Today I bring you one of the most beautiful Chinese songs I know of. It is a Min song I bumped into when I was (I think) in my first year of University, so between Sep 2012 and June 2013. More precise limits for the "bumping" will be given by the dates of the translations. I recorded and uploaded to YT the original and the Czech Slovak and English versions, I give the link for reference.
There is, in fact, a Mandarinization of it, which I include here as the "Original" Mandarin version, which appears in a file dated C20130718-1555-M20130822-1519, meaning it was made within 22/8/13, and then in a file dated C20130822-1125-M20130901-1541 the line 但是我了解 becomes 但是我明白, so the correction happened within 1/9/13, and in another file dated C20130901-2035-M20170603-1246 站在这舞台 becomes 住在这舞台, so God knows when that change was made, but probably far from when I made the second Mandarin version, since that version ignores said change;
I translated it into Slovak when I met this half-Slovak girl who studied Physics at my Uni. This requires quite a bit of history and versions:
The first mention of this girl is in my 11/2/14 diary entry, which starts from 6/1/14 and proceeds to narrate over a month; the first version I can find is in a video from 20/1/14 15:44, where we find the original version below – well, almost; the original below is from the caption of my posting of the video, where the following differences appear w.r.t. the video:
mi čeliť -> ma čeliť;
miesto mňa -> miesto mna;
Ja ne znám -> Ja ne zném;
«She made some corrections to the translation», states the old version of this post; unfortunately, there is no clear record of such corrections, since the only changes to this version are those that lead us to the "first correction" version below; these come from a round of comments posted by me on the video (which I'd posted to Fb on 20/1/14) on 22/1/14 10:32-10:39, and applied in the "first correction" version below, which is copypasted from yet another comment of mine, from 22/1/14 21:04;
Then I have this Fb note, which I quoted in several other posts, which appears to have been posted on 12/5/17 and got its first comment on 13/5/17 0:26; this has the "note version" below, which is a weird hybrid of original and corrections, as if some corrections had somehow been lost;
This is probably what I showed to this Slovak girl I met on 30/7/17; she presumably suggested the following corrections, found in the 30/7/17 14:51 posted by me to the note:
Pamätam sa (staccato);
cestu è femm., quindi moju;
*skrytý non due ý;
*mi, non ma;
*ti non ťa;
*nestále;
*čakanie non čekanie;
"đakujem ti, že" (note the comma);
Meglio "po celý život";
*všetok: všetko è avv., všetok è agg.;
"vieš ty, že ecc.";
however, it seems the note itself contains more corrections, as, besides the one I made myself as I assimilated on 11/8/17, which is smutný -> smutní "using the plural […] for genericity", there are the following that appear in a corrected version on the note:
ma -> mňa;
bývať -> byvaš;
ja vidim ne -> ja ich viem;
ja chápam -> chápem, že;
teplá -> teplé;
With these, we almost end up with the final version below; the last change started out as ja ich viem -> ja ne znám, already suggested in the note; however, Wiktionary gives me poznať, not znať, for the sense of "to know" we have here in Slovak (curiously it gives me znám for Czech), so on 19/11/21 at 1:07 I opt for "Ja ich poznám"; ah yes, because ne and ich can be synonyms, but ne is also the negation, so I prefer to avoid the ambiguity, especially because it caused a miscorrection in the Czech (see below); for completeness's sake, let me list the changes from "first correction" to final:
skrýtý -> skrytý;
ma čeliť -> mi čeliť;
mna -> mňa;
nestály -> nestále;
Ja ich viem -> Ja ich poznám;
smutný -> smutní;
The very old «Ďakujem ťa za bývať so mnou» left in first correction in the second iteration of that line;
celoživotné -> po celý život;
všetko -> všetok;
The last thing to point out here is that there is a part which was never translated musically; this is because that part is never repeated in the video, and I planned to translate just enough so that I could use one repetition for the Slovak and leave the rest in the original; there is, however, a literal Slovak translation for that, and between the original version and the note it changed a bit; so the original of that is in the first two versions, while from "note version" on we have the changed version; [Welp, it seems that edit was to make it musical, cfr. the old version of this post saying «Also, around 13:07 [of 27/10/18] I decided to complete the Slovak version, since I was lacking only one line»;]
On the same day (11/8/17) that I assimilated the second round of Slovak corrections, I decided to Czech-ify the translation, yielding the original version below; on 13/8/17 at 0:02, my corrector sent a corrected version; to get from there to what was originally on the blog, we have the following changes:
Někdy -> Niěkdy, probable typo, will undo;
«Byl jsi skutečně něžný» deleted its jsi, undatable change;
The "pretože" in the original Czech was misinterpreted as "Prestože", which I fixed at 0:17 on 13/8/17;
"ne znám" was misread as "neznám", whereas I had it here as "ně znám", undatable change;
All of those changes were made within my YT video, which was uploaded 1/11/17; I will spare you the list of errors I made in there; yeah, all the differences between blog and video are errors IMO;
On that same 11/8/17, I also translated it into English, though the translation came almost instantly and felt like half-known-by-heart, so I strongly suspect it dates far further back in time than just yesterday; for some reason, my video has "I knew" instead of "I know";
And then on the 26/10/18, around 2:40 am, I made a complete Italian translation, which was added the next day (27/10) around 13:00;
On 1/1/19 I started a Vietnamese version (2 lines), 2 more lines on the 3rd, and the rest on the 22nd; well, that didn't include the 千言万语 part, which I dumped into Google 23/9/24 11:[15:46,16:09] to post my translation to LT, changed Ruan->Anhin (24/9/24 10:47:04), turned bạn->em in l. 3 of at 14:43:17 on 25/9/24, and deleted của from before em in l. 3 of (25/9/24 14:45:11), and then deemed fine; as I record this on 11/1/25, I realize that "this" in Vietnamese goes after the noun, thus at 17:07 I fix «này vũ-đài» to «vũ-đài này»; I also realize the autotranslation of the last part fell victim to 阮 and Mandarin (curiously not giving me Nguyen), so I change Ruan to Anh at 17:10;
13/2/20 dead of night, 4 lines translated to French; next day around 10, finish verse; around midday, chorus; then on 10/5/23 at 23:02, after seeing this version in the post, I start from l. 1 and remake the first four, fearing there may be no rhymes in the post version: «Je m' souviens d' mon voyage, / Et que mes pas, / Même dans tempête et vents, / Ne craignaient pas.»; surprisingly, l. 4 is also the same, l. 2 I prefer in the post version, whereas l. 3, which in the post was «Dans la pluie, dans le vent,», I decided to implement with a slight tweak from 1:33 on 12/5/23; given the translation of that part into Vietnamese, as a column filler, I translate the 千言万语 part to French on 28/9/24 at 18:25-18:28;
The Vietnamese then went through the following editing-time changes:
hiếu ý -> hiếu rằng, 26/1/25 19:39;
với anh (add that acute accent!), 19:50, treating this as typo fix;
ngài -> ngày, 20:14, also typo fix;
Một câu muôn -> Một câu được, 20:29;
Mãi-mãi được ben anh -> Mãi-mãi đi cùng anh, [20:12:43,20:13:20;
I may also eventually review/remake the French, since the way it's phrased it seems the addressee is now no longer present, which doesn't seem to be the feeling in the original;
Finally, the Mandarin final version was done on my birthday, 24/3/19, around 3:15.
With all of that said, here we go. As always, the Min spelling and transliteration is as described here. Note that many of the translations are partial, in the sense that one part is left out, so that I can sing a part in Min, the same part in any translation, and then end with the final part in Min. Said left-out part reads «千言万语一句话来表明。 / 有你的鼓励关怀， / 阮会认真为将来。», or «We manifest a thousand words with one sentence. / With your hug and encouragement, / I can face my future seriously.». Enjoy!
1 Note: Min personal pronouns
Min has 7 personal pronoun:「我 | guá」, that is "I";「你 | lí」, that is "thou", or "you (singular)";「伊 | i」, that is "he, she, it";「阮 | guán / gún」, meaning "we, not including you";「咱」, meaning "we, including you";「恁 ｜ lín」, that is "ye", or "you (plural)";「亻因 | in」, that is "they". In songs, there is often an "I" and a "you" and no-one else, so 「阮」 is often the same as "I", and「咱」 is often the same as "we two", "the two of us".
Deep love
I remember my road,
And how my steps,
Though they went through the storm,
Feared no loneliness,
Because hidd’n in my heart
‘Twas always your smile
With me to face all hardships and pains.
I leave it to time to take my place
And sing of your deep love.
Thank you for standing on this stage,
With their ups and downs,
I know all of your feelings.
Sometimes it’s hard to not feel sad,
When there’s fate that comes at us,
But I understand
This is a warm warm wait.
Thank you for standing on this stage,
Being really tender,
Spending all your life with me.
I know there’ll surely be a day
When all sadness will just go.
Do you know
I’m thankful for your deep love?
Pamätámsa na môj cestu,
Kroky moje
Hoci išli skrz búrku
Nebáli sa samoty,
Pretože skrýtý v srdci
Bol úsmev tvoj
Ktorý pomáhal ma čeliť bolesti.
Nechám času spievať miesto ma
Hlbokú lásku.
Ďakujem ťa za bývať so mnou.
City tvoje nestály,
Ja vidím ne.
Niekedy je to ťažké nebyť smutný,
Keď osud je proti nám,
Ale ja chápam
Je teplá čekanie.
Ďakujem ťa za bývať so mnou.
Bol naozaj nežný,
So mnou celoživotné.
Verím určite bude deň
Keď všetko smútok zmizne.
Vidíš ty
Ďakujem pre tvoju lásku.
Jedna veta
Ukazuje tisíc slov.
S odvahou a staroslivosťou tvojimi
Budem vážne do budúcnosti
Hlbokú lásku
Pamätám sa na moju cestu,
Kroky moje
Hoci išli skrz búrku
Nebáli sa samoty,
Pretože skrýtý v srdci
Bol úsmev tvoj
Ktorý pomáhal ma čeliť bolesti.
Nechám času spievať miesto mna
Hlbokú lásku.
Ďakujem ti že bývaš so mnou.
City tvoje nestály,
Ja ich viem.
Niekedy je to ťažké nebyť smutný,
Keď osud je proti nám,
Ale chápem že
Je to teplé čakanie.
Ďakujem ťa za bývať so mnou.
Bol naozaj nežný,
So mnou celoživotné.
Verím určite bude deň
Keď všetko smútok zmizne.
Vieš ty
Že ďakujem pre tvoju lásku.
Jedna veta
Ukazuje tisíc slov.
S odvahou a staroslivosťou tvojimi
Budem vážne do budúcnosti
Hlbokú lásku
Pamätámsa na môj cestu,
Kroky moje
Hoci išli skrz búrku
Nebáli sa samoty,
Pretože skrýtý v srdci
Bol úsmev tvoj
Ktorý pomáhal ma čeliť bolesti.
Nechám času spievať miesto ma
Hlbokú lásku.
Ďakujem ťa za bývať so mnou.
City tvoje nestály,
Ja vidím ne.
Niekedy je to ťažké nebyť smutný,
Keď osud je proti nám,
Ale ja chápam
Je teplá čekanie.
Ďakujem ťa za bývať so mnou.
Bol naozaj nežný,
So mnou celoživotné.
Verím určite bude deň
Keď všetko smútok zmizne.
Vidíš ty
Ďakujem pre tvoju lásku.
Jedna veta
Ukazuje tisíc slov.
S odvahou a objavením tvojími
Budem vážne do budúcnosti
Hlbokú lásku
Pamätam sa na moju cestu,
Kroky moje
Hoci išli skrz búrku
Nebáli sa samoty,
Pretože skrytý v srdci
Bol úsmev tvoj
Ktorý pomáhal mi čeliť bolesti.
Nechám času spievať miesto mňa
Hlbokú lásku.
Ďakujem ti, že byvaš so mnou.
City tvoje nestále,
Ja ich poznám.
Niekedy je to ťažké nebyť smutní,
Keď osud je proti nám,
Ale chápem, že
Je to teplé čakanie.
Ďakujem ti, že byvaš so mnou.
Bol naozaj nežný,
So mnou po celý život.
Verím určite bude deň
Keď všetok smútok zmizne.
Vieš ty,
Že ďakujem pre tvoju lásku?
Jedna veta
Ukazuje tisíc slov.
S odvahou a objavením tvojími
Budem vážne do budúcnosti
Nhớ đường mà anh đã đi
Bước-đi anh
Dù-cho đi xuyên bão-táp
Không ngại sự cô-độc
Tại-vì giấu trong lòng anh
Luôn-luôn cười em
Giúp anh đối-mặt khuôn-nan với gian-khổ
Bàn-giao thời-gian thế anh tổ-chức
Hát-hò tình-yêu sâu-sắc
Cám-ơn em đứng ở vũ-đài này
Bất-chấp khởi-khởi rớt-rớt
Anh quen-biết mọi cảm-xúc em
Thỉnh-thoảng khó-khăn không đau-lòng
Hễ số-mệnh trở-ngại
Nhưng-mà anh hiểu ý
Là sự chờ-đợi ấm-lòng
Cám-ơn em đứng ở vũ-đài này
Với anh thật-sự chu-đáo
Mãi-mãi được ben anh
Tin-tưởng nhất-định sẽ có một ngày
Mà mọi sự buồn-rầu biến-mất
Em biết không
Rằng cám-ơn tình-yêu sâu-sắc em
Hàng ngàn lời-nói
Một câu muốn bày-tỏ.
Với sự khuyến-khích và quan-tâm em,
Anh sẽ nghiêm-túc về tương-lai.
Nhớ đường mà anh đã đi
Bước-đi anh
Dù-cho đi xuyên bão-táp
Không ngại sự cô-độc
Tại-vì giấu trong lòng anh
Luôn-luôn cười em
Giúp anh đối-mặt khuôn-nan với gian-khổ
Bàn-giao thời-gian thế anh tổ-chức
Hát-hò tình-yêu sâu-sắc
Cám-ơn em đứng ở vũ-đài này
Bất-chấp khởi-khởi rớt-rớt
Anh quen-biết mọi cảm-xúc em
Thỉnh-thoảng khó-khăn không đau-lòng
Hễ số-mệnh trở-ngại
Nhưng-mà anh hiểu rằng
Là sự chờ-đợi ấm-lòng
Cám-ơn em đứng ở vũ-đài này
Với anh thật-sự chu-đáo
Mãi-mãi đi cùng anh
Tin-tưởng nhất-định sẽ có một ngày
Mà mọi sự buồn-rầu biến-mất
Em biết không
Rằng cám-ơn tình-yêu sâu-sắc em
Hàng ngàn lời-nói
Một câu muốn bày-tỏ.
Với sự khuyến-khích và quan-tâm em,
Anh sẽ nghiêm-túc về tương-lai.
Amore profondo
Nel mio lungo cammin
Di star sola
Anche nelle tempeste
Non ho temuto mai
Perché qui nel mio cuor
C'è il tuo sorriso
Che mi accompagna tra pene e dolori
Tempo, canta tu al posto mio
'Sto amore profondo
Grazie a te che sei qui con me
Pur con alti e bassi
So che mi vuoi bene
Quando la sorte è contro noi
È difficile gioir
Ma l'attesa ognor
È piena di calor
Grazie a te che sei qui con me
Con sincero affetto
Starai con me per sempre
Son certa: un giorno arriverà
Che il dolore sparirà
Sai tu che
Son grata del tuo amore?
Una frase
Dice mille parole
Col tuo sostegno ed abbraccio
Posso viver seriamente
Pamatuju na moji cestu,
Kroky moje
Ačkoli šli skrz bouřku
Nebáli se samoty,
Pretože skrytý v srdci
Byl úsměv tvůj
Který vodil mi čelit bolesti.
Nechám času zpívat namísto mne
Hlubokou lásku.
Děkuju ti, že byvaš se mnou.
City tvoje nestále,
Ja ně znám.
Niěkdy je to těžké nebýt smutní,
Když osud je proti nám,
Ale chápu že
Je to teplé čekanie.
Děkuju ti, že byvaš se mnou.
Byl skutečně nežný,
Se mnou po celý život.
Věřím určitě bude deň
Když všechen smutek zmizi.
Vidíš ty,
Že děkuju pre tvoju lásku?
Hlubokou lásku
Pamatuju na moji cestu,
Kroky moje
Ačkoli šly skrz bouřku
Nebály se samoty,
Protože skrytý v srdci
Byl úsměv tvůj
Který vodil mě čelit bolesti.
Nechám času zpívat namísto mne
Hlubokou lásku.
Děkuju ti, že byvaš se mnou.
City tvoje nestále,
Ja ně znám.
Niěkdy je to těžké nebýt smutní,
Když osud je proti nám,
Ale chápu že
Je to teplé čekání.
Děkuju ti, že byvaš se mnou.
Byl skutečně nežný,
Se mnou po celý život.
Věřím určitě bude deň
Když všechen smutek zmizi.
Vidíš ty,
Že děkuju za tvoju lásku?
Je m'souviens d'mon voyage:
Toujours mes pas,
Même dans tempêtes et vents,
Ne craignaient pas,
Car, dans mon coeur caché,
Ton sourire c'était
Qui m'accompaignait en toute difficulté.
C'est au temps que j'vais cette tâche laisser
Cet amour profond de chanter
À toi merci qu’avec moi t’étais
Avec leurs hauts et bais,
Tout tes sentiments je connaissais.
Il est pas facile d’n’être pas triste
Si l’destin est contre toi
Mais j’comprends que j’ai
L’cœur chaud en attendant
À toi merci qu’avec moi t’étais
Avec moi toujours,
Toute ta vie tu m’as aimé(e)
Un jour certainment il y aura
Qu’toute tristesse disparaîtra…
Sais-tu que
J’remercie que tu m’as aimé(e)?
Millions de mots
Dits par une phrase seulement.
Si tu m'soutiens et m'embrasses,
J'peux vivre sérieusement.
Today I bring you two Chinese songs, one in Mandarin, and one a Min Nan almost-equivalent of it, both titled 深深的爱, i.e. Deep Love. For the spelling of Min, refer to this other post of mine. Ruby gives Mandarin equivalents of Min-only words. Surprise surprise, the Mandarin one is translated into Japanese Italian and French too! Both are translated, of course, into English. Actually, the Min version had not been artistically translated – up till the making of this post, that is. [When I see things like this I just… fuck off past me. Like seriously? A date? No? Anyway, the post was posted 8/8/17, so maybe I drafted it that day.] And the translation is almost entirely copypasted from that of the Mandarin song :). With that very unspecific thing out of the way, let's get into the details. So the Mandarin song, I first added it to my file between 5/8/12 and 18/8/12, and translated it:
To English, dated to 17/8/12 by the mega-intro, I found the manuscript which has the homonymous version below; the song and translation first appear in the 18/8/12 15:27 file, the previous one being 5/8/12 19:26; the only changes from the manuscript version are the disabbreviation of all words, the elimination of the strikeouted n at the end of l. 1, and the different linebreaking «I was sincere with / You: oh what a waste» at the end of the first section; all of this stays unchanged all the way to the 9/8/13 17:25 file (which btw is where the two versions of the Min song get literal translations), and in fact to the 6/8/17 18:49 file, suggesting they were made directly in the post, so fuck off again past me; yup, made in the post: screenshots from 8/8/17 show the old version at 18:08:09, the change of the first three lines at 18:09:21, the "so" being added at 18:09:37, and the last line being changed at 18:09:53.
To Japanese, also dated to 17/8/12 by the mega-intro and first appearing in the same 18/8 file with the alternate line 愛が出来ない, which gets fixed in the 3/9/12 13:25 file, the last 18/8 file (from 21:16) showing the older form; beside that one line changed in the 3/9 file, the manuscript I found has the following differences:
«Tooku ikitai» instead of «Tooku e ikitai»;
«Ima boku» instead of «Ima de»;
An initial immediately scrapped «Boku no kokoro ni» instead of «Boku no kokoro e»;
An initial immediately scrapped… current «Kaeru to kibou», whose change to «Kaeru kibou shi» was ignored in the 18/8 file;
To Italian, which appears in blog form in that 3/9 file, and is missing from all four 18/8 files; mega-intro doesn't mention this;
To French, same as Italian;
To Spanish on 18/5/22, because I wanted to have the Japanese transliterated and needed a column-filler; 3 lines at 12:03, 2 more at 12:09, 12:13 2 more, 12:16 finish section 1, 12:17 another one and then I skip one and do two more still at 12:17, two more 12:18, the final two at 12:19 with the initial scrapped «en mis brazos», and the skipped one at 12:21; may come back and remake/rework it.
As for the Min Nan song, first appearing in the 3/9 file and missing in all 18/8 files up to 21:16, it is only in English. Now, there are actually two versions of the song in my files. They are versions A and B, and the variations are minimal, more specifically, in the A/B format: 世间上/这世间, 离开/分离, 我恨你/怨恨你. A file from 18/8/13 12:04 translates both of them musically, so the claim it wasn't translated musically before the post is complete bullshit. Then again, it wasn't a main-series file, so I can see how these translations got lost. At any rate, those are from before that date, and I have no way of giving any lower limit so that's it. And then there's that translation that was originally here, dated in the square bracket at the beginning of this intro.
In þe world ṇ
No-one can love
You more þan I do
Tell me why
You now want to go far
I remember
The sweet past of ours
I was sincere
Wiþ you: oh what a waste!
Now I have
Cried like mum and dad were dead
I hate you
Hate U þt heartlessly
Will abandon me
A... I love U so deeply
I hope þat U will chng Ur mind
And come back to my breast
English
In the world
Nobody can
Love you more than me
Tell me why
You now want to go far
I remember
The sweet past of ours
I was sincere with
You: oh what a waste!
Now I have
Cried like mum and dad were dead
I hate you
Hate you that so heartlessly
Will abandon me
A... I love you so deeply
I hope that you’ll change your mind
And come back to my embrace
Qui nel mondo
Nessuno
Ti può amar di più
Ma perché
Vuoi andar lontan da me?
Il passato
Dolce in mente ho.
Ero sincer con
Te: che spreco fu!
Ora ho
Pianto tante lacrime
Odio te
Che crudele senza cuor
Vuoi lasciare me
A… io ti amo davver
Spero che cambi idea e
Ritorni al mïo cuor.
Sekai de
Boku yori
Ai sarenai
Nande
Tooku e ikitai
Amai kako
Wo oboeru
Kimi ni sêjitsu
Datta: muda yo.
Ima de
Ooku naita n da
Nikumu
Kimi ga zankoku ni
Boku wo hanasu
A… fukaku ai suru
Boku no kokoro e
Kaeru to kibô
Español
En el mundo
Nadie puede
Amarte más que mi
Di: ¿por qué
Quieres ir lejos de mi?
Me recuerdo
Nuestro pasado dulce,
Contigo era sincero:
¡Quel derroche!
Y ahora
He llorado como un niño
Odio que
Así cruelmente tú
Me vas a dejar.
A… ¡mi amor para ti es profundo!
Que te vuelvas en mi abrazo:
¡Es esto que espero!
Dans le monde
Personne
Ne peut t’aimer plus d’ moi
Mai pourquoi
Tu t’en veux aller loin?
Je m’ souviens de
Nôtre doux passé:
Quel gaspillage être
Sincer avec toi
Maintenant j’ai
Pleuré très beaucoup de larmes
Je te hais
Tu qui ainsi cruel
Me veux laisser seul
A… moi je t’aime profondement
J’espère que tu change idée
Et retourne à mon cœur
1 Note: Min personal pronouns
Min has 7 personal pronoun:「我 | guá」, that is "I";「你 | lí」, that is "thou", or "you (singular)";「伊 | i」, that is "he, she, it";「阮 | guán / gún」, meaning "we, not including you";「咱」, meaning "we, including you";「恁 ｜ lín」, that is "ye", or "you (plural)";「亻因 | in」, that is "they". In songs, there is often an "I" and a "you" and no-one else, so 「阮」 is often the same as "I", and「咱」 is often the same as "we two", "the two of us".
In the world
No-one loves you more than me
Tell me why
You do want to leave me now
And forgot all of our past life!
I was sincere with you: oh what a waste!
Now I have great grief inside my heart
And hate you
Hate you that heartlessly
Let me let you go
A… I love you so deeply
I hope that you’ll change your mind
And come back to my side
In the world
No-one loves you more than me
Tell me why
You now want part with me
And forgot all of our past life!
I was sincere with you: oh what a waste!
Now I have great grief inside my heart
I hate you
Hate you that heartlessly
Let me let you go
A… I love you so deeply
I hope that you’ll change your mind
And come back to my side
In this world
No-one loves you more than me
Why do you
Now want to break up with me
Having totally ignored all our past?
I was sincere to you: oh what a waste!
Now I have cried like mum and dad were dead
I hate you
Hate you that so heartlessly
Go away from me
A... I love you so deeply
I hope that you’ll change your mind
And come back to my side
The spelling I use for Min Nan (Hokkien) is what I believe the Taiwan Dictionary of Commonly Used Min Nan Words suggests. There are only, as far as I can remember right now, two notes to be made about this claim:
The word 下昏暗 | e-hng-àm | tonight can be contracted, as reported by the aforementioned Dictionary, to ing-àm; no distinct spelling is proposed on the Dictionary for the contraction; however, I would rather prefer to mark the contraction in writing, otherwise the 1-syllable-1-character match is broken for this contraction; some time ago, I isolated two possible spellings: 映暗 and 暎暗; that is, phonetic loans; I believe I wanted, however, a mouth radical on the second option, i.e. 𠸄; this is what I'm going to opt for, though I can't find confirmation that this character is actually used with the pronunciation ying in Mandarin, but the right side is evidently a phonetic element giving the desired pronunciation; hence, we'll have 𠸄暗 | ing-àm | tonight;
The word 啥人 | siánn-lâng | who can be contracted, as per the Dictionary, to siáng or siâng; neither of these contractions has a distinct proposed spelling; what could we choose for such a spelling? Wiktionary suggests 谁 for this and a number of other "who"-words, but I'd rather avoid ambiguity and perhaps suggest the sound via the character; I tried a phono-semantic compound with a xiang + person radical, but to no avail; so I'll settle for 晌, which according to Wiktionary has a Min pronunciation sióng/siáng and a Mandarin sound shǎng;
There is this word tshuā, meaning "carry, bear", which seems to have been represented by an image of 毛 with an extra heart radical 灬 at the bottom by the Dictionary at some point, but the image wouldn't load (or wasn't there) yesterday (Sep 24 2017); that character is impossible to even retrieve on the Wiktionary, because I cannot see it unless it's one of those three squares, so I decided to just substitute it with plain 毛;
According to here (see also the comments to the answer), any time two vowels clash, a glottal stop is inserted between them; for example, 地位 and 客气话 are teʔui and kheh-khi ʔ ue (ʔ representing the glottal stop); since this is so consistent, I will not bother representing it in transliteration; in fact, this is a manifestation of the fact that the zero initial is actually a glottal stop in Min;
Some loanwords are given with just the pronunciation (with tones described by contours as opposed to the usual diacritics) and their etymology. For those, I come up with characters case by case, and use diacritics that give the correspoding contours when Sandhi is taken into account. For example, "guitar" is "gi51 ta11", which means the single syllables would match gí and ta, but with Sandhi occurring I need to make the first one gì, so I get gì-ta, and for the characters I borrow the Mandarin ones 吉他;
The third-person pronoun, in, should be written 𪜶, but this character is not correctly displayed on some systems (it appears as a full square on my mobile and as a square with numbers on my computer – it should be 亻因), and doesn't seem inputtable via my keyboard, so I adopt the alternate form 怹 reported on the related Wiktionary entry.
The transliteration is taken straight off the Dictionary, and is thus (I think) Tâi-lô.
Hakka | 客话
The situation here is more complex, because I have a very scarce Dictionary called Taiwan Dictionary of Commonly Used Hakka Words (henceforth hakkadict), a far richer Dictionary which I'll call Minhakka because of its URL, and the Hakka Verse Facebook Group [which has since changed name to Hakka:Thian, but I stick to calling it HV] (and related groups like Write Hakka), and each has its own spelling conventions. I adopt (mostly) the Hakka Verse conventions. In that respect, I add below a few spelling items, and will add more as I post more songs.
Hakka is the only Chinese dialect I know of that distinguishes between pairs of "strictly possessive adjective" vs. "personal pronoun that can become p.a. via a particle"; those pairs are nga/ngâi, nya/nyî, kia/kî, listed with p.a./p.p order; I choose to write those as 吾/涯, 若/汝 and 其/佢 respectively; Minhakka agrees only on 佢, whereas it proposes nothing for the p.a.'s and gives 我 and 尔 for the p.p.'s; the other dictionary gives 吾/𠊎 (the latter being a composition of 亻 and 厓 which may not appear on some devices and is not inputtable via keyboard AFAIK), 若/你 and 厥/佢; for the p.p.'s I follow Hakka Verse standards, for the p.a.'s, not distinguished in HV, I use my creativity; in particular, I adopt a Classical Chinese character (吾) for "my" (I originally decided to change the radical of 涯 to 雅, so some old posts may have that old choice), I use HV's 若, I use 其, an old (Classical Chinese) third person pronoun (or p.a.?);
For the adverb àn, corresponding to Mandarin 很 and English very, I use 恁, as per HV standards; can't tell if hakkadict agrees or not, Minhakka proposes nothing;
There is a particle nái, which is a contraction of ná-vùi | 哪位 | where; it is not this nái, however, I'm told; more like this one, but with another tone; I see now that in the song I found this in it might actually be "lài" as reported by Minhakka; in any case, the given character is uninputtable and I cannot find it on Wiktionary either, so I'll have to change it; I looked for something with sound nai, but to no avail; so I turned to lai, and opted for 唻: mouth radical, and phonetic element (Mandarin pronunciation required); it is found on Minhakka, but it's essentially a musical note called lôi, so it will basically never occur in a song;
The possessive particle kài I spell, as per HV standards, as 个; in Simplified, this is ambiguous, as it also represents the classifier kài, but said classifier is rare (AFAIK at least, basically never seen it in Hakka), so the ambiguity is no big deal; Minhakka proposes the same traditional character 個 for both; I propose the HV standard, i.e. that in traditional we use 個 for the classifier and 个 for the particle;
A word corresponding to "what" is mak-kài, where kài is basically the above particle, and is thus spelt accordingly, whereas mak is some kind of interrogative word, which Minhakka proposes to spell 乜, possibly taking from Cantonese where 乜 is an interrogative particle, and I instead spell as 么, as per HV standards; hence, mak-kài is 么个;
The above mak-kài can be contracted to mài; I would have liked to use 吆 for mài, but it is already used for yau | shout, so I'll just conform to HV and use 么; apparently màn is an alternate pronunciation for this;
The particle tó is spelt (AFAICT) 倒 according to Minhakka, but I prefer HV's standard 着, because this particle appears to be basically an exact equivalent of Min tio̍h, which twblg.dict.edu.tw suggests to spell 着;
The present-continuous particle tén (which I cannot find on Minhakka, except maybe in this one usage example) I spell 等, which, per HV standards, is also the spelling of the plural sign tén and the verb tén | to wait, to which Minhakka agrees;
There is also a particle tèu, which I spell 到 as per HV standards, and cannot find in Minhakka;
To disambiguate và and voi, two synonyms, I spell them 话 and 譮 respectively; Minhakka apparently uses these two characters interchangeably for both words;
According to the founder of HV, there exists a Hakka word nám | to hug, which he suggests to spell 攬; I take this as my standard, being however aware that Minhakka gives 攬 | lám or làm | grasp, seize, hold;
Until this post gives me better alternatives, I will be spelling và | even as 哇, nái | where as stated in point 3, and nau | hate as 恼;
The negative element m is often spelt 唔; I abide to HV standards and use 毋 instead;
shit (Hakka word, not English) is similar to 曾, meaning "ever"; Minhakka does not acknowledge this, and uses 识 for something else; I will use 识 for this word, as per hakkadict's entry for 從來毋識 (which simplifies to 从来毋识);
I was told there is a word "ca bun", spelt 遮穩, which means "hold tight"; Minhakka has 遮 | ca | conceal and 穩 | vún | steady, firm; so the vún part is spot-on, but the ca part sounds off; I would really like to use 抓 for that, but Hakka has it as tsáu… or does it? Minhakka says tsáu, but the other dictionary says sa24 or za24, and the latter pronunciation approximates tsâ, I think, so fudge that tsáu Minhakka thing and I write 抓穩 | tsâ-vún;
The word "how", or nyòng-pan, or nyòng-pen with no characters in Minhakka's take, I will write in HV standard spelling, i.e. as 样板 (hoping the pan character is right); actually, I think the standards have changed to 仰般, and I might conform as I do checkups; in fact, the "pan" might have always been that one;
Hakka has lî, meaning "this", liáu, a perfect tense marker, and lí, which I only ever saw in places where it can mean both "this (much)" and "perfect tense marker"; following HV, I spell lî as 里, following Minhakka, I spell liáu as 了, and I'd like to merge the characters for lí, except I can't, so I go for 哩 | lí;
The word tú, a postposition equivalent to 里 lǐ "in", I spell 肚 as per Minhakka and HV;
The word "koi | easy" I spell as per HV standards, i.e. as 该, though I don't like the ambiguity with "ought to" this generates; I simply have no better option; Mihakka provides nothing and hakkadict doesn't have the word;
I spell "tshiàng | only" as 净, as per Minhakka;
I spell "tsiang | beautiful" as 靓, as per Wiktionary (and I think HV too);
I spell "lia | this" 裡 to disambiguate it from 里 | lî | this; so 里 | lî | this, 哩 | lí | perfect aspect marker, 裡 | lia | this; note that the tone of the last one is as of now unknown to me;
Hakka has three negations: "m/ng", meaning simply "not", "mô", meaning "hasn't + participle" or "didn't" – that is, a past negation) and also being a question particle like Chinese "ma", and also meaning "there isn't" –, and finally "mâng", meaing "not yet"; I spell them 毋, 无 and 吂 respectively, the first two conforming to HV standards, and the last one under the suggestion of hakkadict.
The word "kwún-ship", meaning "to wet", is reported without character suggestions on Minhakka; following this suggestion, which remarks that "kwún" is reported as "to fix, to arrange" and "ship" as "wet (adj.)", I choose to write this word as 管湿;
There is a word "pun" meaning "by" or "to", which I spell 分 as per HV conventions;
There are at least 2 ways of saying "again" in Hakka: there is fan 翻 and fan-kak 翻佮; not sure if kak on its own can mean the same;
We then have a word "cim" for "kiss", which I spell 唚 because HV, and I romanize as "tsim" because it's on Minhakka; btw, there is also tsim-còi on Minhakka, obviously 唚嘴, the same as a Min word.
It should however be noted that I have songs in at least 4 different Hakkas, maybe 6. The sure varieties are:
The Hoi-luk-fung (海陆丰) Hakka of Anton Xie's and Mirvin Lim's songs, which was thus termed by Anton itself;
The Hakka of Zhang Shaolin's song, which is probably (according to Anton) Fui-yong (惠阳) Hakka;
The Sixian (四县) Hakka of the single song 胆大大 | Tám thài-thài;
The Southern Sixian (南四县) Hakka of the songs 哥系月亮妹系星 | Ko hè ngiȧt-yòng mòi hè sen and 匍背 | phù-poi, the latter being more specifically Meinong Hakka;
For the first two, I follow the transliteration scheme of Minhakka, with the following modifications:
The light entering (阳入) tone is represented with a dot above the vowel instead of a vertical line, because the latter is not inputtable via my keyboard while the former is;
ch and chh are written as c and ch respectively, partly because of Hakka Verse conventions, partly because I simply loathe the combination "chh";
Finals like -iong are stressed on the actual nucleus (in this case "o") rather than the glide (in this case "i"), because if the syllable is pronounced you do not stress the glide but the nucleus, so putting the diacritic on the glide makes no sense to me;
The u with umlaut below is substituted by a double i, because the former isn't inputable with my keyboard;
It should be noted that the distinction of the pairs s-sh, ts-c, tsh-ch can be fuzzy. In particular, Hoi-luk-fung doesn't have it at all, turning sh to s, ts to c and tsh to ch consistently, which brings to no distinction even in spelling on Hakka Verse. Zhang Shaolin has a distinction, but it sometimes doesn't match Minhakka. I give Minhakka's take in any case. For the Sixian variant, I pull my info off Wiktionary mostly, filling in the blanks with hakkadict. For the Southern Sixian, I take the info off hakkadict, with my own choice of diacritics, that is the grave accent indicates the contour 31, the macron below the contour 11, the circumflex the contour 24, the macron above the contour 55, nothing the contour 2 (checked tone), the dot above the contour 5 (checked tone 2).
Then we have the unidentified variants of Frengky Cun and "Lily", though I believe they both may actually be Hoi-luk-fung too, because they neutralize the distinction mentioned above and pronounce "y" as "j", just like Anton Xie's Hakka.
As for Teochew, the transliteration I use is an adaptation of Hokkien Tai-lo to Teochew, with "j" used for /dz/ (instead of the alveolo-palatal it represents in Tai-lo), and "er" used for /ɯ/ (Tai-lo would probably use ir and reserve er for the schwa), and "o" representing /o/ (whereas Hokkien has /ɤ/ = "o" and /ɔ/ = "oo"). My reference is mogher (in my notation "bó-gér" – err, WTF is that m there for?), which uses Peng'im, so I first convert the sounds, then add tone marks according to the Wikipedia page on Peng'im. The spelling is either mogher or something mutuated from twblg Min, or maybe even stuff from WhatTCSay, a Teochew dictionary app which uses a weird transliteration so I might have trouble converting that.
Hakka is the only Chinese dialect I know of that distinguishes between pairs of "strictly possessive adjective" vs. "personal pronoun that can become p.a. via a particle"; those pairs are nga/ngâi, nya/nyî, kia/kî, listed with p.a./p.p order; I choose to write those as 吾/涯, 若/汝 and 其/佢 respectively; Minhakka agrees only on 佢, whereas it proposes nothing for the p.a.'s and gives 我 and 尔 for the p.p.'s; the other dictionary gives 吾/𠊎 (the latter being a composition of 亻 and 厓 which may not appear on some devices and is not inputtable via keyboard AFAIK), 若/你 and 厥/佢; for the p.p.'s I follow Hakka Verse standards, for the p.a.'s, not distinguished in HV, I use my creativity; in particular, I adopt a Classical Chinese character (吾) for "my" (I originally decided to change the radical of 涯 to 雅, so some old posts may have that old choice), I use HV's 若, I use 其, an old (Classical Chinese) third person pronoun (or p.a.?);
For the adverb àn, corresponding to Mandarin 很 and English very, I use 恁, as per HV standards; can't tell if hakkadict agrees or not, Minhakka proposes nothing;
There is a particle nái, which is a contraction of ná-vùi | 哪位 | where; it is not this nái, however, I'm told; more like this one, but with another tone; I see now that in the song I found this in it might actually be "lài" as reported by Minhakka; in any case, the given character is uninputtable and I cannot find it on Wiktionary either, so I'll have to change it; I looked for something with sound nai, but to no avail; so I turned to lai, and opted for 唻: mouth radical, and phonetic element (Mandarin pronunciation required); it is found on Minhakka, but it's essentially a musical note called lôi, so it will basically never occur in a song;
The possessive particle kài I spell, as per HV standards, as 个; in Simplified, this is ambiguous, as it also represents the classifier kài, but said classifier is rare (AFAIK at least, basically never seen it in Hakka), so the ambiguity is no big deal; Minhakka proposes the same traditional character 個 for both; I propose the HV standard, i.e. that in traditional we use 個 for the classifier and 个 for the particle;
A word corresponding to "what" is mak-kài, where kài is basically the above particle, and is thus spelt accordingly, whereas mak is some kind of interrogative word, which Minhakka proposes to spell 乜, possibly taking from Cantonese where 乜 is an interrogative particle, and I instead spell as 么, as per HV standards; hence, mak-kài is 么个;
The above mak-kài can be contracted to mài; I would have liked to use 吆 for mài, but it is already used for yau | shout, so I'll just conform to HV and use 么; apparently màn is an alternate pronunciation for this;
The particle tó is spelt (AFAICT) 倒 according to Minhakka, but I prefer HV's standard 着, because this particle appears to be basically an exact equivalent of Min tio̍h, which twblg.dict.edu.tw suggests to spell 着;
The present-continuous particle tén (which I cannot find on Minhakka, except maybe in this one usage example) I spell 等, which, per HV standards, is also the spelling of the plural sign tén and the verb tén | to wait, to which Minhakka agrees;
There is also a particle tèu, which I spell 到 as per HV standards, and cannot find in Minhakka;
To disambiguate và and voi, two synonyms, I spell them 话 and 譮 respectively; Minhakka apparently uses these two characters interchangeably for both words;
According to the founder of HV, there exists a Hakka word nám | to hug, which he suggests to spell 攬; I take this as my standard, being however aware that Minhakka gives 攬 | lám or làm | grasp, seize, hold;
Until this post gives me better alternatives, I will be spelling và | even as 哇, nái | where as stated in point 3, and nau | hate as 恼;
The negative element m is often spelt 唔; I abide to HV standards and use 毋 instead;
shit (Hakka word, not English) is similar to 曾, meaning "ever"; Minhakka does not acknowledge this, and uses 识 for something else; I will use 识 for this word, as per hakkadict's entry for 從來毋識 (which simplifies to 从来毋识);
I was told there is a word "ca bun", spelt 遮穩, which means "hold tight"; Minhakka has 遮 | ca | conceal and 穩 | vún | steady, firm; so the vún part is spot-on, but the ca part sounds off; I would really like to use 抓 for that, but Hakka has it as tsáu… or does it? Minhakka says tsáu, but the other dictionary says sa24 or za24, and the latter pronunciation approximates tsâ, I think, so fudge that tsáu Minhakka thing and I write 抓穩 | tsâ-vún;
The word "how", or nyòng-pan, or nyòng-pen with no characters in Minhakka's take, I will write in HV standard spelling, i.e. as 样板 (hoping the pan character is right); actually, I think the standards have changed to 仰般, and I might conform as I do checkups; in fact, the "pan" might have always been that one;
Hakka has lî, meaning "this", liáu, a perfect tense marker, and lí, which I only ever saw in places where it can mean both "this (much)" and "perfect tense marker"; following HV, I spell lî as 里, following Minhakka, I spell liáu as 了, and I'd like to merge the characters for lí, except I can't, so I go for 哩 | lí;
The word "koi | easy" I spell as per HV standards, i.e. as 该, though I don't like the ambiguity with "ought to" this generates; I simply have no better option; Mihakka provides nothing and hakkadict doesn't have the word;
I spell "tshiàng | only" as 净, as per Minhakka;
I spell "lia | this" 裡 to disambiguate it from 里 | lî | this; so 里 | lî | this, 哩 | lí | perfect aspect marker, 裡 | lia | this; note that the tone of the last one is as of now unknown to me;
Hakka has three negations: "m/ng", meaning simply "not", "mô", meaning "hasn't + participle" or "didn't" – that is, a past negation) and also being a question particle like Chinese "ma", and also meaning "there isn't" –, and finally "mâng", meaing "not yet"; I spell them 毋, 无 and 吂 respectively, the first two conforming to HV standards, and the last one under the suggestion of hakkadict.
The word "kwún-ship", meaning "to wet", is reported without character suggestions on Minhakka; following this suggestion, which remarks that "kwún" is reported as "to fix, to arrange" and "ship" as "wet (adj.)", I choose to write this word as 管湿;
There is a word "pun" meaning "by" or "to", which I spell 分 as per HV conventions;
There are at least 2 ways of saying "again" in Hakka: there is fan 翻 and fan-kak 翻佮; not sure if kak on its own can mean the same;
We then have a word "cim" for "kiss", which I spell 唚 because HV, and I romanize as "tsim" because it's on Minhakka; btw, there is also tsim-còi on Minhakka, obviously 唚嘴, the same as a Min word;
It should however be noted that I have songs in at least 4 different Hakkas, maybe 6. The sure varieties are:
The Hoi-luk-fung (海陆丰) Hakka of Anton Xie's and Mirvin Lim's songs, which was thus termed by Anton itself;
The Hakka of Zhang Shaolin's song, which is probably (according to Anton) Fui-yong (惠阳) Hakka;
The Sixian (四县) Hakka of the single song 胆大大 | Tám thài-thài;
The Southern Sixian (南四县) Hakka of the songs 哥系月亮妹系星 | Ko hè ngiȧt-yòng mòi hè sen and 匍背 | phù-poi, the latter being more specifically Meinong Hakka;
For the first two, I follow the transliteration scheme of Minhakka, with the following modifications:
The light entering (阳入) tone is represented with a dot above the vowel instead of a vertical line, because the latter is not inputtable via my keyboard while the former is;
ch and chh are written as c and ch respectively, partly because of Hakka Verse conventions, partly because I simply loathe the combination "chh";
Finals like -iong are stressed on the actual nucleus (in this case "o") rather than the glide (in this case "i"), because if the syllable is pronounced you do not stress the glide but the nucleus, so putting the diacritic on the glide makes no sense to me;
The u with umlaut below is substituted by a double i, because the former isn't inputable with my keyboard;
It should be noted that the distinction of the pairs s-sh, ts-c, tsh-ch can be fuzzy. In particular, Hoi-luk-fung doesn't have it at all, turning sh to s, ts to c and tsh to ch consistently, which brings to no distinction even in spelling on Hakka Verse. Zhang Shaolin has a distinction, but it sometimes doesn't match Minhakka. I give Minhakka's take in any case. For the Sixian variant, I pull my info off Wiktionary mostly, filling in the blanks with hakkadict. For the Southern Sixian, I take the info off hakkadict, with my own choice of diacritics, that is the grave accent indicates the contour 31, the macron below the contour 11, the circumflex the contour 24, the macron above the contour 55, nothing the contour 2 (checked tone), the dot above the contour 5 (checked tone 2).
Then we have the unidentified variants of Frengky Cun and "Lily", though I believe they both may actually be Hoi-luk-fung too, because they neutralize the distinction mentioned above and pronounce "y" as "j", just like Anton Xie's Hakka.
Today I bring you a Sapphic stanza, quoted by Athenaeus as falsely attributed to Sappho (he says «ὅτι δὲ οὔκ ἐστι Σαπφοῦς τοῦτο τὸ ᾆσμα παντί που δῆλον», i.e. «that this poem is not by Sappho is clear to everyone»), reported by Bergk in his Sappho edition, not reported by Edmonds in his Sappho, and not reported by Campbell as either Sappho, Alcaeus, or "Sappho or Alcaeus", so Campbell appears to think this thing is not by any of them two. In fact, he has it as a testimonium for Sappho, that is, something by someone else that tells us something about Sappho.
Well, whatever, I had no idea of that back in the days, so I translated it. I even aeolized it, because, well, "it is Sappho, so we aeolize". It is Bergk 30, and I will leave the critical note to him. The Athenaeus quote can be found at Greek Wikisource, it is book XIII (βίβλον ιγʹ) of Athenaeus's Δειπνοσοφισταί (Deipnosophistæ, Sophists at Dinner).
The meter is rendered in the usual way, besides Italian having a different rhyme scheme, and indeed I have two Italian versions, the better one (B) having a different rhyme scheme, and the worse one (A – same rhyme word in all three hendecasyllabics, ambiguity of "nobile" and "dalle donne d'oro" seeming to be referred to the singer as opposed to the land of Teos) with the usual rhyme scheme. English also uses that altered rhyme scheme. This seems to have been particularly hard to translate, in all languages. Latin had trouble with composed adjectives ("pretty-womaned", "gold-throned"). I don't remember what the note said about the other languages and don't feel like looking again. Let's just get to the translations.
About those:
Italian A was made in bed between 15/8/10 and 16/8/10, as per diary, with the option «Bene cantava» for the last line;
Romagnolo was done right after Italian A; it remained hidden in the diary until I uncovered it in 2021 or 2022; it's pretty terrible, and has «dòni bël» which, as noted by the diary, is ungrammatical and should read "bëli" for gender agreement; the <> are in the diary, probably marking the places I «forsan mutai» (maybe changed) as I wrote it down the next morning;
Italian B is from the next morning, so 16/8/10, with «Musa trono d'oro» for «O Musa trono d'or» and «d'» unelided in l. 3; l. 1 was fixed upon copying it into the 16/8/10 file; l. 3 is fixed in the 5/1/11 file, thus between then and 13/11/10;
The English version appears in blog form in the 16/8/10 file;
Ditto for the Latin, meaning both were done between 26/7 and 16/8/10.
One last thing though: the title of this post comes from my interpretation of this stanza as a captatio benevolentiæ, i.e. a remembrance of a nice past event to propitiate the goddess.
O Musa 'd 'e trõ d’ör, t cantèst ch''e quël,
Ch’l’inno, ch' ch''e vëc illustre <'d là 'd ch''e> bël
Paéṣ <nòbile 'd Teo>, 'd al dòni bël,
<Piaṣènd> cãntéva.
English
O golden-thronèd Muse, that hymn you sang
Which that old noble man from Teo sang
Enjoyably, fro’ th’ noble land which hosts
Girl-beauty’s hosts.
Today I bring you two poems. The first one, "Cypris and Nereids", is a prayer to see her brother come home and "behave". The second one is another prayer, and the only stanza we can reasonably discuss is the last one, which is a curse to Doricha, the woman who seduced her brother Charaxus.
Both are from Oxyrhynchus papyri. The first one will have a very long critical note. The second one, not so long. The translations are all from between 14/2 and 17/3/11 as OS21 residues not found in OS19. The English was tweaked from «For all his pa]st [mi]stakes he’s [made amends» to «For all his pa]st [mi]stakes he hath [atoned» at 1:18am on 5/10/24.
They are both in Sapphic stanzas, rendered in the usual way. «The translations and the Note's discussion appear to date back to after Dec 31 2010», not quite. Let's be more precise:
The first thing we find is the first stanza of the Italian, which is manuscripted on a printout from 2/11/10 (known to the index as SP4), does not appear in the 13/11/10 file (aka S8), and appears in the 2/12/10 "new in Sappho" file (aka OS7), whose relevant portion is overlayed onto the manuscript of the printout; the manuscript is in the "HS4 manuscript" tab;
The following printout (SP5) is from between 9/12 and 21/12/10, in fact probably from 17/12 based on a somewhat ambiguous diary entry; on it, we have the annotation changing "compite" to "avverate" (which is reported as ruby text in the HS4 manuscript tab), and then the rest of the manuscript, with the penultimate stanza starting out as «Solito era, biasimo udendo, gito / A ferir] ne'l vivo, <> / Gitosen per breve redito rigito / Dopo poche ore.», then being made into the "HS4 manuscript" version on the right side of this version, possibly after doing the last stanza; the 21/12 "new in Sappho" file (aka OS10) doesn't have this, so this must be from after 21/12; in fact, the discussion of this in the Note is after that of Divine Hera, which the Note itself places on 30-31/12 (the last stanza only being on 31), and even after something that the paragraph mentioning 30/12 states is "next up", meaning I discussed that fragment after 30/12; therefore, the other translations are probably all from after this date;
The English translations appears in HS4 form (which is the same as HS4 manuscript because there is no manuscript) in the 5/1/11 file (aka S9);
The Latin is somewhat more complex; I first want to get SP6 out of the way, i.e. the printout from past 5/1 which is probably the printout of S9 (that file is in a folder called "Matri stampanda 5.1.11 parata", stuff for mom to print prepared no 5/1/11, where mom was to print them at work to save our printer ink); this has the first stanza manuscripted as «Cypri' Nere͞idesque, mih’ addit’ huṇc̣c̣ẹ / Frater indemnis redeatqu’ et omni͞a / Corde quæ velit sibi fier’, omni͞a / E͞i fore possint,» the elision of redeatqu' probably being an afterthought; the rest is overlayed on the manuscript or blank space in the form of the 1/2/11 "new in Sappho" file, aka OS16; this is also the form of the 1/2/11 file S11, modulo brackets, and S11 coincides with the HS4 version;
The original manuscript of this stanza, however, is not the one on SP6, but rather the one found on the poem notebook, which dates this translation to "13/1 hora historiæ" (13/1/11 during History class); this is what is implemented in the HS4 manuscript tab, save for the versions of l. 4 being in separate lines in the manuscript;
The rest of the translation is manuscripted on the poem noteblock that followed the notebook; we start on a lost page which, according to the old copying, says "19/1 gymn" (19/1/11 during PE class), and follows with the first two lines of stanza 2; the following page, which is not lost, continues this; the part from PE ends with «Et mea corda / / Vincer' … / / Vincere mique / / Corda»; on the same day, "hora en his scriptis reddente mag verificas" (during English class as the prof was giving the tests back), I complete the HS4 manuscript version of l. 15, and then have the variants of l. 16 «Cor qu'iit …», «Cor quod ivit volnus', …», and «Cor quod i͞it volnus civitati' festa»;
This line gets to the HS4 manuscript form "20/1 lect aditurus" (20/1/11 when about to go to bed), and then "Ipso die in lect" (the same day in bed) I complete the manuscript version;
On 25/6/25, I noticed fieri being inconsistently fīeri or fĭeri, so I fixed «[sĭb]ĭ fīĕr’» as per the Main version below at 1:29, and at 2:11 I changed sī->tū in the with 2289 version since "s'" was a repetition of sī.
Stanza 4 of the first poem had its text changed as I rediscussed the poem, and I retranslated that stanza, all in a critical note that is dated to 19-20/6/17. The HS4 tab has the original text and translations of said stanza as discussed above. Besides the change of text, the Latin also had a change in l. 5, where on 16/7/17 around 19:50 «Quæque prius erravit» became «Et prius qu' erravit». These "Main" versions also got two tweaks while writing badslation reviews: the Latin changed «Cypri' Nēreidēsque, mih' addit' hucce» to «Cypri' Nēreidēsque, mihī dat' hucce» (1/10/24 15:01/02 after ditching the inmetrical «Cypris et Nerēides, ah, dat' hucce» from 28/9/24 19:50) and l. 2 to start with «Mī fratr' indemnem remeāre» (28/9/24 19:50) or rather Fratrem indemnem (4/10/24 16:24), while the English changed cheerful to joyous (28/9/24 20:06).
The only translation I deemed worthy of recording, namely the Italian one in the Main tab, got an accidental tweak in the video, where at 1:58:37 on 25/6/25 I accidentally sang "nascondendo" instead of "seppellendo", whence the video version below.
I also have two versions of the last stanza due to this weird micro-scrap of papyrus usually placed in this poem. I retranslated that stanza too, in the same critical note file (in fact, before retranslating stanza 4 as per the above paragraph), and leave it and its translations in the "With 2289" tab because I challenge the idea that the scrap in question belongs here, and the completion I came up with including that scrap was (IMHO) awful. This tab also includes the 16/7/17 Latin change to l. 5.
Concerning the curse, my original file had a completely lost stanza 1, which is a hypothesis I simply doffed. The manuscript versions are from SP6 once more, that printout from 5/1, and the final forms are found in OS21, the 16-17/3/11 "new in Sappho" file, which is preceded by the 14/2 one. I will at some point look through the poem noteblock to find this. In fact, I may have already done so and come back empty-handed. This is about the original Italian, while the modified one, which aimed to fix the missing article in "Seconda volta" (and perhaps to have a phalecean, which it failed to do), is from 18/9/26 at 0:16.
Notice how the translations of poem 1 keep the rhythm of the Sapphic stanzas, whereas those of poem 2 only do in the last stanza. Perhaps that was an attempt to render the inmetricality of one completion (l. 7)? Who knows.
Cipride e Nereïdi, indenne a me
Date che il fratello ritorni qui, Ẹ qCiò di cui in cuore disio gli è,
Tutto compite,
Ciò che pria sbagliò, possa rimediare,
Agli amici gioia fia, poı̣ssa fare
Tristi]͜ i suoi [ne]mici; emnoi rattristare
Niun possa, fate;
Sua sorella voglia poi onorarae,
Da sue pene possasi liberare
Donde prima oppresso, oppresso fare
Anche il mio cuore
Solito era, biasimo udendo, gito
A ferir nel vivo, per proïbito
Dì festivo, gito per po’, rigito D. brevi ore. [ruby = Dopo poche ore]
Ma m’ascolta, dea, se co’ canti ’l cuore
T’ho.addolcivo, o Cipride, tu, l’orrore
Tutto seppellendo con notte, fiore
Malo a noi togli.
Latin
Cypri' Nere͞idesque, mih'addit'hucce
Fratrem indemnem redeatqu', et omni͞a
Corde quæ velit sibi fier', illa veroaomn͞a
Omnia possit->Sit pot'habere,
->E͞i licit' adsint,->E͞i Ịfore possint,
Quæque pri͞us erravit i’ cuncta possit
Solver’, et ga͞udi͞um fieri amicis,
Adversarîs pœnaque, nosque nullus
Afficiat damn';
Et sororem afficer'ill'honore
Advelit, pœnisque <suis liber
Sit pot' is duris, quibus is solebat
Vincere mique
Corda, [reprensionem habens, ad altum
Corde quod ivit volnerius ob urbi' festam,
Et brev' abs iens rediit quidem non
Tempore magno,
Me sed audi si, dea, pectu' dulci͞us
Tu͞um faci͞ebam cantubu', Cypri', <>fœda
<Omni'> obscuris tege, <nosque longe
Pone ab ægris>.
English
[Cypris and] Nere͜ids, home unscath[ed to me]
Grant I may [my bro]ther returnin[g] see,
[Of whate’er] in ’s heart there a wish may be,
[All ye fu]lfil,
May he make amends [f’r any pa]st mistake,
May he [all his frien]ds very cheerful make
[And his e]n’mies [sad]; may from no-one take
Our heart [sad chill];
[And his sis]ter may he desire to make
Honou[red], from ’s sharp pains [may the way out take]
By which first oppressèd, [oppre]ssed to make
[My] heart [alsò]
He did use, a-being [reproache]d, which thing
In the flesh [did hurt him], prohibitìng
Him the feast, [l]ef[t little, i’ th’ followìng
Short] back did go.
[But you list]en, [Goddess], if, [singing, I
Sweeten]ed [e’er your heart], you, o Cypris, [by
Night all] ho[rr]ors [cov]èring, bad thi[ngs, aye,]
[Make from us f]ar.
[Cypris and] Nere͜ids, home unscath[ed to me]
Grant I may [my bro]ther returnin[g] see,
[Of whate’er] in ’s heart there a wish may be,
[All ye fu]lfil,
May he make amends [f’r any pa]st mistake,
May he [all his frien]ds very cheerful make
[And his e]n’mies [sad]; may from no-one take
Our heart [sad chill];
[And his sis]ter may he desire to make
Honou[red], from ’s sharp pains [may the way out take]
By which first oppressèd, [oppre]ssed to make
[My] heart [alsò]
He did use, a-being [reproache]d, which thing
In the flesh [did hurt him], prohibitìng
Him the feast, [l]ef[t little, i’ th’ followìng
Short] back did go.
[But you list]en, [Goddess], if, [singing, I
Sweeten]ed [e’er your heart], you, o Cypris, [by
Night all] ho[rr]ors [cov]èring, bad thi[ngs, aye,]
[Make from us f]ar.
[Cypris and] Nere͜ids, home unscath[ed to me]
Grant I may [my bro]ther returnin[g] see,
[Of whate’er] in ’s heart there a wish may be,
[All ye fu]lfil,
May he make amends [f’r any pa]st mistake,
May he [all his frien]ds very joyous make
[And his e]n’mies [sad]; may from no-one take
Our heart [sad chill];
[And his sis]ter may he desire to make
Honou[red], from ’s sharp pains [may the way out take]
By which first oppressèd, [oppre]ssed to make
[My] heart [alsò]
He did use, a-being [reproache]d, which thing
In the flesh [him hurt], for ac[cus]ing him
Cit’zens were, [l]ef[t little, i’ th’ followìng
Short] back did go.
[But you list]en, [Goddess], if, [singing, I
Sweeten]ed [e’er your heart], you, o Cypris, [by
Night all] ho[rr]ors [cov]èring, bad thi[ngs, aye,]
[Make from us f]ar.
[Cypris and] Nere͜ids, home unscath[ed to me]
Grant I may [my bro]ther returnin[g] see,
[Of whate’er] in ’s heart there a wish may be,
[All ye fu]lfil,
May he make amends [f’r any pa]st mistake,
May he [all his frien]ds very cheerful make
[And his e]n’mies [sad]; may from no-one take
Our heart [sad chill];
[And his sis]ter may he desire to make
Honou[red], from ’s sharp pains [may the way out take]
By which first oppressèd, [oppre]ssed to make
[My] heart [alsò]
He did use, a-being [reproache]d, which thing
In the flesh [him hurt], for ac[cus]ing him
Cit’zens were, [l]ef[t little, i’ th’ followìng
Short] back did go.
[But you list]en, [Goddess], if, [ever I
in y]o[ur hear abode], you, o Cypris, [by
Night all] ho[rr]ors [co]vè[ri]ng, bad thi[ngs, aye,]
[Make from us f]ar.
For all heis pa]st mistakes he’s [made amends
] wind[
[With good] luck [u–] of a harbour [–x
[Cy]pris, [may] she thee [very] bit[ter] find! And [m]ay she [ne’er] boast [having] in min^d
And mouth that she des[irèd] love doþ find
A se[c]ond time.
[–u–u–xx–u] happy
[–u–x–uu–u–x
–u of the h]ead an[d u–u–x
–uu–x
For all his pa]st [mi]stakes he hath [atoned
–u–u] wind[uu–u–x
With good] luck [u–] of a h[a]rbour [–x
–uu–x
Cy]pris, [may] she thee [very] bit[ter] find!
[M]ay [D]oricha [ne’er] boast [having] in mind
And mouth that she des[irèd] love doth find
A se[c]ond time.
Critical note to "Cypris and Nereids"
Again, let’s look at the sources. There are three sources for this poem. One is P.Oxy. 7, a piece of papyrus containing most of the endings of the lines of this poems, with a few lacunæ here and there, especially in the last stanza we have. The second source, apparently not universally accepted, is P.Oxy.2289 fr. 6. Now, P.Oxy.2289 consists of several fragments, of which an image can be found here, some of which contain only a handful of letters. The one we are interested in is the very small fr. 6. Inline transcription: «O̤Υ / €Ο / ΚΥΠ̣». I’m sure you can see why it is not universally accepted: how can we be sure that those 7 letters actually belong to this poem, when (as we shall see) two are not at all present in the other source, three are partially visible in the other papyrus, one of those being half-cut in this one, and the remaining two are barely visible? I had no idea this even existed when I translated the poem, which is why the above text and translations do not include it, besides me challenging the hypothesis this belongs here. I will, at the end of the note, propose a completion including this thing and give new translations. Both of those are discussed at the usual trascriptions post. Below, I report the partially restored text of P.Oxy. 7 on the left, and its combination with the above 2289 fr. 6 on the right. The ｣｢ mark where the letters from the P.Oxy. 2289 scrap would go in the text.
Right here, we have to discuss this line by line, because in some cases everyone has their own version, so let’s compare all versions and choose our favorite. The sources I compare are Bibliotheca Augustana (BA), The Complete Poems of Sappho (TCPOS), safopoemas, Campbell, Edmonds, the «brilliant restoration» by Blass present in the Grenfell-Hunt book, Diehl, Carson, and in fixing this note for the draft I add these guys as well.
For the end, only Blass proposes ἔ-, with -μον in the following line; all others choose μοι, and to have an article τὸν in the next line; I avoid a word split between lines, thus rejecting Blass; as for the start, most references go with Κύπρι καὶ Νηρήϊδες, save for the three which propose an epithet; Diehl proposes Πότνιαι, “divine”, Blass proposes Ὦ φίλαι, “o dear”, and Edmonds proposes Χρύσιαι, “golden”; he also notes “epithet uncertain; Κύπρι καὶ is too long”; now I do not agree with this “too long” statement; indeed, see my completion of the first stanza’s line starts on the papyrus:
it appears that the last line is too long, but he says nothing of that; so I’m going with Κύπρι καὶ; it is possible to quick fix the translation with Edmonds’ epithet, though, as «A͞urĕǣ Nērēĭdĕs, […]», «Auree Nereidi, […]», and «O ye gold Nereids, […]»;
Besides the first syllable, already discussed above (-μον for Blass, τὸν for all others), this is uncontroversial;
Edmonds alone starts this with κἀ μὲν, where all others (me included) start with κὤσσα; as for the next word, I’ll definitely want a digamma, seen as we have ϝοῖσι shortly after; so I reject TCPOS’s οἰ and Edmonds’ and Diehl’s ᾦ; between Blass’ ϝῷ and other references’ ϝοι, I choose the latter, because, seen as subscript iotas here are generally not adscripted, choosing a solution with one would make the line a letter too short, as you can imagine from seeing the above completions;
Blass and Edmonds here start with ταῦτα, but I prefer to follow all others with πάντα, so we have “all” clearly said (not part of the things, but all of them) and we avoid the “these things” recalling what was mentioned above, which I do not like in this context, for some reason;
This is uncontroversial, one of its kind in this poem;
Here again, I reject TCPOS’ no-digamma version, because this time the digamma is clearly visible in the papyrus; as for the first word, I prefer Edmonds’ TCPOS’ and Carson’s καὶ to the others’ ὠς, because instead of starting a subordinate clause I’d rather have a coordinating conjunction to proceed with this list of things Sappho wishes about his brother;
Besides Carson not completing and Edmonds inventing καὶ δύαν, everyone goes for κὠνίαν; the meaning is the same, but I follow the most, also because I have already seen ὀνία in the Hymn to Aphrodite;
Each reference has its own version here, more or less: BA has πῆμά τι μήδεις, TCPOS μήκετι μήδεις, safopoemas Blass Diehl μήποτα μήδεις, Campbell πῆμ’ ἔτι μήδεις, Edmonds δύσκλεα μήδεις, and Carson almost doesn’t complete and reads ...μ]ήδ’ εἶς; most of those versions assume a noun to be implied for what “no-one” should become for “us” (i.e. Sappho); I do not like this, hence I reject TCPOS, safopoemas, Blass and Diehl; between the others, I think I’ll go with Edmonds, because this way we have “dishonor” here and “may he make his sister honorable” in the next stanza; “suffering” (πῆμα) is, of course, also supportable; I would, however, definitely reject the ἔτι of Campbell’s suggestion, which sounds out of place to me; so either Edmonds or BA; these guys only discuss this line, and discard this because «the forms οὐδείς and μηδείς of Attic are normally written as two words in Sappho», but that can easily be fixed, and why not just make an exception here? I keep my original choice, i.e. BA;
Everyone has τὰν except for Blass’ ϝὰν; now I understand the urge for a possessive pronoun, but we have τὸν κασίγνητον in the previous stanza, so I’ll keep the similarity and go for τὰν κασιγνήταν; seems I had a different opinion back in the days; however, the translations wouldn’t change, so I will change the Greek to suit my present opinion;
Apart from Carson not completing and Blass reading κὠλίγας, everyone here completes to ἔμμορον, and I follow the trend;
Blass and Diehl have ἐκλάθοιτ’, Edmonds is creative as usual and gives καὶ λόγοις, Campbell safopoemas and Carson don’t complete, BA and TCPOS read ἐκλύοιτ’; I prefer the last option to the no-completion, because I always prefer completing for the translation’s sake, and to the first one because… whatever, it’s what I chose back in the days :); here is a quote from the Nota Paracritica: «Per l’11 decisamente preferisco B.A.: perché chiedere che si dimentichi? Forse perché non le ricordi più a lei, tormentandola col ricordo e tormentando sé? Meglio che finiscano, dato che magari non sono ancora finite e lui è ancora innamorato di quella “cagna schifosa” nominata nella versione Edmonds, che scarto perché preferisco altre versioni.», that is «for [line] 11 I decidedly prefer BA: why ask for him to forget? Maybe so that he no longer reminds her, tormenting her with the memory and tormenting himself? Better make them end, since they maybe aren’t over yet and he is still in love with that “disgusting bitch” mentioned in Edmonds’ version [which reads "σὺ δὲ, κύν' ἐρέμνα", "and you, disgusting she-dog" in l. 2 of the last stanza], which I discard because I prefer other versions.»; err, wait; λανθάνω doesn’t mean “forget”, but “escape”; now I see why Blass and Diehl completed like that; the meaning doesn’t change much; let me see the translations; yeah whatever, they are roughly equivalent, no point changing the Greek now;
Here we have BA and TCPOS with τὦμον, safopoemas with θῦμον, Campbell and Carson with no completion, Edmonds with ἄμμον and Blass and Diehl with κἆμον; I don’t find Edmond’s plurale maiestatis opportune here, and I prefer Blass and Diehl’s version with “also” (καὶ), because clearly the brother’s heart was also oppressed by the ὀνίαν λύγραν mentioned before; I reject θῦμον since it’s a guess which seems to vouch for a continuation in the following stanza and isn’t coupled to one (safopoemas doesn’t complete the next line); one could use safopoemas and start the next stanza with ἄμμ’, but boo, plurale maiestatis, rejected :); maybe μοι, though an enclitic as the first syllable of a line is terrible;
Blass TCPOS Diehl κῆρ, ὀνέιδισμ’, Edmonds κῆρ, ὄνειδος, Campbell safopoemas BA Carson no completion; I follow Blass because of my double-underdot M before ϹΑΪωΝ; by choosing a completion, I also choose to split as κ’ ἐν χρῷ instead of leaving it as κέγχρω as the non-completers do;
Blass Diehl κέρρον ἦλλ’ ἐπ’ ἀγλαΐᾳ πολίταν, «sharp, took [it i.e. the heart] in the feast of the citizens», Edmonds κέρρε, ἀλλ’ ἐπ’ ἀγλαΐᾳ πολίταν, «took [it], but in the feast of the citizens», safopoemas κέρρον ἦλλ’ ἐπαγορίᾳ πολίταν, «sharp, took [it] because of the citizens’ accusation», BA Campbell ]λ’ ἐπαγορίᾳ πολίταν, «] because of the citizens’ accusation», TCPOS κέρρε πόλλ’ ἐπ’ ἀγλαΐᾳ πολίταν, «wounded it a lot in the feast of the citizens», Carson no completion; back in the days, I chose to have an ἀγλαΐᾳ, interpreting this passage as a reference to the brother having been prohibited from participating in a religious feast, which made Sappho’s and her brother’s pain even worse because everyone else was happy in the feast; I have no idea why I interpreted it that way; perhaps I had something in my hands that said he had indeed been prohibited from participating in a feast, or perhaps I just tried to make sense of GH's "literal" verse translation's «to shun the festal throng» and ended up with that; anyways, I rejected safopoemas, and between the other completions with ἀγλαΐᾳ I chose TCPOS, because «great pain… wounded it a lot» sounded like a good match; ἦλλ’ would be εἶλ(εν), “took away”; I chose to follow safopoemas for ἐπαγορίᾳ, keeping the “wounded a lot”, and tweaked the translations accordingly; the original translations (with original chosen text) will be placed at the end of this note; that δ’ leaves me perplexed though; let’s ignore the apostrophe in the papyrus like Edmonds, and suppose a hyper-aeolic δαὖτ’ = δηὖτ’; actually, one could read that as δ(ὲ) αὖτ(ο) referring to the reproach mentioned before as "it"; since I don't want to modify the translations now, I'll leave that that way here and change it in the all-Sappho posts;
BA Campbell Carson no completion, TCPOS Diehl καὶ βρόχυ ζάλειπον ὄνηκε δ’ αὔτ’ οὐ, Edmonds is now completely different from everyone else so I just ignore him from now on, safopoemas ]αλλως[...ο]νδρεδ’ αυτ’ ου, Blass καὶ βρόχυ ζάλειπον ἄνηκε δ᾽αὔτ’ οὐ; safopoemas is messing with the papyrus, no idea what it was meant to be, but I cannot get anything out if it; the others are all the same (save for Edmonds), except for that ἄνηκε in Blass, which I reject as “less Aeolic” than ὄνηκε; it did, however, get ἄλλως right, which is at the moment only justified by a reading note in the transcriptions post, but will be proved right by P.GC., discovered after I did my translation work;
Campbell BA Carson no completion, safopoemas TCPOS Diehl μὰν διὰ μάκρω, Blass κεν διὰ μάκρω; I do not see the need for a potential particle here, so I go for an emphasis particle like safopoemas and company;
Here is the time to talk about the 4-letter scrap from P.Oxy. 2289; only BA Campbell and Carson accept it; back in the days, I had no idea it even existed; if we accept it, we must add the εο to the first line of the last stanza (which we are discussing now), and my old completion (from Diehl and TCPOS, apparently) is rendered impossible; below, I will give a completion with the scrap accepted, and translations for it; as for other sources, BA Campbell and Carson don’t even split οναικ, Blass has that split as ον αἴ κ[ε, safopoemas completes it like me except for stopping at θέα, and Edmonds… well, he has his own phantasies in this stanza :); thinking back on it, though, that completion clearly misplaces the εο, putting it too close to the end, whereas it should sit above Κύπρι; whatever; it's probably wrong anyway, says P.GC.;
OK guys; I have no idea why everyone reads this line differently in the papyrus, but I simply fail to see λυγ[ ]ρε[ ]να; I mean, look at this possible completion:
is it really not plausible? OK, it’s a bit wide on ταἶνα and a bit compressed on δὲ, but why is the latter universally accepted as a completion and the former simply left unconsidered? I mean, the only source with something similar is TCPOS, in the others I’m lucky to find κυπρ instead of λυγρ! Anyways, that’s what I went with back in the days, and that’s what I confirm now;
The image above completes this line too, in part; again, mostly everyone sees a theta in that papyrus, but I simply can’t, and how in the world are you going to fit εν in that one-letter gap with a half M still to trace? And no, you cannot move the bit of papyrus to the right (as I thought back in the days): zoom into the image and see how that bit is connected to the rest below! Why, to support the ταἶνα you can move the scrap with να to the left, but not this one to the right for that εν to fit! So with my own reading of the papyrus text, I confirm my old choice to almost follow TCPOS (and Diehl btw), except κάκαν would have to be feminine and πᾶρ’ is πῆρος, masculine or neuter, so I complete this my own way by taking a “suggestion” from Edmonds ῥῖνα πρὸς γάᾳ θεμένα κάκανθην, and completing to κακάνθεα; well, actually, I originally completed that way with a synaeresis on the last two vowels, but why not just elide the last one, since the next line starts with ἄμμι? So here goes: νύκτι πάντα κατθεμένα κακάνθε’;
Now, it is possible to see something that looks either like a sigma, or like an epsilon, or like a fold in the papyrus; I chose to interpret it as a double-underdot sigma for the sake of the completion, which comes from TCPOS and Diehl, and which I amend to ἄμμιν ἀλάλκοις to avoid the hiatus which the epenthetic -ν I am adding to ἄμμιν avoids.
Differences of opinions between present-day me and back-in-the-days me:
I now prefer Edmonds’ δύσκλεα μήδεις to the previously accepted πῆμά τι μήδεις from BA; or do I? I’m having doubts; actually, that accusative sounds out of place there; scratch this out: BA rules :);
I now prefer ἐκλάθοιτ’ to ἐκλύοιτ’ because I cleared up the meaning of the former; no point talking about this any more;
I prefer ἐπαγορίᾳ to the then-chosen ἐπ’ ἀγλαΐᾳ because it doesn’t force a “hysterology” (from ὕστερον, "behind", meant as a calque of Italian “dietrologia”); I changed the translations accordingly, as seen in the Main tab; the original translations are in the HS4 tab;
Problem: P.Oxy. 2289.
My completion of the last stanza that takes P.Oxy. 2289 into account can be found in the "With 2289" tab, while the Main tab doesn't account for this scrap. The "With 2289" version is not satisfactory because firstly τέοισιν is not Aeloic AFAIK, and secondly φρέσιν is actually φρένεσσιν in Aeolic, but that's the only thing I could come up with. Hopefully someone will have better fantasy than me. I won't bother adapting the critical notation to the revised version of the transcription of P.Oxy. 7.
Then P.GC. came along, and messed with the text. That is also discussed at the transcriptions post. In case anyone is curious, here is the combined text, with the colors from above and the P.GC. text in yellow:
Now the sources Campbell gives for this are P.Oxy. 1231 frr. 1 and 3. If you compare GH's transcription of the papyrus (fr. 1, I'll talk about fr. 3 later) and Campbell's text, you see the following changes:
In l. 2, a completely illegible letter becomes an uncertain epsilon, and a high dot appears;
In l. 5, the eta of κῆνα loses its underdot;
The ι̣ε. at l. 6 becomes ν̣εμ̣;
L. 7 turns from .νοσα̣λ̣ to ε̣νοσκλ, with an illegible letter becoming an uncertain epsilon, the last lambda losing its underdot and the penultimate letter turing from uncertain alpha to certain kappa;
In l. 8, the uncertain rho becomes completely illegible;
In l. 9, the alpha, iota and rho ending the three groups of letters in the papyrus lose their underdots;
In l. 10, the α̣ν̣ in καυχάσαντο becomes [α]ι, the alpha suddenly disappearing into a lacuna and the uncertain nu becoming a certain iota and changing the word to καυχάσαιτο.
As for fr. 3, the ν̣ι̣ in the third and last line of said fragment turns to the λιμ̣ at l. 7 of Campbell's fragment. For added clarity, here are the two texts side by side:
All of this must be the result of something that happened between P.Oxy. vol. X, available online, and Campbell, and I suspect this thing is called Lobel-Page. I was convinced it must be due to P.Oxy. vol. XXI, but I now have scans of the relevant pages, and nope, nothing from that volume got into this poem. Therefore, I strongly suspect that, like in Gongyla, a new transcription of the papyrus was made and got into LP, and then into everyone else. LP and Voigt don't say anything either. I so wish I had the image to comment on this….
The change in l. 9 caused a total reinterpretation of the stanza, which GH complete exactly like Edmonds, whereas Campbell completes to a different effect, all because of that nu becoming a iota. The Note seems not to even mention this poem, so I have no idea why I chose Campbell back in the days. Laziness because Greek Wikisource had that? Didn't see Edmonds or GH yet? Nah, the latter couldn't be, seen as this translation is after Christmas 2010 and I already had GH for Hector and Andromacha that Christmas. Anyways, till I understand what happened, I cannot say anything sensible about what version to choose. Except maybe if GH's notes say anything about this, let's see. For l. 2, the notes say «The first letter is apparently either α or ε», so either can be chosen as uncertain reading, and I speculate Campbell did what I would do: ευ as a prefix, and then the rest of some adjective, perhaps εὔπλοος, "well-sailing"? But nothing else is to be found in those notes. Let's see fr. 3 in them. The note for fragments 2 & 3: «These small pieces have been placed together here on account of certain similarities in the appearance of their versos and that of the first column of Fr. i ; but the resemblance may be misleading.». I guess fr. 2 not in this mix because it didn't stick well enough with the column, both in terms of convincing supplements and of physical joints, whereas fr. 3 kind of does (there are some problems with room for letters, where joining to form λίμενος in l. 7 doesn't allow [ἄμ] to fit in l. 5).
