Wednesday, August 15, 2018

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Scribebamus epos; coepisti scribere: cessi,
aemula ne starent carmina nostra tuis.
Тranstulit ad tragicos se nоstrа Тhalia cothurnos:
aрtasti longum tu quoque syrma tibi.
Fila lyrae movi Calabris exculta Camenis:
plectra rapis nobis, ambitiose, nova.
Audemus saturas: Lucilius esse laboras.
Ludo levis elegos: tu quoque ludis idem.
Quid minus esse potest? Epigrammata fingere coepi:
hinc etiam petitur iam mea palma tibi.
Elige, quid nolis — quis enim pudor, omnia velle? —
et si quid non vis, Tucca, relinque mihi.

I was writing an epic; you began to write one:
I left off, that my poems should not stand in rivalry with yours.
My Thalia shifted to tragic buskins:
You also fitted on yourself the long train of tragedy.
I struck the strings of a lyre practised by the Calabrian Muses:
You, ambitious man, snatch from me the new quill.
I venture satire: you strain to be a Lucilius.
I sport with light elegies: you, too, sport with the same thing.
What lesser art can there be? I begin to model epigrams:
In this quarter, too, my fame is already sought after by you.
Pick out something you do not want
— For what modesty is there in wanting everything? —
And if there is anything you don’t want, Tucca, leave it to me.

Scrivevo un’epopea: volesti comporla tu pure;
smisi, perché i miei versi non emulassero i tuoi.
Ai tragici coturni si volse la nostra Talia;
l’abito del trageda indossasti tu pure.
Le corde della lira toccai con i modi d’Orazio;
e tu di man mi togli, ambizioso, il plettro.
Tento allora la satira; ti sforzi di emulare Lucilio.
Canto elegie leggere; e ne scrivi anche tu.
Potevo far di meno? Mi misi a comporre epigrammi;
ed anche qui la gloria m’è contesa da te.
Scegli quel che non vuoi — vergogna è tutto volere —,
e quel che non ti piace, lascialo, o Tucca, a me.

Martial, Epigrams, Book 12, XCIV
English translation by Walter C. A. Ker
Italian translation by Giuseppe Lipparini

Valletta, Malta: Migrants wave from the deck of the humanitarian ship Aquarius as it arrives at the port of Senglea, on the capital city’s Grand Harbour. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters.

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