National Poetry Month

[brigdh]

Poem 5 by Catullus. I've got two translations, because they're fairly different and I liked them both.

Translation by A.Z. Foreman
It's time to live and let love, Lesbia,
Knowing the rumors of the scandalized
Gray-headed men worth less than any penny!
The sun gone down can rise again to day:
but when our short and final light is done
we will go down into a dawnless slumber.
So give a thousand kisses up to me.
A hundred and a thousand and a hundred.
Don't you dare stop. Another thousand. Hundreds.
Then scramble them all with me into a hot mess
Beyond our power to sort, and so protect us
From evil eyes that jealous jerks would give us
If ever they got all our kisses straight.


Translation by Thomas Campion
Let us live, my Lesbia, and love.
As for all the rumors of those stern old men,
Let us value them at a mere penny.
Suns may set and yet rise again, but
Us, with our brief light, can set but once.
One never-ending night must be slept.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred.
Then, another thousand, and a second hundred.
Then, yet another thousand, and a hundred.
Then, when we have counted up many thousands,
Let us shake the abacus, so that no one may know the number,
And become jealous when they see
How many kisses we have shared.

Comments

[lynndyre.livejournal.com]

It's a 70s manga (that's actually still running) about a German NATO Major and a flamboyantly gay art thief who calls himself Eroica. The very first chapter (before it had hit it's stride) was called 'a thousand kisses' - and had Eroica quoting this to the man he was hitting on - here's one of the pages (http://www.narbonic.com/eroica_makeout.jpg).

Pretty swiftly afterwards, it turns into spy hijinks and adventures. It's a good story. ^.^

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard of Eroica before– and it sounds like something I'd really enjoy– but for whatever reason, I've never gotten around to reading it (yet).

That page makes a very good argument why I should do so soon, though!