Welcome
Who is Catullus?  Links
Catullus Forum   Search Translations
 

  Available Catalan 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 - per Carmen  ::  Carmen 38  ::  carmen 38

<<  •  >>

AuthorMessage
Guest
Posted on Sat Oct 18, 2008 23:10:34  
Sorry , but I am in great suspicion that the translation of Carmen 38 is incorrect. The meaning is just the opposite. First of all, the word “malest†does not mean “Things are badâ€Â

Malest = magis+est. = the desire grows.

In this context the desire means love.

It means that the love of Catullus grows – and nothing else. Then his friend Cornelius sends him some words of comfort but the author denies them.

In the English language the order of the words is strict. Both, in the Russian and in the Latin poetry the order of the words is arbitrary. That is why it is more easy to us to understand Latin poems.

Englishmen would write the phrase as follows:

Quod tu es quem solatus allocutione qua minimum facillimumque est

It is you (i.e. not me) who are comforted when sending me the words of comfort, and you do it without any difficulty.

And then he says

Paulum quid lubet allocutionis, maestius lacrimis Simonideis

And this must be a question.
Quid lubet paulum allocutionis, maestius lacrimis Simonideis?

Who likes the words of comfort which are more sad that the tears of Simonid?

It means that Catullus does not want to hear any words of comfort.

Yours sincerely

Olga (Moscow, Russia)
Cambrinus
Posted at Sun Jan 10, 2010 18:57:55  Quote
I am afraid that, Olga, you have misunderstood the poem. 'malest' is 'male est', no doubt about it!
 


  � copyright 1995-2010 by Rudy Negenborn
   Nedstat