Welcome
Who is Catullus?  Links
Catullus Forum   Search Translations
 

  Available Scanned 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  ::  Mistake in the translation of Carmen 7 (Carmen 7)

<<  •  >>

AuthorMessage
Guest
Posted on Tue Sep 30, 2008 21:03:31  
Thank you for your page. You did a great job. I read the porms in Moscow with great interest.

Sorry, but the words

quam magnus numerus Libyssae harenae
lasarpiciferis iacet Cyrenis

are translated incorrectly. The text means : “how many flowers grow/lie in the sands of Libya near Cyrene”. The words Libyssae harenae are in the ablative case. My mother tongue is Russian; in Russian we also use the cases and that is why it is more easy to us to understand Latin texts. Our poetry is similar to the Latin poetry, but the English poetry is very different

Yours sincerely
Olga
Guest
Posted at Sat Nov 01, 2008 21:59:39  Quote
Once more about Carmen 7.

In Carmen 7 Catullus does not count the sands. He compares the kisses of his sweetheart with flowers in a desert. It is a very beautiful comparison.

lasarpicium is a yellow flower whose shape is similar to the shape of the heart. That is why it symbolized love in ancient times. Now it is extinct (because of its medicinal properties, it was a medicinal herb, which was used for preparation of drugs).

As the poet counts only those sands which carry the flowers, he virtually counts the flowers, not the sands!

And these flowers are not just flowers, they are a symbol of love (“love flowers”).

It is a very rich comparison.

The poet does not count the stars as well. He counts secret assignments. That is why the reader understands that his assignment is secret, although the poet does not mention it.
Guest
Posted at Sat Nov 01, 2008 22:02:26  Quote
Sorry I forgot to sign my previous posting about lasarpicium .

Yours sincerely
Olga (Russia)
Guest
Posted at Sun Nov 02, 2008 16:18:31  Quote
In fact it is the shape of the seeds of laserpicium, who have the shape of the heart . So this flower was a symbol of love.

Olga
Guest
Posted at Wed Dec 24, 2008 16:48:55  Quote
Just to put the record straight I'm afraid Libyssae harenae is not in the ablative - the -ae ending can never be the ablative. The ablative ending is a long -a in the singular. lasarpiciferis means silphium producing and agrees with Cyrenis both of which are in the ablative plural. The comparison is with the grains of sand - the flowers are not so vast in number whereas the grains of sand are beyond counting.
Guest
Posted at Sat May 16, 2009 05:28:46  Quote
Olga,

Perhaps you should find a new hobby. To be so familiar with cases, you are terrible at identifying them. Not only are you mistaken in this poem, but you also claim that deliciae in poem 2 is genitive when it is evidently vocative. I suggest that you go back to Latin I and come back when you know its cases, because they are apparently different from Russian.

Very Sincerely,
An Englishman Who Doesn't Use Cases in His Mother Language
 


  � copyright 1995-2010 by Rudy Negenborn
   Nedstat