A poem by Propertius.

NON ego nunc tristis uereor, mea Cynthia, Manis,
nec moror extremo debita fata rogo;
sed ne forte tuo careat mihi funus amore,
hic timor est ipsis durior exsequiis.
non adeo leuiter noster puer haesit ocellis,
ut meus oblito puluis amore uacet.
illic quidquid ero, semper tua dicar imago:
traicit et fati litora magnus amor.
illic formosae ueniant chorus heroinae,
quas dedit Argiuis Dardana praeda uiris;
quarum nulla tua fuerit mihi, Cynthia, forma
gratior, et (Tellus hoc ita iusta sinat)
quamuis te longae remorentur fata senectae,
cara tamen lacrimis ossa futura meis.
quae tu uiua mea possis sentire fauilla!
tum mihi non ullo mors sit amara loco.
quam uereor, ne te contempto, Cynthia, busto
abstrahat e nostro puluere iniquus Amor,
cogat et inuitam lacrimas siccare cadentis!
flectitur assiduis certa puella minis.
quare, dum licet, inter nos laetemur amantes:
non satis est ullo tempore longus amor.







That death could weary love I fear more than death;
that love's failing embers fade upon the pyre
I dread more than the railing fires
entered into my torpid frame, nor in languished death
do I dread pain, but only that the faint sting
of mortal ill could thwart the courses of love's train.
As bone survives the body burned,
love's memory survives the passion spurned
in tempered thought, by haughty passion gone remiss;
alas, the thought of love stronger than love is.
Revealed in the mirror of the flesh, flesh is returned;
love does not engender, love completes;
love does not create, love cultivates,
reaping in the germ of created things
the foretaste of another world,
and beyond the shore of death love rolls on.
For love aims to drink deep of the eternal,
and finds in mortal pleasures only a bitter draught:
alas, the longest love is not long enough,
and briefer is the longer sought.

Aeschylus excerpt.








Oneirophantoi de penthêmones
pareisi doxai pherou-
sai charin mataian.
matan gar, eut' an esthla tis dokôn horai,
parallaxasa dia
cherôn bebaken opsis ou methusteron
pterois opadous' hupnou keleuthois.”





The dreamy haunts of passion do [ indwell our suffering ] 1
and bring forth only grace without beauty.
For what is beauty that knows not love?
Such visions straightway slip through the arms
and, along their [twisted path], 2 do bring us to despair
as day brings us unto night; so from dreaming to wakefulness
the sated vision is given unto grief.






Penthemones is a word Aeschylus seems to have made up, it occurs only once in Greek poetry, namely in his work. Penthe, mourning or suffering, and mone, an abode, or metaphorically, to make a home, to indwell. It could mean "Suffering one's place, one's dwelling" or "Indwelling in suffering, making a home of suffering." This is given to signify the fundamental nature of the poet himself, he is "penthemonic." He accepts his suffering as his "dwelling, his home." He is at-home-in-suffering. This position is countered with the man who has befallen to the charms of poetry and dreams, and is caught up in an eternal "keleuthois" and alternation, and cannot therefor name anything his home or dwelling, least of all his suffering. Think of "home" in the sense of being situated, the poet is situated, albeit negatively.


2. Keleuthois. It means not merely path, but twisting path. Both Hesiod and Parmenides used this word when making the point that day and night, sleep and wakefulness, are caught up in eternal alternation, and so pothos or longing, the sleep of love, continually awakens us to eros and the definite object of our longing, and this awakened love must in turn fall back into itself, must sleep.

Parodites wrote:

Aeschylus excerpt.


Oneirophantoi de penthêmones
pareisi doxai pherou-
sai charin mataian.
matan gar, eut' an esthla tis dokôn horai,
parallaxasa dia
cherôn bebaken opsis ou methusteron
pterois opadous' hupnou keleuthois.”

The dreamy haunts of passion do [ indwell our suffering ] 1
and bring forth only grace without beauty.
For what is beauty that knows not love?
Such visions straightway slip through the arms
and, along their [twisted path], 2 do bring us to despair
as day brings us unto night; so from dreaming to wakefulness
the sated vision is given unto grief.


Penthemones is a word Aeschylus seems to have made up, it occurs only once in Greek poetry, namely in his work. Penthe, mourning or suffering, and mone, an abode, or metaphorically, to make a home, to indwell. It could mean "Suffering one's place, one's dwelling" or "Indwelling in suffering, making a home of suffering." This is given to signify the fundamental nature of the poet himself, he is "penthemonic." He accepts his suffering as his "dwelling, his home." He is at-home-in-suffering. This position is countered with the man who has befallen to the charms of poetry and dreams, and is caught up in an eternal "keleuthois" and alternation, and cannot therefor name anything his home or dwelling, least of all his suffering. Think of "home" in the sense of being situated, the poet is situated, albeit negatively.


2. Keleuthois. It means not merely path, but twisting path. Both Hesiod and Parmenides used this word when making the point that day and night, sleep and wakefulness, are caught up in eternal alternation, and so pothos or longing, the sleep of love, continually awakens us to eros and the definite object of our longing, and this awakened love must in turn fall back into itself, must sleep.

To source it properly; that is from the Agamemnon, verse 420.

Are you translating this yourself? If so, really appreciate it, and this thread.

Alternate translations of the above:

"And when the night is deep,
Come visions, sweet and sad, and bearing pain
Of hopings vain-
Void, void and vain, for scarce the sleeping sight
Has seen its old delight,
When thro' the grasps of love that bid it stay
It vanishes away
On silent wings that roam adown the ways of sleep. "

And,

"Mournful apparitions come to him in dreams, bringing only vain joy; for vainly, whenever in his imagination a man sees delights, straightaway the vision, slipping through his arms, is gone, winging its flight along the paths of sleep."

Ah, yes. These are my translations. I took great liberty in them, with Propertius especially, in attempting to capture the actual Latin melodies in English, as opposed to replacing them with English melodies with a fully "faithful" translation of the sense. It is the actual sound and music of the Latin verse itself that I want to translate. The sense of the Latin and the sense of the poem in English I juxtapose to one another, Latin amore to English love, (ours is a transcendent, quasi-religious sensation, the former is more of a mournful competition against fate) and I articulate and draw forth that excessive component in both concepts and focus the poem on it. All languages are splinters of an absolute sense, true translation does not move a meaning from one language to another, but puts the many splinters of language together, to draw closer to the absolute.

Parodites wrote:

Ah, yes. These are my translations. I took great liberty in them, with Propertius especially, in attempting to capture the actual Latin melodies in English, as opposed to replacing them with English melodies with a fully "faithful" translation of the sense. It is the actual sound and music of the Latin verse itself that I want to translate.

I get it. Its beautiful!

Have you composed many such translations? I'd be eager to read.

And could I ask when Harmatia is likely to be published? I look forward to it.

I translate my favorite texts in my spare time, I might do something with them some day. And I will publish at least two books together, soon.

Parodites wrote:

I translate my favorite texts in my spare time, I might do something with them some day. And I will publish at least two books together, soon.

Great, thanks; and Best Wishes.

Ahi qual fallo e mirar cio, che mirato
desta il desire, e col desir tormenta!
Le Stelle indarno, indarno accusa il fato
chi del proprio suo mal fabbro diventa:
Stassi al varco del ciglio in dolte aguato
amor dolce nemico, e ment ei tenta
nel cuor l ingresso, con felice inganno
ospite v entra, e vi riman tiranuo.


Oh! What an error to look still upon your image,
even after you have taken leave and given me your farewell,
for when desire is named, desire torments!
Desire, hence, what a fruitless star! Fruitlessly to accuse fate,
and her wrought smithy in the firmament,
and the circuit it hath thereby bore her to tread forever;
together she, with the beloved, in sweet ambush
confound love's vision, and makes of it a sweet enemy,
which, happy to be deceived, the heart entreats and welcomes,
again and again subject to your tyrannizing.


-- Vincenzo da Filicaia, Avvertimento ali Anima.