Translations from Latin of Medieval and Renaissance poems
and a new poem
by Vincent Katz
Boethius 1
Boethius 2
Alan of Lille
Anonymous 1
Philip the Chancellor
Anonymous 2
Giovanni Gioviano Pontano
Girolamo Angeriano
Giovanni Cotta
Vincent Katz
I who once led the singing in my burning youth
crying am forced to learn sad harmonies.
Broken Muses tell me what to write:
elegies drench my face in real tears.
At any rate, fear that friends would follow
my path wasn't enough to stop them.
Glory of my happy, verdant youth,
they provide solace to my old man's woes.
For old age comes hastened by unexpected problems
and pain demands its aging be counted.
Unseasonable snows fall from the peak
and sagging skin shakes on the worn-out body.
A man's death is happy which arrives not in the sweet
years but in the miserable, after much invocation.
How often he turns away with deaf ear and savagely
forbids the suffering wretches to close their eyes.
While fortune was caressing me with false joys,
grim time was ready to submerge my head.
Now that it has changed its cloudy, mutable face,
an impious life protracts its unwanted delays.
Why, my friends, did you so often call me happy?
Who has fallen was not on a stable footing.
Boethius c. 480-524, On The Consolation of Philosophy I.i
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Whoever with rushing mind seeks only
glory and thinks it's the greatest,
let him gaze on the wide-open sky
and the narrow space of the earth.
He'll be ashamed of his puffed-up name
that can't fill even his small ambition.
Why do proud men vainly seek to lift their
necks from mortality's yoke?
Though fame may wander among remote
peoples, speaking and freeing their tongues,
and a mighty house may shine with fancy titles,
death spurns lofty glory:
he enfolds the humble and exalted head alike;
he equates the low with the highest.
Where now are the bones of faithful Fabricius?
Where is Brutus or stern Cato?
Tenuous fame, just surviving, marks an empty
name in some few writings.
Just because we know some fancy names,
does it mean we really know the deceased?
You lie down utterly forgotten,
and fame hasn't made you known.
Because if you plan to lead a long life,
a breeze of a mortal name,
when a late day will snatch even this from you,
a second death already awaits.
Boethius c. 480-524, On The Consolation Of Philosophy II.vii
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Every mortal creature
is like a book and picture
of us in the mirror;
of our life, our death,
our status, our fate,
a faithful image.
The rose depicts our condition,
appropriate gloss of our state,
a reading of our life:
which flourishes in early morning,
flowering the flower is deflowered,
is old by evening.
So breathing the flower expires,
while it blazes in pallor,
rising dying.
At once ancient and novel,
at once old man and little girl,
the rose withers rising.
Thus the spring of human age
in the early morning of youth
reflowers once or twice.
But even in the morning, the evening
of life excludes this, while it concludes
the dusk of life.
Whose charm while it speaks
its grace age soon deflowers,
into which it has poured.
Flower becomes hay, gem slime,
man ash, when he has paid
tribute to this death.
Alan of Lille, died 1203
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When I was paying attention:
venerating Venus
washing my side,
I felt I was succumbing
to that old vice,
when I was paying attention.
When I'll have paid attention:
what, how many, how often I'll have done,
I'll be able to cry with reason,
if I won't have turned aside,
if not for me as for the rest,
when I'll have paid attention.
When you'll have paid attention:
against whom you've misbehaved,
no good works,
nothing, I say, you'll find,
that is unless you deceive yourself,
when you'll have paid attention.
When they paid attention:
into wickedness you may
turn, return,
while you're able, resurge,
a free-minded man,
when they paid attention.
When attention is paid:
while living in flesh,
what is done by us:
nothing, if someone thus
is ruled by reason,
when attention is paid.
Anonymous, 13th century
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Since all flesh is hay,
and later becomes slime,
mortal, why are you praised?
Look at what you are and what you'll be:
you're a flower now and you will be turned
into an chunk of ash.
You tread the earth, you carry earth,
and into earth you'll be returned,
you who are taken from the earth.
By increments of age,
or better, detriments,
to non-existence are you borne.
Like a shadow, when it falls,
life rushes and fusses,
the limit of death closes in.
You tread the earth, you carry earth,
and into earth you'll be returned,
you who are taken from the earth.
Man is said to be of the earth:
quickly you pass, since
you are just like smoke.
Man is born crying,
leads his life struggling,
and you will die in fear.
You tread the earth, you carry earth,
and into earth you'll be returned,
you who are taken from the earth.
So since you know the quality
of your fate, why do you
pursue the pleasure of flesh?
Remember you will die,
and after death you will reap
that which you have sown here.
You tread the earth, you carry earth,
and into earth you'll be returned,
you who are taken from the earth.
Philip the Chancellor, died circa 1236
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Why does the world struggle for glory,
Whose reward is transitory?
So swiftly its power slips away,
Fragile as a potter's vase.
Letters scratched on ice last longer
Than the fragile world's empty deceptions;
Deceived by rewards, the appearance of virtue,
The man who never had a moment's faith.
Better to believe in liars
Than in the world's miserable prosperity,
False insanity and vanity,
False desires and lusts.
How brief a party is this worldly glory!
Like a man's shadow its pleasures,
Which the eternal allotment drags away,
Leading man to grim desolation.
O food for worms! o mass of dust!
O dew, o vanity, why exalt yourself thus?
Not knowing within what tomorrow may bring,
Do good to all, whatever time's left.
This flesh glory, which is valued so highly,
In sacred texts is called profit's flower;
Like a light leaf snatched by the wind,
So the life of man is dragged from light.
You say there's nothing you're prepared to lose:
What the world has granted, it intends to take back.
Meditate on higher things, your heart in the air.
He's happy who has been able to deny the world!
Tell me, where's Solomon, once so powerful,
And where is Samson, leader invincible,
Where's pretty Absalom, his marvelous face,
Or sweet Ionathas, desirable grace?
Where's Caesar gone, the height of the empire,
Or splendid Wealth, always at dinner?
Tell me, where's Cicero, his rhetorical eloquence,
Or Aristotle, the world's greatest genius?
So many rulers, so many things,
So many dancing faces, such strong kings,
So many world leaders, such abundant power,
In the blink of an eye, all are closed under.
Anonymous, 13th century
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Farewell, hendecasyllables,
charms and seducers of my loves,
farewell, companions of my old age,
joys of countryside and the baths.
Enough fooling around and joking.
Effete witticisms must come to an end.
It's also time to quit guffawing.
You young men who'll read
my trifles, sweet Thalia's jokes,
may you choose quiet for my ashes:
'May light dust lie in an eternal urn,
never lacking violets and roses,
and blessed with you in the Elysian fields,
may your wife lead perpetual dances
and may ambrosia nourish you.'
Then no bitter love will touch you,
nothing but sweetness: then you'll
lead nights and days of equal love,
and Pleasure will be your friend.
Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, 1429-1503
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Who made you so like me, sweet image?
How truly you express my expression!
You pale, pallor grips me; you in a blind light,
I'm blind; no (alas!) mind in you, none in me.
Life has left your limbs, life's left mine;
mute, you're silent, mute's this tongue of mine: silent.
You linger spiritless, I linger spiritless; you hang around
alone, alone night and day I hang around.
You bear limbs wrapped in fragile, delicate papyrus,
in fragile, delicate cork I'm fixed powerless.
You're nothing if not empty shadow of my body or breeze,
shadow or breeze is equivalent to my body.
You don't last a long time, a long time
I don't last; you'll become ash, I'll be ash.
We're both the same; but you're happier: love
you don't feel, bitter love makes me miserable.
Girolamo Angeriano, circa 1480-1535
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Already it's goodbye, my good soulmates,
excellent Naugeri, and you, Turri, my friend,
truly brilliant and excellent soulmates,
whom I never loved enough. Let me say it now:
I loved you more than my brothers or myself.
To enjoy you for all time:
may the gods kindly hear my prayers,
may there be enough pleasure in my soul.
Because as abundant as the future will be,
if one may wish may be granted me:
to attend those happy meetings of your Bembi!
Truly hard necessity is unresponsive
and forces me unwillingly to go to other lands
and to arrange other friends.
So remember me.
Keep a fixed image of me in your heart
and the best part of my soul with you.
Already, my good soulmates, it's goodbye.
Giovanni Cotta, 1480-1510
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Vanitas
Quiet Zone...
I. Beauty
Three flesh-toned columns
arise at our front
down urban canyon
Licked a pinkish hue
half proud in dark
no more time for thought
We set out, two children
read on marble steps
she unveils herself
II. Seaside
Cold as ice on set-out
lines of lights above
a pigeon huddled by
The marble, dying
the horns and whirs
of machinery readying
We push along the course
anxious steady on
full involvement
III. Roadside
A packing out
stove armories
links as mordant
A storied assault
chairs and whiskers
drunk singing
Incomprehension
a wet rope flung upward
landing flat on a chest
IV. Gore
Total rout, we're set
running, turmoil
the dire sense of it
Nothing for mother
no seed left alongside
children, others
The road quickening
for some, blighted
persistence, wedge
V. Peace
Back, we're singing
fàted though sour
girls and dances
In the library see one
another, quiet zone
silence breath
Fork in the path but you
could come back always
could see one again
Vincent Katz, 2001
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