[Julie Steiner]

To pass the time while I am preparing my comments for the main Translation Bake-Off event (which I'll start posting in one week), everyone is invited to participate in a secondary event--translating the following insect-themed poem [Edited to say: and two others] from Ancient Greek to contemporary English:

MELEAGER'S BEE POEM (AP 5.163 = 50 Gow-Page)

Ἀνθοδίαιτε μέλισσα, τί μοι χροὸς Ἡλιοδώρας
.....ψαύεις ἐκπρολιποῦσ' εἰαρινὰς κάλυκας;
ἦ σύ γε μηνύεις ὅτι καὶ γλυκὺ καὶ †δύσοιστον
.....πικρὸν ἀεὶ κραδίᾳ κέντρον Ἔρωτος ἔχει;
ναὶ δοκέω τοῦτ' εἶπας· ἰὼ ϕιλέραστε, παλίμπους
.....στεῖχε· πάλαι τὴν σὴν οἴδαμεν ἀγγελίην.

†Or δύσπιστον, or δυσόϊστον, or δυσύποιστον. Also, any of these four options could have the ending ων instead of ον, making it an adverb.

Okay, that's it, folks! Hop to it!

Just kidding. What follows is a ridiculous amount of material to help non-classicists translate this six-line Hellenistic epigram addressed to a bee. I invite the many classicists at Eratosphere to jump in to correct anything I may have mangled below.

PLEASE POST YOUR TRANSLATION OF MELEAGER'S BEE POEM DIRECTLY TO THIS THREAD, rather than to the email address for the main Translation Bake-Off event. Each entrant may post more than one translation attempt, if these entries are substantially different in approach from each other. Entrants may continue to edit their entries until this thread is locked, one week from now. The top three translations (not necessarily by different translators) will be awarded a prize.

[Edited to say: CHANGE OF PLANS--The three prizes will now be distributed to the #1 popular favorite translation of each of three insect-themed poems by Meleager. See the thread presenting Meleager's first mosquito poem for details.]


If and when your eyes start to glaze over during the following explanation, you can bail out and go to the short summary I've posted as message #2 in this thread.


MEET MEL!

The author of our poem is Meleager of Gadara (pronounced "mel-ee-AY-jer uv GAH-du-ruh" in English). Gadara was an ancient Hellenistic town, near where the borders of modern Israel, Syria, and Jordan meet.

As the following snippet from a longer poem shows, Meleager referred to himself as a Syrian:

εἰ δὲ Σύρος, τί τὸ θαῦμα; μίαν, ξένε, πατρίδα κόσμον
.....ναίομεν· ἓν θνατοῦς πάντας ἔτικτε Χάος.

Stranger, so what if I'm Syrian?.....One homeland--the Cosmos--we tarry in;
.....one is the Chaos that bred.....all who will someday be dead.

Literal prose crib: (1) If I'm a Syrian, why the surprise? One, stranger, is the fatherland--the Cosmos-- (2) we inhabit; one Chaos begot all mortals.

It's easy to imagine Meleager expecting, or even daring, a Greek audience to dismiss him as a barbarian from a backwater. However, to me it seems more likely that his "So what if I'm Syrian?" was motivated by cosmopolitanism, rather than by testiness or insecurity about his origins. Elsewhere in the same poem, Meleager associates himself with the third-century BCE philosopher Menippus the Cynic, who had also hailed from Gadara. (Menippus is very interesting fellow in his own right. If you have time, read about the Menippean satire genre, which ridicules ideas rather than individuals.)

The Cynic philosophers regarded nationalism as one of many forms of prejudice, vanity, and self-delusion. They referred to all such irrational bias as τῦϕος (tũphos)--literally, "smoke" or "fog"--for its interference with humans' ability to see things clearly. After Meleager's question, the remainder of the couplet recalls an anecdote about the most famous Cynic, Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412-323 BCE); when asked to state his own nationality, Diogenes is said to have answered, "Κοσμοπολίτης" (kosmopolítēs)--literally, "I am a citizen (πολίτης) of the world (κόσμου)".

Both Meleager's Syrian hometown and his Phoenician educational alma mater (Tyre, a busy Mediterranean port, now in Lebanon) were part of the Seleucid Kingdom carved from the spoils of Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE). Later in life, Meleager relocated to Kos, a Greek island close to the coast of Turkey, and became a citizen there.

In one of Meleager's three autobiographical epitaphs, he honors his three hometowns by greeting the reader (from the grave) in Aramaic and Phoenician as well as in Greek:

ἀλλ' εἰ μὲν Σύρος Σάλαμ· εἰ δ' οὖν σύ γε Φοῖνιξ,
.....Ναίδιος· εἰ δ' Ἕλλην, Χαῖρε· τὸ δ' αὐτὸ ϕράσον.

Chaire! to you, if you're Grecian;.....Naídios! if you're Phoenician;
.....Syrian, are you? Salaam!.....Anyhow, answer the same.

Literal prose crib: (1) So if [you are] Syrian, Salaam! If instead you are Phoenician, (2) Naídios! If instead Greek, Chaire! And say the same.

Greek was the lingua franca throughout the European, Asian, and African lands bordering the eastern Mediterranean during the Hellenistic period--an imprecise term usually defined as the time between the death of Alexander and Rome's 31 BCE defeat of Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty.

By the way, Ancient Greek was a tonal language, like Chinese. Modern Greek is stress-based, like most European, North African, and West Asian languages. The shift from pitch to stress accentuation is thought to have begun during the Hellenistic period, probably due to the large influx of people speaking Greek as a second language.


MELEAGER'S GARLAND

Around 100-90 BCE, Meleager produced one of the first literary anthologies we know of. (From the tenth century CE until the mid-twentieth century CE, Meleager's anthology was thought to have been the first; but papyrus scraps from third and second-century BCE Greek anthologies have since been found.) Our word "anthology"--derived from Greek ἄνθος, ánthos, "flower", and λέγω, légō, "gather, pick out" --still honors Meleager's Στέϕανος (Stéphanos, meaning Crown or Garland). His book's prefatory poem explains it as a arrangement of his own poems with those handpicked from other authors, interwoven like a garland of the choicest flowers.

Some of Meleager's poems were written in direct response to famous poems by the thirty-seven named (and several unnamed) poets in his Garland, five of whom--Sappho, Moero, Anyte, Nossis, and Erinna--were women. (Sadly, Meleager's quotations from Sappho weren't really by Sappho, but he probably didn't know that. Anyway, his anthology was inclusive.)

Poems taken from Meleager's Garland form the earliest part of what we now call the Greek Anthology. That "anthology of anthology manuscripts," reorganized by subject, includes poems spanning more than a millennium (approximately the 7th century B.C.E. to the 6th century C.E.)

Quotations from the Garland appear in a tenth-century C.E. manuscript called the Anthologia Palatina, abbreviated AP. The poem I've chosen is numbered AP 5.163. In 1965, a critical edition containing just the Hellenistic material from the AP was edited by Gow and Page; the same poem's numbering in that source is 50 G-P.


GENERAL NOTES ON THE FORM

Bake-Off translators are encouraged to make their own decisions about what formal devices, if any, will best capture the sense and sensibility of each poem for a contemporary English audience. Approximating the original meter, as I've tried to do with Meleager's autobiographical lines above, may not be the best way to communicate the flavor of the elegiac distich, for various reasons elaborated below.

First, there's the grand heritage invoked by the form of the elegiac distich (from di- + stichon, "composed of two-line units of verse"). The sonnet tradition is an insignificant flash in the pan compared to the 1200+ years in which the elegiac distich flourished in Greek literature (not to mention its long popularity in Latin literature). From the Archaic period until well into the Byzantine, the elegiac distich was used for all sorts of Greek occasional verse, not just the funerary elegies implied by the name. The term "epigram" for poems in this form also wandered significantly from its original usage, which denoted Greek verses "written on" a tomb or funerary jar.

To its original audience, the form automatically evoked the cachet of poetic heritage. In contrast, these lopsided, unrhymed couplets may seem clumsy and strange to modern readers of English poetry. (That's why, in my attempts at metrical faithfulness above, I have used rhyme--not present in the original--to compensate somewhat for the form's unfamiliarity. My emphatically typeset caesurae might have been better treated as line-breaks, though, if un-foreignness was the goal.)

There's also the matter of metrical substitution, which has vastly different connotations in Ancient Greek and in English. Though generally regarded as attention-getting when they occur in English formal verse, metrical variations are almost always unremarkable in Ancient Greek verse. Along with the dactyls ( — ︶ ︶ , i.e. " - u u " in simpler text ) implied by the terms dactylic hexameter and dactylic pentameter, every Greek poem written in elegiac distichs will also contain many spondees ( — — , i.e. - - ), along with frequent line-ending trochees ( — ︶ , i.e. - u ). The final syllable, even if short, seems longer anyway by virtue of line-end position.


THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

The most obvious cultural gap is the fact that English meters are accentual (i.e., stress-based), while Ancient Greek--a tonal language--reckons meters quantitatively (i.e., by the length of time required to pronounce short and long syllables).

I will belabor this last point, since the English distinction between the short o of "hop" and the long o of "hope" has nothing to do with timing, and therefore the different usage of the same terms "long" and "short" may mislead English readers. In Ancient Greek the short o (omicron, literally "o micron" or "small o") and long o (omega, literally "o mega" or "big o") are thought by many to have been pronounced identically, except that the omega held the sound out for twice as long.

The basic unit of pronunciation time is now called by the Latin name mora, meaning "delay". I find it helpful to think of the mora in musical terms. In Latin or Ancient Greek, a short vowel represents one eighth note's worth (one mora) of sound, while a long vowel represents two eighth notes' worth (a quarter note) of sound. A diphthong (pair of vowels) gives us one eighth note's worth (one mora) of each vowel sound, which together take the same length (two moras) as a single long vowel. A syllable containing a short vowel gets metrically reckoned as a short syllable...unless it is followed by certain combinations of two consonants, which take an extra mora of time to pronounce: in which case, the syllable is reckoned long.

Occasionally there will be an iota subscript beneath a long alpha, eta, or omega: ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ. Theoretically, these diphthongs should be pronounced with two morae of the long vowel and one mora of the short iota; however, in practice, they are elided into two morae for metrical purposes.


OTHER TYPOGRAPHICAL ODDITIES

Ancient Greek accent marks are mostly irrelevant for scansion purposes. There is generally one accent mark in each Ancient Greek word. These are not stress accents, but pitch accents--again, as in Chinese. An acute accent ( ˊ ) indicates a rising tone on that syllable's final mora. A grave accent ( ˋ ) indicates a falling tone on the final mora. A circumflex accent ( ˜ ) indicates a rise on the first mora, followed by a fall on the second. (Modern Greek's occasional acute accents indicate stress, not pitch, and it has dispensed with the other two marks as irrelevant.)

Words beginning with vowels (or the consonant rho) contain a rough breathing mark ( ͑ ) above the vowel (or above the second vowel of a diphthong) if the word should be pronounced with an initial "h" sound. Otherwise, they have a soft breathing mark ( ͗ ). Note that in the name Ἡλιοδώρα in the bee poem, the "h" sound comes from the rough breathing mark, while the long e sound comes from the Greek vowel eta (H).


THE METRICAL NITTY GRITTY

As I briefly mentioned above, the first line of each elegiac distich is in dactylic hexameter (the meter of epics like the Iliad and the Odyssey), and the second line is referred to as pentameter.

These straightforward-seeming terms suggest a simple string of six dactyls
( — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ ,
i.e. - u u - u u - u u - u u - u u - u u in simpler text),

followed by a simple string of five dactyls
( — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ ,
i.e. - u u - u u - u u - u u - u u ).
However, the rules of prosody prevent any line of Greek hexameter or pentameter from ever looking that way.

In every dactylic hexameter line, replacement of the final dactyl ( — ︶ ︶ , i.e. - u u) with a spondee ( — — , i.e. - -) is required. (Okay, technically, a trochee ( — ︶ , i.e. - u ) can be used instead, but since the final foot is lengthened anyway, by virtue of being in the final position, in effect it becomes a spondee. Some people just call that final syllable an anceps--a wildcard syllable that can be either long or short.)

Substitution of a spondee ( — — , i.e. - -) for a dactyl ( — ︶ ︶ , i.e. - u u ) is allowed in any of the first four feet, but strongly discouraged in the fifth foot.

And as if keeping track of the scansion weren't complicated enough already, a caesura, or pause after the ending of a word, must divide each hexameter line in AT LEAST ONE of the three places marked | below:

The hexameter line's recipe:
— ︶︶ — ︶︶ — |︶|︶ — |︶︶ — ︶︶ — ︶
i.e. - uu - uu - | u|u - | uu - uu - u

— , i.e. - = one long syllable
︶︶, i.e. uu = either one long syllable or two short syllables
︶, i.e. u = either one long syllable or one short syllable (line-ending syllables seem longer, anyway)

The caesura most commonly falls within the third foot (after either the first or second syllable); however, if a long word fills the entire third foot, the caesura is allowed after the long syllable of the fourth foot.

The second line of elegiac distich consists of a pattern called the hemiepes, "half an epic line", although technically it isn't exactly half of a hexameter: it actually represents the first part of a hexameter line when the caesura falls after the third foot's long syllable.

Two iterations of this hemiepes pattern, with a caesura (word break) separating the two units, constitute the pentameter line. Note that spondees may be substituted for the dactyls in the first half-line (a.k.a. hemistich) unit, but not in the second.

The pentameter line's recipe:
— ︶︶ — ︶︶ — | — ︶︶ — ︶︶ ︶
i.e. - uu - uu - | - uu - uu u

Why on earth is this bizarre pattern referred to as pentameter? Because its two hemistichs add up to "dactyl, dactyl, half a dactyl, dactyl, dactyl, half a dactyl"...therefore totaling five feet. However, I agree that the name pentameter is very misleading.

Anyway, I hope I've provided enough information above to help you decide whether:
.....a.) to try to duplicate the original form in your English translation...or
.....b.) to abandon that form for one more recognizable to your audience, such as iambic pentameter, ballad stanzas, or terza rima...actually, I've even seen humorous Greek epigraphs rendered as series of limericks...or
.....c.) to experiment with letting the piece find its own form...or
.....d.) to take a stab at more than one of the above approaches, since you may enter more than one translation of each poem.


THE ORIGINAL AGAIN:

Meleager's bee poem (AP 5.163 = 50 Gow-Page)

Ἀνθοδίαιτε μέλισσα, τί μοι χροὸς Ἡλιοδώρας
.....ψαύεις ἐκπρολιποῦσ' εἰαρινὰς κάλυκας;
ἦ σύ γε μηνύεις ὅτι καὶ γλυκὺ καὶ †δύσοιστον
.....πικρὸν ἀεὶ κραδίᾳ κέντρον Ἔρωτος ἔχει;
ναὶ δοκέω τοῦτ' εἶπας· ἰὼ ϕιλέραστε, παλίμπους
.....στεῖχε· πάλαι τὴν σὴν οἴδαμεν ἀγγελίην.

†Or δύσπιστον, or δυσόϊστον, or δυσύποιστον. Also, any of these could have the ending ων instead of ον, making it an adverb.

The texts of some Greek epigrams require so many footnotes that they are bristling with daggers; this poem requires only one such dagger ( † ), in L3. The reason for it is elucidated in the line-by-line scansion below.


THE ENGLISH PROSE CRIB:

(1) Flower-dwelling bee, why, for my benefit, are you are touching (verb ψαύεις in L2) Heliodora's skin, (2) having left behind the springtime blossoms? (3) Can it be that you indicate that she possesses (verb ἔχει in L4) something both sweet and †insufferable, (4) bitter always to the heart--the sting of Eros? (5) Yes, I suppose that is what you were saying. O, friend of lovers, go (verb στεῖχε in L6) back: (6) long have I understood your message.

†Or "unfaithful", or "hard to stand". Any of these options could also be taken as an adverb modifying "bitter".


LINE-BY-LINE SCANSION AND WORD-BY-WORD GLOSS:


I'll indent below with quote tags, for easier reference.


Line 1:
hexameter (six dactyls, with one substitution)

— ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ | ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — —
i.e. - uu - uu - u | u - uu - uu - -
Ἀν-θο-δί- αι-τε μέ-λισσ-α, | τί μοι χρο-ὸς Ἡ-λι-ο-δώ-ρας
An-tho-dí-ai-te mé- liss- a, | tí moi chro-òs Hē-li-o-dṓ-ras

ἀνθοδίαιτε = "flower-dwelling, living on flowers". Adjective modifying the feminine noun μέλισσα. Vocative (direct address) masculine/feminine form of ἀνθοδίαιτος, ον (an adjective with only two sets of endings--shared masculine/feminine and neuter). From ἄνθος, ánthos, "flower" + δίαιτα, díaita, "a way of living, mode of life, diet; a dwelling, abode, room".

μέλισσα = "bee". Feminine noun, vocative (direct address) case.

τί μοι = idiomatic use of the interrogative pronoun + dative (indirect object) first person singular pronoun: "what is it to me?" or "what have I got to do with it?" or "why are you showing me this?" Could also be translated by focusing on the "what for?" or "why?" of the τί, ignoring the "for me" of μοι.

χροὸς = Ionic genitive form of the masculine noun χρώς, chrṓs, "the surface of the body; skin; flesh". The genitive form is not possessive here; it is used to give the verb ψαύεις in L2 a specialized meaning.

Ἡλιοδώρας = "Heliodora's, of Heliodora". This genitive is, indeed, possessive. Feminine name.

Line 2: pentameter
(2.5 dactyls + 2.5 dactyls = 5 dactyls, with two substitutions)

— — — ︶ ︶ — | — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ —
i.e. - - - uu - | - uu - uu -
ψαύ-εις ἐκ-προ-λι-ποῦσ' | εἰ-α-ρι-νὰς κά-λυ-κας;
psaú-eis ek- pro- li- poũs' | ei-a-ri- nàs ká-lu-kas?

ψαύεις = "you touch" (or "do you touch," in question form). Second person singular present indicative form of ψαύω, "touch". When used in combination with a noun in the genitive case (χροὸς), the verb's meaning is "touch as an enemy, lay hands upon, attack". Perhaps, in this context, "tag"? But "touch" also works.

ἐκπρολιποῦσ' = "abandoning, forsaking, deserting". A contraction of the feminine present participle ἐκπρολιποῦσα, from ἐκπρολείπω, from ἐξ, ex, "out" + προ, pro, "forth" + λείπω, leípō, "leave". The participle modifies the feminine noun μέλισσα.

εἰαρινὰς = "spring (as an adjective), related to spring". Modifies κάλυκας. Epic form of the feminine accusative (direct object) plural of the adjective ἐαρινός, ή, όν (an adjective with masculine, feminine, and neuter forms).

κάλυκας = "buds". Accusative (direct object) plural of the feminine noun κάλυξ, kálux, "the calyx of a flower, a flower-bud".

; = Ancient Greek question mark.

Line 3:
hexameter (six dactyls, with either two or three substitutions)

— ︶ ︶ — — — | ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ — —
i.e. - uu - - - | uu - uu - u - -
ἧ σύ γε μην-ύ-εις | ὅτ-ι καὶ γλυ-κὺ καὶ δύσ-οιστ-ον
ẽ sú ge mēn-ú-eis | hó-ti kaì glu-kù kaì dús- pist- on

— ︶ ︶ — — — | ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — — — —
i.e. - uu - - - | uu - uu - - - -
ἧ σύ γε μην-ύ-εις | ὅτ-ι καὶ γλυ-κὺ καὶ δύσ-πιστ-ον
ẽ sú ge mēn-ú-eis | hó-ti kaì glu-kù kaì dús- pist- on

— ︶ ︶ — — — | ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — —
i.e. - uu - - - | uu - uu - uu - -
ἧ σύ γε μην-ύ-εις | ὅτ-ι καὶ γλυ-κὺ καὶ δυσ-ό-ϊστ-ον
ẽ sú ge mēn-ú-eis | hó-ti kaì glu-kù kaì dus-ó-ist- on

— ︶ ︶ — — — | ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — —
i.e. - uu - - - | uu - uu - uu - -
ἧ σύ γε μην-ύ-εις | ὅτ-ι καὶ γλυ-κὺ καὶ δυσ-ύ-ποιστ-ον
ẽ sú ge mēn-ú-eis | hó-ti kaì glu-kù kaì dus-ú- poist- on

ἦ (ẽ) = "can it be that...?" or "isn't it the case that...?". Equivalent to Latin "num" in questions, showing that a positive answer is expected. Could also be translated as "is it that...?", or dropped from the translation of the question.

σύ (sú) = "you" (second person singular personal pronoun, nominative case, and therefore the subject of the sentence).

γε (ge) = an enclitic particle serving to call attention to the word it follows. Sometimes translated as "at least" or with emphatic repetition of the word in question ("you, yourself" or "you, for your part"), but more often ignored in translation.

μηνύεις (mēnúeis) = "you indicate" or "you reveal". Subject is σύ. Second person singular present tense of the verb μηνύω, "make known what is secret, reveal, betray" or more generally "make known, declare, show, indicate".

ὅτι (hóti) = that, conjunction after verbs of seeing, thinking, or saying; begins indirectly quoted speech.

καὶ...καὶ (kaì... kaì) = 'both...and", a set of correlative conjunctions.

γλυκὺ (glukù) = "sweet". Adjective in agreement with κέντρον in L4.

It's dagger ( † ) time! Scribal error is suspected in the final word in this line.

Only about 5% of Homer's lines have a spondee in the fifth foot, and later poets put one there even more rarely. A spondee in the fifth foot of Meleager's bee poem would therefore be quite shocking. Given the context, such a metrical departure could be intentional, to dramatically underscore the trauma of the final word of this line; a trochee there would be even more unheard-of and traumatic. But is either scenario more likely than an inattentive scribe having altered a word he didn't know (which had fit the meter) to one more familiar-sounding (which didn't)? Scholars disagree.

There's also the rule-of-thumb principle of lectio difficilior ("the more difficult reading"); this argues that, due to scribes' tendency to correct perceived errors, unusual wording is somewhat more likely to have been what the author actually wrote.

In order of decreasing metrical disturbance, the four leading candidates for the final word in this line are:

δύσοιστον (dýsoiston) = "hard to bear, insufferable". Suggestion by editors Gow and Page, of a word used by Aeschylus and Sophocles. Again, the trochaic substitution might, itself, be regarded as insufferable. This requires only a one-letter change from the manuscript version (π to ο). A compound of δυσ-, dys-, a prefix of negation, + a derivative the irregular verb ἵστημι, "stand"; so a descriptor for something one is "unable to stand".

δύσπιστον (dýspiston) = "untrustworthy, unfaithful", a compound of δυσ-, dys-, a prefix of negation, + πιστον, "faithful, trustworthy, reliable". The word is found in the Maximus Planudes (c. 1260-c. 1305) manuscript's version of this poem, and nowhere else in Greek literature. Meleager was famous for coining compound words (cf. the first word of this poem.) Substitution of a spondee would be unremarkable earlier in the line, but it would be remarkable in the fifth foot.

δυσόϊστον (dysóiston) = "hard to bear, insufferable". Same suggestion as Gow and Page's above, but Pierre Waltz (French, active in 1928) breaks the diphthong οι into two syllables in order to shoehorn the word into the meter.

δυσύποιστον (dusúpoiston) = "unable to be withstood". Suggestion of Claudius Salmasius (French, 1588-1653). A fairly unusual word which fits the meter perfectly. Basically the same word as the first option presented here, but with ὑπο-, hypo-, a prefix meaning "under", snuck into it; thus, a descriptor for something one is "unable to stand up under". This word represents a multi-letter departure from the Planudes manuscript (π to ύπο); however, to me it seems plausible that a Christian scribe might have been distracted by the similarity of this word to the adjective πιστός, pistós, "faithful," (not to mention the noun πίστις, pístis, "faith or trust") which the Greek New Testament uses incessantly.

Gow and Page agree with German translator Hermann Beckby (fl. 1928-1953) that to regard the final syllable ον as ων--thus turning this word into an adverb modifying L4's πικρὸν--is also a possibility.

Line 4:
pentameter (2.5 dactyls + 2.5 dactyls = 5 dactyls, with one substitution)

— ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — | — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ —
i.e. - uu - uu - | - uu - uu -
πικ-ρὸν ἀ-εὶ κραδ-ί-ᾳ | κέν-τρον Ἔρ-ω-τος ἔ-χει;
pik-ròn a-eì krad- í- āi | kén- tron Ér- ō- tos é-chei?

πικρὸν (pikròn) = "pointed, sharp, keen"; also metaphorically, "bitter" Adjective in agreement with κέντρον.

ἀεὶ (aeì) = "always, forever"; adverb.

κραδίᾳ (kradíāi) = "to the heart"; dative (indirect object) case of the feminine noun κραδία, which is the Doric form of κραδίη, which is in turn the Epic form of καρδία, "heart". And it is deliberately pretentious crap like this which made me decide that Ancient Greek poetry was way more trouble than it was worth fussing with, decades ago. Anyway....

κέντρον (kéntron) = "sting of bees and wasps". (Also means "any sharp point," "point of a spear," "spur of a cock," and "goad for horses or cattle.") Masculine noun. Accusative case, because it is the direct object of ἔχει.

Ἔρωτος (Érōtos) = "of Eros". Genitive of possession, modifying κέντρον.

ἔχει (échei) = "she has". Third person singular active indicative of the verb ἔχω, échō, "have, hold, possess."

; = (Greek question mark)

Line 5:
hexameter (six dactyls, with two substitutions)

— ︶ ︶ — — — ︶ | ︶ — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ — —
i.e. - uu - - - u | u - uu - uu - -
ναὶ δο-κέ-ω τοῦτ' εἶ-πας· | ἰ-ὼ ϕιλ-έ-ρα-στε, πα-λίμ-πους
naì do-ké-ō toũt' eĩ -pas: | i- ṑ phil-é-ra- ste, pa-lím-pous

ναὶ δοκέω (naì dokéō) = "yes, I think so"; idiomatic expression formed from the strong affirmative adverb ναὶ , "verily" + δοκέω, "think, form an opinion, expect, suppose." The verb is the first person singular present active.

τοῦτ' (toũt') = "that" or "that is what"; direct object of εἶπας.

εἶπας (eĩpas) = "you said" or "you were saying"; second person singular indicative aorist (past) tense of the irregular verb εἶπον, "say", which is used only in the past tense. (The verb ϕημί is used for the present tense of "say".)

· (Greek colon or semicolon)

ἰὼ (iṑ) = "oh" (Defined in Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon as "an exclamation of joy or suffering". Thanks, L&S!)

ϕιλέραστε (philéraste) = "lover-assistant" or "friend to lovers"; actually the vocative case of an adjective being used as a noun: "[you who are] fond of lovers"[/b]. From ϕίλος, phίlos, "dear, friendly, beloved, fond" + "ἐραστής, erastḗs, "the active partner in a love relationship". (The passive partner in a love relationship was the ἐρώμενος, erṓmenos, if male and the ἐρωμένη, erōménē, if female.

παλίμπους (palímpous) = "going back, returning"; Adjective apparently from πάλιν, pálin, "back, backwards, again" + πούς, poús, "foot".

Line 6:
pentameter (2.5 dactyls + 2.5 dactyls = 5 dactyls, with two substitutions)

— ︶ ︶ — — — | — ︶ ︶ — ︶ ︶ —
i.e. - uu - - - | - uu - uu -
στεῖ-χε· πά-λαι τὴν σὴν | οἴ-δα-μεν ἀγ-γε-λί-ην.
steĩ-che: pá- lai tḕn sḕn | oí-da-men an-ge- lí- ēn.

στεῖχε (steĩ-che) = "walk, march, go"; second person singular command.

· (Greek colon or semicolon)

πάλαι (pá- lai) = "long ago" or "for a long time".

τὴν (tḕn) = "the"; singular direct article; feminine gender; accusative (direct object) case, in agreement with ἀγγελίην.

σὴν (sḕn) = "your"; second person singular personal pronoun; feminine gender; accusative case, in agreement with ἀγγελίην.

οἴδαμεν (oídamen) = "we have seen, we know"; from an irregular verb meaning "see", which is not used in the active present (another verb, ὁράω, is used for that). The perfect, οἶδα, "I have seen," is used to mean "I know." οἴδαμεν is a rare form of the first person plural. In this context, it might reasonably be translated as first-person singular.

ἀγγελίην (angelíēn) = "message"; Ionic form of feminine gender, accusative (direct object) case.

. (Greek period or full stop)

If anyone wants to challenge the definitions I've provided, feel free to cut and paste individual Greek words into this online dictionary: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/search .


Ἡ εὐτυχία πᾶσι, Hē eutuchía pãsi, Good luck to all!

[Julie Steiner]

MELEAGER'S BEE POEM--THE ORIGINAL GREEK:

Meleager's bee poem (AP 5.163 = 50 Gow-Page)

Ἀνθοδίαιτε μέλισσα, τί μοι χροὸς Ἡλιοδώρας
.....ψαύεις ἐκπρολιποῦσ' εἰαρινὰς κάλυκας;
ἦ σύ γε μηνύεις ὅτι καὶ γλυκὺ καὶ †δύσοιστον
.....πικρὸν ἀεὶ κραδίᾳ κέντρον Ἔρωτος ἔχει;
ναὶ δοκέω τοῦτ' εἶπας· ἰὼ ϕιλέραστε, παλίμπους
.....στεῖχε· πάλαι τὴν σὴν οἴδαμεν ἀγγελίην.

†Or δύσπιστον, or δυσόϊστον, or δυσύποιστον. Also, any of these four options could have the ending ων instead of ον, making it an adverb.


THE ENGLISH PROSE CRIB:

(1) Flower-dwelling bee, why, for my benefit, are you are touching (verb ψαύεις in L2) Heliodora's skin, (2) having left behind the springtime blossoms? (3) Can it be that you indicate that she posesses (verb ἔχει in L4) something both sweet and †insufferable, (4) bitter always to the heart--the sting of Eros? (5) Yes, I suppose that is what you were saying. O, friend of lovers, go (verb στεῖχε in L6) back: (6) long have I understood your message.

†Or "unfaithful", or "hard to stand". Any of these options could also be taken as an adverb modifying "bitter".


THE ELEGIAC DISTICH RECIPE, if you choose to attempt it:

The hexameter line:
— ︶︶ — ︶︶ — |︶|︶ — ︶︶ — |︶︶ — ︶
i.e. - uu - uu - |u|u - uu - |uu - u , in simpler text

The pentameter line:
.....— ︶︶ — ︶︶ — | — ︶︶ — ︶︶ ︶
i.e. - uu - uu - | - uu - uu u

— , i.e. - = one long syllable
︶︶, i.e. uu = either one long syllable or two short syllables
︶, i.e. u = either one long syllable or one short syllable (line-ending syllables seem longer, anyway)
| = possible location of the line's caesura (a significant break between words--usually between syntactical units. One per line, but three possible locations in the hexameter line; only one in the pentameter line.)

[Ann Drysdale]

What is FE over 36, please?

[Maryann Corbett]

Somebody has to start, so here with all its flaws is a first attempt.

Honeybee, dweller in flowers, explain why you've left them. For my sake?
Why are you nuzzling up to the skin of my Heliodora?

Maybe you're telling me something, some secret about what you taste there:
sweet and unbearable Eros; Eros, the stinging, the bitter.

Yes, that's the gist, I imagine. But take yourself back to your flowers,
friend of all lovers. I've known for years what you're trying to say.


Mulling possibilities. (And later editing back to decide.)

We've had many disputes over the years about whether and how classical length-based meters should be translated into English stress-based meters. I think I can predict who will dislike this approach. But I like dactyls.

Some late thoughts: Though I'm glad to have tried the original meter, I have to agree that it looks padded compared to the nice compression of the versions below. Latin and Greek just seem to take more syllables to say a thing, a problem one meets often in the English translations fitted to classical choral works.

(Ann, since I'm not seeing anything like FE over 36, I think there's something amiss with the way your browser is rendering the code for the Greek. Perhaps Bill Lantry can be of assistance.)

[Ann Drysdale]

I don't think it's Greek; there are little boxes in the bits where metre is mentioned, and those letters and numbers appear therein.

[Julie Steiner]

Browser versions of some fonts support more "special characters" than others. I've changed the font of my first message to Garamond (always so much tinier than Verdana, sigh), and the font of the second to Georgia. Does either of those help?

Are you seeing any Greek, Ann? Maybe it's just my long and short symbols that are getting garbled. Edited with simpler characters above, just in case.

By the way, here's some perhaps-helpful commentary by Regina Höschele, from her article "Meleager and Heliodora," published in Plotting with Eros: Essays on the Poetics of Love and the Erotics of Reading, edited by Ingela Nilsson (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2009):

The poet sees a bee touch Heliodora's skin and interprets this as a sign of love's bittersweetness, adding that he is not in need of the bee to understand the way things work--presumably because he has already experienced both aspects of erotic desire. Even though the message is indeed clear and in line with the traditional topos of love being bittersweet (γλυκύπικρος, glukúpikros, cf. Sappho 130.2 L-P), the image evoked by Meleager is rather unusual. The first distich, in which the bee is addressed, seems to suggest that the lover is worried lest Heliodora be stung[...]. [W]e might expect that the poet is going to analogize flower-like Heliodora to the blossoms of spring. Meleager, however, is moving in another direction by reading the union of insect and beloved as an emblem of Eros' bittersweetness. Yet he gives the conventional motif a witty twist by characterizing the sting itself as both sweet (γλυκύ, glukú) and bitter (πικρόν, pikrón), instead of associating the sweetness with the bee's honey-collecting activities. Flower-like Heliodora, for whose sake the bee has abandoned the blossoms of spring, turns out to be some sort of bee herself--accordingly Meleager should not so much be anxious about her well-being as about his own.

Elsewhere in her article, Höschele quotes another of Meleager's poems in its entirety--it's a single distich (AP 5.157 = 49 G-P):

Τρηχὺς óνυξ ὑπ' Éρωτος ἀνέτραϕες Ἡλιοδώρας·
.....ταυτῆς γὰρ δύνει κνίσμα καὶ ἐς κραδίην.

Höschele's literal prose crib: (1) Harsh nail of Heliodora's, you must have been trained by Eros, (2) for her scratch penetrates my very heart.

The G-P notes on that poem are of the opinion that "what is meant of course is not painful scratching, but pleasurable stimulation." Ooookay...

[Mary McLean]

Bee, why do you forsake the flora,
nudging the flesh of Heliodora?
To warn me nectared beauty brings
Eros’s bitter-blissful stings?
Return to sipping flowers – go!
Your message I already know.

(L4 I initially had "bitter piercing", but changed it after reading Julie's post above; L5 had flower-supping, which I then abandoned as being a hyphen too far.)

[Susan McLean]

Bloom-dwelling bee, why are you nuzzling the skin
of Heliodora, deserting the blossoms of spring?
Is it to show that she has something sweet and unbearable,
always transfixing the heart, like Desire with his sting?
Yes, I suppose that’s your message. Ah, friend to the lover,
go back now. If that’s what you’re saying, I’ve known it forever.

[Mary McLean]

Susan, I like it! Particularly the latter half. I found the first line hard to work out the meter, though re-reading after I got the dactylic rhythm I think the dropped syllables do work. It would be smoother with Maryann's clever use of 'honeybee'.

I also like the use of Desire. Eros is such an awkward name (particularly "Eros's", as I have).

[Susan McLean]

Mary, I take your point about the unpredictability of the first line. Though I was tempted to use Maryann's "honeybee," English dactyls have a tendency to get monotonous if they are too regular. I was trying to be subtle in the rhythms of the first line, using the way I would normally say the line to suggest a rhythm that later becomes clearer. Where possible, I have clipped the unstressed syllables at the end of a line or moved one to the next line.

You have a point, too, about the awkwardness of "Eros's." I hate the repetition of too many s sounds in a row, so "Eros's sting" was right out.

Susan