Tuesday 9 April 2024

Metrical English in Chôka no Saffō

So in the evening of 5/4/24, as I worked on this post (I think), I noticed an English translation which was in iambic pentameters (the Dead shalt thou lie one), and I was like, why is this not in the index? When did I make this? So I investigated this, and then I scrolled through all of Chôka no Saffō, the basis for the other post, and I found a few more translations that were in some form of meter. This post is made specifically to harbor those translations. Here is a list of the fragments:
  1. "Two thoughts" (LP 51): Fragment 4 here; the iambic pentameter translation is from 14/11/23 16:08:[28,55];
  2. "Love shook my heart" (LP 47): Fragment 5 here; the translation is in a barbarous form of xx–uu–uu–uu–x, and it is from shortly before the previous; it was originally linebroken differently as «Love shook my / Heart, like a wind blowing into oaks down a mountain.» being the original version; l. 1 of this was from 14/11/23 ≤16:12:30 and l. 2 from ≤16:13:03, then it was tweaked within 16:13:36 to the form below;
  3. "May you sleep" (LP 126): Fragment 9 here; the alexandrine translation is from 15/11/23 15:[29:30,30,25];
  4. "Stand before me" (LP 138): Fragment 1 here; here we have a phalecean hendecasyllabic and an incomplete Sapphic one, which I mistook for another phalecean; the translation is from 16/11/23 0:[50:54,55:54]; actually, we can tweak this from «And spread out the grace in [your] eyes.» to «And the grace in your eyes spread out», as I did on 6/4/24 at 16:34:~30 to get the incomplete phalecean;
  5. "Dead shalt thou lie" (LP 55): Fragment 1 here: the translation that set this post in motion; as it turns out, it's from 16/11/23; ll. 1-3 are from 0:[55:49,56:12], by 0:57:59 we have the ending attempt «But having flown 'midst lightless dead souls, even / In Hade's house uncouth, thou», and by 0:58:24 we're done;
  6. "Someone will remember" (LP 147): Fragment 3 here; here we actually need a tweak for the meter to emerge; indeed, the original version with "someone", from 16/11/23 0:58:[24,45], doesn't quite scan as a double octosyllabe, but with "somebody", as I thought to do on 6/4/24 at 16:38, it does.
And with that, let's get to the fragments and translations!


αʹ· Δύο νοήματα

Οὐκ οἶδ' ὄττι θέω· δύο μοι τὰ νοήματα.



β· Ἔρος δ' ἐτίναξέ μοι φρένας

[xx–uu–u] Ἔρος δ᾽ ἐτίναξέ ‹μοι›
φρένας, ὠς ἄνεμος κὰτ ὄρος δρύσιν ἐμπέτων.



γʹ· Δαύοις

Δαύοις ἀπάλας ἐτα‹ί›ρας ἐν στήθεσιν .



δʹ· Στάθι κἄντα

Καὶ ἡ Σαπφὼ δὲ πρὸς τὸν ὑπερβαλλόντως
θαυμαζόμενον τὴν μορφὴν καὶ καλὸν εἶναι
νομιζόμενόν φησι·


[Σὺ] στᾶθι ‹τυίδε› κἄντα ‹'μέθεν›, φίλος,
καὶ τὰν ἐπ' ὄσσοις ὀμπέτασον χάριν.



εʹ· Κατθάνοισα δὲ κείσῃ

Κατθάνοισα δὲ κείσῃ ͜οὐδέ ποτα μναμοσύνα σέθεν
ἔσσετ᾿ οὐδέ πόθα ͜‹εἰς› ὔστερον· οὐ γὰρ πεδέχῃς βρόδων
τὼν ἐκ Πιερίας, ἀλλ᾿ ἀφάνης κἀν Ἀίδα δόμῳ
φοιτάσῃς πεδ᾿ ἀμαύρων νεκύων ἐκπεποταμένα.




ςʹ· Μνάσετάι τις

Μνάσεσθαί τινα φαῖμι καὶ ‹ὔσ›τερον ἀμμέων.

1: Two thoughts

I don't know what to say: two are my thoughts.



2: Love shook my heart

[XX] Love shook my heart, like a wind that has fallen
Unto oaks down a mountain. [u–uu–x]



3: May you sleep

May you sleep in the bosom of a tender girlfriend .



4: Stand before me

And Sappho says to the one who is excessively
Admired for his looks and considered
handsome:


Stand thou here and before me, [as a] friend,
And the grace in your eyes spread out. [u–]
Older: And spread out the grace in [your] eyes. [u–]


5: Dead shalt thou lie

Dead shalt thou lie, and never memory
Of thee will be until the end, for thou
Hast no share in the roses of Pieria,
But having flown 'midst lightless dead souls, thou,
Even in Hades' house uncouth, shalt wander.



6: Somebody will remember

I say that even till the end
Somebody will remember us.

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