Poem 16 presented us with problems of vocabulary choice, especially connected with cultural concepts; poem 84 foregrounded issues of sound and its interactions with sense. The final translation crux that we shall consider is how to handle Catullus’ learned allusions and mythological references, which are especially prominent in the long poems. Should such references be made self-explanatory or at least recognizable, or should they be left obscure? For instance, how should a translator render falsipa-rens Amphitryoniades (68.112)? Literally, this means ‘‘the false-parented son of Amphitryon.’’ To understand this term, the reader must recognize a reference to Heracles, and to the story of Heracles’ parentage; Zeus seduced Alcmena by disguising himself as her husband Amphitryon, and their union resulted in the birth of Heracles. Very few modern readers, however, are likely immediately to recognize this back story; very few will have any sense at all of who the false-parented son of Amphitryon might be. Should the translator, then, simply change those words to ‘‘Heracles’’ (or Hercules), which is, after all, what they ‘‘mean’’? But if the translator simply says ‘‘Heracles,’’ then the whole Catullan flavor, the tone of poem 68 that does so much to make it what it is, is lost. Such a translation not only removes the allusivity, but also masks the fact that audit falsiparens Amphitryoniades is a three-word pentameter, a dazzling metrical achievement and one that displays Catullus’ Alexandrianism at its most accomplished. Fordyce’s comment bears repeating: ‘‘The circumlocution, the compound. . . , the patronymic form, and the rhythm make this one of the most Greek-sounding lines in Latin’’ (1961: 356).
So much for the line itself; the difficulties of translating this phrase are increased by the context in which it is located. Catullus here is using the story of Laodamia and Protesilaus as a comparandum for his own affair with his unnamed domina;18 within that comparison, the pit ( barathrum) that Heracles once dug is cited as a compar-andum for the depth of Laodamia’s passion. Allusions are nested inside one another here to an extent that makes the passage all but incomprehensible to any but the most mythologically sophisticated reader. The passage refers to the barathrum
Quale ferunt Grai Pheneum prope Cyllenaeum siccare emulsa pingue palude solum, quod quondam caesis montis fodisse medullis audit falsiparens Amphitryoniades, tempore quo certa Stymphalia monstra sagitta perculit imperio deterioris eri, pluribus ut caeli tereretur ianua diuis,
Hebe nec longa uirginitate foret.
Such as the Greeks say, near Cyllenaean Pheneus, dries the rich soil as the marsh is drained, which once the false-parented son of Amphitryon is said to have dug through the cut marrow of the mountain, at the time when with a sure arrow he killed the Stymphalian monsters at the order of a lesser master, so that the door of the sky might be trodden by more gods and that Hebe might not be in long virginity. (68.109-16)
Not only Heracles’ birth story, but his famous labors, his parerga, his service to his cousin Eurystheus (the unworthy master of line 14), and his eventual apotheosis and marriage to Hebe are all referenced here, in terms as elusive and as allusive as possible. Indeed, this passage is so convoluted that some critics think it is meant as a spoof of neoteric poetic practice; so, for instance, Skinner says that these references are ‘‘heaped up paratactically, almost as a travesty of the mannerisms of Alexandrian narrative’’ and calls the Heracles exemplum ‘‘the most precious and contrived passage in poem 68’’ (2003: 162-3). Clearly, the words falsiparens Amphitryoniades carry a great deal of Alexandrian weight; what can the translator do with them?
As with the other passages we have examined, translators’ approaches run the full gamut of possibilities, from Myers and Ormsby’s simple ‘‘Hercules’’ to Green’s ‘‘Amphitryon’s falsely ascribed offspring’’ (Myers and Ormsby 1970: 139; Green 2005: 175-6). Mulroy refers to ‘‘Amphitryon’s pseudo-son’’ (2002: 86), while Raphael and Macleish have a foot in both camps with ‘‘Hercules, Greek-named ‘son of Amphitryon’’’ (Raphael and McLeish 1979: 97). Lee chooses the completely literal (and to most readers incomprehensible) ‘‘false-fathered Amphitryoniades’’ (1990: 119). Lee includes an endnote explaining the sense of this phrase; others, including Green and Mulroy, also provide explanatory notes (Lee 1990: 174-5;
Mulroy 2002: 88; Green 2005: 253-4). Is this the best possibility for dealing with Catullan allusivity, to follow, in effect, Burnshaw’s recommendation of letting the original speak its own sounds and then providing a literal paraphrase (or explanation)? Of the three problems we have discussed, this is in some ways the most intractable, for it involves the Alexandrianism of the neoterics, which is even more resistant to cultural translation than is the sexual invective of poem 16 or the word-play of poem 84.
There are no clear paths out of these labyrinths; rather than offering answers, I want to end this chapter by looking at Catullus’ own practice of translation.
World History
