We will start with a translation by C. Day Lewis. Up until Line 8 in the Aeneid text (Musa, mihi causas memora...) Lewis actually does a decent translation. Words are not translated literally and some things are embellished, but he keeps pretty true to the actual translation. Most impressive to me is that he does keep the translation of lines 6-7 ( genus unde...moenia Romae) pretty literal:
Whence rose the Latin race,
the royal line of Alba and the high walls of Rome.
The problem, however, lies in lines 8-11, when Vergil is addressing his Muse. First of all, the word "Muse" is not mentioned anywhere in his translation! How can you take a moment in which the author is talking to a Muse, and simply make it into a moment of rhetorical questions? (The only possible answer: the man was insane) I find this to be the most bothersome part of the Lewis translation. Sure, you can embellish things a bit, but don't completely change what is going on...that's just wrong.
Now, to move on to the next translation- that of Allen Mandelbaum. First, I appreciate that Mandelbaum had enough sense to keep this work a work of poetry. Even though this means that, at times, his translation becomes a bit embellished and lofty, it remains a poem, as it was originally written. I also love that, in his translation, the Muse is addressed (Take that Lewis!!!). Keeping to the translation matters; it helps us to understand what Vergil was really getting at. The problems I find really lie in Mandelbaum's choice of words. Take for example, lines 1-3 (Arma virumque...litora). I have a translation that reads:
I sing of arms and a man, who first came from the shores
of Troy to Italy and the Lavinian coast exiled
by fate.
Mandelbaum's translation reads:
I sing of arms and a man: his fate
has made him fugitive; he was the first
to journey from the coasts of Troy as far
as Italy and the Lavinian shores.
I am bothered by his lengthy translation; more words will not make this "better" in anyway. I guess I just don't understand why someone cannot simply sit down and translate Vergil's work literally. Why must we make it into something more, something that some consider "better?" I'm not sure what the answers to these questions may be, but I do know one thing.....
LATIN WINS!!!!!!!!!
