[Michael Juster]

10.47

Delightful Julius Martial, these
are elements that make life blest:
money inherited, not earned;
a fire year-round; a mind at rest;
productive land; no lawsuits; togas
rarely; friends of like degree;
genteel robustness; bodily health;
wise candor; genial company;
plain fare; nights carefree, yet not drunk;
a bed that’s chaste, but not austere;
sleep, to make darkness brief; desire
to be just what you are, no higher;
and death no cause for hope or fear.


Vitam quae faciant beatiorem,
iucundissime Martialis, haec sunt:
res non parta labore, sed relicta;
non ingratus ager, focus perennis;
lis nunquam, toga rara, mens quieta;
vires ingenuae, salubre corpus;
prudens simplicitas, pares amici;
convictus facilis, sine arte mensa;
nox non ebria, sed soluta curis;
non tristis torus et tamen pudicus;
somnus qui faciat breves tenebras:
quod sis esse velis nihilque malis;
summum nec metuas diem nec optes.


Literal translation by D. R. Shackleton Bailey:
The elements of a happy life,
most delightful [Julius] Martialis, are as follows:
money not worked for but inherited;
land not unproductive; a fire all the year round;
lawsuits never, a gown rarely worn; a mind at peace,
a gentleman’s strength; a healthy body;
guilelessness not naïve; friends of like degree,
easy company, a table without frills;
a night not drunken but free of cares;
a marriage bed not austers and yet modest;
sleep to make the dark hours short;
wish to be what you are, wish nothing better;
don’t fear your last day, nor yet pray for it.


****************************************


So the bad news for this translator is that this piece has been widely translated by everybody from Ben Johnson to me (in Able Muse, if I'm not mistaken). The good news is that I would translate the piece very differently today, so I'm not invested in my own version.

This translation has some strengths; it is quite faithful to the text (maybe too much so here and there), the diction/tone is generally fair, and it pulls off rhyme & meter while maintaining line equivalence. The negatives are that the rhyme, being sparse and unpredictable, doesn't enhance the translation as well as it might, and in general the poem feels a bit slow for a piece that should hum along until the two closing sobering lines.

l.1 The translation stumbles a bit out of the box. One has to be very careful about the Loeb translations--they were musty a hundred years ago, they hide the risque, and often are just flat wrong--I've always guessed that Harvard's big names contracted out the grunt work to undergraduates. Bailey (or some anonymous sophomore) was being fussy inserting "Julius"--it's not in the poem, it's rarely used by anyone, and it just shouldn't be inserted into the translation. I'm also not keen on the awkward enjambment of this line.

l.7 The meter is awkward here, and "bodily" before "health" feels both extraneous and oddly clinical.

l.8 I'm not sure "wise candor" fairly captures the sense of this phrase. I think "genial" needs to become "good" to create room for "wise candor" to become something closer to the paradoxical "naively shrewd."

[Roger Slater]

I don't know whether to blame the poem or the translator, but the tendentious list of life's best desiderata strikes me as boring and charmless. I don't know if it would be true to the original or not, but I'd like to see this bounce along more musically and serve up clever turns of phrase along the way or more memorable aphorisms, a la Polonius who was pompous but not boring.

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I don't know whether to blame the poem or the translator

Roger,

The original has substantial charm, and has been remade in countless charming variations. It's hard to put one's finger on what's missing here, but maybe that's just the magic of Martial? In any case, I give substantial credit to anyone who tries. As Michael points out, this is one of the most translated pieces around.

Thanks,

Bill

[David Rosenthal]

I sort of feel like Bob about this one. I want something a little more bouncy or witty sounding. I can't read the original, but I would like more made of things like "genteel robustness" and the "naively shrewd" Michael points to. More playfulness, I guess. But maybe that isn't in the original.

The semicolons are hard for me to handle too. If they are all at the end of the line, it might be easier to handle, but otherwise, I think either commas are good enough, or the translator has to figure out sensible was of end sentences here and there. I know that sound picky, but the semis were very distracting to me, and that detracted from my enjoyment.

David R.

[Scott Miller]

Michael,

I like this list! Feels pretty Epicurean to me. I don't mind a bit of the subdued tone. Martial's usually a lot more edgy than this, right (my favorite Epigram is to Charinus, and ends each sentence et tamen pallet...)? This is sort of a fluffier piece of his from that standpoint.

In terms of your particular requests (I'm definitely not a Latin expert), here's how I respond:

l.7 How about "genteel strength, clean bill of health"? Gets some colloquial flavor without really departing the meaning.

l.8 I've worked with "candor" in translation too. If you do shift to "good", how about "simple shrewdness"? Simple, but with a paradoxical sense I think...

l.10 I was initially confused as to how I was supposed to read "a bed that’s chaste, but not austere". Chaste just carries too much of an abstinence overtone for me -- I actually had to remind myself that sticking to one's marriage vows is chastity. Although it's not technically accurate, I'd be more inclined to understand something like "modest but not chaste" to give the "happy medium" sense.

Hope you find some of that helpful!

Cheers,
Scott

p.s. I didn't get the whole bake-off thing. So my comments go to the author.

[Gail White]

I'm going to admit that I liked this version very much; it has a contemporary feel while being (by general consent) highly accurate.
Doesn't matter to me if it's been much translated by others -- it's not alone in that.

[Seree Zohar]

I really need to know ... [the bane of any translator, no? heh]

Q: looking at the original, I see each line ends with either colon or, mostly, semi. Midway are commas. Does this imply that all content of each single line relates to the parts of that line?
I ask because the E translation presented here provides a list - some of which I'm not sure I even comprehend, such as "togas rarely" - but looking at the crib, and the way the original's punctuated, I wonder if each line isnt a unit containing a type of parallelism eg: if one's fields are productive, one will have the means to ensure one's fire always warms the home; etc. And if each line is a unit of parallelism of some kind, that would strongly affect language and punctuation choices in the E too.

A: (twiddling thumbs and waiting.....)

[Skip Dewahl]

Really, I can't find a problem with a translation so smooth, cluster-free and comprehensible. So it's been tossed around by every pro and amateur under the sun, so what. I'll bet any unjaded student would agree with me. Had this been pushed too far it might have stumbled into comedy land. Whoever you are that tackled this, leave it alone.

[Alex Pepple]

This is a fair take on a popular classic. This has a compact feel to it, and the form the translator has taken would be difficult to shape into a consistent rhyme scheme. In some ways, I think it's missing the typical Martial punch. Still, I feel it's a fairly successful poem, but such phrases as 'genteel robustness' are weak points that can be fixed. Michael mentioned his Able Muse translation of this poem, which I find more relaxed and free-flowing, and it can be found in our archives here (to compare and contrast).

Cheers,
...Alex

[Seree Zohar]

aaah, tnx for the link.
interesting, it is.