Fwd: The Duty to Translate: Was: Re: Notitia Dignitatum

From: TonyProst@aol.com
Date: Wed Dec 02 1998 - 17:48:55 EST


 

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From: Joe Bernstein <josephb@tezcat.com>
To: homer-l@lists.missouri.edu
Subject: Re: The Duty to Translate: Was: Re: Notitia Dignitatum
In-Reply-To: <9f696606.366468e0@aol.com> from "TonyProst@aol.com" at Dec 1, 98
        05:08:32 pm
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Tony Prost recently wrote:
 
> In a message dated 12/1/98 9:40:57 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> LEMMELS@email.msn.com writes:
>
> << Tony,
>
> I wouldn't mind at all doing some translating as you've suggested. Do you
> have anything specific in mind? My specialty is Homer, so not much work is
> needed there. I'd much like to hear if you have any specific suggestions.
> >>
>
> I do know of a couple late antique Homer knock-offs, which should be
> interesting. Triphiodorus wrote an Odyssey Omitting Letters, and an epic on
> the Capture of Troy (Iliou halo^sis). Colluthus wrote a short Rape of Helen
> (Harpage^ Helene^s). I believe there are one or two Iliads Omitting Letters.
I
> don't know if they have been translated; I doubt it.

I mean no slight to Tony Prost, who is actively working to make Nonnos'
less famous work accessible to me, for which I'm very grateful, but in
general Christian works of late antiquity have done much worse for
translators than have pagan ones, as witness the fact that Nonnos'
<Dionysiaka> has been translated but not (until Mr. Prost began) his
paraphrase of St. John. In just such a way, we find several late
antique epics which have not been translated, but they're typically
all Christian. Tryphiodorus and Colluthus are both in the Loeb Classics
series, along with what's-his-name who did Hero and Leander (Musaeus?).
(This whole post is being written at a distance from my notes, so
please pardon error. What you can *certainly* rely on is whether any
work I mention, once you've identified it past my errors, is or is not
available in a widely accessible English version.)

In contrast to the Greek pagan epics, there has been no translation of
Avitus of Vienne's epic on the deeds of the Holy Spirit until quite
recently, and that one is in prose. I believe Sedulius' <Carmen paschale>
is still untranslated in full, and I know of no attempt to render the
historical epic of the Byzantine reconquest of Africa (I want to say
Corippus, but is that the author, title or hero?) in English. (Memory
fails me whether there is a Dutch or an Italian version, but I think
one of the two exists; none in French, German or Spanish that I know of.)

On the pagan side, Osidius Geta's <Medea> (a cento) has not been touched
in decades in English - there is a recent bilingual Italian edition
and an exceedingly rare pre-WWI bilingual English edition.
The translators of Proba's cento established to my full satisfaction
that centones are not inherently sub-literary; since no other centones
(most of the rest being Christian) are available in English, I can't
know whether this reflects Proba's talent, the translators', or genuine
possibilities in the form. Given that neither <Medea> nor Dracontius'
<Orestes> (totally untouched) are usually included, it is safe to call
all "Complete Roman Drama"s in English fraudulent. Dracontius also
produced a Christian work sometimes listed as epic, name - memory fails
me yet *again* - <Laudes Dei> or some such?

The Greeks being much less given to Christian epic have much less left
to do in this vein. The Orphic <Argonautica> has been Englished, but
again the book is a rare one and the work could use doing again.
On the other hand, the Byzantine romances beckon, as does the much-
discredited <Christus Patiens>: completely virgin territory.

And of couse <Suda>, which I'm delighted to learn is being translated
at all.

The message Mr. Prost sent here originated from a discussion on the Late
Antiquity mailing list, and late antiquity is far worse bedeviled than
archaic Greece with missing translations. From the classical era, for
what that's worth, I can note that none of the paradoxography or
mythography was translated until quite recently Palaephatus (there
is apparently at least one fourth-century work by one Heraclitus thus
inaccessible, not to mention numerous Hellenistic ones such as the
<Catasterismi> of Eratosthenes which I gather is the basis for all the
modern books about the myths of the constellations!). Also, I gather
the <Fragments of Attic Comedy> by ?Edmunds is notoriously unreliable
but I know of no bilingual edition of those fragments, to say nothing
of freestanding translation, in any modern language. (At least the
major tragedians can be found in German.)

Oh, heck, that brings Jacoby's <Fragmente der griechischen Historiker>
to mind... Lots to be done there!

Pretty much everything I've named is something I would very much like
to be able to look at, but the last thing I'll mention is perhaps the
most so: Philostratus' <Heroicus> Scholars of Homer might in fact
find this worthwhile, though obviously it is far from archaic?

Please understand, finally, that none of this constitutes my agreeing
with Mr. Prost. I read no ancient languages, except, and only haltingly,
Old English. I am extremely grateful that this does not prevent me
from reading the vast majority of surviving ancient literatures, and
having consciously chosen against an academic career, I would not dream
of presuming to tell those who chose *for* one how they should spend their
time. But if a list is wanted, the above is the no-translations inverse
of the list of translations I've been hunting up for years, as best
I can remember, and I hope it's some use.

Joe Bernstein
josephb@tezcat.com



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