A couple of years ago I was browsing some
translations of Horace’s Odes by Prof. Steven Willett .
Having minimal Latin, I’m unable to appreciate the original meters or comment on the fidelity of the translations. But some of the results in English seemed pleasing, and I was interested in the effects achieved using accentual templates to transpose the original quantitative meter. One that appealed to me was Willett’s version of the Third Asclepiad, the meter used for Odes C1.5, C1.14, C1.21, C1.23 and others. Here is his C1.5:
Lapped in masses of rose, Pyrrha, what slender boy
slick with fluent perfume presses you now beneath
....some agreeable grotto?
........Whose your honey-gold hair drawn back,
unpretentiously smart? Oh often enough her faith
he'll lament and the gods' changeable word and watch
....waters roughen with dark winds
........all amazed in his innocence,
who delights in you now golden to credulous eyes,
who expects you unowned always, and always fair,
....ignorant of insidious
........breezes. Lost are those you, untried,
dazzle glaringly bright. I, as the temple wall
indicates by its plaque, have in thanksgiving hung
....up my garments still dripping
........to that powerful god of seas.
I don’t know of any modern poems in this meter, apart from Willett’s translations and one I subsequently attempted myself. Since my theme was “A picture is a poem without words” — which is attributed to Horace — I thought it might be appropriate to try one of these “Englished” Horatian meters. (On investigation, the exact source of the quote turns out to be elusive. I assumed the Ars Poetica but couldn’t find it there.)
POEM WITHOUT WORDS
Seek no emptiness here, caged in a vacancy,
no conundrum of air slipping through bars unheard,
....no non-music that, absent,
........baffles, silent in mystery.
Seek no paradox here, words about wordlessness
undermining themselves. Quintus Horatius
....spoke of paintings, not verses,
........yet his words were for poets too.
Most who strive to create feel the connections that
link each art with the next. Under them all lies a
....common substrate: not only
........sculptors hew at the rockface there.
Soul’s the basis of art. Horace intuited
how it all comes to one, poets and painters and
....music-makers all fed by
........springs that flow from the infinite.
....
This was posted in The Deep End metrical forum. The reference to Cage in L1 went unnoticed, I think!
Does anyone know of other modern English poems (not translations of Horace) in this or other Asclepiadic meter? (For explanations of them, with their English accentual templates, follow the link above, then go to <u>A Note on the Meters</u>....)
[This message has been edited by peterjb (edited July 11, 2004).]