Welcome
Who is Catullus?  Links
Catullus Forum   Search Translations
 

  Available Serbian 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  ::  Discrepancies translations of Carmen 1 (Carmen 1)

<<  •  >>

AuthorMessage
Guest
Posted on Fri May 21, 2010 23:15:58  
There appear to be discrepancies between the English, German, Spanish, Rioplatense, and French translations of Carmen 1.

The Latin text contains:
...auses es unus Italorum
omne aevum ... explicare...

The English and German translations take the genitive Italorum to apply to aevum, thus "the whole age of the Italians" and "als einziger der Italer."

However, the French, Spanish, and Rioplatense translations take the genitive Italorum to apply to unus, thus "alors que tu osas, le premier en Italie," "te atreviste, el único entre los italianos," and "cuando vos, el único entre los itálicos."

These modern translations obviously convey different meanings. I was under the impression that Italorum applied to aevum (in accordance with the English and German translations), however I am not entirely certain; it seems that, grammatically, Italorum could apply to unus.

What do scholars say about this passage, and how do they translate it? I suggest that all of the modern-language translations be in accordance with one interpretation of the Latin text.

(Note: how interesting that the two Germanic languages in this group translated it one way and the three Romance ones the other!)

Sincerely,
Michael B.
Chris Weimer
Posted at Sat May 22, 2010 23:29:20  Quote
Hello Michael.

The scholars have actually long been divided on the issue, and that's why you see different translations. There's no absolute way of knowing which it is, thus is the nature of Catullan poetry, but if you want to know the most recent commentator's opinion on the matter, D. F. S. Thomson remarks in his edition of Catullus (1997) that unus governs Italorum, and the meaning of "unus" would be equivalent to "primus".
Guest
Posted at Fri Sep 24, 2010 15:43:40  Quote
Quote:
  The English and German translations take the genitive Italorum to apply to aevum, thus "the whole age of the Italians" and "als einziger der Italer."


"Als einziger der Italer" would actually be English as "who alone amongst Italians", so also the German translation does _not_ agree with English.
 


  � copyright 1995-2010 by Rudy Negenborn
   Nedstat