Hey guys, I want to translate the Aeneid, but how do we actually translate it? A normal translation reads “Arms and a man I sing who forced by fate and Juno’s haughty hate…” But Juno’s haughty hate isn’t until 2 lines after it describes the man leaving from the shores of Troy and going to Italy. Do you guys know of any good commentaries or something to help translate the Aeneid??
Well poetry is hard to translate in any language, and in highly-inflected ones doubly so because they can arrange the word order willy-nilly so long as it stay metrical (ed: not to imply that poets wrote their poems and then rearranged the words to fit the meter). Do you mean you want to do a literal translation where the sense of the words stay more or less in the original order? That would seem to misapply one’s resources. (I’m not really sure what you’re asking here).
The Loeb series – the more recent ones, anyway – is noted for their very literal translations. Also I have Pharr’s edition of the first six books but I haven’t read it yet (Pro Milone is next on my list; the Aeneid might be after that); it seems very nice and very helpful. I don’t know how much hand-holding you want or need though – the Pharr edition uses macrons and has a vocabulary at the bottom of the page alongside the commentary. It might be a little overkill.
I’m looking for whatever might make the best sense, and how an actual Roman would have read it. I got the LINGVA LATINA edition of books 1 & 4 of the Aeneid for my birthday along with the LINGVA LATINA edition of Commentarii de Bello Gallico books. I might translate Gallic Wars first (I just finished Wheelock about a month ago), as it might be a good intro to studying the literature of Latin. I often have trouble with poetry, even in English. I might study more poetry before I move on to the Aeneid.
I see.
Well the Aeneid as the Romans read it is in the Latin and I wouldn’t expect any English versions except very non-literal ones to have a similar effect – a good translation of poetry should be good English literature. I have limited poetic experience myself (Vergil’s eclogues and four or five odes of Horace – I don’t think I’m missing anything) but in general it takes more grammatical application than prose as well as the ability to take the words as they come (a good skill all-around but it can be hard to develop, especially when you don’t know half the words) while reading metrically. As Hylander has said here it can practically be a different language. I’d recommend trying Caesar first to consolidate what you’ve learned and to build fluency and vocabulary. Congratulations on finishing Wheelock, by the way.
(Also – just from what I’ve read and from what I expect from the Aeneid – there are many more allusions in poetry and if you don’t know the mythology and cultural background you’ll need a good commentary)
Only a poetic genius could translate something like the Aeneid so as to give some idea in English of how it felt to a Roman to read it in Latin. Such a genius was John Dryden. Check out his rendering of the exordium:
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destin’d town;
His banish’d gods restor’d to rites divine,
And settled sure succession in his line,
From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
And the long glories of majestic Rome.
O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;
What goddess was provok’d, and whence her hate;
For what offense the Queen of Heav’n began
To persecute so brave, so just a man;
Involv’d his anxious life in endless cares,
Expos’d to wants, and hurried into wars!
Can heav’nly minds such high resentment show,
Or exercise their spite in human woe?
And even then, it is not “the same” as the Latin, nor could it possibly be. The languages are too different. To make another obvious point on top of others that have been made above, Latin is a much heavier language than English, and Vergil’s lines tend to feel more solemn than the same lines in Dryden. Iambic pentameter is a fundamentally different meter than dactylic hexameter, too, but dactylic hexameter isn’t easy in English (I’ve been told, I’m no poet). I’m not trying to discourage you but I think your time would be better spent reading and enjoying the Aeneid in Latin than worrying about how to English it.
That’s an interesting claim. I’ve not heard it made before. What do you mean by it, exactly?
An arguably more significant difference is that Virgil, like all his contemporaries, wrote in quantitative verse, whereas English poetry is accentual, so comparing dactylic hexameters in Latin and English is really comparing chalk and cheese.
By “heavier” it is meant that Latin has more long syllables than Greek or English. It is difficult to create the rapid, flashing effect that Greek poetry can have. That’s one of the things that makes Catullus 63 such a special poem. The meter (which allows substitutions) is Galliambic: ˘ ˘ – ˘ – ˘ – –// ˘ ˘ – ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ×
SVPER alta uectus Attis celeri rate maria,
Phrygium ut nemus citato cupide pede tetigit,
adiitque opaca siluis redimita loca deae,
stimulatus ibi furenti rabie, uagus animis,
deuolsit ili acuto sibi pondera silice.
The heavy thing ties into your second point, which is absolutely true of course. Latin can have multiple long syllables in a word easily. English, because of its strong stress system, generally only has one “heavy” syllable per word.
Do you know where I can learn dactylic hexameter? It is something not explained in Wheelock, which is what I’ve used.
Allen and Greenough’s treatment is as good as any. If you don’t know anything at all about prosody, it explains that too further up. The whole grammar is online, I’d start there.
I’m looking for whatever might make the best sense, and how an actual Roman would have read it.
I think you would find it more helpful to concentrate on the former laudable aim and abandon the unattainable second.
Many readers (including myself) try to construct “historical” readings (aka what the Romans read). Its an interesting approach but one which must of necessity be rooted in contemporary practise. Why hobble yourself with problems you dont need? Accept that there are many ways of reading the Aeneid and just start reading and enjoy.
swtwentyman has given you some pointers. How to translate is an entire subject in itself. Trying to understand the thought in one language and expressing it in another might be a promising start.