VATESThe Journal of New Latin Poetry

Issue 4, Autumn/Winter 2011-12

CONTENTS
Editorial

2

Carmina Latina
After the Raid (Brad Walton)
2 First World War Poems (Paul Murgatroyd)Webicus Bacchus (Joseph Tusiani)
2 Carmina (J. Turner Brakeley)
Eoan Airs (Massimo Scorsone)
Uxor Tiresiae (Paul Murgatroyd)
Pro Senectute Mea (Joseph Tusiani)
Laus Bacchi (Raul Lavalle)
3 Carmina ex Hobbito Illo (Mark Walker)

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7
9
10
12
26
29
30
32

Features
Toiling Up Parnassus (Barry Baldwin)

37

Verba Inaudita (Mark Walker)

40Book Review: Musa Pedestris (Barry Baldwin)46

De gustibus non est disputandum48

Contributors

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Edited by Mark Walker
email: vates@pineapplepubs.co.uk

Vates is a Pineapple Publications publication

Vates Issue 4

Editorial
Welcome to this fourth edition of Vates, the free journal of new
Latin poetry. I‟m delighted that we are reaching an ever wider andincreasingly international audience. Poetry in this issue comesfrom Italy, Argentina the USA, Canada and the UK. We havereaders in Europe, North America, Jamaica, Australia … and thegenerous contributions from our poets around the globe shows nosign of slowing down, either – quite the opposite, in fact, which is a
gratifying indication that we must be doing something right!
One issue that prompted me to set up this journal in the first place
was the problem of finding a readership for new Latin verse: „Who
reads Latin Poems written in these days!‟ wrote Walter Savage
Landor‟s exasperated brother in 1820, scarcely able to believe his
brother would waste his talents on such a quixotic endeavour, andthe situation can hardly be said to have improved since then. It is,after all, one thing to feel moved to write Latin verse, quite anotherto persuade anyone else to read it.
Hopefully, a quick look at the variety of verse in this issue will
tempt any Latinist to read at least something – be it an extractfrom Brad Walton‟s epic First World War poem, or Joseph Tusiani‟switty musings on old age, or Massimo Scorsone‟s erudite
adaptations of Chinese originals. In just four issues, we‟ve alreadyseen in addition to classical metres, haiku, rhythmic verse, freeverse … one thing is clear: new Latin poetry is more abundant andvaried than any of us knew.
Vates needs you!
If you like what you see here please take a moment to tell people
about it. But most importantly, if reading this inspires you tocompose some Latin verses of your own, please don‟t be shy –share them with us!
Once again, gratias maximas to all the contributors without whosekind and generous support this journal would not be possible.
If you missed previous issues, please visit the Vates webpage todownload your free copies.
Mark Walker, Editor
vates@pineapplepubs.co.uk

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Carmina Latina(n.b. Latin spellings follow the orthography of the Oxford Latin
Dictionary. Only proper names are capitalised.)

After the Raid
Brad Walton
Brad Walton writes: I have been working on a story poem inhexameters set during World War I on the Western Front. In thefollowing excerpt, a hand-picked group of soldiers from a British
battalion has raided a German trench in retaliation for a similar
attack. Alfred is a company officer and also the architect andcommander of the raid. Walter is one of his sergeants. This raid is
Alfred‟s first experience of close combat.
auia per deserta suis redeuntibus orta
militibus maesta et turbata silentia sensit
Alfredus. nunc hic sistit, nunc ille, uomitquecorpore deflexo. reducem saluere cateruam
plurima gratantes laeti iussere cohortes.
grex uictor presso resalutant corde sodales,atque ubi rem fortes breuiter retulere, reductas
in caueas umbrasque suas plerique recedunt.
e paucis et adhuc tristi certamine laetis
haud tenui Brennus turbam, momenta, cruorem
enarrat studio, iuuenes tenet atque loquellis.
Alfredo, ut cessit properans ad tecta, biformis
sanguinei ruit in mentem terroris imago.

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cernit utrumque sua uigilem uirtute cadentem,
imprudentem alium sica praecordia caesus,
occiput atque alii ruptum liquidasque cerebro
uallorum tabulas. surgit prensaque matellaexonerat diris trepidantia uiscera formis.
Gualterus ora luto sparsus, thorace cruore
fuscata, caueae subit atque aduertit aqualem.
auersis tum dux oculis adfatur amicum,“cum dedimus, nos si dedimus, bone Gualtere, mortem,in fusis dedimus facto certamine campis
eminus armati, nobis nec uictima pandit
se nisi uix claram longinqua ex arce figuram,nec fuimus certi an nostra sit glande peremptus.
hactenus occulta tulimus solamina mente,missile non nostrum uita spoliasse. propinquus
nunc tamen occidi. submissa uoce loquentem
audissem. uidi faciem cutis atque colores
et motus animi, qui perspicerentur ocellis,
ingeniumque liquens: mitis uigil alter, amoenis
et deditus somnis; audacior alter et acer.
istis me pepulit caesis breuis horror, et illic
actutum capiunt coeptis enata secundis
gaudia, quae incursum clademque tulere per omnem.
nunc paris occisi captum retinentia torquet.
conscia profusi semper mens arguit ultrix

4Vates Issue 4sanguinis immeriti et sacro de crimine damnat.”“patrasti facinus praeclarum,” ait optio, “magni
et ducis egisti partes.” Alfredus at illi,“ipse mihi uideor facinus patrasse nefandum.”
Gaulterus auertit uultus et “quotlibet,” inquit,“conficiat rigido generosa et fortia bello,
plurimus at miles sibi, cum iugulauerit, etsi
aggredientem hostem iussusque, homicida uidetur.
haec, domine, occulta est Martis res maxima, nullus
quam populo uates enuntiat: esse reuersus
quae secum ferat ad patriam duo uulnera miles,
hostis quod teneris inflixerit artubus, et quod
ipse suae caedendo animae, repetentia saepe
aeternis laceraturum praecordia probris.
flere senes uidi post multa decennia caedem.
non iugulare soles. proprium mandare tribuni,
sed mactare uiros caligae. nunc sanguine tincta
bellantis, ductor, inspexti pectora uulgi.”
Alfredo in mentem Brennus uenit. “ut reor,” inquit,“sunt quibus occidisse placet.” “placet,” optio reddit,“nonnullis, inter centum fortasse duobus,
qui faciunt caedem, caedem meminere libenter,
atque iterum occidisse petunt. plerique uirorum
sclopeti nocuum uix adducuntur ad usum.”
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Metre: Hexameters
Translation: Alfred perceived the gloomy and troubled silence that had emerged
among his soldiers as they returned through the wilderness of No Man‟s Land.
Now one man, then another halted, bent his body, and vomited. The troops
hailed the returning company with a shower of congratulations. The victorious
squadron returned the greeting with subdued spirits and, when they had given abrief account of the business, most withdrew into the dark recesses of their
dugouts. Among the few still elated from the grisly combat, Brian described withno little enthusiasm the chaos, the manoeuvres and the bloodshed, and held the
youngsters spell-bound with his account.
As soon as Alfred had made a swift return to his quarters, a double image ofblood-bespattered horror rushed into his mind. He saw both sentries falling in
the midst of their own bravery, one, taken by surprise, cut down by a bayonette
to the chest, the other, the back of his head blown out and the walls of thetrench streaming with his brains. Alfred jumped up, seized the bed pan andemptied his stomach, which churned with the terrible memories.
Walter, his face spattered with mud and his jacket dark with gore, entered the
dug-out and noticed the basin. His officer, having turned his eyes away,
addressed him as a friend. “When we killed (if, Walter, it was we who killed), we
did so armed at a distance, in an engagement set on a sprawling battlefield. The
victim did not present himself except as a distant figure on a far-off rampart.
Moreover, we were never certain whether he had been killed by our bullet. Until
now we could take this consolation in the secrecy of our thoughts, that it was
not our weapon that had taken life. But now I have killed at close range. I could
have heard one speaking in a whisper. I saw their faces, the complexion of theirskin, whatever feelings could be seen in the eyes, and their personalities as clear
as crystal. One sentry was mild and given to pleasant reveries. The other wasbolder and fiercer. Their deaths struck me with a brief horror, and immediately,in reaction to our initial success, an elation came over me and carried me
through the entire slaughter. Now the memory of that slain pair clutches andtortures me. My guily mind constantly denounces me for spilling innocent bloodand condemns me of an accursed crime.”“It was a fine achievement for you. You played your part as a great leader.”“I feel as though I have committed a terrible outrage.”
Walter turned his face away and said, “No matter how many fine, brave deeds
a soldier carries out in the rigours of war, often, when he has killed an enemy,even an attacking one and under orders, he feels that he is a murderer. This,sir, is the deepest secret of war, which no poet ever tells the people: there are
two wounds that a soldier carries home to his country. One is the wound thatthe enemy has inflicted on his vulnerable body, and the other is that which hehas inflicted on himself by killing. This shreds his remembering heart withperpetual reproaches. I have seen old men weep over a killing done decades
before. You are not used to killing. An officer‟s job is to command. Killing is thejob of the rank and file. Now, sir, you have seen into a common soldier‟s bloodstained heart.”
Brian came into Alfred‟s thoughts. “I suppose,” he said, “that there are somepeople who like to kill.”
His sergeant replied, “Perhaps two in every hundred like to kill, gladly
remember having killed, and seek to kill again. Most men can hardly be
persuaded to fire a shot in anger.”

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2 First World War Poems
Paul Murgatroyd
Paul Murgatroyd writes: Since I first read some World War One
poets at the age of 15 I have always been very moved by such
poetry. A few months ago my sister-in-law gave me for a birthday
present a selection that contained several pieces which I had notseen before, and which I immediately wanted to translate into
Latin.
(1)
non fodisse ualens, non audens despoliare,
ut caperem uulgus, falsa locutus ego.
omnia quae dixi constat nunc falsa fuisse,inque illos cogor quos ego perdideram.
decepti per me certe feruentque dolentque:
tot quid praetexens conciliem iuuenes?

(2)
in uitam ueni, remeans ex urbe timoris,
ex ferruginea et fracta tellure doloris.
cum nauem caeli subter labentia signa
iactaret pontus, clamaret uentus in armis,
frigidus horrebam; sed carmina, uina, calorem
uersabam mecum, fruiturus talia rursus
per paucos paruosque dies. sum uectus et indedormitans raeda, Romamque repente propinquamuersabam mecum. “Romae nunc nempe puellam

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Vates Issue 4(ut prius) inueniam, facilem uanamque puellam,”aiebam tacitus, “cuius digitos retinebo;
osque genasque meis contingam deinde labellis;
osque genasque obliuiscar post tempore paruo.
illa obliuiscar certe, cum rursus adibo
tellurem ad ferrugineam fractamque doloris,
res udas, foedas, atque anxia taedia belli.”
Metre: Elegiacs (1), Hexameters (2)Translations:(1) A Dead Statesman (Rudyard Kipling)
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
(2) On Leave (Gilbert Frankau)
I came from the City of Fear,
From the scarred brown land of pain,
Back into life again...
And I thought, as the leave-boat rolled
Under the veering stars Wind a-shriek in her spars Shivering there, and cold,
Of music, of warmth, and of wine To be mine
For a whole short week...
And I thought, adrowse in the train,
Of London, suddenly near;
And of how - small doubt - I should find
There, as of old,Some woman - foolishly kind:
Fingers to hold,A cheek,
A mouth to kiss - and forget,
Forget in a little while,
ForgetWhen I came again
To the scarred brown land of pain,
To the sodden things and the vile,
And the tedious battle-fret.
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Webicus Bacchus
Joseph Tusiani
Joseph Tusiani writes: I have recently heard of a new on-line
magazine, called BACCHUS, soon to appear in Italy. The idea of
Bacchus online inspired my Webicus Bacchus, which I am almost
sure will raise a smile.
retibus et liquidis laqueis, Dionyse, dedisti
ebrietatem animi mentisque viris super orbem.
nunc grate genus humanum tribuit tibi donum –rete immane et deciduum quo tu quoque nosces
ebrietatem hominum vivam sine te, sine vino.
Webicus es Bacchus talisque per aeva manebis,
sed semper, Dionyse, veni bona pocula portans.
Metre: Hexameters
Editor’s Translation:
By snares and liquid traps you, Dionysus, gave drunkenness of soul and mind
to men on the earth. Now the grateful human race bestows on you a gift – a vastand falling net by which you also shall know that the drunkenness of men
thrives without you, without wine. You are Online Bacchus and such you willremain through the ages, but always, Dionysus, come bearing pleasant cups.

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2 Carmina
J. Turner Brakeley
About J. Turner Brakeley: These are in fact new poems, butpublished pseudonymously by the author‟s alter ego, J. Turner
Brakeley. He was a graduate of Princeton in 1862 who, after having
his heart broken, spent the rest of his life as a reclusive in his
native pine forests studying birds and insects and sending
specimens for other men to publish findings. As the natives did notknow about his scientific research they called him either theHermit or the Poet.

(1) De Arboribus Putandis
subtundunt tonsi filices alta ilice rami,
obliuiscentes excutiunt strepitu.
adsunt falcifera Septembris sole Kalendae,
et tempus gryllis debita soluere nunc.
(2) Chrysemys Picta
tu resinati recubans sub stipite pini
misces mussata somnia fontis aqua;
nostra negotia iam nequeunt te tangere tutam;
auro ne piscator, Chrysemys, inuideat.
Metre: Elegiacs
Translations:(1) On trimming the trees
The branches cut from the tall oak trample the ferns,
And shake out forgetful creatures with their clatter.
September's here with its scythe-wielding sun,Now it's time to pay our debts, even crickets.

10Vates Issue 4(2) Painted Turtle
Below the branch of resined pine you lie
And mix dreams with the murmuring water of the fountain;
Our present business cannot touch you, safe in your shell;
May the fisherman not envy your gold, painted turtle.

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Eoan Airs
for Hesperian strings
Massimo Scorsone
Poetry by definition is untranslatable.
Only creative transposition is possible.
ROMAN JAKOBSON
Massimo Scorsone writes: My first attempt at freely paraphrasing in
Latin – and, as I do confess, in an ingenuous, albeit somewhat
Borgesian fashion – some acceptable specimens of Old Chinese
poetry was only a few years ago.1 However, this oriental bee had
been buzzing in my bonnet for a good while, at least from thebygone days of my youth (yea, Postumus, for verily the years glide
on… ) when „my eyes‟, to use the words of Captain Charles Ryder,„were dry to all save poetry‟. As an adolescent, mere omnivorous
curiosity first led me to some of the most celebrated collections ofChinese verse in various Italian and French renditions, then to
English and German translations,2 and thus I envisioned thepossibility of Latine, or even Graece moulding some exemplary
imitations of the originals, and in the same rich vein of a poetic
tradition that is as classical as ours, yet so different from the one
to which the western Institutio Studiorum has accustomed us.3 My
labours continued to produce a fair amount of hotchpotch, evenwhen I at last decided to shed the guise of the learned translator,
rather surreptitiously invoking the authority of (more or less)recent precursors to justify the Orientalism en travesti of my „recreations‟.4
In fact, the pieces I have occasionally gleaned from those fields asa „bad Laverna of good poetry‟,5 though abounding in theuntranslatable, are less a deliberate product of personal
craftsmanship than the effect of an interpreting (or counterfeiting,
if you prefer) practice, primarily intended for my own use, as the
only device which enables me to partly understand literary works –and their underlying linguistic and cultural ethos – otherwise
impervious to the guileless amateur wandering in the Sinologicaldomain (even if it may well appear in his sight as a land populated
by illusions of a „classicizing exoticism‟, or „exotic classicism‟).
Thus, although there is much in Chinese poetry that is readily
enjoyable – from the sheer, fanciful elegance of immortal Li Po (theSinensis fidicen lyrae, in my opinion) to Tu Fu‟s warm yet discreet
tenderness, to the courteous idyllic allusiveness of Wang Wei andP‟ei Ti, and so on – and immediately touches responsive chords
within us, even when we are unaware of the original framework of

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its stylistic conventions, manifest efforts had to be made to adapt
the selected prosodical calque – sometimes more Catullan than
Horatian in pattern – to the original register, eventually smoothing
any too sharp „Roman‟ traces but, at the same time, seeking not tolose the peculiarly, or even idiomatically Chinese imprint of themodel, beyond any quaintness. I also tried to maintain a distinct
tone for each poem, carefully dosing various suggestions, lyricaland elegiac, as seemed meet.6
Ultimately, I leave to the cultivated ear the task of perceiving,
through the aforementioned game of mutual adjustments andcorrespondences, the echoes awakened by fleeting impressions ona merry-go-round of whirling chronotopes. Having bartered the
Eoan ch‟in for the Latian barbitos, I find that the Eastern Muses
sing closer to my heart. And you, can you hear them too?
The dedicatees of this random bunch of flowers, humble yet
fragrant with Eastern and Western scents, are a few kindred
spirits. Among them are Domenico and Rossana, fellow scholars
and patrons; Susan, colleague and confidante; Roberto, friend andformer pupil; Xiaoying, alumna and sincere sympathizer; Riccardo,
comrade and Mentor at the same time. And last, but certainly not
the least, Héloïse, faithful companion in more than one venture.
Notes:
1) At the beginning of the millennium, Marc Moskowitz of Arlington, MA hosted
some of my „fakes‟ on „Poesis Latina Hodierna / Contemporary Latin Poetry‟, a
website – already mentioned in previous issues – that „is meant to be a jumpingoff
point
for
examplesofmodern[…]Latinverse‟(see
http://www.suberic.net/~marc/scorsone.html ). I then published a few latinizedadaptations of poems by Li Po in the form of another semi-forgery in Vox Latina
38, 148 (2002), pp. 183-191. Rather pompously entitled „De Li Tai Po Clarissimo
Sinorum poeta, speciminibus quibusdam ejus operis additis‟, this new essay ofsuch a jocular inclination was indulgently tolerated by the editors, the late Prof.
Fr. Caelestis Eichenseer, OSB and Dr. Sigrid Albert of Trier University, and thus
my paraphrases of Chinese verse were ascribed to a fictitious character – one Fr.
Kuno Dühring-Ebner, SJ (Berlin 1862 - Peking 1927). Could he have been apious kinsman of the German social philosopher Karl Eugen Dühring, of
Marx/Engelsian memory? In fact, the allusion to an imaginary Jesuit Sinologist
should be understood as a simple tribute of admiration for the early pioneers inOriental Studies, who succeeded in combining a traditional humanistic
education with the capacity to penetrate the soul of the Middle Kingdom‟sliterature.
2) Only recently (but not without the friendly help of some initiates and a bit ofEzrapoundian boldness) did I dare face the tangle of the ideograms – a true selva
selvaggia to the trespasser.
3) I then resolved, as my whimsy took me, to adopt the Ionic dialect only totranspose the venerable, though anonymous, poems and ballads of the
Confucian Shih-king, or „Book of Odes‟ (oh gods and ancestors‟ ghosts, havemercy on my soul… ). But why „translate‟ anything from Classical Chinese into
Greek, or Latin? Far from simply being arbitrary snobbery, or the serendipitous
result of an impressionistic choice (even if, after all, humanistic Latin, with its

13Vates Issue 4

soft, timeless indeterminacy, its versatile expressiveness and capability, would
seem particularly suitable for such a task), it was an option inspired by a certain
compelling analogies between these classical tongues: for they can universally beconsidered, in fact, as written „mandarin‟ idioms, marked (a merely fortuitousconvergence) not only for their many peculiarities – from „their tendency totranscend the limits of national boundaries and time‟ to „their prestige, usuallyin contrast to a “vulgar” spoken medium; their irregular phonological evolution;
their role as vehicle for and symbol of a transmitted cultural tradition‟ –, which
propter similitudinem we ascribe as a rule to such literary codes, and that can
only in part be „explained as characteristic of written languages in general‟, butalso on account of other important, and perhaps more structural aspects,
including „their reputed resistance to change‟ (thus far Richard A. Kunst,„Literary Chinese Viewed in the Light of Literary Latin‟ [a previously unpublishedcomparative essay, available online in both PDF/html versions from the websiteof the Humanities Computing Laboratory of Durham, NC:
see http://www.humancomp.org/ftp/yijing/litchinese_in_light_of_litlatin.pdf
or http://www.humancomp.org/ftp/yijing/litchinese_in_light_of_litlatin.html]).
4)
See Massimo Scorsone, „Serica Delecta. Cinque cimenti parafrastici‟,
Semicerchio - Journal of Comparative Poetry 4 (2006), pp. 37-40 (thecontribution, containing parallel Chinese/Latin texts, is easily readable or evendownloadable in PDF version at:
http://www.unisi.it/semicerchio/upload/sc34_scorsone.pdf).
5) D. Magnus Ausonius, Epist. 14.104 („Bonorum mala carminum Laverna‟). A
feminine deity of the Netherworld, probably of Etruscan origin, Laverna was
imagined by the Quirites as „patroness of gain, good or bad, and so the goddessof thieves‟ (Hugh G. Evelyn White).
6) Please note, however, that these neo-Latin rearrangements from Old Chinese
poems are meant simply to be „reading texts‟, i.e. as literature intended only forpleasure, or enjoyment reading. Therefore, the numerous footnotes anddiscussions you might expect to find in such texts are missing; in the same way,
you will find here no indications of textual hermeneutics apart from those, which
are shown, as it were, already crystallized in my interpretations. So, for that sortof things, if you do not wish to consult a standard scholarly edition of classicalChinese verse, you should visit websites or blogs dedicated to the subtle art ofpoetry translation from the Chinese, such as „Classical Chinese Poems in
English‟ (see: www.chinesepoemsinenglish.blogspot.com ) or „Chinese Poems in
English‟, an online literary resource of the Hong Kong Economic Journal (see:http://www.hkej.com/template/blog/php/blog_index.php?blog_blogs_id=1751),
both run by Andrew W.F. Wong, OBE, JP.

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LEPORIVS (vulgo LI PO / LI BAI)

1. Fannio Chunio, Pierio Gentio, Congio Chophuo poëtis rursus
ad montes redituris“tigridas ille nequit deprendere, sive leones
retia qui lepori modo tendit,”caeruleis pleno delapsus nubibus ore
prae latebras ita praeco canebat.

o magne ingenio, Fanni, vir, sancte magister,et facili, probe Pierie, aevi
integritate potis; praeclare at tu quoque, Congi,
tot bene muneribus cumulate,devoti nebulis, cultores aëris omnes,
montanae super ardua pinus
culmina mens frugi, cordataque robore virtus,
si gracilis prope, tollitur isto:

una tribus lodix sat erat, dum caute grabatum
sternitur accubitis spatiosa,hiberni fracta glacie qui flumina rivi
frigida saepius ore sumebant;sic pedibus senis, de consuetudine, binum
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sufficiebat item crepidarum
par, cum, ceu vario palantia nubila caelo,
quo libet, errabatis inanes.

mox autem nemorum, mandante antistite, lustra
deseruistis, et hospita saxa,
sibila tollentes, tenui per acumina ferriconstricta, pie coetus, abolla,saltibus hesterna cui jam per somnia vastis
nocte redire jugoque videtur.
otia harundifera lunae sub sidera cordi
valle, virenteque ludere clivo;

atque Eoa Lycone vale, salveque bibentes
nuper ad ostia triste vicissim
extrema cellis deprompta cernimur urna
hinc discessuri, positaque.

at, quamquam gelido terrarum senta teguntur
uellere, et aspera, fitque caduca
lubrica canitie, dum ningit, equoque labante
semita vepribus abditur altis,

uester fumifici redolens ut caespitis herba

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sit tamen ipse mihi memoratus,
quae neque vere suis ubicumque vaporibus aurae
aestifero neque tempore parcit.

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THEOCINETIVS (T’AO CH’IEN / TAO QIAN)
2. Carmen Baccho subiciente vates meditatur
naviter crates casulae salignas
rure praecinctus, populisque texo,
paene plaustrorum strepitu silente,
quadrupedumque.

iure quaerenti tamen haec, amice,qua tibi detur fieri profabor:namque cor totis procul hinc facessit
rebus abactum,

donec obtutu Notiale longe
collis adparet, juga densa, dorsum
saepta chrysanthos mihi colligenti
propter Eoa.

dulce montana quoniam sub aura
iam magis lumen, pariterque primo
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uesperi nidos repetunt volucres
compare nisu.

talibus sensus, reor, ac profundi
vis inest veri velut ipsa signis:
verba rimantem simul et facultas
deficit, et vox.

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TYPHOIVS (TU FU / DU FU)
3. Domesticis nuntiis tandem acceptis, animum Musisaperiendo moestitiae ex tempore indulget
en, quas forte peragrante piis hospite, litterae,
valde sollicitus jam manibus commiseram diu
dandas rite domum, sedibus a sordidulis licet
incultaque aliquando redierunt mihi de plaga,

optatisque quidem ex more refertae quoque nuntiis:
quas suspensus ego jure inopinas prope, et anxius,
spe nec denique dejectus, adhuc auspice litteras
dilectae caritate opperiebar subolis parens.

Vrsillus bene pro parte valet, disque juvantibus
nunc pulchre viget, ac, teste tabella, puer omnium

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est quem corde foves, Mannule mi, praeter et intimos,
fratres exsuperantem ingenii munere ceteros.

aerumnosa senectus nimium, cui solitudinis
aegre fertur onus! sed trepidis ille molestior
curis angor, homo conficitur quo vagus, a suisdistentum miserae donec eum praepediant morae.

quid vero facerem? aut quid faciam? pessima tempora
distractis modo nos officiis esse simul vetant.
quondam namque, capillo satis incanus, erilibus
irrepsi laribus, sceptra salutatum oriens; rotas

mox sacras subii, Caesareo numine concitus,
phoenicemque; suis attamen urbs imperii potens
atque excelsum Aquilonis caput umbris minime caret,
limes dum niveis Hesperius candicat imbribus.

et, grassante magis jam Borea, saepius advena
huc anser revolat stridulus, udusque feracibus
tot pisces pluviis annus alit, turbidula satos
unda, sedula nec linquit iners munia villicus,

intenta procul acclive solum qui subigit manu
vel deserta fere pensilibus ruribus edita.

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Vates Issue 4

supremum o utinam sic obeam, non aliter, diem :arrepto, mihi sors si qua sinit provida, pastino.

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VANNEIVS et PAETIVS (WANG WEI, P’EI TI / BEI DI)
Ex Amnicis Vanae amoebaeis
4. Agger Arundinum Abundans[Vanneius:]
celsa cadente nitent sub divo gramina soleaethera dum referunt, silvaque densa viget,
et lento trepidant undantibus horrida motu
caerula pro foliis, arboreumque mare:nescio quis Sancum petit – an lignator? –, operta
solus per saltus avia calle means.

[Paetius:]
itque suis sub colle reditque ambagibus amnis
jamjam albente piger, pronior inde, face.
ad clivum viridis crebrescit arundine multa
pergenti, frondis dein tenuatur honor:
absque mora, placidus, resonante canore, supinum
montis iter teneo, culmina nota tuens.
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5. Piperis Arboretum[Vanneius:]
hanc clarae suboli casia fragrante salutem,
ecce, propinantes dicimus, atque scypho,
per me sincero dum florida datur amicomalva, piperque super gemmea prata merum
offertur (proclive suis de nubibus o si
huc daemon planta convolet ipse levi!).

[Paetius:]
attamen hi rubeis tunicatos, optime, dumi
vepribus, et spina nos remorantur acri.
dulcis odoratis circum te funditur aura
turibus; ut graderis, spirat aroma via.
te cortinarum facient tua fata potentem:
suavia sic costi semina, domne, legas!

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SOSIBIVS (SU TUNG-P’O / SU DONGPO)
6. Nocturna inter pocula, ad amicumo nitidum tacitis, argentea nox, decus sub astris!
quid aptius nam, candicante luna,dulce merum genio quam fundere, comiterque paucis

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pocilla largus ingerens amicis,

gaudia testari cordis pia? gloriosus ergo,sequestre laude, falsa ne requiras
famae dona, vorax neu praemia, stulta quae bonorum
tam fluxa semper appetit cupido:

prona quidem in nihilum, ceu somnia vana; ceu tepentes
ab igne, frigent quae modo, favillae
languidus in cineres ut abit vapor; ilicet fugaces
micantis, immo, ceu facis tenebrae.

quid, vel summa, tibi sapientia, quaeve disciplinae,
beatitatem dum cupis serenam?
quin sibi fausta, umbris sine lumina cuique comprecantisatis, superque nuda sit voluptas.

ipse itaque, ipse domum cum serius, ocius revertar,
nil praeter album nubium maniplum
forte ferens umeris ego, dulceque pectinem sonantem,
plenamque testam laetus hinc abibo.

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Metres: Alcmanian strophe (1), Sapphics (2), Fifth Asclepiadean (3), Elegiacs (4,5), Fourth Archilochean (6).
Translations:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

„But think about old friends the most… ‟In the Busy Quiet. Kōan Composed while Drinking Wine
Reflections in Melancholy
Amoebaean Couplets I: The Range of the Bamboo Sea
Amoebaean Couplets II: The Pepper Tree Grove
A Toast by Moonlight. To Happiness

1. „But think about old friends the most… ‟„The hunter, who sets snares only for hares, cannot capture tigers or lions‟: So
sang the herald, descending from the blue clouds, at the mouth of the rockycave. O revered Han, a man of great intellect you are; and you, honest P‟ei, youwith all the frankness of youth; and you, too, eminent K‟ung, with your many
merits: ye devotees of the clouds, ye inhabitants of the heights, above the lofty
top of the mountain pine this straight heart austere, this strenuous and stout
virtue, though simple, is exalted by your patience: a single blanket was once
enough to cover all three, when a wide stone was a bed to sleep; and often, you
broke the ice on the mountain stream in winter, and drank its cold currents. For
three pairs of feet, as was your custom, there were only two pairs of sandals
when, light like vagrant clouds in the capricious sky, you wandered everywhere.
But then, on the governor‟s orders, whistling you left the dark woods, andhospitable cliffs, ye happy fellows, dressed in lightweight capes closed with asharp iron fibula. Last night, you dreamed you had returned there to the wide
ravines, and the mountains (for you loved lounging by moonlight in the Valley of
Bamboos, and in the mountains green); and today here, in Lu, beside theEastern Gate we drank a sad toast, bidding each other a mutual adieu, once we
had emptied the bottle from the cellar. But though the white frost covers thetrees, and the blizzard makes the path, hidden by thick bushes, slippery for the
stumbling horse, your memory will be for me as fragrant as a tuft of smoking
grass: for, be it spring or summer, it ever exhales its perfume through the air.
[A valedictory ode, addressed by Li Po (701-762 A.D.) to his fellow poets Han
Chun, P‟ei Cheng and K‟ung Ch‟ao-fu when escorting them back to themountains.]
2. In the Busy Quiet. Kōan Composed while Drinking Wine
A wattle hut I weave in the countryside, among the peasantry; yet, wheels andmules stay silent. You ask me how I am able to work this miracle? My heart flies
away from the world, Nature continues its course. Chrysanthemums at theeastern hedge I pick, while there, to the South, the distant hills turn blue, and in
the peaceful shade of the mountain sweet comes the end of the day, as the birds
return to their nests. These are the things that reveal the sense of what is real:
speaking of them the voice fails, lacking words.
[The poem is the fifth in a series of twenty „Drinking Songs‟ written by T‟aoCh‟ien, or T‟ao Yuan-ming, also known as „Master Five Willows‟ (365-427 A.D.),
one of the most renowned among the pre-Tang Chinese bards.]
3. Reflections in Melancholy
Thus, at last, has come the answer to the letter I so long ago entrusted to thepious hands of a guest, so that he carry it to my home; thus, finally, a reply has

23Vates Issue 4

come to me, though sent from a poor land, from a village wild. It is welcome,nonetheless, rich as it is with its load of news, for until now I had awaited it withthe bated breath of an anxious parent, unable as I was to hope too much, andyet still trusting in the love of my dear children: Bear Cub is fine, I learn, and,with the gods‟ blessing, is growing up healthy; and thus he, my dear Pony Boy,
according to your words is the best-loved of your brothers, the cleverest of themall. Ah, how painful is old age for those, whose hearts ache with loneliness! Yet,
it is more excruciating still for the trembling worries and distress under which
the man oppressed must labour in exile, whilst bitter troubles keep him from his
home. Then, what should I have done? Or what should I do, now? Hard times
and our different obligations prevent us from being together. Once, in fact,hoary-haired already, I came to the Palace to pay my tributes to the majesty of
the Emperor; then, as he commanded, I followed the sacred chariot with its
phoenix-embroidered pavilion; now, however, the capital city of the Kingdom, thenorthern supreme seat is populated by none but ghosts, while the westernborder is whitening beneath the snow storms; and I see come here, as the northwind rages ever more frequently, the shrilling wild duck, while the wet year withfertile rainfall brings fish, the spawn of muddy waves. Yet, here the industrious
farmer neglects none of his work, he who expertly cultivates his hills, his
terraced fields, now almost deserted. Oh, but thus may I end my life, and nototherwise! If luck abide with, thus wish to die, hoe in hand.
[A homesick epistle by Tu Fu (712–770), thus celebrating the birthday of his
newborn. „Bear Cub‟ and „Pony Boy‟ are nicknames the poet gave to two of hissons, Tsung-wu and Tsung-wen respectively.]
4. Amoebaean Couplets I: The Range of the Bamboo Sea[Wang Wei:] At sunset, the light from the sky is reflected over the high verdant
ridge of thriving bamboo woods, and the leaves‟ deep blue sways in soft waves,
like a sea of fronds. Invisible, someone ascends alone, along hidden tracks, theslope toward Mount Shang – perhaps a woodcutter. No one knows.
[P‟ei Ti:] Here and there, already whitening in the moonlight, the meanderingriver flows: slowly at first, then faster, while the green bamboo grove thickens,
though further along thins. Thus, tirelessly, I keep on climbing my mountainpath: and I sing, as I walk, the familiar mountain peaks fixed in my sight.
[From the collection of the „Wang River Poems‟, or better „Antiphonal Songs‟:
something like the lyrical trophies of a gentle competition between Wang Wei(699-759 A.D.) and his confrère P‟ei Ti (c. 714-? A.D.) about several idyllic topics.
I am grateful to Andrew Wang-Fat Wong (Huang Hongfa), vir litteris adprime
imbutus, for the help he gave me, providing a felicitous interpretation of thepoem‟s ambiguous title.]
5. Amoebaean Couplets II: The Pepper Tree Grove[Wang Wei:] Let us drink now, with cups of fragrant cassia, a toast to illustrious
offspring, whilst I give mauve flowers to my true friend, offering him peppercorns
over the green grass carpet (oh if only thou, venerable spirit, would descend fromthy clouds!).
[P‟ei Ti:] This bramble hampers us, however, most esteemed sir, catching ourclothes with its red thorns, with its sharp spines, while perfumes and scentsfollow thee as thou pass. To govern the tripods is indeed thy destiny: thus may
thou gather, my lord, the augural seeds of sweet-smelling Saussurea.
[The poem is filled with mythical references and symbols, after the manner ofCh‟ü Yüan‟s (c. 332-295 a. C.) elegies. Thus, e.g., the aforementioned „illustrious

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offspring‟ – alluding to the daughters of the legendary Emperor Yao – hints at thehigh-mindedness of the wise. In the same allegorical imagery, spices andaromatic plants denote virtues, while the „red thorns‟ stand for „daily life‟, etc.]
6. A Toast by Moonlight: To Happiness
What glorious brightness, oh silver night, beneath this starry sky! What could bebetter, when the pale Moon shines, than toasting the genius with sweet wine,
and witnessing the simple happiness of your heart, as you kindly fill the cups,
like a bounteous host ministering to a few friends? Thus, full of pride, long not
fame‟s false gifts, deceitfully pimped by praise! And, in the same way, hunger notfor ephemeral prizes, for those things, which the foolish greed for goods everdesires: things that are next to nothing, as vain as dreams, or ashes from abonfire, warm at first, but soon cold, when the smoke turns slowly to powder; orlike shades that flee at the first gleam of light. What is the use of wisdom, evenas you strive to climb her summits? What serve its sciences and arts, if you only
seek the happiness of a peaceful life? For to all those who seek days serene,
without shadows, a simple delight is more than enough. I myself, when sooner
or later go home, will take with me nothing but a bunch of white clouds, asweet-singing ch‟in, and a wine-filled jar.
[A charming „Drinking Poem‟ composed by poet, scientist and statesman Su Shi,a.k.a. Su Tung-p‟o (1037-1101 A.D.), the „Gay Genius‟ (Lin Yutang) flourishedunder the Sung Dynasty.]

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Uxor Tiresiae
Paul Murgatroyd
Paul Murgatroyd writes: . I got the inspiration for this from Carol
Anne Duffy‟s poem From Mrs Tiresias, and I felt that as a Classicist
I could take the basic idea further in terms of wit, allusion andinventiveness (along the general lines of Ovid‟s Heroides).
haec ego nostro scripta uiro sapientia mitto,
uir si noster adhuc ese potest mulier.
montanas pridem placuit tibi uisere siluas;
portabas caeci more senis baculum.
o utinam caecus uero lippusue fuisses!
sed tu serpentes, stulte, coire uides;
nec uidisse satis: baculo disiungere pergis;
plaga grauis colubris, plaga mihi grauior.
namque refers longasque comas faciemque tenellam
et maiora meis pectora pectoribus.
Iunonis speciem, Iunonis grandia membra,
Iunonis nitidos tu superas oculos.
mox rapis armillasque meas strophiumque superbum,
inficis et fucis ora decora meis.
deinde uetas me labra tuis coniungere labris,ne post audires praua puella timens.
teque ardet multus caelebs multusque maritus;
uxorem fallis, fallis at usque uiris.
ante mihi segnis, peccas per mille figuras,

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nunc noua percipiens gaudia concubitus.
optasti tandem dominis ex omnibus unum,
illiusque domum denique fida colis.
mutata forma, quis sis non nouit amator;
quis sit at ille quidem dissimulare nequis.
anne tuum nescis te nunc corrumpere fratrem,
caecus mente, oculis auriculisque tuis?
mox tu frater eris fratri pariterque marita;
mox tu mater eris, moxque amita et patruus.
sed si forte tuae capient te taedia uitae,
mensque erit ad nuptam, nupta, redire tuam,
ne redeas. nam, quod tu diuinare nequibas,
tristis eram tecum, te sine laetificor.
si redeas uero, me iam donisque petentes
multos inuenias blanditiisque procos.
sed potius remeans uideas colubros coeuntes,
feminea rursus percutiasque manu;tum precor e plaga penem testesque receptes;
denique eas ipsam te futuasque precor.
***

Metre: Elegiacs
Translation: His Wife to Tiresias
I am sending these words of wisdom to my man, if indeed a woman can still be
my man. Some time ago you decided to visit the woods on the mountain; youcarried a staff like a blind old man. Oh, I wish you had been really blind or
blear-eyed! But you saw, you fool, that snakes were copulating, and seeing was
not enough: you proceeded to part them with your stick. The blow was grievous

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for the snakes; the blow was more grievous for me. For you came back with long
hair and a soft face and breasts bigger than my breasts. You outdid Juno's
beauty, Juno's large frame, Juno's sparkling eyes. Soon you stole my bracelets
and my splendid bra, and you coloured your pretty face with my cosmetics. Thenyou forbade me to join my lips to your lips, fearing that subsequently you would
be called a depraved girl. Many bachelors and many husbands burned for you;you cheated on your wife, but you always cheated on her with men. Formerly
sluggish for me, you committed adultery in a thousand positions, now deriving
new pleasure from intercourse. Finally you chose one out of all your boyfriends,
and you live in his house, faithful at last. Since your form has been changed,
your lover does not know who you are, but you certainly cannot pretend to beignorant of who he is. Can it really be that you, blind in your mind, eyes andears, do not know that you are corrupting your own brother? Soon you will be
brother to your brother and at the same time wife; soon you will be a mother,soon an aunt too and an uncle. But if you get bored with your life, and have amind, wife, to return to your wife, don't return. For (something which you wereunable to divine) I was unhappy with you, I am delighted without you. But if infact you were to return, you would find many suitors now courting me with bothgifts and endearments. But rather, while coming back home, see copulating
snakes and strike them again with your feminine hand; I pray that then you getback your penis and testicles; I pray that finally you go shaft yourself.

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Pro Senectute Mea
Joseph Tusiani
Joseph Tusiani writes: I take the liberty of sending you these few
lines. They help me to reconcile my eighty-eighth birthday with thisglorious Easter Sunday. [Written Easter, 2011]
imbecille meum est senile corpus
ut sulcata cutis reuelat oclis.
multi, ergo, iuuenes, meum uidentes
gressum lentum, animam putant inertem
et mentem mediis iacentem in umbris.
et fiat! sed amor, iuuentus, ardor
quid sint et ualeant scio et recordor
dum mundi memini uerenda cuncta.
nolite, o iuuenes, uidere finem
diuae mentis in hac humo caduca:
aeternum uiget ac triumphat in me
lucis principium quod in tenaci et
una reste ligat senem et puellum.
***

Metre: Hendecasyllables
Editor’s translation: My feeble body is old, as furrowed skin reveals to the eyes.
Hence many youths seeing my slow step think that my soul is stagnant and thatmy mind is lying in the midst of shadows. And let it be so! But love, youth,
passion – what they are and are worth I know and remember while I recall all
the wonders of the world. Don‟t, o youths, see the end of a divine mind in thisdoomed earthly being. Eternity thrives and triumphs in me, the beginning oflight which in one tenacious cord binds both the old man and the boy.

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Laus Bacchi
Raul Lavalle
Raul Lavalle writes: I once entered this carmen in a Latin poetrycompetition, not because I expected to win but because I wanted tosee my name alongside the other learned entrants. It is written in
free verse, a kind of „visual metric‟, ut ita dicam, by which I mean
the verses have the same or similar extension, if you read them.
For instance:laudo te, doctissime Marce,
quia res hodiernas Latinas
in Anglia, maris imperatrice,
optime colis.
Sometimes the last verse is a sort of pie quebrado, a kind of
Adonic. I write „my way‟.
Lenaee, audi me benignus:
non sum Tyrrhenus nauta.
salue, polyonyme daemon!
Omnes tuas gestas laudant
populi, quas in Asia et dulci
in Europa et in Aethiopum
tractibus necnon in India,
mirabiliorum terra, peregisti.
at praedulce nobis nectar
est, quod hominum generi
cottidie das. quam tristes
essemus, si fortem uitis
sucum nos non libaremus!
uino curas nostras leuamus;

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uino deitatem pura mente
ueneramur; saliares dapes
uino mitigamus; uino sermo
Socraticus madet, ut subtili
sophorum uoce gaudeamus;
uino corporum constitutioroboratur et puellas amarediscimus; uino obliuionem
malorum capimus amorum.
ueni, Euhan, mentes uisita
tuorum fidelium!
***

Metre: Free verse
Translation: Lenaeus, hear me tenderly:I‟m not a Tyrrhenian mariner.
Hail, god with a lot of names!
All nations praise your deeds,
which in Asia and in the sweet
Europe, in realms of Ethiopians
and in India, land of marvelous
things and miracles, you‟ve done.
Extremely sweet is the nectar
you give to the human races
every day. How sad we should be,
if we couldn‟t taste the strong
juice that the grapes produce.
With wine we calm our pains;with wine God in pure souls
pray; the banquets of the Salii
we relief with wine; wine needs
the Socratic conversation,
to perceive the wise men‟svoices; with wine our bodies
become stronger and we learn
to love the girls; oblivion of our
unhappy loves in wine we obtain.
Come, Euhan, and visit the spiritof your faithfuls.

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3 Carmina ex Hobbito Illo
J.R.R. Tolkien, trans. Mark Walker

Mark Walker writes: A rare chance to write some rhythmic(accentual) verse has come my way recently, since I am currently
engaged in translating J.R.R. Tolkien‟s The Hobbit into Latin(Hobbitus Ille) – following with a large degree of trepidation in theillustrious footsteps of the translators of such classics as Winnie
Ille Pu, Ursus Nomine Paddington and Harrius Potter et Philosophi
Lapis.
The Hobbit features a number of songs and verses, and I had
initially planned to translate them all into classical quantitative
measures. However, on reading many of them I began to think thatsuch an approach would not be suitable. In the very first chapterof the book, for example, the dwarves who have gathered at Bilbo
Baggins‟s house sing a very solemn and ancient dwarvish song, Farover the misty mountains cold, which does indeed readily lend itself
to such treatment. However, immediately before this they havebeen marching in and out of the kitchen while singing an
impromptu ditty about smashing poor Bilbo‟s precious crockery,and this song, so it seemed to me, worked much better as rhythmic
verse.
Further reflection about the notional time in which the story is
set – Tolkien‟s Middle Earth is a sort-of alternate Dark Ages,
complete with ersatz Norsemen and Anglo-Saxons – gave the ideaof mixing different styles some credence: imagine that the dwarvespreserve in their dignified old songs the quantitative verse of theancients, but when singing off-the-cuff ditties are more likely to fall
into the contemporary rhythmical style of vernacular lyric.
Similarly, when Gollum and Bilbo set each other riddles toanswer, these lend themselves to quantitative (elegiacs,
hexameters) versifying – it is, after all, an ancient game playedsince time immemorial with very strict rules – but when thegobelins of the Misty Mountains stamp their feet and sing about
what they are going to do to their prisoners, an ominous (q.v. Diesirae) trochaic beat fits the bill perfectly.
And besides, what a pleasant way to enhance the interest and theenjoyment for the reader. Students studying Latin at school, inparticular, may not have been introduced to such glories ofmedieval Latin as the Dies irae or Stabat Mater, or even Orff‟ssetting of the Carmina Burana, and so will (I hope) be pleasantly
surprised to encounter a hitherto unknown species of Latin verse.
Hobbitus Ille is due to be published by HarperCollins in 2012.
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Vates Issue 4(1) Carmen iocosum nanorum apud Bilbonem Bagginsem(Caput unum)
The dwarves tease poor Bilbo after dinner as they carry his
precious crockery into the kitchen at Bag End:frange uitra et catilla!
cultros tunde, furcas flecte!
Bilbo Baggins odit illa –nunc et cortices incende!

textum seca, sebum calca!
lactem funde cellae terra!
linque in tapeto ossa!
uinum sperge super porta!

has patellas aestu laua;
has contunde magna claua;
si nonnulla sint intacta,
uolue ea e culina!

Bilbo Baggins odit illa!
caue! caue! haec catilla!
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Vates Issue 4(2) Carmen lepidum dryadum Domi Familiari Ultima (Caputtertium)
The elves of Rivendell („The Last Homely House‟) greet Bilbo and the
dwarves with facetious mockery:quid facitis? quo uaditis?
calcandi manni uobis sunt!
tra-la tra-la fluentia
in ima ualle flumina!

quid quaesitis? quem ducitis?
fumantes fasces cocti sunt!
hi-ho hi-ho hi-ho hi-ha
in nostra ualle lepida,ha! ha!

quo uaditis comantibus
cum barbis nunc quassantibus?
insciti uos, insciti uos,cur Baggins atque Balinus
descendant nunc et Dwalinus
in ualle Iunio
ha! ha!

o uultis hic resistere,
aut subito discedere?

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de caelo deciditque lux
dum manni errant nunc est nox!
sunt stulti fugientes tunc
iucundi qui manentes nunc
et audientes nostrosad usque mane modos
ha! ha!
***(3) Carmen horribile gobelinorum Montibus Nebulosis (Caput
sextum)The dwarves and Bilbo, having escaped from the gobelins of the
Misty Mountains find themselves surrounded by Wargs (wildwolves) in the forest and seek refuge by climbing trees. But thegobelins are delighted to discover their escaped prisoners in such aprecarious situation and sing merrily as they set fire to the trees:
arde silua, filix arde,
sicut faces nunc incende
fiat lux in laeta nocte,euge!

coque, torre, illos frigebarbae flagrent atque orbes
foede coquas pellem, crines,
sebum, ossa tum liquesce,
soluent illa
in fauilla

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subter astra
fiat lux in laeta nocte,
euge!
eugepae!
eugae!

Metres: Trochaic (1,3), Iambic (2)Translations: See the relevant chapters of The Hobbit.

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FEATURES
Toiling Up Parnassus
Barry Baldwin muses on Morell‟s Gradus

All British scribblers of Latin verse have occasion to bless the
Gradus ad Parnassum. Not excluding, I dare say, Samuel Johnson(see my previous Vates essay on his), at least in his schooldays. It
was the inevitable mainstay of Tom Brown and Martin at Rugby,
respectively pursuing their „traditonary‟ and „dogged‟ methods ofcomposition, while even the swottish Arthur‟s „artistic‟ approach is
betrayed by the words “as much as possible without Gradus” ashaving occasional recourse to it.
Leicester Bradner, Musae Anglicanae: A History of Anglo-Latin
Poetry 1500-1925 (New York, 1940; repr. 1966), p.3, states that thefirst edition of the Gradus was published in 1687 by Paul Aler –misinformation reproduced by Wikipedia. As David Butterfieldshows in his meticulously fascinating essay on its history(Classical Dictionaries: Past, Present and Future, ed. Christopher
Stray, Duckworth, London, 2010, pp. 71-93) to which I direct all

Vates readers, the Jesuit Paul Aler actually published at Cologne

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in 1699 a revised version of the anonymous (Paris, 1652)
Synonymorum & Epithetorum Thesaurus.
In 1729, the English Gradus, hitherto
regularly reprinted from its continental
predecessors,wasadditionnumericalofenhanced

by

and

the

titularreferences to all verses cited therein.
Althoughprovidingnoevidences,

Butterfield attributes this innovation to
An 18th-century Gradus

EdwardCave,

Gentleman‟sfounder-editor

Magazine.

If

of

the

true,

this

explains why his publication was so hospitable to the Latin versesof Johnson and others.
The second English edition proper (1773) was the work of Thomas
Morell, described thus in a letter from David Garrick to James
Boswell: “Shall I recommend to you a play of Eschylus, (thePrometheus) published and translated by poor old Morell, who is agood scholar, and an acquaintance of mine?” I leave it to moreseasoned Garrickians to expand on why the great thespian should
so dub this familiar and their relationship. But, we may echo “poorold Morell” in another context: his omission from the Dictionary of
British Classicists (ed. Robert B. Todd, Thoemmes Continuum,
Bristol, 2004).
Thomas Morell (1703-1784, a death-date shared with Johnson)
was, along with a possible bout of pedagogy at Kelvedon School, a38

Vates Issue 4

careerparsonandclassicist,atypicaleighteenth-century

combination. After Eton and Cambridge, where he will have toiled
through his fair share of Latin verses, this saddler‟s son, armed
with a triad of degrees (BA, MA, DD) was
Curate at Kew before settling down to along (1734 to death) tenure as Rector of
Buckland, Hertfordshire. He also garnered
the accolades of FRS and FSA, plus
further

reputation

Handel.
Thomas Morell

His

as

a

librettist

bibliography,

far

for
too

substantial to reproduce here, may beread in the electronic version of Bibliotheca Britannica, volume two.
Butterfield prints Morell‟s Latin preface to what was in essence amuch-enlarged version of the Gradus, himself only the second
editor to have his name sported on the title page. There is no signof either the Gradus or any Morelliana in the inventories ofJohnson‟s personal undergraduate or adult libraries by David
Fleeman, David Greene, and Aleyn Reade. The odds are thatJohnson

will

have

known

or

known

of

Morell‟sclassical

publications; whether they had any personal acquaintance (Garrick
was a mutual friend) seems unknown and (pending new evidence)
unknowable.

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Vates Issue 4

Verba Inaudita
Mark Walker on an old problem for new Latin verse
Would-be Latin poets face a number of challenges – not least, thepainstaking task of learning to compose Latin verse in the firstplace. But one often overlooked problem – and one which was apivotal reason for founding Vates in the first place – is that ofpersuading people to read new Latin poetry. Writing for one‟s own
pleasure is all very well; but it is much harder to find an audiencefor your work.
This is not a new problem for neo-Latinists. As attitudes towards
writing Latin poetry underwent a change during the course of thenineteenth century, and the number of original poets declined
sharply, so too did attitudes towards reading new poetry: as evergreater emphasis was placed on ancient authors in schools andcolleges, both the writing and, crucially, the reading of neo-Latin
poetry began to be frowned upon – a process that can be charted
indirectly and anecdotally from a variety of sources.
In Britain, Latin poetry enjoyed something of a heyday during theeighteenth century: Anthony Alsop, Thomas Gray, Samuel Johnson
and Vincent Bourne being just a few who produced and publishedoriginal poetry. Astonishing as it may seem to us now, Bourne‟s
Poematia ran to nine editions between 1734 and 18401. Bourne‟s
popularity was still sufficiently high for Macaulay to write in 1843of his admiration for the Latin of Gray and Bourne. While not going40Vates Issue 4

so far as to compare them with their ancient predecessors his
praise is still warm:
Do we believe that Erasmus and Fracastorius wrote Latin as
well as Dr Robertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote English? [No]… But does it follow, because we think thus, that we canfind nothing to admire in the noble alcaics of Gray, or in theplayful elegiacs of Vincent Bourne? Surely not.2
But as early as 1847, when Walter Savage Landor published his
own Poemata et Inscriptiones, there were signs of a change in taste– at least in Landor‟s opinion:
Vinnius autem (ita appellabant eum familiares) nihil admodum
habet suum, et, aliena quum Latina
faceret,frigidaest
plerumque3
concinnitatis affectatio .
„But Vinny (for so his friends calledhim) has nothing entirely his own, and,since he expressed unfamiliar things in
Latin, generally displays a frigid
striving after elegance of style.‟
There were no more editions of Bourne until
Estelle Haan‟s publication of selected poems

Estelle Haan‟s “Bourne
Identity”

in 20074.
Landor himself, „England‟s last important Latin poet‟5, wrote
much of his own Latin verse in the teeth of opposition from family
and friends. Even in 1816 Landor‟s brother Robert wrote with agreat deal of exasperation:
Walter has been imploying [sic] Slatter & Munday to print
Latin Poetry, which no one ever reads or even hears of –perhaps the books will not pay the expenses of publication6.
Then again, in 1820:

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Vates Issue 4

I have received two or three Letters lately from Walter aboutsome Latin Poems, which have been printed at Pisa, and sent
to Longman for publication. Here is another foolish expense
without the chance of sixpence in return! Who reads Latin
Poems written in these days!7.
Poet and friend Robert Southey wrote to Landor in the same year:
Oh that you would write in English. I can never think of yourpredilections for Latin verse but as a great loss to English
literature8.
The final straw came when even Wordsworth added to the cry for
Landor to cease writing Latin:
had your Idylliums been in English, I should long ere thishave been as well acquainted with them as with your Gebirand with your other poems; and now I know not how longthey may remain to me a sealed book9.
Landor agreed to allow his Latin verses tobe excluded from the 1846 edition of his
works,

acknowledging

his

editor‟s

argument „that Latin was no longer read
except in schools‟10, though the following
year he collected them in one volume –which was not exactly a bestseller:

Walter Savage Landor

Landor gave away many copies of Poemata et Inscriptiones,
but Moxon told the Rev. John Mitford that he sold only one
copy11.
Robert Landor was right: no one did want to read Latin written inthese days. It was downhill from there for new Latin poetry. By the
beginning of the twentieth century, the very idea of neo-Latin had

42Vates Issue 4

become almost repugnant. The 1914 revision of Carey‟s Gradus
made a virtue of excluding all non-classical authors whose works
had been cited in earlier editions because their language wasmanifestly „impure‟:
It is not easy to conceive how a school-boy (and for schoolboys the work was intended) could form any just notions of
Latin poetry, or how he could derive any but a most impureand inelegant style of language, from habitually consulting abook, in which the good was indiscriminately mixed up withthe bad; in which examples of the greatest elegance from thepoets of the Augustan age were placed side by side with, andnot by any means distinguished from, others taken at
random, not only from authors who wrote in the times of thelater emperors, when the purity of the language was greatly
diminished, and who even then had but scanty claims to thename of poets, but even from some writers of much more
recent date, and of authority far more questionable12.
By 1914, neo-Latin writers had become „questionable authorities‟,
no longer worthy of sharing space with the elegant Augustans in
any reference work designed for impressionable young minds.
Times had changed since Macaulay‟s praise for the virtues of neoLatin writers less than a century earlier. No one in the twentiethcentury was going to endorse William Cowper‟s opinion of Vincent
Bourne, written in 1781 before the very idea of neo-Latin had
become somehow infra dig:I love the memory of Vinny Bourne. I think him a better Latin
poet than Tibullus, Propertius, Ausonius, or any of theWriters in his way, except Ovid, and not at all inferior tohim13.
If I may add a personal anecdote: I have just received a letter fromThe History Press, publisher of my book Britannica Latina: 2000

43

Vates Issue 4Years of British Latin, informing me that they have a residue of
unsold copies to be cleared from their warehouse – so any hopes I
once had of enthusing British (and English-speaking) Classicists
about their heritage of Anglo-Latin have now finally been dispelled!
It seems that if the pendulum is beginning to swing back in favourof neo-Latin, it is doing so painfully slowly. The current A-level(advanced) Latin syllabus in the UK features no neo-Latin at all14.
And Cambridge claims that it is the only British university to offer
neo-Latin courses for undergraduates15. There is a long way to go
before Bourne or Alsop or Gray are included in the school Latin
curriculum – though if they were, it might encourage students topick up their own pens and have a go at some verse writing of theirown. (Well, we can but dream …)
In its small way, then, Vates is one attempt to encourage anew
the very idea of reading as well as of writing new Latin verse – since
we can‟t realistically hope to have the latter without the former.
***

In the next issue, I will suggest some ways – other thanpublication in Vates of course! – in which Latin poets might beable to find an audience for their work, one obvious but curiously
overlooked resource being music.

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Vates Issue 4

Notes:
1. Storey (1974), p. 122.
2. Macaulay, Life and Writings of Joseph Addison (1843) in Macaulay (1897),
pp.66-67.
3. Landor (1847), p. 300. Kelly, in Binns (1974), p. 155 translates this as:„Vincent, however, totally lacks originality, and when he imitates other Latin
authors he is without warmth, and aspires to mere elegance.‟
4. Haan (2007), Appendix 1, pp. 135-165. Thanks to so-called „Print On Demand‟
publishers such as Kessinger and BiblioBazar, paperback facsimile reprints ofnineteenth-century editions of Bourne and many others are now easily andcheaply available, as a search on Amazon.co.uk will reveal.
5. Binns (1974), Introduction p. x.
6. Elwin (1958), p. 176.
7. Elwin (1958), p. 183.
8. ibid.
9. ibid.
10. Elwin (1958), p. 374.
11. Elwin (1958), p. 378.
12. Carey (1824, rev. 1914), Preface p. iii.
13. Quoted in Haan (2007), p. 15.
14.
The
OCR
A
level
syllabus
can
be
found
http://www.ocr.org.uk/download/kd/ocr_9611_kd_gce_spec.pdf

here

at

15. „Cambridge is the only British university which offers undergraduate courses
in Neo-Latin‟,
http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/other/courses/ugrad/neo_latin.html
Bibliography:
Binns, J. W. (ed. 1974), The Latin Poetry of English Poets, London: Routledge &Kegan Paul Ltd.
Carey, J. (1824, revised 1914), Carey‟s Gradus ad Parnassum,
Elwin, M. (1958), Landor: A Replevin, London: Macdonald.
Haan, E. (2007), Classical Romantic: Identity in the Latin Poetry of Vincent
Bourne, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
Landor, W. S. (1847), Poemata et Inscriptiones, London: Edward Moxon.
Macaulay, T. B. (1897), Life & Works of Lord Macaulay, Vol. VII, London:
Longmans.
Storey, M. (1974), „The Latin Poetry of Vincent Bourne‟, in Binns (1974), pp. 121149.

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Vates Issue 4

Book Review
Musa Pedestrisby Llewelyn Morgan
Oxford University Press, 2010
ISBN: 978-0199554188
RRP £70

All composers of Latin verse should read Llewelyn Morgan‟s Musa
Pedestris. It is quite simply the best book ever written on Latin
metrics. Morgan‟s point is that Roman (and Greek) poets selected
their metres to suit their subject matter. More coarsely put, Horace
did not wake up one morning and mutter, I‟ve had enough ofGreater Asclepiads and Alcaics; today, I‟ll have a bash at some
Sapphics. In support of his belief, Morgan subjects (supplying texts
and convenient translations) a large number of poems by(primarily) Catullus, Horace, Lucilius, Martial, and Statius tosearching analysis of how man makes the metre and metre makes
the man. A large number of other versifiers, Latin and Greek, arealso caught in his capacious net. The book is heavy going at times,
thanks to the unavoidable welter of sometimes jaw-breaking
technical metrical terms. But Morgan writes in clear English,
agreeably spiced with humour and telling autobiographical flashes,notably the concluding revelation that his book was conceived in a46

Vates Issue 4

Donnybrook pub – as Horace (Epistles 1. 19. 2-3) proclaimed, nulla
placere diu nec vivere carmina possunt/ quae scribuntur aquae
potoribus. Despite this toponym, Morgan is laudably even-handed
in his treatment of rival views, until this final outburst:“Contemporary Latin literary criticism is paying far too little
attention to metre. Academics should be ashamed of describing
metre as deadening. That is to fall in with lazy and ignorantcharacterizations of metre. Metre can never be an optional extra in
any adequate encounter with classical poetry.” As J. C. McKeown(himself a distinguished editor of Latin poetry) concludes in his
Times LIterary Supplement review (August 19/26, 2011, p.13),“Fighting talk, and irrefutable.” I doubt any Vates reader would
disagree.

Barry Baldwin

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Vates Issue 4

Letters to: vates@pineapplepubs.co.uk

Dear VATES,
Hello from Santa Monica. And thank you for Vates and thesometimes delicious poetry (though my Latin seems to have been
defenestrated with some of the graduate work I did at Univ. Texas
before returning to the law).
For what it's worth, here is a very bad limerick I wrote at the age offifteen in a contest with my Latin teacher, a defrocked priest:

olim erat magister Latinae
qui scripsit epistolam consobrinae;
scripsit “ego non scio
cur semper non dormio estne propter amorem feminae?”

Perhaps your readers might enjoy a bit of doggerel! And I vote formore drinking songs…
Judy Koffler

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Vates Issue 4

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Dear Editor,
I was delighted to find Vates, although it was a discovery madeentirely by accident. I have had various goes myself at writing Latinverse, but I have always found it like laying Lino – bubbles keep
emerging in different parts of the „room‟.
Cura ut valeas,
Anthony Dykes[Anthony Dykes is Parish Priest of Saint Wulstan, Wolstanton,
Staffordshire and Chairman of the North Staffordshire Branch of
the Classical Association, http://www.northstaffsca.org/. He is
also the author of Reading Sin in the World: The Hamartigenia ofPrudentius and the Vocation of the Responsible Reader, Manchester
University Press, 2011]
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Vates Issue 4

CONTRIBUTORS
Barry Baldwin was born a true „Lincolnshire Yellowbelly‟, but
emigrated first to Australia, thence to Canada, where he is
Emeritus Professor of Classics (University of Calgary) and a Fellowof the Royal Society of Canada. He has published 12 books andc.1000 articles/reviews apropos Greek, Roman and Byzantine
history and literature, Neo-Latin Poetry, Samuel Johnson, Modern
English Literature, and the more arcane field of Albanian history,
language and literature. Has also published c.70 short stories,
mainly mysteries, and freelances on a farrago of subjects forvarious magazines. He remains a far-off fan of Lincoln City andNottingham Forest.
Raul Lavalle (latine Radulfus Bonaerensis) was born in 1953 andteaches Latin in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He wrote several articles,
translated some Greek and Latin texts and has a blog devoted toliterature (www.litterulae.blogspot.com).
Paul Murgatroyd is a professor in the department of Classics at
McMaster University in Canada. He is the author of ten books andover 60 articles on Greek and especially Latin literature, and is atpresent working on a critical appreciation of Juvenal Satire 10. He
has also published original Latin poetry and translations, acollection of which was issued by the Edwin Mellen Press in 1991
as Neo-Latin Poetry A Collection of Translations into Latin Verse andOriginal Compositions.
Massimo Scorsone (Turin, 1963), former editor of Parthenias –Collection of Neo-Latin Poetry, is currently member of the ScientificCommittee of SuRSUm – being an acronym for „Sussidi alla Ricerca
negli Studi Umanistici‟ – Interdepartmental Centre for Scholarly
Aidsin
Humanities,
UniversityofTurin(http://www.sursum.unito.it), and chief editor of the Corona
Patrum Erasmiana for the CESU – European Centre of Humanistic
Studies (http://www.cesutorino.it/corona.html). In the field of
Latin – as well as sometimes of Greek – composition, till today hehas published little more than a polymetric „Dorian‟ epigram,
written after the Sevillan poet Vicente Aleixandre (Permanencia /Eis Paramonēn, in Pablo Luis Ávila Molina [ed.], Vicente Aleixandre,
Mediterranee. 50 poesie per 50 poeti, Turin-Mallorca: Mauro Baroni
Editore, see
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~jc210/greekcomps/caleix.htm),
and a ridiculously prolix shape poem (Columna Aldenardiana
Triumphalis, with an English translation by Frances Petty, in David
K. Money [ed.], 1708: Oudenarde and Lille. A tercentenary
commemoration in prose and verse, Cambridge: Bringfield‟s Head

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Vates Issue 4

Press, 2008), without mentioning other pastiches of the samegenre, still circulating on the Web.
Joseph Tusiani was born in Italy but emigrated to the USA in
1947. Before his retirement he taught at the City University of
New York (Herbert H. Lehman College), at Fordham University, andwas Director of the Catholic Poetry Society of America as well as
Vice President of the Poetry Society of America. His extensive list of
publications includes poetry in English, Italian and Latin – he has
been hailed as the greatest living neo-Latin poet.
Mark Walker is the editor of Vates. His latest book, an English
verse translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth‟s Life of Merlin (Vita
Merlini), was published in April 2011. (www.pineapplepubs.co.uk).
His Latin translation of The Hobbit (Hobbitus Ille) is due to be
published by HarperCollins in late 2012.
Brad Walton lives in Toronto. He did a BA in Classics andgraduate work in Theology, which seems to have been a dreadful
mistake. His study of Jonathan Edwards (Jonathan Edwards,
Religious Affections, and the Puritan Analysis of True Piety,
Spiritual Sensation and Heart Religion)
was published in
2002. More recently an attempt at Menippean satire, Peripedemi
Perigesis, was serialized in Melissa. His day-job is in the Universityof Toronto Library. In his spare time he plays theorbo for theToronto Continuo Collective, directed by Lucas Harris.

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Look out for the next issue of Vates in Summer-ish 2012

Vates is available for free download here

Pineapple Publications

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