/lit/ - Literature

>>14850560
Golding's or if you want a more modern one Allen Mandelbaum

Rolfe Humphries

>>14850577
>Golding
Definitely not that one. Completely different book.

>>14850585
fair point, I just think his English is beautiful

>>14850560
>those lips
Anyone know anything about Raeburn? I bought it in hs because it was an ez order off amazon

Melville

>>14850603
Anyone have lines?

>>14850606
2004: RAEBURN

Changes of shape, new forms, are the theme which my spirit impels me
now to recite. Inspire me, O gods (it is you who have even
transformed my art), and spin me a thread from the world's beginning
down to my own lifetime, in one continuous poem.

2004: MARTIN

My mind leads me to speak now of forms changed
into new bodies: O gods above, inspire
this undertaking (which you've changed as well)
and guide my poem in its epic sweep
from the world's beginning to the present day.

2001: SIMPSON

My mind leads me to something new, to tell of forms changed to other bodies. Gods, inspire this poem I've begun (for you changed it too), and from the first origin of the world spin my song's fine thread unbroken down to my own time.

2001: AMBROSE

My mind would tell of forms changed into
new bodies: gods, into my undertakings (for you changed even those)
breathe life and from the first origin of the world
to my own times draw forth a perpetual song!

1997: HUGHES

Now I am ready to tell how bodies are changed
Into different bodies.

I summon the supernatural beings
Who first contrived
The transmogrifications
In the stuff of life.
You did it for your own amusement.
Descend again, be pleased to reanimate
This revival of those marvels.
Reveal, now, exactly,
How they were performed
From the beginning
Up to this moment.

1994: SLAVITT

Bodies, I have in mind, and how they can change to assume
new shapes--I ask the help of the gods, who know the trick:
inspire me now, change me, let me glimpse the secret
and sing, better than I know how, of the world's birthing,
the creaton of all things from first to the very latest.

1993: MANDELBAUM

My soul would sing of metamorphoses.
But since, o gods, you were the source of these
bodies becoming other bodies, breathe
your breath into my book of changes: may
the song I sing be seamless as its way
weaves from the world's beginning to our day.

1989: BOER

To tell how forms changed to new bodies:
you gods changed them, so breathe
on my efforts & keep this poem, from creation
to my own time, coming!

1986: MELVILLE

Of bodies changed to other forms I tell;
You Gods, who have yourselves wrought every change,
Inspire my enterprise and lead my lay
In one continuous song from nature's first
Remote beginnings to our modern times.

>>14850606
>>14850617
1958: GREGORY

Now I shall tell of things that change, new being
Out of old: since you, O Gods, created
Mutable arts and gifts, give me the voice
To tell the shifting story of the world
From its beginning to the present hour.

1955: HUMPHRIES

My intention is tell of bodies changed
To different forms; the gods, who made the changes,
Will help me--or I hope so--with a poem
That runs from the world's beginning to our own day.

1955: INNES

My purpose is to tell of bodies which have been transformed into shapes of a different kind. You heavenly powers, since you were responsible for those changes, as for all else, look favorably on my attempts, and spin an unbroken thread of verse, from the earliest beginnings of the world, down to my own times.

1954: WATTS

Change is my theme. You gods, whose power has wrought
All transformations, aid the poet's thought,
And make my song's unbroken sequence flow
From earth's beginnings to the days we know.

1717: DRYDEN etc.

Of bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing:
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
'Till I my long laborious work compleat:
And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,
Deduc'd from Nature's birth to Caesar's times.

1632: SANDYS

Of bodies chang'd to other shapes I sing.
Assist, you Gods, (from you these changes spring)
And, from the world's first fabric to these times,
Deduce my never-discontinued Rymes.

1567: GOLDING

Of shapes transformde to bodies straunge, I purpose to entreate,
Ye gods vouchsafe (for you are they ywrought this wondrous feate)
To further thise mine enterprise. And from the world begunne,
Graunt that my verse may to my time, his course directly runne.

>>14850603
Lol. Victorian spotted. Melville.

>>14850560
Not that one

>>14850624
In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas
corpora di coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas)
Adspirate meis primaque ab origine unde mundi
ad perpetuum deducite tempora carmen

>>14850624
I actually like the prose translation by Mary Innes.

>>14850560
Slavitt's does it for me.

>>14850560
Read it in latin, you can't really translate literary works as they completely lose their essence by doing so. You will get the meaning, but not the form, which is the entire fucking point of poetry.

>>14850560
I know this is going to be blasphemous, but I prefer Ted Hughes' retelling of Metamorphoses

>>14851898
>essence

too vague to mean anything, if you mean they lose the actual poetry of the language, no shit

this is why the only logical translation is the one that captures the specific devices and imagery the author chose to convey with copious footnotes

>>14851959
I get that anon's adherence to the aesthetics of sonority but cmon we are on 4chan. No reason to LARP as an aristocrat.

>>14851988
that's not a larp, that's a coherent explication of what I think he was trying to get at.

"durr u lose teh essence..."

what the fuck does that mean? it can mean anything.

>>14850572
i dont even know why i laughed at this so hard

>>14851998
should've tagged >>14851898
him for the second part, wasn't directed at you

>>14851959
No matter how much effort you put into it or how good a translator you are you will never be able to replicate it in another language, the language is the thing itself which is being crafted. Just fucking read it in the original language if it is a literary work. I thought I was being very precise with 'essence', but I obviously mean the work as a cohesive whole. No, not just the poetry of language, but the entirety of it, what it is. Language forms not just the poetic mode and the way it is spoken and read but also pure thought.

If you're not going to bother with learning the language and reading it as intended, which isn't as hard as you might think, then you can just skim the bare cliffnotes instead, because you will lose very little.

>>14851898
Great translations can get the "essence," or the spirit of a work.

Horace Gregory is Steve Donoghue's favorite. I've only read Raeburn but I thought it was pretty good.

>>14852028
That was great, I want to tag my political philosophy teacher on twitter with that.

>>14850818
its supposed to be bad, its a joke