Fall Samhain Moon
I’ve picked up the pace in translating. Not a lot. But I have. My intention is to time myself from now on, figure out how I can increase my speed. That will be important, as I said before, if I’m to translate the whole Metamorphoses. (Ovid)
You might ask, why? A few years ago I decided to read classics for a whole year. I read the Koran, Faust, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and the Metamorphoses among others. As I did this, I also read commentaries and essays on these works to give myself a broader and deeper perspective. When I got to the material on the Metamorphoses, I realized it stood at a critical juncture between ancient Greek religion (and, I imagine now, the Egyptian influence on the Greek) and Western civilization in the common era.
During the Renaissance it was Ovid’s work that moved Greek mythology into the mainstream of Western intellectual life. The older sources were either unavailable at the time, as yet undiscovered, or simply missing. That’s why the versions of the mythological corpus you know are most often Ovid’s version.
(Banquet of the Gods-Frans Floris)
If I could imprint Ovid’s stories into my brain, then I would have a vast resource, one with deep resonance in the entire Western literary tradition. How to do that? I had always wanted to learn a language but had told myself I couldn’t. How about learning Latin, then translating the Metamorphoses? It could vanquish a self doubt, allow a peek behind the curtain of translation and help me absorb these wonderful stories. All in the same project.
It’s not been, nor is it now, easy. It is hard part of the time, difficult the rest. But I’ve learned to enjoy that. There are new insights often and results that I know are mine. I’m learning the stories and advancing towards the skill level I need to go the distance. This is the fourth year of learning and translating. Many more to go.
BTW: There is, somewhere in this, the novel I want to write. A big one, a fantasy, because that’s how I think when it comes to fiction, but one deep in this material. What it will be like, I don’t know, but I keep looking for fleeting images as I work. Perhaps behind the story of the golden age? Philemon and Baucus? Medea? Pentheus? Perhaps in Ovid himself? First century C.E. Rome? All of these? I don’t know. But it’s the Moby Dick I’ve set sail to find.
