On Apr 11, 6:19=A0am, "Ed Cryer" <e...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "Alastor" <ross...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>
>
news:04718439-e319-4b71-a01c-4b1e82cdc762@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Apr 10, 1:43 am, "Ed Cryer" <e...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > "Alastor" <ross...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>
>
>news:6b6c7c68-096e-45f8-8dcc-c25d938214b8@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > > The wonders of the modern age! Here is a recitation of poem 52 by
> > > Catullus:
> >
>http://latinum.mypodcast.com/2007/07/Cantator_reads_Catullus_51_and_s..=
..
>
> > > I don't fully agree with this style of recitation. Catullus is a
> > > poet
> > > seriously smitten by the luv bug for Lesbia, but the delivery
> > > communicates nothing of his passionate and confused helplessness,
> > > particularly for these lines:
>
> > > lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
> > > flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
> > > tintinant aures, gemina teguntur
> > > lumine nocte.
>
> > > The linked audio gives these lines a very studied regard for the
> > > meter
> > > but totally ignores stress, which surely in these lines is very
> > > im****tant for expressing the poet's feelings. The art of Latin
> > > recitation is the art of patting your head with the right hand,
> > > while
> > > rubbing your tummy with the left hand, because it's not easy keeping
> > > two different tasks going at the same time - which is my peculiar
> > > metaphorical way of saying, it's im****tant to observe the metrical
> > > lengths while also speaking expressively. That combination of tasks
> > > is
> > > what makes the thing musical. This recitation doesn't quite manage
> > > it
> > > - it's all beat and no melody. That's my personal opinion. However,
> > > I
> > > have to admit, my own delivery seems to me to be inadequate as I
> > > often
> > > begin rubbing both my head and my tummy, or patting both of them, if
> > > you know what I mean. Maybe it was the same for the ancients and
> > > recitation of classical verse was always a real skill that took
> > > years
> > > to develop, as well as some natural talent, like that of an opera
> > > star.
>
> > This poem contains a phrase suitable for the boat-naming thread;
> > "dulce
> > ridentem". If we were to rewrite Catullus IV (song to a yacht
> > (phaselus)) we might address it as "Dulce ridens qui ventos
> > persequitur".
>
> > It's a translation (or adaptation) of Sappho's most famous poem. Now,
> > here's a paradox of the ancient world. All the lyric poets followed
> > after and paid homage to Sappho, a woman. And they seem to have done
> > it
> > all rather ungrudgingly. Whether it was because she was good, or was
> > lesbian, or was simply the first, we don't know.
>
> > I confess that I read Latin hexameters to myself with complete and
> > utter
> > disregard for normal word pronunciation; just let the metre
> > predominate
> > everywhere. My "Arma virumque cano" can be accompanied with foot-taps;
> > or foot up, foot down.
> > And I tend to do the same with Catullus' hendecasyllables and
> > Sapphics.
> > I get the feel for the rhythm and then just stick to it, even though
> > it
> > mangles all normal word stress patterns.
>
> > Your idea of reading this one with a kind of slaver running down the
> > chin creates a problem for those who know it as the original property
> > of
> > Sappho. It conjures up a picture of lesbian love pushed beyond the
> > limits of respectability. Which might have been ok if Sappho was
> > Madonna-like in looks; rather than a fat and ugly dyke. Again, we
> > don't
> > know.
>
> > Ed- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> Ed, that's a great response and thanks for it. Unfortunately I don't
> have any scraps of Sappho in my private library. Are they worth
> owning? I hate a tease and if there are only a few scraps I'd rather
> not read them or own them. I have some issues with a couple of things
> you said:
>
> First, just because the poem by Catullus is modelled on a love poem by
> Sappho - this means it should be read without feeling? Why? Limits of
> respectability? Respectable people don't write love songs with words
> like that unless they are fully intent on ignoring social decorum as
> far as possible.
>
> Second, you seem to be taking a rather Cato-like view of emotional
> demonstrations ('slaver'?!) The Romans were not all like Cato, as you
> know, and a man about town like Catullus would certainly not put
> himself in that camp! I take him at his word, as a man who wears his
> heart on his sleeve (where exactly did Romans wear their hearts?), the
> kind who would sleep on the doorstep of his mistress in view of all
> passersby without shame, even if the pet pooch was allowed out for a
> piss on the ****ch columns. In fact, I think most Romans were very
> demonstrative. They seem to have loved emotive demonstrations in the
> arts. What about the pantomime actor Pylades? That guy once fired
> arrows into his audience during a performance of Hercules - while
> Octavian was sitting there! During a performance of the same play,
> when somebody in the audience complained loudly that the actor's
> movements were extravagant, Pylades tore off his mask and shouted =A0-
> "I am representing a madman, you fools!" (I got that info
here:http://www.=
oldandsold.com/articles06/dance-2.shtml) If that was the social
> and theatrical background in his own day, do you seriously think
> Catullus would want his poetry recited in the aristocratic manner of a
> Cato, without overt demonstrations of emotion?
>
> Third, classical verse was modelled on song. In song, the accent
> doesn't always coincide with the beat - unless we're talking rap, Bro.
> The accent, cutting across the meter, must be an im****tant ingredient
> in Latin poetry, and that necessarily means exaggerated expressions -
> nobody sings in the flat manner of somebody reading a shopping list.
> Anyhow, that's how I see it.
>
> By the way, I think very highly of the guy who put the audio link out
> there. I don't agree with the style of his delivery but the fact that
> he did it at all is something that sets him apart. In some ways, he's
> a bit like Catullus sleeping on the ****ch for anyone to poke fun at. I
> just don't understand why he then opted for restraint - maybe it was
> schooled into him.
>
> *******************
>
> My reply will start with the story of the survival of Catullus' poetry.
> It survives by only one manuscript. One single manuscript. The Christian
> Church buried Catullus by simply not transcribing his works. I guess
> they would have succeeded for all time except for some faint whiff of a
> deity far older; the goddess Fortuna.
> An old wine jar was unearthed more than ten centuries after it had been
> buried. And in it, hastily stuffed through the narrow jar neck, was a
> full book of Catullus.
> Now, how did it get in there? Wine, women and song. Sounds worthy of
> Horace, but Horace survived through many transcriptions.
> My favourite hypothesis is some teenager way back going through that
> difficult period of puberty, and having used Catullus surreptitiously;
> out of sight. The human body has an inbuilt maturation system; and at
> puberty it changes a boy into a man, well kind of. It releases
> testosterone, fills his waking and sleeping hours with *****c images,
> driving him half insane in the process. But that is nature; the selfish
> gene. Nature wants to propagate the species before all else; and it does
> so with utter disregard for much else. It produces the teenager; that
> poor soul who postures and struts, and thinks he knows everything.
>
> Now, let these loose into positions of power, and what kind of a world
> would they create? One, no doubt, in which their major preoccupations
> would receive full expression and honour. And I doubt there'd be much
> room for the music of Beethoven and Bach, the poetry of Vergil and
> Milton, research into cancer or other diseases of the elderly, not much
> spirituality beyond the lyrical type, not much Shakespeare beyond Romeo
> and Juliet.
>
> In short, teenagers may think they know it all; I'm bloody sure they
> don't. And I'm damn sure I don't want to live in a country run by them;
> what you might cal a "juvenocracy".
>
> That's where "respectability" comes into the picture; the acceptable
> mores are the mere rules designated to bring about and foster certain
> social conditions. And our western societies (very similarly, actually
> to ancient Rome) balance often precariously between those two extremes
> of freedom of expression/ promoting the better things in life.
>
> Back to Catullus-singing. I have more than a sneeking regard for this
> video;http://tinyurl.com/4nt3qb
> I see Catullus as a kind of Robbie Burns; and his poems turn easily into
> songs.
>
> Here's a good link for some translations of
Sappho.http://www.sappho.com/p=
oetry/sappho.html
>
> Ed- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
I'm gobsmacked (that's the spelling, isn't it?). I followed the Sappho
link to another site and downloaded the works of Sappho, including
translation and comprehensive commentary. I had no idea such resources
were freely available online! What a blinkered idiot!
I'm equally gobsmacked by the young rocker and his rendition of
Catullus. That's more like it! That's what Catullus would want, I'm
sure, rather than a monotonic metronome. Still, it's raw, and he would
probably advise the rocker to be a little less thump-thump-thump-
thump. I'm amazed that a rocker would dream of such a thing let alone
attempt it. Rather humbling, really, just to think what he might be
doing with Latin texts 30 years from now. He certainly won't be an old
fart like me pretending to be young again, because he would already
have done it by then.
Regarding poem 51, acting out the role of Sappho would be natural for
Catullus, who was of course bi***ual, and he was clearly fascinated by
the Cybele cult and its ritual castrations. So I think he probably
recited his own poem very expressively in drag.
Regarding your Catullus-boat suggestion, I revisited poem 4 for the
first time in some years and also did a bit of background reading.
Quite enchanting. Apparently Catullus went with Memmius (same dude
that Lucretius apostrophizes) to Bithynia. His brother had died out
there and that was the reason for Catullus going. A sad trip thus far.
But once there he built or bought a boat, made from local timbers, and
then sailed it back home, even hauling it over land to moor it in Lake
Garda, near his family's villa. He wanted to keep the boat as a
memorial of his journey, which I assume was also a memorial to his
brother. I can imagine the little boat gradually rotting away on the
bank, perhaps a venue for local boys to play out dreams of adventure,
long after Catullus was dead and gone. The pathos is all the more
touching or relevant today because we all come upon bits of the past
left lying around here or there, and we all wonder about the lives
that were involved with it.
Anyhow, life is rich in incident and detail and we're all blessed to
be part of it. Except when I run out of coffee. That's when everything
seems bleak, dreary and incredibly irritating.
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