Michie on Horace: Carmina 1/11

James Michie: The Odes of Horace / A Modern Translation (1963)
An illustration for: Nine Maxims On Translation
E Bruce Brooks / University of Massachusetts / 5 Dec 2002

Translator's Statement: "Horace adopted Alcaics in thirty-seven and Sapphics in twenty-six of his 104 Odes (including the Carmen Saeculare), and diversified the rest by the use of more than a dozen other metres. I have done my best to reflect this virtuoso variety. Where my own metre may be thought incongruous, I plead that it was not chosen in accordance with some preconceived theory but seemed to choose itself after more obvious approaches had failed."

[The elements of these translations corresponding to the Latin oppositis and pumicibus, which in the original are separated by the verb debilitat, are shown in red for easier technical comparison].

Carmina 1/11

Don't ask (we may not know), Leuconoë,
What end the gods propose for me
Or you. Let Chaldees try
04To read the ciphered sky;

Better to bear the outcome, good or bad,
Whether Jove purposes to add,
Fresh winters to the past
08Or to make this the last.

Which now tires out the Tuscan sea and mocks
Its strength with barricades of rocks.
Be wise, strain clear the wine
12And prune the rambling vine

Of expectation. Life's short. Even while
We talk Time, grudging, runs a mile.
Don't trust tomorrow's bough
16For fruit. Pluck this, here, now.

The stanza form adopted here is in four lines, rhyming AABB, with a descending 5 + 4 + 3 + 3 foot count. It has a much slighter effect than the original long and equal lines used by Horace (see the comment by Christopher Smart). The diminuendo effect might be thought to symbolize the final infocusing of the poem, rejecting long plans and emphasizing the all-too-passing moment. And so it does, in the last stanza. In the other three stanzas, that same diminuendo effect trivializes.

The same scale problem troubles some of the quotable phrases. Horace, in harmony with his chosen meter, tends to form these in four-syllable groups (scire nefas, carpe diem). Michie tends to prefer two-syllable groups ("don't ask," "or you," life's short", and above all "pluck this.") with their much more abrupt effect.

Looking back on the original from the perspective of this version, one thing we may be struck by is the calm and even tone of the Horace persona (a 5th Asclepiadean persona) in the poem. By contrast, the Michie version has a jumpy texture. We may however feel indebted to Michie for pointing out for us, by contrast, Horace the patient teacher of Epicurean restraint. And coming once again to this version from the original, we may recognize a common feeling in several happy touches: "ciphered" reflecting the arcane calculus of the hidden in "numeros" (so also Zerega 1924), the very apt "tires out the Tuscan sea" for "debilitat . . . mare Tyrrhenum," the literal "pruning" of expectation, and the gathering of the "fruit" of the present day, even if the emblematic "day" itself is sacrificed. The progression of ideas is generally well represented.

Albeit in an allegretto, where Horace preferred an andante.

 

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