30.10.24: a poem for Halloween

For anybody who is at the intermediate or advanced level of Latin, I’d like to post this little “ghost story” by the Roman poet Propertius as he sees his beloved Cynthia return from the grave who, at first, looks unchanged but is actually in the form of a skeleton. I think it’s a good example of the possible “two stages” of translation. Latin poetry doesn’t rhyme nor, with a few exceptions, does it adhere to the rhythmic patterns of our poetry now. When looking at this kind of work, a prose translation would be the norm. However, it’s a good challenge to try to render it in some poetic form staying as close as possible to the original sense and mood, allowing the poem to be read aloud.

[1] Here is the original Latin:

Sunt aliquid Manes: letum non omnia finit,

luridaque evictos effugit umbra rogos.

Cynthia namque meo visa est incumbere fulcro,

murmur ad extremae nuper humata viae,

cum mihi somnus ab exsequiis penderet amoris,

et quererer lecti frigida regna mei.

eosdem habuit secum quibus est elata capillos,

eosdem oculos; lateri vestis adusta fuit,

et solitum digito beryllon adederat ignis,

summaque Lethaeus triverat ora liquor.

spirantisque animos et vocem misit: at illi

pollicibus fragiles increpuere manus.

[2] Here’s a prose version of it:

There are Spirits, of a kind: death does not end it all, and the pale ghost escapes the ruined pyre. For Cynthia, lately buried, beside the roadway’s murmur, seemed to lean over my couch, when sleep was withheld from me, after love’s interment, and I grieved at the cold kingdom of my bed. The same hair she had, that was borne to the grave, the same eyes: her garment was charred against her side, and the fire had eaten the beryl ring from her finger, and Lethe’s waters had worn away her lips. She sighed living breath, and speech, but her brittle hands rattled their finger-bones.

[3] Here’s my attempt to get that prose translation into some poetic form in English:

There are such things as ghosts, you know,

Not all things Death can slay,

And from the pyre’s vanquished glow,

A sallow spectre flies away.

Scarce buried by the bustling road my Cynthia was seen,

Who o’er my bedpost seemed to lean,

While, since the funeral of my love,

A restless sleep would hang above

My couch –

That cold domain,

That reason for me to complain.

Unchanged her eyes, her hair unmarred

From when they bore her to the grave,

Against her side her clothing charred,

The gemstone ring she always wore

By all-consuming fire craved,

From Lake Oblivion waters pour

To wash away her lips, but still

Her voice with living breath was filled,

A voice that sighed,

A voice –

As if she’d never

Died.

But brittle hands rang out the tones

Of rapid, rattling finger-bones.