Martial asks the shades of his dead parents to look after his favourite slave-girl in the afterlife.
Hanc tibi, Fronto pater, genetrix Flaccilla, puellamoscula commendo deliciasque meas,
paruola ne nigras horrescat Erotion umbras
oraque Tartarei prodigiosa canis.
Impletura fuit sextae modo frigora brumae, 5
uixisset totidem ni minus illa dies.
Inter tam ueteres ludat lasciua patronos
et nomen blaeso garriat ore meum.
Mollia non rigidus caespes tegat ossa nec illi,
terra, grauis fueris: non fuit illa tibi.
I commend you this slave girl, father Fronto, mother Flacilla, as she was my delight and the object of my kisses. May little Erotion not fear the dark shades nor the vast mouths of the Tartarean dog. She would have completed her sixth cold winter if she'd not lived as many days too few. Now, let her play amid old friends, let her chatter and lisp my name. May the soft turf cover her brittle bones: earth, lie lightly on her, as she was not heavy on you.
5 comments:
It's absolutely wonderfull! Thank you for sharing it.
Do you know the translation "Thou mother dead, and thou, my father's shade / To you I now commend the little maid/ Erotion, my little love, my sweet / Let not her shuddering spirit fear to meet / The ghosts, but sooth her lest she be afraid / How should a baby heart be undismayed / To pass the laid where Cerberus is laid / The little six year maiden gently greet / Dear reverend spirits, give her kindly aid / And let her play in some Elysian glade / Lisping my name softly / And, I entreat / Lie on her softly, kind earth / Her feet--such tiny feet--on thee were lightly laid".
I learned it in my teen years, and now cannot find the translator at all. (I'm not sure I have recalled it perfectly.). Thanks!
That is the translation of J. A. Pott and F. A. Wright - by far the most lovely.
This is my translation of Martial's lovely, touching elegy:
To you, my departed parents, with much emotion,
I commend my little darling, my much-kissed Erotion
who died six days short of her sixth bitter winter.
Protect her, I pray, from hell’s nightmare shades a-flitter;
and please don’t let fiends leave her maiden heart dismayed!
But lead her to romp happily in some Elysian glade
with her cherished friends, lispingly exclaiming my name.
Let no hard turf smother her softening bones; and do
rest lightly on her, earth, she was such a slight burden to you.
—Martial, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Robert Louis Stevenson: HERE LIES EROTION
Mother and sire, to you do I commend
Tiny Erotion, who must now descend,
A child, among the shadows, and appear
Before hell's bandog and hell's gondolier.
Of six hoar winters she had felt the cold,
But lacked six days of being six years old.
Now she must come, all playful, to that place
Where the great ancients sit with reverend face;
Now lisping, as she used, of whence she came,
Perchance she names and stumbles at my name.
O'er these so fragile bones, let there be laid
A plaything for a turf; and for that maid
That ran so lightly footed in her mirth
Upon thy breast—lie lightly, mother earth!
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