This was magnificent! I just finished reading The Aeneid for the first time (Ruden) and I am now in the deliriously glorious rabbit hole of exploring/ comparing other translations. This read was thoroughly enjoyable (and humorous!) and I learned a lot. Thanks!
Interesting post! After reading it I feel like I really know the first page of the Aeneid.
From this comparison, I feel most drawn to the Mandelbaum version. That's ignoring considerations of faithfulness, and just choosing the one that sounds the best to me. I like the rhyme and alliteration.
Thanks! This exact method is what I used to rank (I love ranking things, it may surprise you to find-) translations of the Iliad, when I found a post like this one (except, of course, for Homer) by a fellow autist some years ago; but...
...well, there are many fewer Iliads to consider than Aeneids; so: I've been wondering whether maybe--though it worked well for Homer--if it isn't the case that, here with Vergil, the reader reaches a sort of "poetic satiation" on those first 10-20 lines. Ought I throw in another passage-per-translation for comparison, you think?
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I've continually revised Mandelbaum upward in my mind--at first, I didn't want to like 'im that much, because he neither wrote dozens of pages about how desirous he was of capturing every last minute detail of Vergil's Latin* nor failed to throw in a bit of (admittedly, minor & reasonable) politics in his Introduction; but the more of his translation I read, the more it sticks with me. It's really very, very good.
*(although worth noting that he IS, apparently, quite close to the Latin, esp. considering pre-2020s translations)
I think the one passage for comparison was fine. If there were another passage, I suppose it would be useful to choose one with a style drastically different from the opening, or which had particular difficult poetical flourishes in the Latin, to see how it came out differently in the English.
This was magnificent! I just finished reading The Aeneid for the first time (Ruden) and I am now in the deliriously glorious rabbit hole of exploring/ comparing other translations. This read was thoroughly enjoyable (and humorous!) and I learned a lot. Thanks!
Interesting post! After reading it I feel like I really know the first page of the Aeneid.
From this comparison, I feel most drawn to the Mandelbaum version. That's ignoring considerations of faithfulness, and just choosing the one that sounds the best to me. I like the rhyme and alliteration.
Thanks! This exact method is what I used to rank (I love ranking things, it may surprise you to find-) translations of the Iliad, when I found a post like this one (except, of course, for Homer) by a fellow autist some years ago; but...
...well, there are many fewer Iliads to consider than Aeneids; so: I've been wondering whether maybe--though it worked well for Homer--if it isn't the case that, here with Vergil, the reader reaches a sort of "poetic satiation" on those first 10-20 lines. Ought I throw in another passage-per-translation for comparison, you think?
-------------------------
I've continually revised Mandelbaum upward in my mind--at first, I didn't want to like 'im that much, because he neither wrote dozens of pages about how desirous he was of capturing every last minute detail of Vergil's Latin* nor failed to throw in a bit of (admittedly, minor & reasonable) politics in his Introduction; but the more of his translation I read, the more it sticks with me. It's really very, very good.
*(although worth noting that he IS, apparently, quite close to the Latin, esp. considering pre-2020s translations)
I think the one passage for comparison was fine. If there were another passage, I suppose it would be useful to choose one with a style drastically different from the opening, or which had particular difficult poetical flourishes in the Latin, to see how it came out differently in the English.