Sidus clarum

[cepasaccus]

My try, although I am not really sure about its meaning.

Vivat Cato,
Dei dato
qui sic fuit rigidus,
in amore
tuo flore
captus erit fervidus.

It may live Cato,
Give this god
who was so severe,
in Love
with two flowers
he will be captured hot blooded

 

[cinefactus]

My take would be:

If Cato were to live
through a gift of God
who (ie Cato) was stern like this
having been captured
in love by your youthful beauty
he would be blazing (with passion)

I would have thought that it should be sit fervidus to fit with the conditional, but I guess it wouldn't fit with the metre...

 

[QMF]

For some reason I thought that "vivat" was jussive, not conditional (I've never seen a conditional without a conjunction like "si" before, though I admittedly haven't seen all that many conditionals). Thoughts?

 

[cepasaccus]

I now know what I did wrong with the dei dato, but I again wonder if the Romans had the same problems reading poems.

 

[Cato]

For some reason I thought that "vivat" was jussive, not conditional (I've never seen a conditional without a conjunction like "si" before, though I admittedly haven't seen all that many conditionals). Thoughts?

I think you have it QmF; it's sort jussive/concessive, with the second line a parenthetical comment:

Let Cato live,
by the grace of god,
he who was so stern:
(even he) in love
by your flower
would be eagerly taken.

The Cato here is not me Cato the younger, who lived in the time of Caesar, was noted for his severity and his rigidness.

 

[Iynx]

Pellucid star
of girls you are,
the flower and the dilly;
in everything
a rose in spring,
and fairer than the lily.

Your gorgeous form
Me from my normal
foursquare life has driven.
Your face, I find,
by smiles my mind
to Venus' rule has given.

For you, my dear,
I'm glad to wear
her shakles Cytherean;
and Cupid's dart
within my heart
I bear without complainin'.

******************************************

I've decided that I earlier misunderstood the next stanza. Of course ligni sicci is plural, and cannot be the subject of subducitur. It must be the fire that is being "drawn out" -- no, better "raised" or "built up".

"As the fire burns when it is built up in dry wood..."


As when the fire
blazes higher
when dry wood is laid on,
goddess my mind
for you, I find,
is all burnt up and gone.

******************************************************

That's interesting, Cato Chicagoensis. I has assumed that it was Cato the Elder that was meant, renowned not only for his rigid moral rectitude, but also for his misogyny.

 

[cinefactus]

I am not sure if flos in this stanza is simply flower. The OLD gives one of its meanings as youthful beauty (usu. as a source of sexual attraction), chastity, virginity. I think it is probably a double meaning, both referring back to the flower of verse 1, and the latter meaning as well...

 

[cinefactus]

Seeing as we still have a way to go...

Fore suum
crinem tuum
Venus ipsa cuperet,
si videret;
et doloret
suum quod exuperet.


Venus would have wished
your locks
to be her own,
if she had seen them
and mourned
because they excelled her own

 

[Iynx]

Dic quis durus,
quis tam purus,
carens omni crimine,
esse potest,
quem non dotes
tuae possint flectere?

Whose heart's so dure,
whose soul's so pure,
and free from any sin,
that once he sees
all your dowries
he'll still be what he's been?

1. Clearly this is not a religious poem in any conventional sense.

2. Please note the numerous not-quite-rhymes: crimine /flectere and potest /dotes, for example. This is important, I think, because it gives us license (indeed calls upon us) to do the same sort of thing in the English. Of course I could have found a "better" rhyme for "Cytherean"; I chose "complainin' " purely in imitation of the original Latin .

 

[cepasaccus]

Iynx, your are the best! I will never be as good as you.

 

[Iynx]

Vivat Cato,
Dei dato
qui sic fuit rigidus,
in amore
tuo flore
captus erit fervidus.

I think you're absolutely right about the "flower" here Cinefacte. I suspect the comma at the end of the third line to be the work of some modern editor, and suspect that the author in fact may have been having some fun with the whole rigidus ...fervidus clause

Hooray for Cato,
who by God's gift,
was so rigid
in love
he too
by your flower
would warmly be captured.

Or in what one may loosely call verse:

Cato be praised
who by God's grace
lived rigid and uprightly--
in love e'en he
by your flower'd be
most warmly caught, and tightly.

 

[Iynx]

Our story so far:

Pellucid star
of girls you are,
the flower and the dilly;
in everything
a rose in spring,
and fairer than the lily.

Your gorgeous form
Me from my normal
foursquare life has driven.
Your face, I find,
by smiles my mind
to Venus' rule has given.

For you, my dear,
I'm glad to wear
her shakles Cytherean;
and Cupid's dart
within my heart
I bear without complainin'.

As when the fire
blazes higher
when dry wood is laid on,
goddess my mind
for you, I find,
is all burnt up and gone.

Whose heart's so dure,
whose soul's so pure,
and free from any sin,
that once he sees
all your dowries
he'll still be what he's been?

Cato be praised
who by God's grace
lived rigid and uprightly--
in love: e'en he
by your flower'd be
most warmly caught, and tightly.

 

[Iynx]

Fore suum
crinem tuum
Venus ipsa cuperet,
si videret;
et doloret
suum quod exuperet.

I'm glad we've got Cinefactus here; were it not for his able translation I would have mistaken exuperet for exuberet; with his help I see that it is in fact a form of ex(s)upero. But wait a minute. Shouldn't it then be exupAret? And for that matter shouldn't it be cupIret?

I'm also still not sure I understand the sequence of tenses here. Fore is the same as futurum esse, right? But cupIret, videret, doloret, and exupAret are all imperfect subjunctives, are they not?

Well, I suppose the general sense is clear enough:


And oh, such hair
Venus would wear;
and she would sore regret her,
most envious,
on seeing yours,
that yours is so much better.


But can someone clear up the grammar for me here?

 

[cinefactus]

should it be:

"Venus would have wished your locks to become her own", do you think?

 

[cinefactus]

BTW I must confess that it was Mr Whitaker not I who picket the difference between exuperet and exuberet

Frons et gula
sine ruga
et visus angelicus
te caelestem,
non terrestrem,
denotant hominibus.

Your face and neck
without a wrinkle
and angelic face
indicate to men
that you are from heaven
not from earth

 

[Iynx]

Yes, Cinefacte, I'm sure that's the sense. But I'm puzzled by

(a) the future form-- if that's what it is-- followed by the imperfect subjunctives-- if that's what they are-- and by

(b) the odd forms (?misspellings?) of cupiret and exsuparet-- if that's what they are.

 

[Cato]

But wait a minute. Shouldn't it then be exupAret? And for that matter shouldn't it be cupIret?

I think cuperet is correct: cupio, cupere, cupivi, cupitus. Exsuperet is present subjunctive (imperfect would be exsuperAREt

I'm also still not sure I understand the sequence of tenses here. Fore is the same as futurum esse, right? But cupIret, videret, doloret, and exupAret are all imperfect subjunctives, are they not?

The imperfects cuperet and videret are part of a present contrary-to-fact conditional (the grammar for which rather perversely used imperfect subjunctive): "Venus would desire...if she were to see."

Crinem tuum fore suum is acc. w. inf. after cuperet - "(She would have desired) that your hair would (soon) be hers." This is a good example of the greater care Latin takes with the future tense; English would naturally translate this as "Venus would have hoped your hair to be hers", but Latin correctly notes that the "hoping" and "seeing" must occur before the hair could be possessed.

Doloret is present subjunctive--"she would weep (now)"--as is exsuperet - "it would far surpass (now)". The poet uses pres. subj. because in his opinion her hair really does surpass Venus', even if an actual comparison of locks cannot be made: "she would weep, because it would surpass hers (i.e. if we were to compare them)."

That last paragraph illustrates another subtle point of Latin grammar. When a writer gives a reason for something (i.e. a clause headed by quod, quia, quoniam), he/she will use the indicative if the reason is either obvious or undisputed. On the other hand, the subjunctive expresses the opinion of the writer, or at least the fact that the reason has no hope of being verified.

 

[Iynx]

Thank you Cato. But whooo. A fellow can perhaps be forgiven for not getting this right on the first pass. So:

Fore is the future infinitive of sum.

I thought cupio was of the Fourth. Should have checked. It's of the Third, as you say, and cuperet is imperfect, like videret.

And I see where I went wrong with ex(s)upero: I mistook the -er- at the end of the base for an imperfect marker.

But I'm still bewildered by doloret. It's a present subjunctive, you say? Of what verb? If the verb were doleo, the present subjunctive would be doleat? And the imperfect (for that matter) dolEret?. Dolare ("to hew") would have present subjunctive active dolet, would it not? And imperfect dolaret? Dolito? No, that doesn't fit either. I'm probably being thick, but I still don't get this. I have looked for a verb doloro, dolorare, but have thus far failed to find such a beast. Can you help me further, Cato?

 

[cinefactus]

I suspect that it is supposed to be doleret. Sidwell doesn't list an e -> o shift as a Mediaevalism, so my guess is that it is a typo or a mistranscription. I must admit I didn't notice the spelling oddity when I translated it.

 

[cinefactus]

Tibi dentes
sunt candentes,
pulcre sedent labia,
que si quando
ore tango
mellea dant suavia.


Your teeth
are shining
Your lips rest nicely
And if at any time
I touch your mouth
They give honeyed kisses

It is seeming somewhat unlikely that this is a religious poem OTOH, I wonder if the beginning was deliberately misleading, as a sort of joking reference to the Marian imagery used at the time...