Thursday's Translating Tibullus: Explanation part 1 Wearisome Wars (v1-24)

After having posted a translation out of the blue on Tuesday, I return to it on Thursday. In today's post, I revisit the genre of Roman elegiac love poetry and how Tibullus fits into that genre. I  will explain why I started with Elegy 10 and how it relates to Tibullus's other Elegies in book 1. To conclude, I will add some remarks to my Dutch translation (and discuss some emendations). Hopefully, you have obtained a better understanding of the poem!

Tibullus's poems and Elegiac poetry

Tibullus's Elegies pertain to many different themes: some deal with the love he felt for a certain mistress (Delia in book 1, Nemesis in book 2), some address his love for the boy Marathus, others with his appreciation for his patron and friend Messalina. Yet, only two deal with his contempt for war (1.1 and 1.10). In total, we have sixteen poems left from two books in the elegiac metre, a metre that I have already discussed when posting on Ovid’s Amores. Thematically, this kind of poetry narrates the relationship between a loving poet and his puella, a girl always adored by other men, and it highlights the misery the lover finds along his way. It is mostly a fictional relationship, set in a world that resembles the actual one. However, the elegiac couplet, a hexameter followed by a pentameter, was originally used for poetry that expressed any lament so it could be used for any misery theme, such as poverty, wars, and injustices. Tibullus is one poet among many different Roman elegiac poets: he stands next to Catullus (a generalist in poetic metre), Gallus (from whom we have 10 lines left), Propertius (a younger contemporary), and Ovid. Among these poets, Tibullus has managed to differentiate himself as we can inform from Quintilian's remark: “in elegy as well, we challenge the Greeks. Tibullus seems to me the most polished and elegant author (tersus atque !elegans auctor). Some prefer Propertius. Ovid is more frivolous than both, Gallus more strenuous.”

Book 1 Elegy 10

Who in his right mind starts his project with the closing poem of the first book? Well, I can assure you that I am still sound of mind and that I had my reasons. For starters, it is not that weird to start with Elegy 10 since it is closely connected with the opening poem, Elegy 1. Differently, it does not foreground the theme of love as much, thereby showing the complexity and variety of the whole oeuvre. Rather, Elegy 10 is connected with Elegy 1 through the theme of war as an accusable and bemoaning subject: Elegy 1 expresses the poet’s longing to be with his love Delia, which war impedes. Elegy 10 is more about the other atrocious aspects of war: death, greed, and power. Even more fascinating, the poet manages to escape in Elegy 1, but Elegy 10 makes clear that there is no escaping for “the wars are pulling him at this moment (nunc ad bella trahor). Whether this had to do with a biographical detail or with a shift in poetry (there is the idea that Tibullus maybe wrote another work in the genre of epic, mostly associated with wars in meta-literary commentary), is hard to define: there is only a scanty amount of biographical details of Tibullus available from later sources and we must be cautious to read too much of these in his poems.

Nevertheless, it is still remarkable that Tibullus rejects war in this poem; previous elegies have shown a kind of sympathy towards it. For example, Elegies 3 and 7 celebrate Messalina, his patron and general, whom he says to have followed as a soldier during a war (the battle against the Aquitani in Gaul). Scholars (e.g. commentary of Malty) have claimed that Tibullus realised that his desire for a calm and rustic life is unattainable in the current society of weapons and power. While the poet mingles his ideal life with passionate love in Elegy 1, he shifts the setting to a more traditional family lifestyle in the later part of Elegy 10. Even more, he comes to celebrate Pax (the goddess of peace): this, in combination with the traditional family life, seems to fit the Augustan ideology of that time a little too perfectly.

Commentary on text/translation

Stanza 1: The curse on the sword inventor

In this section, Tibullus asks who the inventor of the sword is and what his invention has brought mankind: nothing, but death and destruction. An important wordplay in the first two verses is ferus et ferreus [wild and iron-made], which I translated into vast een wild en wreed man van staal. This rendering keeps the alliteration of the phrase in the v/w sounds. Ferreus is kept in ‘man van staal’, what also has a more positive connotation in Dutch as someone who is bold. However, the Latin wants to stress apathy of the inventor and his connection with his invention (proferre ensem is a kind of play on the word ferrum – meaning steel and sword). The next lines with the phaenomena is a tricolon, starting every segment with tum. While I couldn’t retain the 3x tum, I managed to make the separation into 3 more clearer by stating them in one verse: strijd en slachting, een snellere weg naar de dood. Here I tried to remain an alliteration with s-sounds. However, I neglect to translate dirae, making the element of death not so gruesome. The two verses of this part form a witty suggestion. Maybe we have been faulty in the usage of the invention: this was never his intention. My translation of these two lines are not doing right to the Latin: they are too plump and inelegant

Stanza 2: Greed is the evil-doer

Tibullus sets up a new cause, vitium auri  (het probleem bij het rijkelijk goud ). Although it is in line with the poem, translating vitium with problem feels not adequate enough. It’s not just a problem, it’s a moral deficit to choose for gold. Subsequently, Tibullus starts to portray his ideal image of previous times where there were no wars, where nobody needed to work except for ploughing the land and harvesting (this is a frequent idealisation of pastoral poetry, also a fervid genre in this time). My translation is here neither bad nor excellent, but adequate enough. I am only proud of finding “relaxt” for securus, which is spot on. 

Stanza 3: alas, war is coming

Textual errors are always fun, right guys? I changed vulgi of line 10 into dulcis since O’Hara convincingly argues for a possible allusion between Tibullus and Gallus in this line. Many scholars alter it to the name Valgi (emendation of Heyne), a vocative for the poet C. Valgius Rufus, one from the group surrounding Maecenar according to Horace. However, it is a bit strange to address another poet at this point and it would mean something as: “then there would be a life for me, Valgius, and [….].” In my view, vita foret most logically demands an adjective and this sentiment of “sweet life” without war is a major theme of the rest of the poem. 

Stanza 4: plead to the Lares for help

This plea for help is not as interesting. What is noteworthy, is that the images of these household gods were standing in the house. So when Tibullus states that the gods watched over him as a kid, he means that both literally and figuratively. Furthermore, it is a bit strange that he believes the gods would be ashamed that they are made of old wood. However, we should link this to the vitium auri; everyone wants to become rich and have nicely decorated houses. Maybe the house gods would go with this trend and are therefore indignant and won’t help him during the coming wars. 

Stanza 5: Faith was better back in the day

A common sentiment that everything was better back in the day. This time Tibullus especially focusses on granting of requests (votum). What I like about my translation, is that the last two verses contain rhyme, although this was not on purpose in my first draft.