Lost in Translation

Today is a Buffalo double, which means that I have about 6 hours to kill between the end of the morning rehearsal and the start of the evening concert. I'm at a Coffee Culture on Elmwood Ave with a big stack of books, a laptop, and a lunchbox that used to be full of pizza. It takes 1 hour and 19 minutes to drive from our apartment to Kleinhans, a drive that I am not keen to do four times in one day. (I'll have to on Saturday...church staff party demands I come home between.)

This Coffee Culture isn't a bad place to spend the afternoon, though. I did my taxes here in March, I've read lots of books, studied scores for upcoming concerts, and planned needlessly elaborate games and projects for James and Julie. I've just spent the last hour and a half translating.

I try to keep four translation projects open at once, which has been the problem with learning Hebrew. Keeping a running fifth project open with Calvus is possible during some parts of the year, but most of the time I don't have enough hours in the day to get to everything. Currently in my backpack are the Vulgate Bible, a volume of Sedulius, a collection of plays by Euripides, and the last half of the Iliad.

I've been reading through all of the major prophets in the Vulgate, which is St. Jerome's translation of the Bible into Latin. (And in my opinion, one of the most beautiful, if not the most accurate, translations ever made.) Here's what I did today, 10 verses about return from exile and judgment using pastoral language.

Ezekiel XXXIV:11-20 
The Lord God says this: Behold I will seek my sheep again and will visit them. Just as a shepherd visits his flock in the day when he will be in the midst of his scattered sheep, thus I will visit my sheep and will free them from all places where they were scattered in the day of cloud and darkness. And I will lead them out from the peoples and gather them from the lands and will bring them into their land and will pasture them in the mountains of Israel, in the rivers and in all the seats of the land. In the most fertile pastures I will pasture them and on the high mountains of Israel their pastures shall be. There they will rest in green grass and in rich pastures they will be pastured upon the mountains of Israel. I will pasture my sheep and I will make them to lie down, says the Lord God. What was lost I will seek back and what was cast away I will lead back and what had been broken I will bind up and what was weak I will strengthen and what was fat and strong I will keep and will pasture them in judgment. But you, O my flocks, the Lord God says this: Behold I judge between flock and clock, of rams and he-goats. Was it not enough to you to feed on the good pasture, and even the rest of your pastures you trampled with your feet and when you drank the purest water you troubled the rest with your feet. And my sheep on that which had been trampled by your feet were fed, and what your feet had troubled they drank. Therefore the Lord God says this: Behold I myself will judge between the fat and the lean of the flock.

Calvus gave me an SBL edition of Sedulius for my birthday (I think) last year, and I got around to starting it a few months ago. It's a dense five-volume hexameter poem deliberately copying Virgil that adapts the gospel story and sets it in the "jewelled" style. I'm glad I was already familiar with the story...I had to look up lots of words, and unravel lots of grammar from the parallel translation. I knew I was getting close to the end, but I didn't realize that I was going to finish the book today! Once I found myself at the end of the poem I signed and dated the bottom, which I try to do with any major translations I make. The section today picks up right as the ascension is about to take place.

Sedulii Paschale Carmen V.416-fin
Then teaching the following he said Peace, have you all. Take my peace, carry quiet (calm) peace, peace spread you through the peoples by my holy commands and cleanse the world from ills, to call nations from the ends of the earth as wide as the world is stretched, I command in my biddings to wash all in the fount. When this was said the Lord brought his kind address to an end, and soon he sought the fields of Bethany, and in the presence of the blessed men which merited so great a triumph to look upon, carried off into the skies he departed into the high regions/shores. (oras) And he himself sits at the right of the father and governs all by his authority which holding all things whether high or low after he entered Tartarus from heaven, he entered heaven after Tartarus. But they with joyful faces discerning the lord to go over the high clouds and to tread the shimmering expanses with his own feet worshiped him reverently and repeated with eager heart his starry path, which they would teach all, for they were faithful witnesses by the rule of the divine power, which seeing much wrote down a few of the innumerable good deeds. For if they had wished to hand down in holy pages all things done by their redeemer, neither would the whole world suffice to contain (gird) so many thick books.

I've been taking a break from my regular schedule of New Testament readings to work on Euripides' Bacchae, and I have just a few hundred verses left. It's hard, slow going. I know I'm not picking up on a lot of the subtle dynamics within the text, but I think I've been making an okay job of it with the help of a parallel translation. I picked up today directly after the verse where the death of Pentheus is announced.

Bacchae 1031
Chorus: King Bromius [thus] are you revealed a great god!
2nd Messenger: How do you say this? What is this you speak? O women, do you rejoice on my words of the events falling ill to my master? (no idea about this verse, actually)
Chorus: We shout hurrah in barbarian language, it pleases us as foreigners, for no longer are we frightened by the terror of prison.
2nd Messenger: And do you think Thebes to be without men, O women, with our king now being dead? This will bring you unto grief.
Chorus: It is Dionysus the child of Zeus, not the Thebans holding my rule.
2nd Messenger: It is pardonable to you, but on others' ills it is not good to rejoice, O women.
Chorus: Tell me, speak, by what fate did he die, the unjust and injustice-contriving man?
Messenger: Then attending leaving this Theban ground we crossed the rushing Asopus, we struck out into the rocky Cithaeron, Pentheus and I, for I followed my master, and the stranger who was escort to the festival/viewing.

I almost always save Homer for last. Where I am in the story Achilleus has just learned of Patroklus' death and held conference with his mother, who brings him new armor from Hephaestus as he prepares to retrieve the body.

Iliad XVIII.207-218
And as when smoke going from the city of a far island would reach the aether, its enemies battling around it, and those which all day were judged by hateful Ares, from their city. And together with the setting sun the numerous beacon-fires blaze and the glow comes darting on high to be seen by the neighbors, which there with ships might come as defenders. Thus from the head of Achilleus went radiance to the sky. And he going from the wall stood upon the trench, nor did he mingle with the Achaians, for he regarded the command of his mother. There standing he bellowed and Pallas Athena called aloud from afar. Yet he roused inexpressible confusion among the Trojans.

It isn't ever much, and it isn't ever much good, but with an afternoon to spare there isn't a much better way to pass it than sipping a cup of hot coffee and taking what nibbles I can of the ancient Mediterranean.