Martial's Epigrams: A Selection

by Marcus Valerius Martialis, Garry Wills (translator)

One of literature's greatest satirists, Martial earned his livelihood by excoriating the follies and vices of Roman society and its emperors, and set a pattern that satirists have admired across the ages. For the first time, readers can enjoy an English translation of these rhymes that does not sacrifice the cleverly constructed effects of Martial's short and shapely thrusts. Martial's Epigrams "bespeaks a great scholar at play" ( The New York Times Book Review ), makes for addictive reading, and is a perfect, if naughty, gift.

Look out for a new book from Garry Wills,  What the Qur'an Meant , coming fall 2017.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, History, Literature, Nonfiction, Classical Studies, Ancient

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 103

About the author

Born: March 1, 40 AD, in Augusta Bilbilis (now Calatayud, Spain); Died: ca. 102 AD--Marcus Valerius Martialis, known in English as Martial, was a Latin poet from Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. In these short, witty poems he cheerfully satirises city life and the scandalous activities of his acquaintances, and romanticises his provincial upbringing. Considered the creator of the modern epigram, Martial wrote a total of 1,561 - 1,235 of which are in elegiac couplets.

Reviews

[Sineala · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't read this. Just don't.

Okay, I will freely admit that (a) I am not a classicist, (b) I am not a translator, and (c) I have not read much Martial. However, of the poems I have read, the translations are pretty much entirely failing to capture the meaning of the poem. They do rhyme -- sort of, most of the time -- which I guess is more or less the English equivalent to the Latin meter. (He could have done meter in English, too.) But they don't even sound nice! Some of them randomly substitute modern names for no reason I have been able to discern. And if you've got poems that aren't even like the original in meaning, and they don't even sound good in translation, what is the point?

I could tell this was going to be a problem when the introduction did 1.32, the really famous:

Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare.
Hoc tantum possum dicere – non amo te.

(Literally: "I do not love you, Sabidius, nor can I say why. / I can say only this - I do not love you." Sure, I didn't make it sound poetic. But no one's paying me.)

Wills' translation is the following:

Mister Sabidius you pain me.
I wonder (some) why that should be
And cannot tell -- a mystery.
You inexplicably pain me.

I winced. "But," I thought, "okay, maybe I am just having this reaction because this is a really famous poem and I am already wedded to the famous translation that exists." You know, "I do not like thee, Doctor Fell."

(The introduction also does Catullus 16, I guess because everyone wants to do Catullus 16. I was not impressed.)

So I started reading anyway. And well, they all sounded... just kind of bad. I tried reading them aloud. They still didn't sound good. They were clunky. And then I found a few more poems I actually did know, and, well, they just weren't there anymore. They weren't funny, because whatever was funny or awesome or whatever about them was gone because the poem was crushed to fit an awkward rhyme scheme.

Like, here, take 3.71:

Mentula cum doleat puero, tibi, Naevole, culus,
Non sum divinus, sed scio quid facias.

(Literally: Since the (slave) boy's cock hurts, Naevolus, and your ass hurts / I'm not a diviner, but I know what you're doing.)

Wills' translation basically turns this into, well:

The boy has got the active penis
And you an ass as smooth as Venus
I need therefore no hidden clue
To figure out just what you do.

I should mention that this is one of the more flowing poems. But it doesn't even make sense anymore! "I know you're having sex because he penetrates people and your ass is smooth?" What? How is that funny? How is "I don't need to guess you're having sex because he's having sex" a thing that makes any sense to say? I will grant you that the original wasn't much, but at least you can see where the point is. I had to read it twice before I realized I actually knew this poem.

One more, 5.43:

Thais habet nigros, niveos Laecania dentes.
Quae ratio est? Emptos haec habet, illa suos.

(Literally: Thais has black teeth, Laecania snow-white. / What is the reason? The latter has bought ones, the former her own.)

Wills does this:

Her teeth look whiter than they ought.
Of course they should -- the teeth were bought.

I will grant that this sounds relatively nice in English. But, um, where is the other half of the poem? Thais' black teeth? Hello? I understand that the joke of the poem is "white teeth are only white because they're fake" and yeah, sure, the translation communicates that, but... I want the rest of the poem.

And this isn't even getting into all the translations that just sounded bad. I feel like I should be able to read the translations and come away feeling like I've read Martial, and not thinking "Wait, what?" and "Martial didn't sound this bad in Latin, did he?" and "I should just read more Martial."

Basically: no. Go read something else.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've thought for a long time that I've got a lot in common with Garry Wills, except that he's smarter, better-educated, and more diligent. But I tend to agree with him, or be persuaded by him, in practically everything he's written. Here he's done a translation of many of Martial's epigrams (short Latin poems from about the reign of Nero and after), completely unexpurgated (which is unusual), and in fact reveling in their frequent obscenity. He even has a helpful subject index in the back, listing the various poems under such headings as body odor, marital infidelity, fellatio, and cunnilingus. Woohoo! In his introduction he astutely points out that much of the humor in these poems comes from the vulgar subject matter being contrasted with its expression in very concise and artful language. So he insists on rigid formal structure in his English--careful rhyme and fairly regular meter. All well and good, but unfortunately he's a much better critic than he is a poet, and the effort wears thin pretty quickly. Still, fun to browse through.

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these epigrams are still sharp. Some have vaguer targets and less bite.

[Miranda Alford · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for intermediate Latin:

Martial’s epigrams itself are fine they exist, but the layout of this book oh boy. It was not well laid out at all, literally all over the place like I understand the attempting of grouping in themes but Martial did that originally so just no. Also the commentary don’t get me started on the commentary.

There were apparently translations at the back, idek what that shit was it was certainly not a translation though. literally Watson and Watson skipped out half the translation and just gave a slight summary which wasn’t really even a summary- not the vibe. Honestly if I wasn’t doing it for Latin and we were going through the epigrams I probably wouldn’t have properly realised the extent to which they skipped stuff out and it’s acting as a translation.

Moreover, the actual commentary/aid was not particularly helpful at all it just kind of existed.

So Martial was good and interesting, nice to do Latin that isn’t Virgil etc. but this book was not particularly helpful tbh. Only use was the Latin which isn’t even their original work. Thus the low rating.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting edition of Martial - only "selections," which limits my interest, and admittedly free verse adaptations (I cannot call them "translations") in rhyme, but still - Wills has captured something of the spirit of Martial, and I can admire that. Worth reading for the nonspecialist who is interested in Roman poetry (especially if said nonspecialist has no Latin - which was, incidentally, a factor against this book for me - the lack of any reference to the Latin originals).

[Jeffrey Greggs · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's exceedingly difficult to make the couplet stand in for Latin's inflection-bending, and Mr. Wills is no Dryden. That said, he has an eye for the gut-punch required by English aphorism and does a credible job making the case that Martial is more than a rude schoolboy with a silver tongue.

[Alex Cotterill · Rating 2 out of 5]

At last it’s done! Read this for Intermediate Latin!

First things first - on the back it says “suitable for undergraduates”. It just isn’t. Only if you’ve got knowledge on every text the Watsons reference.

The layout is alright at best but there is not enough space between each epigram to make detailed notes; nor space between each line.

The translations aren’t translations. They’re very short summaries of the passages which either miss out words or add some in which aren’t in the Latin.

The commentaries are half decent, hence the 2* rating.

[Ophilia Adler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting for sure (read for a summer course)

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a quick read consisting of mostly short satirical poems. Take for instance this prescient description of a current US presidential hairdo:

Your hairs are carefully disposed
Lest your bald pate should be disclosed.
But winds lift them in wavy drifts,
Moved in a blur of constant shifts.
How can you have so little hair,
Yet have it show up everywhere?

Interspersed among the sometimes nasty drollery are such uplifting snippets as this:

He ages with a great serenity,
Who can with what he is contented be.
No act has he performed will haunt him now,
And nothing in the future will him cow.
He never does deplore life's brevity.
For virtue is itself longevity.
Each day recalled does ancient comforts bring.
He lives twice, living and remembering.

Gary Wills translated Martial's Epigrams: A Selection . It's quite readable and fun.

[Chloé · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel weird rating an ancient author, especially one like Martial. I want to give him 5 stars for his longevity and the fact that he gave a voice to the less-than-richest class. So many of our texts from the ancient world are from the lens of the aristocracy, and Martial isn't quite there. His Latin is quick and witty - some of his jabs are still applicable to people today, and you get so much insight into the social world of the ancient Romans. But of course some of his stuff is SO mean and harsh, or dark, or dirty, that it can be hard to handle.

This edition is really good for including a range of his material and for providing helpful notes to go with it. I highly recommend this copy of his work!

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Martial is a fabulous catchy writer and all his verses, dirty or not, have a sting in the tail. The contrast of perfect form and biting content is a whole thing. I think he would have been amazing on Twitter. This is more of a loose translation and Wills felt free to update references where the original would have been obscure. He brought in the Statue of Liberty even!

If you want to have a better understanding of the (horrifying) sexual ethics of the world Christianity came crashing into, this is probably a great book for that. Not recommended if you’re not up for Roman dirty poetry. He’s not going to be one of my favorites.

[Rod Zinkel · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some common themes: addressing the readers of his books, lewd insults with profane terms, the smell on someone of last night’s bender, criticism of other poets or wannabe poets, criticism or praise for gifts given, a small number on serious subjects, like the death of a six year old girl. Martial writes that his epigrams are not moralistic, yet the serious ones do have more impact. The humor is bawdy, some are fun.

[Andy B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting as a look into high-class Latin society. What was insulting? What was laudable? Which lines might have drawn raucous laughter at a dinner table, the latter-day verse hooks, and which would have been pleasantly ignored?

As literature, you could treat large portions of his re-worked epigrams as skippable (or per 3.44, "The same old tired nonsenses, or worse").

Lyrically, Wills does a phenomenal job smoothing Martial into modern English.

[Cara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Filthy, offensive, incisive and clever. Martial is not for everyone (even in his own time, he was not for everyone), but many of his jibes hold as cuttingly true now as they did then. The translation is as clever is Martial was, and worth a read if you have any interest in the day-to-day lives of 1st century Romans.

[Brice Fuqua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Witty but inaccurate translations.

[pennpenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Martial’s hands are rated E for Everyone

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Among all available Martial translations, I found this (McLean's) to be the best. Of course, not everyone is a Martial fan.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

. . . . The breadth of poetic tones Humphries confronts in his translations and the apparent effortlessness of his execution is nothing short of breath-taking. From the high dignity of Virgil, through the hilarious vulgarity of Martial and back to the Wordsworthian philosophizing (without the Wordsworthian pomposity) of Lucretius. From Ovid’s serious and finally tragic playfulness to all the well-placed grumpiness of that curmudgeon Juvenal. Humphries achieved a feat of poetic translation I would argue unequalled in English since the age of Dryden and Pope – if even then – and, unlike the heroic-couplet masters, Humphries did it all on his own. I stand in awe, wondering what he might have done with Catullus. And, if ever a scrap of paper is turned up in the storage rooms of Amherst College with idle bits of a translation of Tibullus’ first elegy, I’ll be at the head of the line for my copy when it’s published, squealing like it’s 1964 and the Beatles – or Elvius — have stepped off the plane.

The rest of my thoughts on the Latin Translations of Rolfe Humphries can be found here: http://behindthehedge.wordpress.com/2...

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all the books and translations Garry Wills, scholar of Christianity and early American politics, has ever done, his translation of Martial is perhaps the most surprising. One would not expect a man who talks avidly of his Catholicism would ever translate quite possibly the raunchiest Latin poet to survive to the modern day.
And yet, of all the modern translators of Martial, Wills is one of the best. He is not the most technical of translators- but when translating Martial, sometimes less technicality is better (apologies to the soul of the late Shackleton-Bailey, who for all his effort and technical skill, was never a good translator of poetry). As the title suggests, this is only a collection, but it is an assortment of some of Martial's best. Wills captures so much of the feel of Martial's poetry even if he does not always follow the exact Latin. He does at times stray a bit too far from the actual meaning of the Latin, so some of the poems are more interpretations of Martial than translations, and at times he is sloppy with his meter. But for the casual reader of Martial, who is simply looking to be entertained by Rome's greatest gossip, Wills is the way to go.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Martial's epigrams are pretty entertaining. I particularly liked the invective poems. Martial follows in Catullus' footsteps, both stylistically and temporally, hence if you like Catullus' poetry you'll enjoy Martial's as well.

The Cambridge edition provides good introductory material and commentary on the text. The commentary also includes summary translations which was a nice surprise. I would have liked more notes on meter though.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and often entertaining glimpse at the life of the ancient Romans through the eyes of an acerbic and funny critic. GW's introduction is informative and offers a helpful context for these short thrusts. The language of the translations was very suggestive of what the originals must be, but I found the scansion and rhyming flat. Perhaps that , too, reflected the originals, but then they were not effective (or affective) to my modern,English ears.

[Iris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proof that genius is timeless.
I guess I will never know what it might have bee to have read this book in my 20s, but I surely will read it again and again in the years to come and pack it with me when I cross onto some other quantum dimension. (And who knows, maybe by then the other 2/3 will have been brilliantly translated by Gary Wills.)

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

The introduction was good, but i get tired of the Roman life and its prurience. Who knew they were so against cunnilingus, to the point where it was the worst insult imaginable? Also, the translation was clunky and at times anachronistic as far as I could tell(breath mints?). Horace, I'm sorry I strayed.

[Michael]

I'm almost always reading something by Martial, I'm not through this one yet....but it's epigrams and his very sarcastic way of communicating through epigrams.....almost always informative and almost always funny......but always a good read.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

The preface and introduction are both bad writing. Her translation seems solid.

[Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review is supposed to appear in the summer issue of the British poetry journal .