This poem is taken from PN Review 208, Volume 39 Number 2, November - December 2012.
Two Translations
Catullus
Carmina, 4
That's my last yacht you see there, friends. And she would tell
You, if she were alive, she was the fastest ship
Afloat; that nothing timber-crafted could outstrip
Her then. Oh, she could fly when she was under sail,
Or outrun anything relying on its oars - 5
A truth the worst of all the Adriatic shores
Couldn't deny. No island in the Cyclades,
Not famous Rhodes, or Thrace with its Propontic
seas, Could, nor the Pontic's dismal gulf, where she - a yacht-
In-waiting - once was just a clutch of verdant trees.10
(For on Cytorus' heights, there in that sylvan spot,
She whispered with the sibilance of silken leaves.)
Pontic Amastris and you, boxwood-clad Cytorus,
She says you knew this then and know it now as well.
She says that long before her birth - this is her tale - 15
...
Carmina, 4
That's my last yacht you see there, friends. And she would tell
You, if she were alive, she was the fastest ship
Afloat; that nothing timber-crafted could outstrip
Her then. Oh, she could fly when she was under sail,
Or outrun anything relying on its oars - 5
A truth the worst of all the Adriatic shores
Couldn't deny. No island in the Cyclades,
Not famous Rhodes, or Thrace with its Propontic
seas, Could, nor the Pontic's dismal gulf, where she - a yacht-
In-waiting - once was just a clutch of verdant trees.10
(For on Cytorus' heights, there in that sylvan spot,
She whispered with the sibilance of silken leaves.)
Pontic Amastris and you, boxwood-clad Cytorus,
She says you knew this then and know it now as well.
She says that long before her birth - this is her tale - 15
...
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