Welcome
Who is Catullus?  Links
Catullus Forum   Search Translations
 

  Available Chinese translations:  
 
1 2 2b 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 14b 15 16 17 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41
42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51
52 53 54 55 56 57 58 58b 59 60
61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70
71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 78b 79
80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89
90 91 92 93 94 95 95b 96 97 98
99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108
109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116
 

  Available languages:  
 
Latin
Afrikaans   Albanian   Arabic
Brazilian Port.   Bulgarian   Castellano
Catalan   Chinese   Croatian
Czech   Danish   Dutch
English   Esperanto   Estonian
Finnish   French   Frisian
German   Greek   Gronings
Hebrew   Hindi   Hungarian
Interlingua   Irish   Italian
Japanese   Korean   Limburgs
Norwegian   Persian   Polish
Portuguese   Rioplatense   Romanian
Russian   Scanned   Serbian
Spanish   Swedish   Telugu
Turkish   Ukrainian   Vercellese
Welsh  
 

  Gaius Valerius Catullus     
About Me
Send a Reaction
Read Reactions
 

 
Catullus Forum

Main  ::  Translations - all  ::  More prafanity in the first lines (Carmen 16)

<<  •  >>

AuthorMessage
Theodore8711
Posted on Fri Oct 01, 2010 07:27:32  
I have to strongly disagree with the current translation. For once, those who are not keen on British-English idioms may perhaps miss out on the crudeness and I also think that they do not convey the level of force that exists in these expressions. The languages suggests almost as if he was about to molest them in a violent way.

Pedicabo vos et irrumabo - I will $#$% you and force you to suck me!

For the second line, I would perhaps suggest transliterating the terms pathicus and cinaedus, words that have the very same amount of passive homosexual connotations, with more modern phrases such as "fag" and "bitch", words that also imply effeminacy and passivity.
Chris Weimer
Posted at Tue Oct 05, 2010 01:55:10  Quote
Quote:
  I have to strongly disagree with the current translation. For once, those who are not keen on British-English idioms may perhaps miss out on the crudeness and I also think that they do not convey the level of force that exists in these expressions. The languages suggests almost as if he was about to molest them in a violent way.

Pedicabo vos et irrumabo - I will $#$% you and force you to suck me!

For the second line, I would perhaps suggest transliterating the terms pathicus and cinaedus, words that have the very same amount of passive homosexual connotations, with more modern phrases such as "fag" and "bitch", words that also imply effeminacy and passivity.


This poem is one of those that hardly anyone wants to translate literally. You can't even find good definitions for paedico and irrumo in the Oxford Latin Dictionary. I personally translated the first line as:

"I will $#$% your ass and rape your mouth". Ultimately, though, the translator isn't *wrong* considering that it's all poetics anyway. It's consistent with some translation method. Furthermore, if the non-British student were to google Catullus 16, they could easily get some more idiomatic translations. As far as the owner changing the translation, although I can't speak definitively for him, I'm not positive they'll go for a more blunt and offensive translation for the website despite the fact that it's more original to Catullus, especially when the current translation isn't wrong.
Guest
Posted at Wed Apr 30, 2014 02:43:07  Quote
I think it's simply wrong: in no way it conveys the effect or the meaning written by Catullus, it avoids the original.

It happens in Portuguese too.
Guest
Posted at Tue Nov 10, 2015 14:17:43  Quote
I"ll pack your fudge and skull $#$% you
Aurelius...... One Eight Seven with my dick in yer mouth!
Furius......BEEEE-ATCH!


It is just so much essier to rhyme romance languages.... Lots of "O"s on the end....
 


  � copyright 1995-2010 by Rudy Negenborn
   Nedstat