explain why the poem exists in the Latin in the first place.

Thanks for your help on this, and for pointing me in the direction of Cicero's love poems to Tyrone. They keep so much knowledge away from us queer boys    

Kohl or Gordon using this poem, I can very well imagine. lol

Puer was even in the middle age to the renaissance a word used for an unfree man, a slave or servant. (And therefor a possible sexually available person in this cultural context). So I think, that this interpretation twist could probably have been recognized by his readers.

I never have the feeling that it is possible to keep knowledge from you, more the opposite, you draw the knowledge to yourself in great amount. 🙂 🙂 🙂