View Single Post
  #2  
Unread 04-15-2024, 11:52 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
Posts: 8,382
Default

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.

Last edited by Julie Steiner; 04-16-2024 at 12:16 AM.
Reply With Quote