Monday, September 14, 2009

translation 92-104

reuocabo in alta conditam caligine,
ultra nocentum* exilia, discordem deam
quam munit ingens montis oppositi specus;
*nocens as you might expect from the derivative innocent sometimes means not "harming" but "guilty"

I will call back the the one cloaked/concealed in lofty mist,
(from) beyond the exiles of the guilty, (I will call back) the discordant goddess
whom the huge cave of an obstructing mountain walls off.

There is some minor alliteration at the end of lines 92 & 93.
discordem deam is no doubt meant to recall Vergil's Discordia, Aen. 6.280 & 8.702.

As Fitch explains, the cave seems to be a hollow subterranean prison inside a mountain. I am not sure that I agree about changing oppositi to impositi--this doesn't help much in my opinion. The wording is strange but this is poetry after all.

95
educam et imo* Ditis e regno extraham
quidquid relictum est: ueniet inuisum Scelus
suumque lambens sanguinem Impietas ferox
Errorque et in se semper armatus Furor –
hoc hoc^ ministro~ noster utatur dolor.
^notice the anaphora (repetition) reflecting Juno's emotional state
~ablative object of utor
*like medius ("middle of"), imus can have a partitive meaning ("lowest part of" instead of just "lowest") as I suspect is true here.

I shall draw her forth and will drag out of the lowest (part of) the kingdom of Dis whatever is left over. There will come hated Crime, and ferocious Impiety licking her own blood and Error and Madness (who is) always armed against himself. This, this servant let our Grief employ. (I.e. Let our grief employ this as its servant.)

100
Incipite, famulae Ditis, ardentem citae
concutite pinum et agmen horrendum anguibus* *ablative of cause, similar to means
Megaera ducat atque luctifica manu
uastam rogo* flagrante corripiat trabem. *ablative of separation
hoc agite, poenas petite uiolatae Stygis*; *objective genitive

Begin, maidservants of Dis, roused (or as adverb "excitedly/madly") shake the burning pine and let Megaera lead your squad horrible with snakes and let her snatch with her grief-causing hand a vast log from a flaming pyre! Do this, seek out the penalties (i.e. revenge) for the violated/desecrated Styx.

By the way, I prefer vitiatae (E) over violatae (A) in line 104 because lectio difficilior potior est (The more difficult reading is the better one). This is a rule of textual criticism that says that given that there are two possible readings (and there are not other strong grounds for choosing between them), if one of the readings is quite easy to understand while the other is more difficult, the more difficult reading is more likely to be correct since it is less likely that someone would complicate the text than that they would accidentally or even purposefully banalize it (that is, explain away the difficulty by replacing it with a very easy to understand alternative). Personally I like the metaphorical meaning of vitiatae. Violatae is much more common and can mean physically violated in many different ways. Vitiatae implies corruption or befoulment, and one of the common senses of vitiare is "to deflower" or "to rape". Juno's feminine anger against Hercules' super-machoism may be displaying itself here. You should know that, besides being a river, Styx was also a very powerful goddess whom Zeus entrusted to watch over the oaths of the gods.

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