The HyperTexts
Martial Translations by Michael R. Burch
These are my modern English translations of poems, epigrams and quotations
by
Marcus Valerius Martialis, who is better known today simply as Martial. Martial was born circa 40 AD and died circa 104 AD. He was a Latin poet from Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula, or modern-day
Spain). Martial is best known for his twelve books of epigrams, which were published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and
Trajan. In these short, witty, often scathing and sometimes deliciously raunchy
poems, Martial lampooned "civilization" and the boorish/scandalous activities of his
contemporaries. He wrote more than 1,500 epigrams, most of them in elegiac
couplets, and is generally considered to be the father of the modern epigram.
Martial has been described as "colorful" and as "Rome's wiseacre poet."
Martial has been a probable influence on epigrammatists such
as Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Thomas More, Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson,
Robert Herrick, Matthew Prior, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Voltaire, Dr.
Samuel Johnson, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Emily Dickinson, Walter Savage Landor, Robert Frost and J. V. Cunningham.
translations by Michael R. Burch
You ask me why I've sent you no new verses?
There might be reverses.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You ask me to recite my poems to you?
I know how you'll "recite" them, if I do.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You ask me why I choose to live elsewhere?
You're not there.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You ask me why I love fresh country air?
You're not befouling it there.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You ask me why I love fresh country air?
You're not befouling it, mon frère.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You never wrote a poem,
yet criticize mine?
Stop abusing me or write something fine
of your own!
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
1.
You’ll find good poems, but mostly poor and worse,
my peers being “diverse” in their verse.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
2.
Some good poems here, but most not worth a curse:
such is the crapshoot of a book of verse.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura
quae legis hic: aliter non fit, Auite, liber.
He undertook to be a doctor
but turned out to be an undertaker.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Chirurgus fuerat, nunc est uispillo Diaulus:
coepit quo poterat clinicus esse modo.
1.
The book you recite from, Fidentinus, was my own,
till your butchering made it yours alone.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
2.
The book you recite from I once called my own,
but you read it so badly, it’s now yours alone.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
3.
You read my book as if you wrote it,
but you read it so badly I’ve come to hate it.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Quem recitas meus est, o Fidentine, libellus:
sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus.
Recite my epigrams? I decline,
for then they’d be yours, not mine.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Ut recitem tibi nostra rogas epigrammata. Nolo:
non audire, Celer, sed recitare cupis.
I do not love you, but cannot say why.
I do not love you: no reason, no lie.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare:
hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.
You’re young and lovely, wealthy too,
but that changes nothing: you're a shrew.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Bella es, nouimus, et puella, uerum est,
et diues, quis enim potest negare?
Sed cum te nimium, Fabulla, laudas,
nec diues neque bella nec puella es.
Coq au vin
by Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
1.
Hosts always invite you to dinner, Phoebe,
but are you an éclair to the greedy?
2.
Hosts always invite you to dinner, Phoebe,
but are you Amaro to the greedy?
Amaro is an after-dinner liqueur thought to aid the digestion after a large meal.
3.
Hosts always invite you to dinner, Phoebe,
but are you an aperitif to the greedy?
4.
Hosts always invite you to dinner, Phoebe,
but they’re pimps to the seedy.
Ad cenam invitant omnes te, Phoebe, cinaedi.
mentula quem pascit, non, puto, purus homo est.
Epitaph for the Child Erotion
by Marcus Valerius Martial
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Lie lightly on her, grass and dew ...
So little weight she placed on you.
NOTE: I created the translation above after the Nashville Covenant school
shooting and dedicated the translation to the slain children and the adult
victims of the massacre.
He starts everything but finishes nothing;
thus I suspect there's no end to his fucking.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You dine in great magnificence
while offering guests a pittance.
Sextus, did you invite
friends to dinner tonight
to impress us with your enormous appetite?
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You alone own prime land, dandy!
Gold, money, the finest porcelain—you alone!
The best wines of the most famous vintages—you alone!
Discrimination, taste and wit—you alone!
You have it all—who can deny that you alone are set for life?
But everyone has had your wife—
she is never alone!
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
To you, my departed parents, dear mother and father,
I commend my little lost angel, Erotion, love’s daughter,
who died six days short of completing her sixth frigid winter.
Protect her now, I pray, should the chilling dark shades appear;
muzzle hell’s three-headed hound, less her heart be dismayed!
Lead her to romp in some sunny Elysian glade,
her devoted patrons. Watch her play childish games
as she excitedly babbles and lisps my name.
Let no hard turf smother her softening bones; and do
rest lightly upon her, earth, she was surely no burden to you!
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
Martial wrote this touching elegy for a little slave girl, Erotion, who
died six days before her sixth birthday. The poem has been nominated as
Martial’s masterpiece by L. J. Lloyd and others. Erotion means “little love” and
may correspond to our term “love child.” It has been suggested she may have been Martial’s child by a female slave. That
could explain why Martial is asking his parents’ spirits to welcome, guide and
watch over her spirit. Martial uses the terms patronos (patrons) and
commendo (commend); in Rome a freed slave would be commended to a patron. A
girl freed from slavery by death might need patrons as protectors on the
“other side,” according to Greek and Roman views of the afterlife, where the
afterworld houses evil shades and is guarded by a monstrous three-headed dog, Cerberus. Martial is
apparently asking his parents to guide the girl’s
spirit away from Cerberus and the dark spirits to the heavenly Elysian fields
where she can play and laugh without fear. If I am correct, Martial’s poem is
not just an elegy, but a prayer-poem for protection, perhaps of his own daughter.
Albert A. Bell supports this hypothesis with the following arguments: (1)
Martial had Erotion cremated, a practice preferred by the upper classes, (2) “he
buried her with the full rites befitting the child of a Roman citizen,” (3) he
entrusted her [poetically] to his parents, and (4) he maintained her grave
for years.
To you, my departed parents, with much emotion,
I commend my little lost darling, my much-kissed Erotion,
who died six days short of completing her sixth bitter winter.
Protect her, I pray, from hell’s hound and its dark shades a-flitter;
and please don’t let fiends leave her maiden heart dismayed!
But lead her to romp in some sunny Elysian glade
with her cherished friends, excitedly lispingly my name.
Let no hard turf smother her softening bones; and do
rest lightly upon her, earth, she was such a slight burden to you!
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
I must admit I'm partial
to Martial.
—Michael R. Burch
Eros was the ancient Greek god of erotic love (or lust) and Cupid was his Roman
equivalent. However, the ancients were more likely to berate Eros/Cupid for
toying with their affections, than to praise him. Modern poets have been known
to feel the same way...
Preposterous Eros
by
Michael R. Burch
“Preposterous Eros” – Patricia Falanga
Preposterous Eros shot me in
the buttocks, with a Devilish grin,
spent all my money in a rush
then left my heart effete pink mush.
Brief Encounters: Other Roman, Italian and Greek Epigrams
• No wind is favorable to the man who lacks direction.—Seneca the Younger, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Little sparks ignite great flames.—Dante, translation by Michael R. Burch
• The danger is not aiming too high and missing, but aiming too low and hitting the mark.—Michelangelo, translation by Michael R. Burch
• He who follows will never surpass.—Michelangelo, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Nothing enables authority like silence.—Leonardo da Vinci, translation by Michael R. Burch
• My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Time is sufficient for anyone who uses it wisely.—Leonardo da Vinci, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Blinding ignorance misleads us. Myopic mortals, open your eyes!—Leonardo da Vinci, translation by Michael R. Burch
• It is easier to oppose evil from the beginning than at the end.—Leonardo da Vinci, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Fools call wisdom foolishness.—Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
• One true friend is worth ten thousand kin.—Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Not to speak one’s mind is slavery.—Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
• I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave.—Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs.—Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Improve yourself by other men's writings, attaining less painfully what they gained through great difficulty.—Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel, or a house when it's time to change residences, even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life.―Seneca, speaking about the right to euthanasia in the first century AD, translation by Michael R. Burch
Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their whores for exotic positions.
—Thomas Campion, Latin epigram, loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
The HyperTexts