• Category Archives Translating Metamorphoses

  • Still Pondering

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                                               Maiden Moon

    New thoughts about old problems. My mind spins all day long, doesn’t stop at night. When I wake up, it’s not always monkey mind. Sometimes it’s just the one that wonders about reimagining faith, about what to do next in Jennie’s Dead or Superior Wolf, about the peculiar nature of this year’s primary season, about the nature of reality and life. Seems natural when I think about it this way, an extension into the night by what occupies me during the day. Of course, I still need sleep. But I get it in chunks rather than in a smooth 8 hours.

    The friend problem. New information about friendship suggests that those of us who work on our own, on projects that matter to us-a lot-and especially those of us who work on creative or intellectual projects are happiest seeing friends occasionally. Most folks it seems are happiest when they see their friends often. I’ve always struggled with this idea, that I should have more friends, get out more, do more things with other people, but I’ve always gravitated to the quiet, the alone, the private.

    In part this is because I am an introvert and I need private, quiet time to recharge and, conversely, find time with others enjoyable, but draining, not energizing. But, I’m also an introvert who has had, for as long as I can recall, various projects important to my own journey. Sometimes it was reading certain authors, other times researching topics like the Midwest, climate change, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Modernism, art history. More recently, the last 25 years or so, I’ve had specific creative projects: novels, essays, presentations for UU churches and two nonfiction works. The first non-fiction project, which is still in me, somewhere, was an ecological history of Lake Superior. The second, Reimagining Faith, remains active.

     

    In retrospect I can see that the Woollies and the docents met my needs almost perfectly. I got to know others-in the case of the Woollies, deeply, and in the case of the docents, well. In both instances there were regular times for meeting, first and third Mondays with the Woollies plus an annual retreat and in the case of the docents, my touring day. Having these regular opportunities were just right for me.

    Now that I’m here in Colorado, though I don’t have those regular opportunities, I still have the relationships, the friendships, from those times. So I need to make opportunities to nurture those relationships. And I have been doing that.

    What I’m trying to say here is that I no longer feel less than because I’m not seeking new friends here. As I said yesterday, I imagine I’ll find some, at some point. But the bigger point is that I feel fine, happy, content as I am, at work and engaged with Kate, the dogs, family and those fine friends still in Minnesota.

     


    Faith and Spirituality Friends Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Translating Metamorphoses Writing

  • Anchored

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                                                     Maiden Moon

    Spoke by Skype with Bill Schmidt and Scott Simpson today. No reason, just catch up. It was good.

    Friends. I don’t make friends easily and the almost 30 years of Woolly relationships and the 12 years for my docent friends will not be repeatable here. I’m making my peace with that, too. As long as my docent and Woolly friends will connect with me, I plan to maintain the relationships. There is an easiness, a knowingness, an intimacy that has taken years to develop with these folks.

    Also, my work occupies my time, not in an escapist way, but in a fulfilling way. That’s why I don’t feel lonely here. Kate, the work, the dogs, family, casual relationships are plenty for now. And may be enough for the long haul. Even so, I imagine I will find new friends here at some point, but if I don’t, that’s ok, too.

    In other words, I am flourishing as an intellectual and creative worker, lodged in a beautiful place, with family and canine companionship. I’m happy as well. A hard combination to beat.

     

     


    Friends Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain Translating Metamorphoses Woolly Mammoths Writing

  • Staying With It

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                                     Maiden Moon

    Latin. If I plotted my feelings on a graph, they would look like a roller coaster. Yesterday I read my written translations, rather than trying to pick my way through a sentence without consulting what I’d done in the previous couple of weeks. Very goods and atta boys. That made me feel more confident. Consulting the English after I translate a sentence has made me better.

    It’s still about plateaus. This one is nearer to the goal than I’ve ever been. My skill is mostly adequate, with substantial help from the commentary and using English translations to make me rethink my work when necessary.

    I’ve invested so much time in this project that I want to continue. Not an easy decision, but since I wrote about this a while back, I’ve made progress on my novels and on Reimagining while continuing to translate 5 or so verses a day. Switching my work flow to novels and Reimagining first, then Latin adjusted my work day to my priorities. Feels much better.

     

     


    Latin Translating Metamorphoses

  • La Lucha

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                                      Maiden Moon

    When Kate and I have our business meetings, where we discuss money, calendar and upcoming to do items, we often ask each other, how are you doing? Yesterday I said, “I’m struggling.”

    This goes back at least to April of 2014 when we decided to move to Colorado. Probably before that. When I resigned my docent position at the MIA in 2013, following that by leaving my work at the Sierra Club later in the year, is perhaps a better starting point. Part of my reason for both resignations was winter driving into the city. I no longer wanted to do it regularly. Minnesota winters are brutal and produce occasional dangerous driving conditions. That rationale no longer holds here in the land of the solar snow shovel.

    My second reason does still have relevance though. I wanted to focus on work only I could do. Why? My life’s quantity of sand has diminished to a third or less in the hour glass. In that remaining time I want to be sure that I’ve offered back to the world what I’ve learned, created. As the African saying goes, “When an old man (woman) dies, a library burns to the ground.”

    What counts as such work? Being a spouse and father and grandparent is of course at the top of the list. After that comes creative work. I have novels yet to write, two of which I have picked up again recently.

    There is, too, the reimagining project. I’m not sure why it has become so central, but it definitely has. I feel frustrated with it right now because writing it down has proved more difficult than I imagined it would be.

    This blog, admittedly a random and chaotic sweep across my life, is also part of this focus. This the work only I can do that I can identify right now, though there may be, probably will be, new work that emerges over time.

    Fast forward from 2013 to Shadow Mountain. Since April of 2014, we have been either preparing to move or focused on matters related to settling into our new home. In addition to several projects related to Black Mountain Drive, becoming Colorado grandparents has had its own demands. Then, too, there was cancer last year and the ongoing, familiar to many of you, adjustments to such things as arthritis and other signs of a body reacting to a lifetime of work only it could do.

    As a result, I’m struggling with how to fit my work only I can do into my life as it is now. Latin, in particular translating Metamorphoses, is definitely not work only I can do. Its original purpose, helping me to absorb the stories of Greek and Latin mythology and legend, is unique to me, of course.

    What am I saying here? I’m trying to write myself into an answer to the struggle, but it isn’t happening. At least not yet. It may be that I’ll have to live with the difficulty for a while longer.


    Latin Translating Metamorphoses Writing

  • The Flight of Medea

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Yule                                                                           New (Stock Show) Moon

    Set the Cub Cadet on 6, its top speed, and rocketed through the fluffy snow on our driveway. Felt like cheating. It’s gonna stay cold so even the three or four inches we had would stick around a while, a la Minnesota. Better to whisk away to the sides, let the solar snow shovel do its work.

    I’ve been working on Latin this morning, more of the comparison method, checking my English against Loeb’s, Penguin Prose and a translation by Charles Martin. My head begins to throb after about an hour. Snow blowing seems like an acceptable alternative.

    Here’s a few verses as a sample. This is entirely my own translation.

    Medea Flees or The Flight of Medea,  Metamorphoses, Book VII, 350-398

    350b Had she not flown into the air on serpent’s wings

    351b Would she not be taken for punishment?  She fled

    352b above richly shaded Mt. Pelion, Chiron’s home, and

    353b above Othrys in Thessaly, over the spot made known by the fate of ancient Cerambus.

    354b He, raised into the air on wings here by work of the nymphs ,

    355b  escaped, not overwhelmed by Deucalion’s flood

    356b  when the burdened earth was being buried by the spreading sea.

    357b  On her left she passed Aeolian Pitane

    358b  And its great likeness of a dragon made of stone,

    359b  And the grove of Idaeus, where the son of Bacchus stole a young bullock

    360b  hidden by deceitful Bacchus under the likeness of a deer,

    361b   She passed over Paris, the father of Corythi, buried under a small mound of sand,

    362b  And over the fields Maera frightened by strange barking.

    363b  She flew over the city of Eurypylus where the mothers of  Coa wore horns

    364b  When the band of Hercules dispersed to Rhodes,

    365b  dear to Phoebus Apollo, and Ialysos, home of the Telchines,

    366b  the eyes of whom by beholding infected everyone,

    367b  Jupiter, detesting them, plunged them under the sea to his brother, Poseidon.

     

    368b  She then passed over the city walls of ancient Cartheia on the island Cea.

    369b  where Alcidamas, her father, marveled that  the body of his daughter

    370b  was born anew as a peaceful dove.

     


    Latin Myth and Story Translating Metamorphoses

  • Translating Now

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                                   Christmas Moon

    N.B.: a note from my Latin tutor in response to my question, what do I need to do now to make progress? I’m putting it here so I can find it again when I need it.

     

    I think that you should do your translation and then check as many English translations as you have in comparison.

    If they differ from each other and/or from yours you should gain an understanding as to how they came up with what they did and compare it to how you came up with what you did.


    Latin Translating Metamorphoses

  • Smart

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                                       New (Winter) Moon

    The wind was calmer today so I got more tree trunks cut into logs. Used my smart holder for the first time. It works pretty well, but I’ve got to get more facile with placing logs on it. A learning curve. Lots of fireplace size logs stacked between two trees, three stacks in all. This is the last step in the fire mitigation process for this season. Now the wood will dry for a year, be ready to split next fall. As soon as I get all the front tree trunks cut into fireplace size, I’ll move to the back and begin felling and limbing.

    Getting my regular hour of Latin, but boy it’s coming hard right now. Not sure why. Struggling. Back to regular exercise, too, though most of my resistance time is still spent with arthritis alleviating exercises from Dana. I backed off a bit on them, tried to work in some other resistance, but the tingling returned, the left shoulder began to ping. Struggling a bit here, too. Not anywhere near my pre surgery levels.

    Tomorrow we’re going to Sushi Harbor with Jon and Jen to celebrate Jon’s 47th birthday. I met Jon when he was 21. 47. Realized another milestone birthday must be when your first child turns 50.

    Our neighbor Jude came over to wish us a Happy Hanukkah. Sweet of him.

     

     

     


    Family Great Work Health Holidays Latin Shadow Mountain Translating Metamorphoses

  • Weird Times

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon                                                                               Moon of the First Snow

    “There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we learn and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life.”
    —Celephaïs

    This is a quote from an H.P. Lovecraft story published in Weird Tales. Lovecraft continues to resonate with some of us. A big celebration of his 125th birthday was held in his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island this summer.

    I’ve not read this story, but the quote kindled in me a desire to revisit certain childhood stories that captivated me. The one that has remained with me though I’ve never been able to find it again is The Weatherman. This was the story of a man, a god?, who makes the weather. Well illustrated, it shows an older man with a long gray beard who picks out different colored ribbons from his sack and flies with them through the sky, creating storms and blue skies and snow.

    Retelling this story with my child’s wonder would be fun. That’s what struck me with this quote. I’ve been having a lot of these ideas surface recently, then I let them subside rather than acting of them. That time is coming to an end.

    Greg Membrez, my Latin tutor, replied to a recent post on facebook about the snow: “Good time to read some Latin?” I’ve been away from the translating since mid-spring and I’d only just gotten started again when I let it slide during cancer season. I need the longer term projects like novels and translating Ovid. They keep me fresh and engaged. Time to get back to them.

     

     


    Literature Translating Metamorphoses Writing

  • Around the Bulge

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                                            Recovery Moon

    Yesterday and today I opened my Latin texts, continuing to translate the story of Medea in Book 7. Yesterday my eyes crossed and my brain froze. Too hard. Today, though, much better. I did 4 verses plus in an hour, then ran out of motivation. My goal is to get back to at least 5 verses a day or more, which was my pace b.c.

    Soon, sometime soon, Superior Wolf will return, this were creature loose in the Arrowhead of northern Minnesota. He’s proven as elusive to me as the author as he will to the people who hunt him and his kind. Different versions of this novel, always fragmentary, are in my files from before this millennium.

    The gas lines tomorrow. And my new crown. Oh, boy. The final IKEA delivery for now comes on Tuesday. Jon will be up sometime with the base for my art table. I hope he has time to assemble and join the two additional tall bookcases and the cabinet section for my tea and coffee accessories before he returns to work. The mini-fridge is in the garage.

    Life has begun to ease around the bulge of April, May, June and July. We ate at an indifferent Italian restaurant last night before the theater (see below). No medical conversation. Memories though of our honeymoon, the Italian food against which we compare every Italian place. And they almost never match up. The Italians have something special with their food and their coffee. And their art. And history.

    I told Kate last night over dinner that it felt like my summer had finally started.


    Cooking Latin Our Land and Home Tea Translating Metamorphoses Writing

  • Living

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                                                                              Closing Moon

    Printed out Superior Wolf’s first few chapters to read today. I need to reenter that world, get back to writing. Will try some Latin as well.

    Prime task today. Sign and mail closing documents. This requires visiting a notary.

    Second workout. Back at it.

    Sleep still problematic. Not anxiety. I don’t feel anxious. I am weary, right now, of possible threats to my life, threats issued by own body. Still in the in-between, some information but not enough stage.

     


    Health Third Phase Translating Metamorphoses Writing