The poems and fragments of Catullus / translated into the metres
of the original by Robinson Ellis.
of the original by Robinson Ellis.
Catullus - Ellis - Poems and Fragments
The poems and fragments of Catullus / translated into the metres
of the original by Robinson Ellis.
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. London : J. Murray, 1871.
http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r
Public Domain
http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
We have determined this work to be in the public domain, meaning that it is not subject to copyright. Users are free to copy, use, and redistribute the work in part or in whole. It is possible that current copyright holders, heirs or the estate of the authors of individual portions of the work, such as illustrations or photographs, assert copyrights over these portions. Depending on the nature of subsequent use that is made, additional rights may need to be obtained independently of anything we can address.
? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? THE
POEMS AND FRAGMENTS
OF
CATULLUS.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? A
L/VT
THE
POEMS AND FRAGMENTS
CATULLUS,
TRANSLATED IN THE METRES OF THE ORIGINAL
BY
ROBINSON ELLIS,
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD,
PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
LONDON :
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1871.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? LONDON I
BRADBCRY, EVAN'S, AND CO. , PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? TO ALFRED TENNYSON.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? PREFACE.
THE idea of translating Catullus in the original
metres adopted by the poet himself was suggested to
me many years ago by the admirable, though, in
England, insufficiently known, version of Theodor
Heyse (Berlin, 1855). My first attempts were
modelled upon him, and were so unsuccessful that
I dropt the idea for some time altogether. In 1868,
the year following the publication of my larger critical
edition * of Catullus, I again took up the experiment,
and translated into English glyconics the first Hymen-
aeal, Collis o Heliconid, Tennyson's Alcaics and
Hendecasyllables had appeared in the interval, and
had suggested to me the new principle on which I
was to go to work. It was not sufficient to reproduce
the ancient metres, unless the ancient quantity was
reproduced also. Almost all the modern writers of
classical metre had contented themselves with making
an accented syllable long, an unaccented short ; the
* The translation follows this edition (Oxford, 1867), in the
constitution of the text, as well as in the sectional division of the
poems.
b2
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? viii PREFACE.
most familiar specimens of hexameter, Longfellow's
Evangeline and dough's Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich
and Amours de Voyage were written on this principle,
and, as a rule, stopped there. They almost in-
variably disregarded position, perhaps the most im-
portant element of quantity. In the first line of
Evangeline
This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
there are no less than five violations of position, to
say nothing of the shortening of a syllable so distinctly
long as the i in primeval. Mr. Swinburne, in his
Sapphics and Hendecasyllables, while writing on a
manifestly artistic conception of those metres, and, in
my judgment, proving their possibility for modern
purposes by the superior rhythmical effect which a
classically trained ear enabled him to make in hand-
ling them, neglects position as a rule, though his nice
sense of metre leads him at times to observe it, and
uniformly rejects any approach to the harsh combina-
tions indulged in by other writers. The nearest
approach to quantitative hexameters with which I am
acquainted in modern English writers is the Andro-
meda of Mr. Kingsley, a poem which has produced
little effect, but is interesting as a step to what may
fairly be called a new development of the metre. For
the experiments of the Elizabethan writers, Sir Philip
Sidney and others, by that strange perversity which
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? PREFACE. ix
so often dominates literature, were as decidedly un-
successful from an accentual, as the modern experi-
ments from a quantitative point of view. Sir Philip
Sidney has given in his Arcadia specimens of hexa-
meters, elegiacs, sapphics, asclepiads, anacreontics,
hendecasyllables. The following elegiacs will serve
as a sample.
Unto a caitif wretch, whom long affliction holdtth,
A nd now fully beliefs help to bee quite perished ;
Grant yet, grant yet a look, to the last moment of his anguish,
O you (alas so I finde) cans of his onely mine :
Dread not auohit (0 goodly cruel) that pitie may enter
Into thy heart by the sight of this Epistle I send :
And so refuse to behold of these strange wounds the redtall,
Lest it might m 1 allure home to thyself to return.
In these the classical laws of position are most care-
fully observed ; every dactyl ending in a consonant is
followed by a word beginning with a vowel or h
affliction holdeth, moment of his anguish, cause 6f his
onely ; affliction -wasteth, moment of his dolour, cause of
his dreary, would have been as impossible to Sir
Philip Sidney as moer6r tenebat, momentd per curae,
causa, vel sola in a Latin writer of hexameters. Simi-
larly where the dactyl is incided after the second
syllable, the third syllable beginning a new word, the
utmost care is taken that that word shall begin not
only with a syllable essentially short, but, when the
second syllable ends in a consonant, with a vowel :
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? x PREFACE.
of this epistle, but not of this disaster, still less of this
direction. The other element of quantity is less
rigidly defined; for (i) syllables strictly long, as /,
thy, so, are allowed to be short; (2) syllables made
long by the accent falling upon them are in some
cases shortened, as rulne, perished, cruel ; (3) syllables
which the absence of the accent only allows to be long
in thesi, are, in virtue of the classical laws of position,
permitted to rank as long elsewhere moment of his,
of this epistle. It needs little reflection to see that it
is to one or other of these three peculiarities that the
failure of the Elizabethan writers of classical metres
must be ascribed. Pentameters like
Gratefulness, sweetness, holy love, hearty regard,
That the delights of life shall be to him dolorous,
And even in that love shall I reserve him a spite ;
sapphics like
Are then humane mindes privileged so meanly
As that hateful death can abridg them of power
With the vow of truth to record to all worlds
That we bee her spoils ?
hexameters like
fire no liquor can cool : NeptiinJs realm would not avail us.
Nurs inward maladies, which have not scope to bee breath 1 d out.
Oh no no, worthie shepherd, worth can never enter a title ;
are too alien from ordinary pronunciation to please
either an average reader or a classically trained
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? PREFACE. xi
student. The same may be said of the translation
into English hexameters of the two first Eclogues of
Virgil, appended by William Webbe to his Discourse
of English Poetrie (1586, recently reprinted by Mr.
Arber). Here is his version of Eel. I. , i TO.
MELIBAEUS.
Tityrus, happilie then lyste tumbling under a beech tree,
All in a fine oate pipe these sweete songs lustilie c haunting :
We, poore soules goe to wracke, and from these coastes be remoued,
And fro our pastures swecte : thou Tityr, at ease in a shade plott
Makst thicke groues to resound with songes of brave Amarillis.
O Melibaeus, he was no man, but a God who releeude me :
Euer he shalbe my God : from this same Sheepcot his alters
Neuer, a tender lambe shall want, with blood to bedew them.
This good gift did he giue, to my steeres thus freelie to wander,
And to my selfe (thou. seest) on pipe to resound what I listed.
ib. 50 56.
Here no unwoonted foode shall grieue young theaues who be laded,
Nor the infections foule of neighbours flocke shall annoie them.
Happie olde man. In shaddowy bankes and coole prettie places,
Heere by the quainted floodes and springs most holie remaining.
Here, these quicksets fresh which lands seuer out fro thy neighbors
And greene willow rowes which Hiblae bees doo rejoice in,
Off fine whistring noise, shall bring sweete sleepe to thy sences.
The following stanzas are from a Sapphic ode into
which Webbe translated, or as we should say, trans-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? xii PREFACE.
posed the fourth Eclogue of Spenser's Sheepheardes
Calendar.
Say, behold did ye euer her Angelikeface,
Like to Phoebe fayre ? or her heauenly hauour
And the princelike grace that in her remaineth ?
haueyee the like seene ?
Vnto that place Caliope dooth high her,
Where my Goddesse shines : to the same the Muser
After her -with sweete Violines about them
cheerefully tracing.
All ye Sheepheardes maides that about the greene dwell,
Speede ye there to her grace, but among ye take he;de
All be Virgins pure that aproche to deck her,
dutie requireth.
When ye shall present ye before her in place,
See ye not your selues doo demeane too rudely :
Bynd the fillets ; and to be fate the waste gyrt
fast with a tawdryne.
Bring the Pinckes therewith many Gellifloivres sweete,
And the Cullambynes : let vs haue the Wynesops,
With the Coronation that among the loue laddes
wontes to be worne much.
of the original by Robinson Ellis.
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. London : J. Murray, 1871.
http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r
Public Domain
http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
We have determined this work to be in the public domain, meaning that it is not subject to copyright. Users are free to copy, use, and redistribute the work in part or in whole. It is possible that current copyright holders, heirs or the estate of the authors of individual portions of the work, such as illustrations or photographs, assert copyrights over these portions. Depending on the nature of subsequent use that is made, additional rights may need to be obtained independently of anything we can address.
? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? THE
POEMS AND FRAGMENTS
OF
CATULLUS.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? A
L/VT
THE
POEMS AND FRAGMENTS
CATULLUS,
TRANSLATED IN THE METRES OF THE ORIGINAL
BY
ROBINSON ELLIS,
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD,
PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
LONDON :
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1871.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? LONDON I
BRADBCRY, EVAN'S, AND CO. , PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? TO ALFRED TENNYSON.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? PREFACE.
THE idea of translating Catullus in the original
metres adopted by the poet himself was suggested to
me many years ago by the admirable, though, in
England, insufficiently known, version of Theodor
Heyse (Berlin, 1855). My first attempts were
modelled upon him, and were so unsuccessful that
I dropt the idea for some time altogether. In 1868,
the year following the publication of my larger critical
edition * of Catullus, I again took up the experiment,
and translated into English glyconics the first Hymen-
aeal, Collis o Heliconid, Tennyson's Alcaics and
Hendecasyllables had appeared in the interval, and
had suggested to me the new principle on which I
was to go to work. It was not sufficient to reproduce
the ancient metres, unless the ancient quantity was
reproduced also. Almost all the modern writers of
classical metre had contented themselves with making
an accented syllable long, an unaccented short ; the
* The translation follows this edition (Oxford, 1867), in the
constitution of the text, as well as in the sectional division of the
poems.
b2
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? viii PREFACE.
most familiar specimens of hexameter, Longfellow's
Evangeline and dough's Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich
and Amours de Voyage were written on this principle,
and, as a rule, stopped there. They almost in-
variably disregarded position, perhaps the most im-
portant element of quantity. In the first line of
Evangeline
This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
there are no less than five violations of position, to
say nothing of the shortening of a syllable so distinctly
long as the i in primeval. Mr. Swinburne, in his
Sapphics and Hendecasyllables, while writing on a
manifestly artistic conception of those metres, and, in
my judgment, proving their possibility for modern
purposes by the superior rhythmical effect which a
classically trained ear enabled him to make in hand-
ling them, neglects position as a rule, though his nice
sense of metre leads him at times to observe it, and
uniformly rejects any approach to the harsh combina-
tions indulged in by other writers. The nearest
approach to quantitative hexameters with which I am
acquainted in modern English writers is the Andro-
meda of Mr. Kingsley, a poem which has produced
little effect, but is interesting as a step to what may
fairly be called a new development of the metre. For
the experiments of the Elizabethan writers, Sir Philip
Sidney and others, by that strange perversity which
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? PREFACE. ix
so often dominates literature, were as decidedly un-
successful from an accentual, as the modern experi-
ments from a quantitative point of view. Sir Philip
Sidney has given in his Arcadia specimens of hexa-
meters, elegiacs, sapphics, asclepiads, anacreontics,
hendecasyllables. The following elegiacs will serve
as a sample.
Unto a caitif wretch, whom long affliction holdtth,
A nd now fully beliefs help to bee quite perished ;
Grant yet, grant yet a look, to the last moment of his anguish,
O you (alas so I finde) cans of his onely mine :
Dread not auohit (0 goodly cruel) that pitie may enter
Into thy heart by the sight of this Epistle I send :
And so refuse to behold of these strange wounds the redtall,
Lest it might m 1 allure home to thyself to return.
In these the classical laws of position are most care-
fully observed ; every dactyl ending in a consonant is
followed by a word beginning with a vowel or h
affliction holdeth, moment of his anguish, cause 6f his
onely ; affliction -wasteth, moment of his dolour, cause of
his dreary, would have been as impossible to Sir
Philip Sidney as moer6r tenebat, momentd per curae,
causa, vel sola in a Latin writer of hexameters. Simi-
larly where the dactyl is incided after the second
syllable, the third syllable beginning a new word, the
utmost care is taken that that word shall begin not
only with a syllable essentially short, but, when the
second syllable ends in a consonant, with a vowel :
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? x PREFACE.
of this epistle, but not of this disaster, still less of this
direction. The other element of quantity is less
rigidly defined; for (i) syllables strictly long, as /,
thy, so, are allowed to be short; (2) syllables made
long by the accent falling upon them are in some
cases shortened, as rulne, perished, cruel ; (3) syllables
which the absence of the accent only allows to be long
in thesi, are, in virtue of the classical laws of position,
permitted to rank as long elsewhere moment of his,
of this epistle. It needs little reflection to see that it
is to one or other of these three peculiarities that the
failure of the Elizabethan writers of classical metres
must be ascribed. Pentameters like
Gratefulness, sweetness, holy love, hearty regard,
That the delights of life shall be to him dolorous,
And even in that love shall I reserve him a spite ;
sapphics like
Are then humane mindes privileged so meanly
As that hateful death can abridg them of power
With the vow of truth to record to all worlds
That we bee her spoils ?
hexameters like
fire no liquor can cool : NeptiinJs realm would not avail us.
Nurs inward maladies, which have not scope to bee breath 1 d out.
Oh no no, worthie shepherd, worth can never enter a title ;
are too alien from ordinary pronunciation to please
either an average reader or a classically trained
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? PREFACE. xi
student. The same may be said of the translation
into English hexameters of the two first Eclogues of
Virgil, appended by William Webbe to his Discourse
of English Poetrie (1586, recently reprinted by Mr.
Arber). Here is his version of Eel. I. , i TO.
MELIBAEUS.
Tityrus, happilie then lyste tumbling under a beech tree,
All in a fine oate pipe these sweete songs lustilie c haunting :
We, poore soules goe to wracke, and from these coastes be remoued,
And fro our pastures swecte : thou Tityr, at ease in a shade plott
Makst thicke groues to resound with songes of brave Amarillis.
O Melibaeus, he was no man, but a God who releeude me :
Euer he shalbe my God : from this same Sheepcot his alters
Neuer, a tender lambe shall want, with blood to bedew them.
This good gift did he giue, to my steeres thus freelie to wander,
And to my selfe (thou. seest) on pipe to resound what I listed.
ib. 50 56.
Here no unwoonted foode shall grieue young theaues who be laded,
Nor the infections foule of neighbours flocke shall annoie them.
Happie olde man. In shaddowy bankes and coole prettie places,
Heere by the quainted floodes and springs most holie remaining.
Here, these quicksets fresh which lands seuer out fro thy neighbors
And greene willow rowes which Hiblae bees doo rejoice in,
Off fine whistring noise, shall bring sweete sleepe to thy sences.
The following stanzas are from a Sapphic ode into
which Webbe translated, or as we should say, trans-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2015-01-02 09:07 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc2. ark:/13960/t2t43m85r Public Domain / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd
? xii PREFACE.
posed the fourth Eclogue of Spenser's Sheepheardes
Calendar.
Say, behold did ye euer her Angelikeface,
Like to Phoebe fayre ? or her heauenly hauour
And the princelike grace that in her remaineth ?
haueyee the like seene ?
Vnto that place Caliope dooth high her,
Where my Goddesse shines : to the same the Muser
After her -with sweete Violines about them
cheerefully tracing.
All ye Sheepheardes maides that about the greene dwell,
Speede ye there to her grace, but among ye take he;de
All be Virgins pure that aproche to deck her,
dutie requireth.
When ye shall present ye before her in place,
See ye not your selues doo demeane too rudely :
Bynd the fillets ; and to be fate the waste gyrt
fast with a tawdryne.
Bring the Pinckes therewith many Gellifloivres sweete,
And the Cullambynes : let vs haue the Wynesops,
With the Coronation that among the loue laddes
wontes to be worne much.
