[Catherine Chandler]

What a tour de force !

I loved "integument" -- reminded me of the rich language of Wilbur and Ormsby. The last line, though not as faithfully translated as the other lines, is whimsical and true to the spirit of the whole.

[Rose Kelleher]

Well done. I don't know why the author goes on about which are the biggest months for flies, but that's not the translator's fault. Maybe there's some wink-wink reason for it that modern audiences don't understand, or maybe it's just padding.

[Skip Dewahl]

This one is clearly in the running. Well done, even if the month of "wheat" or "must" gets a bit tangled, well, so does the crib. I figured it out, so that's minor. Congratulations.

[Gregory Dowling]

I think this is splendid, and didn't find the details of the months distracting; that's Ariosto, always ready with an aside. This really catches the movement and the spirit of the original. I love "the brute's integument".

[Janice D. Soderling]

I am really glad to be posting after Gregory, because I too think this is excellent in every way. I'm NOT making a lazy crit, I loved it from the first read through and there is nothing (nothing) I would change.

I like it because it is blow-by-blow and because it is so wonderfully readable.

I don't claim to be able to compare the faithfulness, but we all know that old adage!

I am not badmouthing earlier translations such as this below by William Stewart Rose (of whom I know nothing), but the above Englishing seems to take it into our own century by eliminating words such as 'twixt and tushes and fell.

CIV
So the fell orc Rogero does not smite
With lance or faulchion where the tushes grow,
But aims that 'twixt the ears his blow may light;
Now on the spine, or now on tail below.
And still in time descends or soars upright,
And shifts his course, to cheat the veering foe:
But as if beating on a jasper block,
Can never cleave the hard and rugged rock.

CV
With suchlike warfare is the mastiff vext
By the bold fly in August's time of dust,
Or in the month before or in the next,
This full of yellow spikes and that of must;
For ever by the circling plague perplext,
Whose sting into his eyes or snout is thrust:
And oft the dog's dry teeth are heard to fall;
But reaching once the foe, he pays for all.