An epigram of Asclepiades
 

Following on Julie’s elegiac dialogue, here’s one of the epigrams I translated some years ago. My Greek is worse than rusty, and I haven’t rechecked the original.


Anthologia Palatina 5.145—Asclepiades (3rd century B.C.)

Do as I tell you, my garlands, and hang for me here in this doorway.
     Linger a little, and don’t hastily scatter your leaves,
drenched, as they are, with my tears, for the eyes of a lover are rainy.
     Then, when you see him emerge, throwing the doors open wide,
sprinkle my rain on his head, and don’t let it fall wide of its target,
     so that at least his blond hair drinks what is left of my tears.


Edits
L5 was: sprinkle my rain on his head, and give generously of your moisture,
L6 was: letting his golden blond hair drink the soft drops of my tears.


Original

Αὐτοῦ μοι στέφανοι παρὰ δικλίσι ταῖσδε κρεμαστοὶ
     μίμνετε, μὴ προπετῶς φύλλα τινασσόμενοι,
οὓς δακρύοις κατέβρεξα· κάτομβρα γὰρ ὄμματ᾿ ἐρώντων·
     ἀλλ᾿, ὅταν οἰγομένης αὐτὸν ἴδητε θύρης,
στάξαθ᾿ ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς ἐμὸν ὑετόν, ὡς ἂν ἄμεινον
     ἡ ξανθή γε κόμη τἀμὰ πίῃ δάκρυα.


In place of a crib. The first of the following prose translations may be W. R. Paton’s and the second a recent update by David Tueller, both for the Loeb Classical Library. I don’t have the books in front of me and can’t be sure.

Abide here, my garlands, where I hang ye by this door, nor shake off your leaves in haste, for I have watered you with my tears — rainy are the eyes of lovers. But when the door opens and ye see him, shed my rain on his head, that at least his fair hair may drink my tears.

Garlands, stay hanging for me here by these double doors and do not prematurely shake off your leaves; I drenched you with my tears (for lovers’ eyes are stormy). But when the door opens and you see him, shed my rain over his head, so that at least his blond hair may drink my tears.

Tut, tut, gotta do your own homework, Carl, and not make someone else's translation metrical. Languages only give up their charms to those who work for it. :-)

The Perseus Project's Greek Word Study Tool makes it easy to copy and paste individual words into the search window to find their meaning and declensions/conjugations, except for contractions like τἀμὰ ("the my"= "my"), and sometimes you have to click to compare the dictionary entries to figure out what a word means with the genitive vs. the dative or accusative, etc. But that's way easier than trying to figure out the principal parts of a word you don't recognize.

The last two lines:

στάξαθ᾿ ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς ἐμὸν ὑετόν, ὡς ἂν ἄμεινον
Drop over (his) head my rain, so that perhaps/if better

     ἡ ξανθή γε κόμη τἀμὰ πίῃ δάκρυα.
     the yellow at least (enclitic, so it is delayed in the sentence) hair my may drink (from πίνω, verb 3rd singular aorist subjunctive active) tears.

I think those little bitty words "perhaps" and "at least" is important to convey the depths of romantic pathos here. I miss it in your translation. In contrast, you seem to have a lot of metrical filler and repetitions. Both "sprinkle my rain on his head" and "and give generously of your moisture"? Both "blond" and "golden"? Both "drops" (soft ones, at that, which makes me wonder who weeps hailstones) and "tears"? I think you can tighten some of those up to make room for the adverbial qualifiers.

I hear you, Julie. I do study the originals when I attempt translations like this and occasionally even consult scholars, but I failed to re-check this one, years old, before posting and am not proud of that. I did notice the filler and repetitions and the “at least” missing from the last line. Thanks for all the good advice and for reminding me about the Greek Word Study Tool, which I’ve used but forgotten. I’ll see what I can do.

I’ve made a first attempt at fixing the last two lines. It turns out that many scholars have regarded “ἄμεινον” as corrupt, and I couldn’t make much sense of it until I came across this enlightening passage by Sonya Lida Tarán:

“As it stands in the manuscripts the hexameter has been suspected of being corrupt because of the word ἄμεινον, “for if the garlands do not discharge their office the tears will not fall on the boy’s head at all”. Knauer (ad loc.) says that the word is “logisch nicht klar”. But he adds that “vielleicht = ‘besser’ als es sonst möglich ist”, and thus, though he is not as specific as one would wish him to be, he seems to come close to the correct explanation. For in fact the text is sound and emendation worse than unnecessary. What Asclepiades is saying is that the garlands should drop the lover’s tears right upon the boy’s head (ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς) that his hair may drink them thoroughly, that is, drink them better than it would if they were dropped not very accurately ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς but somewhat to one side or the other. Hence the important words for the understanding of this line and particularly of ἄμεινον are those that indicate the place where the tears must fall. since on these words (ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς) ends the better fulfilment of the wish which is of course the point of the epigram: that the boy’s hair should drink the lover’s tears.

“This point, a moving tour de force, takes us back to the sentimental tone of the first three lines which had been somewhat interrupted by the lover’s directions in lines 4-5. The boy’s blond hair is to drink his lover’s tears when he issues out of the house, and this is supposed to bring some consolation to the rejected lover. That is the sense of γε in line 6, for which Gow-Page cannot find any purpose other than metrical. The boy does not open his door and cannot see his lover’s tears, and, moreover, the lover cannot enjoy the boy’s favors. But the knowledge that at least the boy’s hair—if not the boy himself—will notice his tears, and conversely that his own tears—if not himself—will touch the boy’s hair, will to some extent assuage his sorrow.” (The Art of Variation in the Hellenistic Epigram. Leiden: E. ]. Brill, 1979.)

BTW, Julie, I see that your guy and mine were buds back in the day.

See! Obsessing over the original pays off! I was wrong on at least two points. Very interesting find, Carl. I like the "target" in your revision.

(I still don't understand why someone would not only keep, but wear, flowers from a rejected lover, so maybe the source of the poet's tears is the beloved's non-exclusivity or distance, rather than outright rejection.)

Tarán again on the genre of paraklausithyron:

"The epigrams of Asclepiades which we have examined dealt with the comos by suggesting in one way or another the hazardous march through the night to the beloved’s house. Our present poem refers to the next stage, when the lover is already standing in front of the house and complaining about not being admitted indoors. It was common custom on such occasions to hang at the door of the beloved the garlands that the lover had worn at the symposium and during the revel; at the same time the exclusus amator would sing a song of complaint. This song, the παρακλαυσίθυρον, is what Asclepiades seems to have wished to reproduce in this epigram as well as in two other compositions which we shall examine later. It has the form of an address to the garlands, which are asked to drop the lover’s tears on his beloved’s head when he opens the door to go out of the house. … Asclepiades devotes the second hexameter to a description of the garland which increases the suspense by delaying the action of the epigram (the lover’s request) [and] informs the reader of the unhappy end of the comos, that is, it confirms and summarizes the situation previous to the one depicted in the poem, when the reveller begged admission and was rejected."

This is so far out of my comfort zone, Carl, but I like it. The only thing I don't like is "rainy", which I suppose must be faithful to the original but just doesn't work for me as an English word in this context. I see one of your cribs seems to have thought similarly.

Other than that, I think it works like a charm.

Cheers

David

Thanks, David. I rather like “rainy,” though I’m not sure why—or why you don’t. I don’t care for “stormy,” because that seems to imply anger, though David Tueller (whose translation I believe it is) must have had a good reason. I corresponded with him some years ago, so I should ask him. In another translation, the lover’s eyes are rain clouds—striking, but much odder, I thought, than “rainy.”