Am I alone in thinking this is awful? I picked it up expecting a poet of Homer or Virgil caliber, and I can barely force myself to read it. At this point I am just trying to read it to understand its influence on Shakespeare.
Pic related is the translation I have.
I loved it tbqh famalam
it's genre fiction but for roman patricians
Which translation?
You're really saying you don't like Charles Martin
not him, but Mandelbaum's made me cry
Me too
Well this is the translation you're using. Pic is from Book V.
Get Dryden and Garth translations newbs
Holy Jesus Christ FUCK WHAT THE FUCK
DAMN. Roman poetry look like THAT?
That's the translation used in the Norton Critical Edition, lol
>anno domine 2017
>being unable to read Latin
>b-but latin is hard to learn
>buying a shitty new translation without consulting sources first
Mandelbaum or learn Latin
you can pick up Latin in maybe 3 months with only a handful of books
Yes, you can "learn" Latin quickly, but actually trying to work through the poetry afterwards is going to be very difficult.
>I am just trying to read it to understand its influence on Shakespeare
then read the Golding.
>domine
Not well enough to read Ovid
It's not Homer or Virgil, but it is extremely good. Maybe that translation isn't for you -- try another one.
DRYDEN DRYDEN DRYDEN YOU FAGGOTS HOW HARD TO I HAVE TO MEME THIS SAMUEL GARTH FUNDED A TRANSLATION WITH ABOUT SEVEN GREAT ROMANTIC POETS INCLUDING POPE AND DRYEN "but couplets are--" SHUT THE FUCK UP LOSERS THE COMPOSITION IS AKIN TO KJV IDGAF ABOUT MADLEBOOM
>Am I alone in thinking this is awful?
Probably. I read the first fifth of a translation and it was fucking class.
My translation is by Rolfe Humphries
you're reading the wrong translation. i recommend the A.D. Melville translation. pic related.
holy shit. this is the most idiotic, atrocious, criminal thing i have ever seen. i feel bad for op or else he is the subtlest trollin in the world.
Hey, Me too. With the Tree lady on the cover?
HVIVS HVIVS HVIVS
What the fuck, is this actually real?
why did you do this to yourself OP?
yep, Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse. I fucking love that painting.
I think I just had a stroke.
this, not this
hvic hvic hvic
Read the Everyman's Library edition of Metamorphoses
randomhouse.com
yes. also
>Martin's Ovid translation won the 2004 Harold Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.
Martin, like Swift, is a master of the English language…an outstanding translator of the Roman poets Catullus and Ovid, Martin has a range unusual among contemporary poets.
--George Held, The Philadelphia Inquirer
“‘In Libya the Giants told the gods to scram
The boss god they worship there has horns like a ram
’Cuz Jupiter laid low as the leader of a flock
And Delius his homey really got a shock
When the Giants left him with no place to go:
“Fuggedabout Apollo—make me a crow!”
And if you believe that Phoebus was a wuss
His sister Phoebe turned into a puss
Bacchus takes refuge in the skin of a goat
And Juno as a cow with a snow-white coat
Venus the queen of the downtown scene, yuh know what her wish is?
“Gimme a body just like a fish’s”
Mercury takes on an ibis’s shape
And that’s how the mighty (cheep cheep) gods escape’
>it's actually fucking real
Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans.
No fucking way these are real
In Libya da bigass mofos told da gods to fuck off
Da dood dat's gang leader can kill w/ a cough
Cuz fuckin' Zeus was on the DL as da OG
& Delius my nigga had a coronary
When da bigass mofos fucked off and told him "hah word":
"Apollo suck deez nuts, make me 1 o dem sumbitchin birds."
& if y'all bes' believe the sun nigga was a bitch
His homegurl sis Feebs was a helluva witch.
My OG wine nigga makes a crib outta goat
and Zeus's cunt wife as a cow (lol, suck on that scrote)
Dat fine bitch be all up in da club, and she's Venus,
She say, "make me a salmon or gimme dat penis"
Messenger nigga turns into a weird lil birdy
And das how dem OG niggas left 'round 'bout 4:30.
...
Your mistake for reading it in translation. It's really great in the original.
hvnc hanc hoc
I can't learn Latin
Why? Anyone who's not retarded can learn Latin; it's not a difficult language.
HOC HAC HOC
I'm very bad with languages famalam
HI HAE HAEC
Then you should probably avoid reading poetry in translation, it's almost invariably a poor representation
HORUM HARUM HORUM
>Latin
>not difficult
It's fairly easy to learn enough to read simple prose but more complicated stuff is a huge leap. I'd say it takes most serious students at least a couple of years to get a leg up where they might manage, say, 10 lines of poetry at a stretch with no help from dictionary or commentary. There's tons of ambiguity in the case system that you can only get used to with experience.
): but I love that stuff
Greek poems too even though I do not understand classical Greek at all
HIS HIS HIS
I didn't find it too much of a challenge honestly. The number of words you have to memorize is quite small compared to other languages, and the fact that we have pretty much only literary works means the language is quite regular too.
Pathice
wrong, you should avoid people trying to gatekeep great works of literature, because the nuance shifts slightly when translated
lol "gatekeep"
The Aeneid and Iliad are totally different experiences read in translation vs in the original language.
