POETS Day! Translating Ovid’s Metamorphoses

My kids are out for summer vacation; have been for almost two weeks now. They got a preview of a classless existence twice in May. Their schools allow for a number of “snow days” every year so that should Alabama see a repeat of The Blizzard of ’93 (TM) and the world stops the kids still have the required amount of official school days on the books. If those days don’t get used the administration starts doling them out like a UN aid worker with food and nylons. Suddenly the kids are beaming on a Thursday at three o’clock because the weekend’s arrived a day early. Though floating snow days are nothing new, I was taken by surprise this year because I assumed that post COVID we all knew how to pretend that we got enough done online to meet state guidelines and wouldn’t need them anymore. But the free days popped up and graced early and mid-May Fridays with smiling children playing jacks and hopscotch on the sidewalk, sucking in their stomachs for the high-school lifeguards plus one-third their age, and doing other loveable scamp Rockwell fodder. Good for them. POETS Day knows no age restrictions. I’m taking the idea of unused excuses for off days and running with it. Never go into the half with timeouts in your pocket. Last week was my seventy-fifth POETS Day post for Ordinary Times and it passed right by me, unnoticed. I’m sure some of you were puzzled why I didn’t mention it, but I didn’t realize. This week I’m calling for a POETS Day SNOW Day where POETS stands for Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday like always and SNOW stands for Skedaddle Now. (The O and W are part of NOW so the acronym actually does work. It’s like the A would be in NASA if instead of National Aeronautics and Space Administration it was National Space Administration and they still kept it NASA, because people wouldn’t mind the A from National bleeding into the Space because they like vowels in words. A lot of people probably do think it is National Space Administration and they’ve never complained, so… it’s fine.) Take the belated celebratory free day with my tardy apology. Tell your boss you’re pissing off early in honor of the POETS Day Diamond Jubilee… No. Tell him you’re pissing off early in honor of the Diamond Jubilee. He’ll know.

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When I first decided to write a weekly series about poets and poetry I mapped out what I wanted to do and set a few parameters. One of the first rules was that there would be no translations. I’ve broken that rule a few times but I didn’t want to be caught in a situation where I was unsure if I enjoyed the work of the poet, the translator, or the combination. When I read Pound’s Cathay, or more specifically when I read about how Pound’s Cathay came to be, my conception of translations changed.

In my mind, a poet dusted off an old manuscript in a language he’d fluency in and transcribed literally, going back with a bag of synonyms in hand making changes necessary to reflect the original’s rhythm and rhyme. Admittedly simplistic, I know.

The reality is a mess. There are faithful scribes like I imagined them all to be, but there are also Robert Lowells. He called his translations “Impressions” and took the sense of what he read and wrote almost original works. Pound has been accused of playing ventriloquist with various foreign poets. Elizabeth Bishop translated the poems of Carlos Drummond de Andrade from Portuguese. She was his first English translator and responsible for his popularity in the that-speaking world. Said Bishop, “I didn’t know him at all. He’s supposed to be very shy. I’m supposed to be very shy. We’ve met once—on the sidewalk at night. We had just come out of the same restaurant, and he kissed my hand politely when we were introduced.” Though they both lived in the state of Rio de Janeiro she never called for direction. There’s more expression in translation than I assumed.

As I wrote, it’s a mess. The more I look into it, the more convinced I become of the wisdom I displayed in the parameter setting stage, but it’s really interesting. Looking into the whys and wherefores of how a translation came about fascinates me enough that I’m revoking the prohibition. Let chaos reign. When considering translations, I’ll write about poets rather than poet.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses, an epic poem containing some two hundred and fifty plus myths, is one of the most important works to come down to us from antiquity, at least as far as we can be sure it did. There are pieces dated as far back as the 9^th century but the earliest known complete manuscript has been dated to the 11^th century, so we may be dealing with a game of telephone – albeit one tempered by comparison to Ovid’s other surviving works – to begin with. What is mentioned in almost every commentary I’ve come across is the depth of Ovid’s wit. I’ve discussed the vagaries of poetic wit and how the word has changed over time in regard to poetry at this site before but I don’t think we need to get into that other than to say that there is a quality of Ovid’s that Latin scholars agree exists in his entire original. It doesn’t sound like much, but the preservation of an original calling card is a handy barometer, hinting to us whether or not the translator intended to let the dead man speak or if he, as Pound occasionally did, played ventriloquist.

Another consideration: Ovid wrote Metamorphoses in dactylic hexameter. So there are six feet to a line, and I usually have to stop for a moment whenever I try to remember a non-iambi foot but I read a mnemonic trick that sets me straight on dactyls. Dactyl means digit and we read from left to right so if you look at you left pointer finger from the side you see from left to right a big bone followed by two small bones. Stressed, unstressed, unstressed. (I’m full of stupid little tricks like that. If it wasn’t for “f” coming before “l” alphabetically I’d never keep “former” and “latter” straight, accent aigu points down to the “a” at the beginning of the alphabet while grave points further up the line to “g”, and I know that port means left on a boat because both words have the same number of letters. Somehow, I tie my shoes unaided.) This series of verse feet can be awkward in English.

One of the translators I’ll discuss in a sec, Rolfe Humphries, says regarding dactylic hexameter, “This meter, in our usage, tends to gallop if not run away, Buckety, Buckety, Buckety, Buckety, Buckety, Bump down.” Think “Charge of the Light Brigade” and it’s “Half a league, half a league,/ Half a league onward,/ All in the valley of Death”. The translator will decide to accept, mitigate, or change the pace it takes in English that it doesn’t in Latin by playing with the meter or not, but they kinda have to.

I’ll show excerpts below of the same lines of Metamorphoses as translated by three different poets. The first I’d like to treat to lunch, the second I’d like to give a swirly, and the third wrote a translation so influential that it rivals Ovid’s original in importance to world literature.

I chose “The Story of Tiresias” because I just read a fantastic poem by another poet who mentioned Tiresias and when I get around to doing a POETS day about that poem I’ll be able to link back to this one and make it look like I have a broader breadth of knowledge than I do. It’s a great story.

Rolfe Humphries, you’ll want to buy him lunch too, published his translation in 1955 according the copyright on my copy. I didn’t know much about him other than that he’s best known for is well-regarded Ovid, Juvenal, and Virgil translations. I looked him up yesterday and found that he earned a ban from Poetry.

In 1939 he was asked to contribute a poem to the magazine. The U.S. wasn’t at war yet and people had all manner of opinions on European governments, their sins and virtues. Nicholas Murray Butler was in the thirty-seventh year of his presidency of Colombia University and could be counted on for a pro-Nazi quote every now and then. Humphries’ poem “Draft Ode for a Phi Beta Kappa Occasion” was published in June. It wasn’t a good poem, but it wasn’t meant to be as a send up of poetry written for the titular occasions, crammed to bursting with classical allusions. As parody, it landed brilliantly. It was later pointed out to Poetry that the first letters of the poem spelled “Nicholas Murray Butler is a horse’s ass.” The ban was lifted two years later. Worth a sandwich at least.

Here’s a passage from his translation. It’s colloquial, unrhymed, and loosely pentameter to the point you could call it free verse.

The Story of Tiresias
Rolfe Humphries (1894-1969)

So, while these things were happening on earth,
And Bacchus, Semele’s son, was twice delivered,
Safe in his cradle, Jove, they say, was happy
And feeling pretty good (with wine) forgetting
Anxiety and care, and killing time
Joking with Juno. “I maintain,” he told her,
“You females get more pleasure out of loving
Than we poor males do, ever.” She denied it,
So they decided to refer the question
To wise Tiresias’ judgement: he should know
What love was like, from either point of view.
Once he had come upon two serpents mating
In the green woods, and struck them from each other,
And thereupon, from man was turned to woman,
And was a woman seven years, and saw
The serpents once again, and once more struck them
Apart, remarking: “If there is such magic
In giving you blows, that man is turned to woman,
It may be woman is turned to man. Worth trying.”
And so he was a man again; as umpire,
He took the side of Jove. And Juno
Was a bad loser, and she said that umpires
Were always blind, and made him so forever.
No god can over-rule another’s action,
But the Almighty Father, out of pity,
In compensation, gave Tiresias power
To know the future, so there was some honor
Along with punishment.

Next is J.J. Howard, who has been ignominiously erased from the historical record, at least the digital record as available from my couch. Apparently, a woman also named J.J. Howard struck gold with a series of children’s books and is hogging all the search engines. J.J. Howard the translator is a name on a public domain book that came to me via a very good collection of Ovid translations that includes Marlowe’s go at Amores, so he’s found in good company.

He sets the poem in fairly strict pentameter and his mid-line breaks – caesuras if I must – are very dramatic. But that all fell to the side for me after reading his brief and off-putting introduction to the 1807 publication: “The translator confides his attempt to render the beauties of Ovid more accessible to English readers, and to chasten the prurience of his ideas and his language, so as to fit his writings for more general perusal.”

They had sensitivity readers then too.

The Story of Tiresias
J.J. Howard (????-????, but I know he was alive in 1807)

While the rash promise caus’d on earth those deeds,
And twice-born Bacchus’ cradle safe was hid:
‘Tis said that Jove with heavenly nectar flush’d,
All serious cares dismiss’d. With the sportive jests,
At ease conversing, he and Juno sate:
When he: – “The thrilling ecstasies of love,
“Are surely strongest on the female side.”
She differs, – and the question both agree
Tiresias, who each sex had prov’d, shall judge.
Two mighty snakes he spy’d upon the grass,
Twisted in Venus’ wreaths; and with his staff
Hard smote them; – instant alter’d was his sex.
Wonderous! he woman of a man became,
Seven winters so he liv’s: – the eight, again
He spy’d  the same; and cry’d, – “If such your power,
“That whoso strikes you must their gender change,
“Once more I’ll try the spell.” Straight as the blow
The snakes receiv’d, his pristine form return’d:
Hence was chosen, in the strife jocose,
As umpire; and the words of Jove confirm’d.

Much, say they, Juno rag’d; more than beseem’d
The trivial cause, or sentence justly given;
And veil’d the judge’s eyes in endless night.
But Jove omnipotent, him gave to know,
(For fate forbids to cancel other’s deeds)
What future times conceal; a light divine;
An honor’d gift to mitigate his pain.

Finally, there’s Arthur Golding.

In Pound’s ABC of Reading, he compiles a reading list he thinks essential for the study of literature. He begins Chapter 6 with “For those who only read English, I have done what I can.” He starts listing specific translations of importance and about one hundred words in writes “You can get Ovid, or rather Ovid’s stories in Golding’s Metamorphoses, which is the most beautiful book in the English language (my opinion and I suspect it was Shakespeare’s).”

Whether Shakespeare agreed or not there can be no doubt that Golding greatly influenced – perhaps was the greatest influence – both his plays and sonnets. Golding’s presence is also found in Spenser’s Faerie Queene and the plays of Marlowe. It’s hard to overstate the impact he had with this work on the English speaking literary world.

I can’t say which edition the excerpt here is taken from; he released five between the years 1567 and 1612. Golding writes his Metamorphoses in iambic heptameter, known as “fourteeners,” and I’ll stop describing it here because Pound does it better:

“It should be read as natural spoken language. The metre is, I admit, susceptible to bad reading. A bad reader of fourteeners is almost certain to tub-thump. The reader will be well advised to read according to sense and syntax, keep from thumping, observe the syntactical pause, and not stop for the line ends save where sense requires or a comma indicates. That is the way to get the most out of it, and come nearest to a sense of the time-element in the metrical plan.”

The Story of Tyresias
Arthur Golding (1536-1606)

Now while these things were done on earth, and that by fatal doome
The twice borne Bacchus had a tyme to mannes estate to come,
They say that Jove disposde to myrth as he and Juno sate
A drinking Nectar after meate in sport and pleasant rate,
Did fall a jeasting with his wife, and saide: A greater pleasure
In Venus games ye woman have than men beyond all measure.
She answerde no. To trie the truth, they both of them agree
The wise Tyresias in this case indifferent Judge to bee,
Who both the man and woman joys by tryall understood.
For finding once two mightie Snakes engendering in a Wood,
He strake them overthwart the backs, by meanes whereof beholde
(As straunge a thing to be of truth as ever yet was tolde)
He being made a woman straight, seven winter lived so.
The eight he finding them againe did say unto them tho:
And if to strike ye have such powre as for to turne their shape
That are the givers of the stripe, before you hence escape,
One stripe now will I lende you more. He strake them as beforne
And straight returnd his former shape in which he first was borne.
Tyresias therefore being tane to judge this jesting strife,
Gave sentence on the side of Jove. The which the Queene his wife
Did take a great deale more to heart than needed, and in spight
To wreake hir teene upon hir Judge, bereft him of his sight.
But Jove (for to the Gods it is unleefull to undoe
The things which other of the Gods by any meanes have doe)
Did give him sight in things to come for losse of sight of eye,
And so his grievous punishment with honour did supplie.

On the internet I’m not limited by space so I might as well add Ovid’s original. If you don’t read Latin, you can stop here. If you do, what started all the hubbub:

The Story of Tiresiae
Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC-17/18 AD)

Dumque ea per terras fatali lege geruntur
tutaque bis geniti sunt incunabula Bacchi,
forte lovem memorant diffusum nectare curas
seposuisse graves vacuaque agitasse remissos
cum Iunone iocos et maior vestra profecto est,
quam quae contingit maribus, dixisse ‘voluptas.’
illa negat. placuit quae sit sententia docti
quaerere Tiresiae: Venus huic erat utraque nota.
nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva
corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu
deque viro factus (mirabile) femina septem
egerat autumnos: octavo rursus eosdem
vidit, et ‘est vestrae sit anta potential plagae’
dixit, ‘ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet,
nunc quoque vos feriam.’ percussis anguibus isdem
forma prior rediit, genetivaque venit imago.
arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite iocosa
dicta Iovis firmat: gravius Saturnia iusto
nec pro materia fertur doluisse suique
iudici aeterna damnavit lumina nocte;
at pater omnipotens (neque enim licet inrita cuiquam
facta dei fecisse deo) pro lumine adempto
scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore.