If you've got leaving on your mind (or, Patsy Cline greeked)

[annis]

My iPod handed me this Patsy Cline song this morning on the way to work. For some reason I decided it needed a version in Greek. Here are the original words:

If you've got leavin' on your mind
Tell me now, get it over
Hurt me now, get it over
If you've got leavin' on your mind

If there's a new love in your heart
Well, tell me now, get it over
Hurt me now, get it over
If there's a new love in your heart

Don't leave me here
In a world filled with dreams that might have been
Hurt me now, get it over
I may learn to love again

If there's a new love in your heart
Well, tell me now, get it over
Hurt me now, get it over
If there's a new love in your heart

Hurt me now, get it over
If there's a new love in your heart

For this one I went with glyconics. The straight-up glyconic is xx-uu-u-, but in poets from Sappho to Euripides it can vary with xx-x-uu-, the so-called Cho Dim, named after the Manchu warrior who roamed the desolate Plains of Greek Metrics, forcing subject nations to mouth terms like willamowitzian. Ok, really it's just an anaclastic glyconic, but it often gets called the "choriambic dimeter."

I removed some of the repeats. The biggest grammatical oddity is probably the verb ἀπολειψέμεν, an aeolic — and sometimes Homeric — future infinitive of ἀπολείπω. Using that word for "leave" for a man is a solecism in strict Greek (Lucian griped about it), but in the context of 50s American country music, women aren't property cast aside so easily, so the usual word for a man leaving a woman, á¼￾κπέμπω, makes no sense.


εἰ μέλλεις ἀπολειψέμεν,
á¼￾μοὶ μὲν λέγε νῦν τελῶν,
πήμηνον δέ με νῦν τελῶν
εἰ μέλλεις ἀπολειψέμεν.

εἰ δ’ á¼￾ν θυμῷ καινὸς á¼”Ï￾ως,
á¼￾μοὶ μὲν λέγε νῦν τελῶν,
πήμηνον δέ με νῦν τελῶν
εἰ δ’ á¼￾ν θυμῷ καινὸς á¼”Ï￾ως.

στᾶσαν á¼￾νθάδε μὴ λίπῃς
á¼￾λπίζουσάν με ματήν,
πήμηνον δέ με νῦν τελῶν,
ἀλλ’ αὖθίς ποÏ￾ μοι φιλία.

[Kasper]

Very nice Will, even despite the (poetic) liberty taken as to the dreams that might have been.

I've drafted a latin version, also using the same meter. the third verse uses the meter of Mr Cho Dim for variety.

There are a number of weaknesses, but the most glaring is scilicet the line 'noli huc reliquere me etiam alucinantem ita adhinc'. To be perfectly honest, 'ita adhinc' is mere filler, putty, but well... it's the best i could come up with!

i'm not too sure about ending a line with a single syllable word either, and of course 'novus' doesn't really end with a long syllable. i've still used it as such because it's at the end of the line. I note you did the same.


si discedere destines
nunc narra mihi, finias
etiam me noce, finias
si discedere destines

sive in corde amor est novus
nunc narra mihi, finias
iamiam me noce, finias
sive in corde amor est novus

noli huc relinquere me
etiam alucinantem ita adhinc
nuncque me noce, finias
ut amare conperiam

sive in corde amor est novus
nunc narra mihi, finias
iamiam me noce, finias
sive in corde amor est novus

iamiam me noce, finias
sive in corde amor est novus

[annis]

Very nice Will, even despite the (poetic) liberty taken as to the dreams that might have been.

It's not clear to me that the ancient Greeks had the same psychology of dreams that motivated that lyric. Also, it would have blown my neat 4-line glyconics.

I've drafted a latin version, also using the same meter.

What's Latin for "yay!"?

i'm not too sure about ending a line with a single syllable word either,

Horace will be the poet to check for that, though I suppose Catullus uses his fair share of aeolic meters, too.

and of course 'novus' doesn't really end with a long syllable. i've still used it as such because it's at the end of the line. I note you did the same.

If the lines were to be taken in synaphaea I would have indented differently. I used the glyconics by the line, so the final syllable of the line is indifferent. I'm pretty sure that applies to both Greek and Latin verse.

So. A small Latin lesson for Wm...

nunc narra mihi, finias
etiam me noce, finias

My dictionaries make me suspicious about the acc. here with noceo. Dat. might be better.

And the entire etiam... line leaves me in doubt about my Latin scanning abilities. Isn't it nocē?

That's probably enough of me Latinating for just now.

[Kasper]

i'm not too sure about ending a line with a single syllable word either,

Horace will be the poet to check for that, though I suppose Catullus uses his fair share of aeolic meters, too.

Yeah well, 4 more months of law school and the world will reopen to me again, and allow me some time to actually read something other than case law.

synaphaea

pardon?

nunc narra mihi, finias
etiam me noce, finias

My dictionaries make me suspicious about the acc. here with noceo. Dat. might be better.

And the entire etiam... line leaves me in doubt about my Latin scanning abilities. Isn't it nocē?

Indeed you are right on all counts. I will amend to: "nunc/iam noce mihi, finias"

[cb]

hey will, cool but looks like a line doesn't scan:

στᾶσαν á¼￾νθάδε μὴ λίπῃς
á¼￾λπίζουσάν [insert long] με ματήν,

i had a go at these lines:

οἴμοι, μηκέτι πεῖθέ με
á¼…Ï„Ï„' ἂν ἦν ἔτι Ï€Ï￾οσδοκᾶν.

cheers

[cb]

hey will, noticed also in your signature that you have aspirated the indefinite neut acc pl as a pronoun (ἄττα) rather than as a relative (ἅττα), cheers

[annis]

hey will, noticed also in your signature that you have aspirated the indefinite neut acc pl as a pronoun (ἄττα) rather than as a relative (ἅττα), cheers

D'oh!

Ï„á½° σὰ ὄμματα ἄμεινον á½￾Ï￾á¾· á¼¢ τἀμά.

[annis]

hey will, cool but looks like a line doesn't scan:

στᾶσαν á¼￾νθάδε μὴ λίπῃς
á¼￾λπίζουσάν [insert long] με ματήν,

Cho Dim smacks me in the head again. I wonder if I intended some connective particle for the second participle phrase...

I need to stare some more at this.

[annis]

synaphaea

pardon?

That's the name for scansion working by the entire line, not just the word, so that, for example, Ï„á½° Ï€Ï￾τῶτα is --x, as though ταπÏ￾ωτα. Sometimes verses that are laid out by the line in our editions should be taken all together — the syllable at line end isn't common, but will always be correct when taken with the next word.

[annis]

One dodgy fix:


στᾶσαν á¼￾νθάδε μὴ λίπῃς
παθοῦσάν τέ με καὶ μάτην.


More thinking may be required, to do more than merely satisfy the meter.