Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Virgil - Aeneid
>
Reading Schedule & Translations
I'm thinking of either reading the Fagles or Ruden translation. My library has both copies so I just have to make the choice. I've read good things about both so I guess I'll just have to flip a coin!
Edit: I decided to go with the Fagles translation only because there seems to be more additional material such as a pronunciation guide at the back of the book. That will be helpful for me since I have no idea how to pronounce Latin words!
Edit: I decided to go with the Fagles translation only because there seems to be more additional material such as a pronunciation guide at the back of the book. That will be helpful for me since I have no idea how to pronounce Latin words!
I read the Fagles translation
The Aeneid a couple of years ago and have kept a copy of it ever since. The Aeneid is one of my all time favorite books, so I'm excited for this!
Thomas wrote: Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on any translations that you've read.This site offers some guidance and compares eight modern translations:
http://myplace.frontier.com/~joepye1/...
I was surprised that Mandelbaum's translation is not on this site. I am familiar with a variety of recent (c. last 75 years) translations and feel that his comes closest to what Vergil is actually saying in Latin, with a minimum of embellishment. I teach the Aeneid at the h.s. level, and use Mandelbaum to accompany the Latin text.
That said, Vergil is (unlike Homer) an author who can be very tricky to translate since much of his artistry is derived from the resonance and connotative meanings of the particular Latin words he employs, as well as word position, verse rhythms, and sound qualities. Much can be gained from reading him in English, of course, but be mindful that a translator like Fagles (whose Aeneid I very much enjoy reading as a translation) is taking many liberties with what Vergil actually wrote in Latin.
max wrote: "That said, Vergil is (unlike Homer) an author who can be very tricky to translate since much of his artistry is derived from the resonance and connotative meanings of the particular Latin words he employs, as well as word position, verse rhythms, and sound qualities. Much can be gained from reading him in English, of course, but be mindful that a translator like Fagles (whose Aeneid I very much enjoy reading as a translation) is taking many liberties with what Vergil actually wrote in Latin."
That's consistent with what I've heard -- that Virgil was a master stylist, and that for those who read him in Latin he is one of the most elegant authors available. It used to be said, back in the days when educated Westerners read both Greek and Latin fluently, that one read Homer for content and Virgil for style. Since I no longer read either, that's entirely hearsay!
However, I do agree with you that some of the more modern translators, including Fagles, tend to be a bit more interpretative than literal, and tend toward more vernacular than earlier translators did.
I do like Mandelbaum also, though he doesn't have the extensive supplemental materials that some others, including Fagles, do.
But I have never actually come across any really bad translations of Virgil, so perhaps it makes less difference which translation people read than that they find one they can enjoy and read it eagerly!
max wrote: "I was surprised that Mandelbaum's translation is not on this site. I am familiar with a variety of recent (c. last 75 years) translations and feel that his comes closest to what Vergil is actually saying in Latin, with a minimum of embellishment.."Thanks, max. That's extremely helpful. I'm off to get my copy of Mandelbaum.
Have you looked at Ruden's translation at all? I'm curious about your opinion if you have one.
Thomas wrote: "Have you looked at Ruden's translation at all? I'm curious about your opinion if you have one. ..."I like Ruden's Aeneid -- a lot. Her "Translator's Preface" is a well presented summary of the challenges facing those who would turn Vergil into English. She sticks fairly close to the Latin. She also writes lines that correspond numerically to Vergil's Latin hexameters -- a nice advantage, especially when citing to the text. This is not an easy thing to do and requires great discipline. (Mandelbaum writes more leisurely pentameters, 10, say, for 7 lines of Latin.) I would consider Ruden a serious rival to Mandelbaum in terms of fidelity to the Latin text and overall readability.
As an undergraduate some years back I read the translation of Cecil Day Lewis (father of the movie star Daniel Day Lewis and UK Poet Laureate for a spell until his death in 1972). He was a tremendously gifted poet and while taking liberties, often turned out remarkably "poetic" expressions that weren't quite Vergil, but pretty amazing in their own right! You can still find out of print copies.
Thomas wrote: "This site offers some guidance and compares eight modern translations: http://myplace.frontier.com/~joepye1/...
..."
Lombardo's reads the best, to me, of the eight on the comparison that site provides. Many seem poor, to me, I have to say. Labored, stilted, lame. Anyway, I have Rolfe Humphries' 1951 translation; here is the same section from the end of Book 4 by Humphries:
At last all-powerful Juno, taking pity,
Sent Iris from Olympus, in compassion
For the long racking agony, to free her
From the limbs' writhing and the struggle of spirit.
She had not earned this death, she had only sought it
Before her time, driven by sudden madness,
Therefore, the queen of Hades had not taken
The golden lock, consigning her to Orcus.
So Iris, dewy on saffron wings, descending,
Trailing a thousand colors through the brightness
Comes down the sky, poises above her, saying,
"This lock I take as bidden, and from the body
Release the soul," and cuts the lock, and cold
Takes over, and the winds receive the spirit.
Humphries also wrote this, in his introduction:"It is a peculiar, paradoxical kind of great poem, this Aeneid... This is a composition, beautifully wrought, beautifully balanced... The poem moves, in more senses than one: the thing to do is to feel it and listen to it. Hear how the themes vary and recur; how the tone lightens and darkens, the volume swells or dies, the tempo rushes or lingers...
This translation is a quick and unscrupulous job. I am not being modest: a modest man would never have started, and a scrupulous one never finished."
I just finished the Fagles translation. I don't know Latin, so I can't speak to its accuracy. But it was a great read.
David Ferry's complete translation is not finished yet, but there are fragments published here and there (such as the latest Paris Review).Here is an online example: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetr...
I loved Ferry's translation of Horace, so I'm excited to see his full Aeneid. He also translated Virgil's Georgics and Eclogues. FSG published nice editions of all those translations.
I think I'm going to start learning Latin.. this could be huge motivation.
I tried last time I read this to listen to one translation and follow with another (probably a Fagles-Fitzgerald combination). This was one time I had to go out and get the translation that matched the recording!
Magdalena wrote: "I think I'm going to start learning Latin.. this could be huge motivation."I have been thinking for some time I would like to revisit Latin, after nearly failing two years of Latin in high school more than half a century ago! Maybe if we started a "let's start learning Latin together" group here on Goodreads we could get a few others and have a support group!
Everyman wrote: "Magdalena wrote: "I think I'm going to start learning Latin.. this could be huge motivation."I have been thinking for some time I would like to revisit Latin, after nearly failing two years of Latin..."
My final grade in h.s. Latin II was a D, no doubt a gift from a teacher who did not have the heart to fail me. That was (at that point) the end of the line for me -- any higher level was out of the question.
I ended up majoring in classics in college and then earning a Master's in the subject. I struggled through the Aeneid in college because I had not had a proper foundation in Latin before I started reading the poem, but was determined to learn it. Upon my first encounter with it in Latin, the sheer power of the poem, the extraordinary richness and sophistication of Vergil's art totally blew my mind -- I had no idea that literature could be so compelling.
Here is my review of the school text I used of the Aeneid in college: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47...
Everyman wrote: I have been thinking for some time I would like to revisit Latin, after nearly failing two years of La..."
That sounds great! Maybe we could even do some simple group reads in latin- I find it to be the best and natural way to learn a language. If we can find a text that's not too complicated...
Too bad I'm leaving for two weeks tomorrow so I'll miss two books of Aeneid plus maybe making this idea come true.
Here's a simple and easy way to get started with Latin:http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...
The pace is a bit slow, but it's a way to get started. The author has also created a series of videos where he parses a few lines of the Aeneid with the goal of reading the entire Aeneid over a 20 year time period. It looks like he made it about half-way through the first book before giving up sometime last year, but it was a nice thought! That series is here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...
Patrice wrote: "The prof mentioned that Fitzgerald is the only person to have translated the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid. Any thoughts about Fitzgerald? "That may have been true at one time, but Fagles has translated all three. First the Iliad, then the Odyssey, then the Aeneid, which he apparently worked on for a long time. I like Fitzgerald's Vergil more than his Homer.
Another thought on translations: whatever you decide upon, make sure it is not a prose translation. There are a few of them out there, and they tend be be very faithful to the Latin, but they should be avoided for one simple reason: they reduce a magnificent poem to the level of a prose narrative and thereby destroy so much of what makes Vergil great. Even if translators who write in verse refashion Vergil's words into something different, by keeping it in verse form they are at least attempting to recapture a fundamentally important quality of the original.
Patrice wrote: "Can anyone explain why the dash over vowels in the Latin course sometimes means it's a long vowel and sometimes not? Dido, for instance is pronounced Deedo although there is a long vowel sign over..."Long i in latin is prounced "ee" like "deep." Short i like "dip." Long o is like "oh". Short o like "dot".
Keep in mind that the teacher in this course is Australian (I think.) I want to hear what it sounds like when someone with a Brooklyn accent learns Latin from an Australian. Make a recording for us, Patrice! :)
Not silly at all. And even though I know better, I still pronounce Dido the wrong way. And I don't call my dog Feedo either.
max wrote: "Another thought on translations: whatever you decide upon, make sure it is not a prose translation. There are a few of them out there, and they tend be be very faithful to the Latin. . ."Now I am curious to know just how much "poetic" license is being taken on the poetic translations.
I wonder what is considered the most faithful poetic translation or which one Virgil would approve of most?
Assuming the original work is always better, is there any reason to say a more faithful prose translation is better than a poetic translation similar to a book being superior to its cinematic adaptation?
I realize that is not quite comparing apples to apples. I am just trying to get a feel for where we are on the spectrum of faithful vs. artistic license.
Dave
David wrote: "Assuming the original work is always better, is there any reason to say a more faithful prose translation is better than a poetic translation similar to a book being superior to its cinematic adaptation?"That's a great and unanswerable question. It really depends on what you want.
Purely for the purpose of precise content, I think a good prose translation is better than a good poetic one. But poems aren't only about content. They're about being poems, and that aspect of the work can never be captured by a prose translation, no matter how good. Imagine the experience a Bulgarian would have reading an Emily Dickinson poem translated into Bulgarian prose. Not matter how faithful to the words, is it Emily Dickinson???
I try to read poetic translations because I want the same sense of poetry that the original listeners or readers got. OTOH, almost any reader of Latin will as they translate Virgil read the poetic meter but translate it in their heads into English prose.
David wrote: "...I am just trying to get a feel for where we are on the spectrum of faithful vs. artistic license. ..."Dave -- I really can't improve on the response Eman has given you (msg 27), but I can add that I am spending my week at a conference where it is not unusual for scholars to spend ten minutes to an hour discussing the impact the translation of a single word can have on the meaning of a text and comparing the various decisions that have been made across the centuries. (Yes, the discussions are about Biblical translations.) As you probably realize from English alone, any word can probably be substituted by a number of others with similar but slightly different meanings. Now decide which one of those is to be used for a Latin equivalent for which there may be no one-to-one correspondence. Next, consider what can happen to word meanings across several centuries of usage. (E.g., a deacon in one church may mean something entirely different in another denomination today, let alone what the word connotated in 50 BCE.) Compound this by a number of other considerations of phrasing, punctuation, and meaning, and perhaps one begins to get a tiny sense of the challenges skilled translators face, even before artistic license comes into play.
Having compared several modern English poetic translations, by apparently conscientious translators, I'd say that it's the similarity which is most notable, not the differences, and they all seem to convey the spirit of Virgil effectively, which one can assume because they convey very much of the same spirit, and they're coming from the same source. (Wouldn't it be odd if they somehow conveyed the same spirit, working from the same source, yet the spirit did not originate from the source). Without reading Latin, without looking at the original, it seems that any potential dispute about the translations would be an example of niggling, nitpicking, and belong to the territory of language specialists who may over inflate the significance of minor differences.Considering this, whenever reading works in translation, I tend to select whatever text reads best in my own subjective evaluation, without worrying overly about faithfulness to the original (something I'm not equipped to judge).
If someone translates a masterwork, and produces an English language masterwork, then I suppose that they must be rather "faithful" to the original, though we can dispute whether this means "faithful" to the letter, or the spirit.
Imagine these four scenarios:
A) A great foreign language work is translated faithfully to a great English language work (the greatness of the original is effectively communicated).
B) A mediocre foreign language work is translated unfaithfully to a great English language work (it is improved by a translator superior to the original author).
C) A great foreign language work is translated unfaithfully to a great English language work (it was somehow transformed from one great thing to another, and the translator must be at least as great an artist as the famous original author to achieve this).
D) A mediocre foreign language work is translated faithfully to a mediocre English language work (hardly worth attention, but the translator has kept within the scope of his/her mission).
Of all these scenarios, C seems the least likely to occur, though I guess it's a theoretical possibility.
One major question any translator of an ancient work must deal with is to what extent he or she should make the translation sound older, consistent with the concept that this is an older work, and to what extent he or she should make it sound contemporary, on the theory that that when written the work would have sounded contemporary to its original audience. This is a tack taken, for example, fairly strongly by Lombardo and less so, but to some extent, by Fagles. Personally, I prefer the former: I don't particularly like to hear Aeneas greeting the sailors he had feared were lost at sea with "hey, dudes, gimme a high five." Okay, I exaggerate, but the principle is still one that translators must deal with.
Everyman wrote: "I don't particularly like to hear Aeneas greeting the sailors he had feared were lost at sea with "hey, dudes, gimme a high five." Okay, I exaggerate, but the principle is still one that translators must deal with...."I lean to the same preference as you here, Eman -- but the case of attempting to update language sometimes can come close to Zadignose's scenario C.
I also agree with Z's second paragraph for most reading for pleasure ("...select whatever text reads best in my own subjective evaluation, without worrying overly about faithfulness to the original..."). But, once in awhile, it is fun to tweak consciousness of how much can happen in translation, especially in a nation with many adherents to the very possibility of a translated inerrant text.
I am reading Dryden's translation this time through and loving it. The tone is perfect, and I keep hearing echoes of Milton. I'm already picking up phrases that our common today that must surely have come to us from Dryden's Virgil.
Patrice wrote: "But what if the correct translation is "hey,, dudes, gimme a high five". Should it be translated "forsooth, rogues, raiseth thy hand to mine'?First of all, Patrice, you made me laugh out loud. I hope you don't mind if I borrow it someday for use amongst friends.
It seems there is a lot of difference between translating idiomatic expressions like "high five" with style choices like "thou shalt not" or "don't".
Do more faithful translations lose the meaning and the reader when it comes to idioms while the style of translation keeps the meaning but change the intended subjective feel of the work? Style seems to be more of a Twain vs. Cooper question of how best to say what you want to say, eg., the flowery prose of a "thou shalt not" vs. eschewing surplusage of a more simple, "don't".
From what I have heard though, "Though shalt not" and many other phrases used in KJ were a conscious style choice because they were already old or obsolete by that time and therefore thought to lend an air of ancient authority.
I would not be surprised that a nationalistic story like The Aeneid would employ similar rhetoric.
Patrice wrote: "The lawyers on here would know more about this than I do but I think "shalt not" conformed to some kind of legal style. But the Hebrew says "don't" and I think that sounds, at least to my ear, muc..."It is my opinion only, but I think "legal style" is an oxymoron. But it's a good example of language that is designed for clarity with no regard for its aesthetic qualities. I don't think we want to read a translation like that (unless you're a lawyer you don't want to read anything like that) but fortunately there is a middle ground. Translators are mediators, and the best ones are able to forge the compromises that are fairest to both the source and the target language.
Thomas wrote: "It is my opinion only, but I think "legal style" is an oxymoron."AHEM.
Thomas wrote: "...Translators are mediators, and the best ones are able to forge the compromises that are fairest to both the source and the target language...."Well stated, Thomas. Much easier said than done, however. I don't think most of us can truly comprehend the challenges until we have had the privilege of encountering several significantly different translations of the same text, each of which we may enjoy or, at a minimum, recognize its quality. At least, that comprehension has come to me fairly late in my reading "career."
Ciardi gives some delightful examples of particular aspects of selecting equivalent expressions in his notes to one of his volumes of translations of Dante's Divine Comedy. The one I tend to remember I have probably cited here before -- the flower we commonly call "daisy" could as easily be translated "margarete." But note that one carries connotations of day, even "day's eye", even sun, whereas the other leads towards images of a girl or woman.
Translators of especially sensitive ancient documents may trace the author's usage of particular key words through the text, noting whether the author seemed to have used the word consistently throughout. In those cases, when an unusual synonym appears instead, the translator may be cued to take notice and consider word choice. Or, when an unusual usage occurs, should it get translated like the others or should another English (more) likely equivalent be used instead?
Everyman wrote: "Thomas wrote: "It is my opinion only, but I think "legal style" is an oxymoron."AHEM."
Present company excluded! ;) (And Holmes and Cardozo and a few others who can't be with us today.)
Lily wrote: "Much easier said than done, however..."
Agreed, absolutely. Very few are entirely happy with a brilliant compromise.
Patrice wrote: "...But the Hebrew says "don't" and I think that sounds, at least to my ear, much more emphatic. The meaning was changed and that's the bottom line..."You can't fairly say that the meaning was changed, nor can you actually say that Hebrew says "don't." (It surely didn't use the English word "don't").
One thing that we can say has changed is that Early Modern English: "Thou Shalt Not..." would be more naturally expressed as "Don't..." in Present Day English. That's not a change in "meaning," it's a change in English grammar and common usage.
Early Modern English was a transitional period, and work such as Shakespeare's (contemporary to the writing of the King James Bible) shows that use of the auxiliary "do" for negation was inconsistent and had not entirely replaced Middle English grammar forms.
Perhaps some might have preferred "Kill not," "Commit not adultery," etc. But there was no loss of meaning in the translation. Had the bible been FIRST translated to English in the 21st Century, the translation would probably be "don't," but now that there are very well known English precedents, more recent versions seem to have a hard time getting away from Shall or Shalt constructions.
Zadignose wrote: "Patrice wrote: "...But the Hebrew says "don't" and I think that sounds, at least to my ear, much more emphatic. The meaning was changed and that's the bottom line..."You can't fairly say that the..."
I shall continue to read, enjoy, and try to follow the King James Bible, and I shall not read The Message. Here I stand; I shall not be moved. Though this year I am listening to the ISVS or something of the sort. My mind keeps correcting things as I go.
Laurele wrote: "...I shall continue to read, enjoy, and try to follow the King James Bible, and I shall not read The Message...."Although Eugene Peterson did do some of his work from original language texts, The Message is usually positioned as a "paraphrase" rather than as a "translation."
KJV provides some of the most beautiful English language in existence; however, much has been learned about both languages and ancient textual sources since it was created.
Zadignose wrote: "Patrice wrote: "...But the Hebrew says "don't" and I think that sounds, at least to my ear, much more emphatic. The meaning was changed and that's the bottom line...""Shakespeare had perhaps the largest vocabulary of any English author, then or since, but a search of all his plays shows that he never once used the word (the contraction) "don't." So it's hardly surprising that the King James Bible, written at the same time, didn't. It simply wasn't a word in any sort of common usage at the time. (The OED lists only I think three instances of its usage, without the apostrophe, up to Thomas Hardy using it.)
And Aramaic, for reading the book of Daniel!I'm not sure if I have recommended it here yet, but Ursula LeGuin's novel 'Lavinia' is a great companion to the Aeneid.
Patrice wrote: "I guess it just comes down to the need to learn Hebrew, latin and Greek! "Well, if Milton could do it, so can you. :)
I'm obviously getting an extremely late start, but I will try my best to catch up (if possible!! I'm not the fastest reader in the world, AND, I tend to juggle a few books at a time.)I was just looking through the posts in this thread, and it doesn't seem as though anyone is reading the Christopher Pearse Cranch translation, which is translated into English blank verse. This is the edition I'm reading (I downloaded it to my Nook -- it's the Barnes and Noble Classics edition). I liked the fact that it is annotated. The introduction and notes are by Sarah Spence.
Is anyone here reading this edition??
Again, I'm very far behind the rest of you. I'm only on Book One, but I am enjoying the verse (so far!!!)
Patrice wrote: "I'm not reading that version but boy would I love some notes!"Patrice, I love ALL of the Barnes & Noble Classic editions. I'm also reading (along with The Aeneid) Daniel Deronda in this edition. (I've read it many years ago, but prior to starting The Aeneid with the group I was just in the mood to reread Deronda, and the notes are very helpful in this novel.)
I wish EVERY BOOK was available in this version. They're all $3.99 on the Nook, and they all come with not only great annotations, but a fantastic introduction AND a chronology of the author. (I hope I don't sound like I'm "advertising" these books!! Believe me, I don't work for B&N and I don't get any "kick-backs" -- LOL!!!)
They're also great in the actual paperback editions, if you don't have a Nook. (I just thought I would tell you how great these editions are, in case you want to try this edition for a future book. Unfortunately, not all books are available in this version, and with so many Kindle users (who would not have access to a B&N edition) I'm guessing that they're not selling as many as they did when the ONLY way to read was "actual books" as opposed to "digital."
Barbara wrote: "...I love ALL of the Barnes & Noble Classic editions. I'm also reading Daniel Deronda i..."Yes, they are good, and my shelves have a number of them. But, one does have to be careful about translated works. B&N depends on not having to pay royalties in order to keep costs low. And that is not to say there aren't good translations beyond copyright for many books. One just needs to be aware and recognize the choices.
Everyman wrote: "Personally, I prefer the former: I don't particularly like to hear Aeneas greeting the sailors he had feared were lost at sea with "hey, dudes, gimme a high five." Okay, I exaggerate, but the principle is still one that translators must deal with." hahaha -- Everyman, I just can not imagine WHY you don't want Aeneas to greet the sailors in this manner!!!
Barbara, you inspired me to late-join. You can never read too many books at the same time!
Paul wrote: "Barbara, you inspired me to late-join. You can never read too many books at the same time!"Paul, I'm so glad you've decided to late-join!! It's nice to know that there's at least one other person on the same schedule as I am (unless you're a very fast reader, in which case you are probably ahead of me by now!!!)
I owe a huge THANK YOU to Patrice, who inspired me to join in on The Aeneid, even though the group was already up to Book Five or Six at that point. I'm enjoying this book SO MUCH and although I don't have enough to say about it (yet), I'm really enjoying reading the posts here in this group.
Lily wrote: Yes, they are good, and my shelves have a number of them. But, one does have to be care..."That's a good point, Lily, which I had not even thought about. Thank you for the reminder about this!
Took the quiz on book one after kind of speed reading that and book two. Eh, not so great results, missing the less obvious ones like the name of the story-teller in the hall of Dido. Starting late is one thing, racing through to catch up is another :) Paul
Paul wrote: "Took the quiz on book one after kind of speed reading that and book two. Eh, not so great results, missing the less obvious ones like the name of the story-teller in the hall of Dido. Starting ..."
Paul, where is the quiz?? I'd love to take it. (By the way, I'm only halfway through Book Two at this point -- I'm a pretty slow reader, but I am enjoying The Aeneid so much!!)
I'll be posting in the threads for Books One and Two as soon as possible.
Looking forward to reading your comments, Barbara! Reading this book slowly is the only way to do it, IMO. The quiz (Thanks to Max) is here: http://www.goodreads.com/quizzes/resu...
Be warned though -- it's not an easy quiz! It really tests how closely you've read Book 1.
Once again we are presented with the spectre of a work in translation, so I hope we will have the assistance of a Latinist or two in the group. There are numerous translations into English available, from the classic Dryden translation of 1697 to the most recent translation by Sarah Ruden (which I have been reading and enjoying quite a bit.)
Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on any translations that you've read.
This site offers some guidance and compares eight modern translations:
http://myplace.frontier.com/~joepye1/...