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14 results

  • SAAMCO REVISITED

  • Jeffrey Thomson
  • Journal:
    The Cambridge Law Journal / Volume 76 / Issue 3 / November 2017
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 November 2017, pp. 476-480
    Print publication:
    November 2017

  • In Hughes-Holland v BPE Solicitors [2017] UKSC 21; [2017] 2 W.L.R. 1029, Mr. Gabriel lent £200,000 to a developer, Mr. Little. He had expected the money to be wholly employed by Mr. Little in developing a property. Mr. Little, however, used the advance to discharge borrowings secured on the property, and other liabilities. In the event, no development of any significance was carried out, the property was worthless and Mr. Gabriel's advance was lost.

  • Introduction

  • Catullus
  • Edited and translated by Jeannine Diddle Uzzi, University of Southern Maine
  • Translated by Jeffrey Thomson, University of Maine, Farmington
  • Book:
    The Poems of Catullus
    Published online:
    05 October 2015
    Print publication:
    04 June 2015, pp 1-28

  • Summary

    TRANSLATION AND THE CORPUS

    Dedication

    To whom do I give my witty little book,

    newly buffed and pressed?

    To you, Cornelius: your singular audacity

    consigned to three sheets the history of the world –

    pithy but damned belabored.

    You always thought my little nothings something,

    so take this book, whatever sort it is,

    and, dear Muse, let it last.

    When I began teaching I never imagined I would show Kevin Smith's Clerks in class. Don't get me wrong: I love the film, a 1994 comedy about a day in the life of two convenience store clerks in New Jersey, but it's not an obvious sell as classics, nor does its content lend itself to easy endorsement in the classroom. Nevertheless, I found myself pressing “play” in a big Roman civilization lecture and giving over to Jay and Silent Bob the ostensible scaenae frons (Roman stage) of my class. For this I have Amy Richlin to thank. In the introduction to her translation of Plautus’ Persa (a play she titles Iran Man), Richlin claims that the films and comic books of Kevin Smith provide “a really excellent current parallel” (111) for the type of humor found in Plautus and, one might argue, Roman comedy in general. Clerks presents a world in which working-class youths run amuck while literally minding the shop. The perennial absence of an authority figure allows a cast of over-the-top slackers to engage in a particularly vulgar and subversive yet also literate and political brand of hilarity, the very brand one finds in the comic works of Plautus and Terence. While many classicists attempt to draw connections between the ancient and modern worlds, Richlin endeavors to translate the experience of being Roman, suggesting a way for modern audiences to encounter Roman comedy as the Romans might have. Watching Clerks, along with reading Iran Man, of course, we might approximate in a meaningful way what it was like to sit as a Roman in the audience of a comedy.

    The desire to approximate the experience of the ancient audience for the modern is precisely what inspired this translation. Most modern translations of Catullus tend toward the literal, and even Charles Martin's translation, by many accounts the best English language translation of Catullus to date, follows Catullus’ line breaks as if English-speaking readers had somehow internalized the Latin original.

  • The poems

  • Catullus
  • Edited and translated by Jeannine Diddle Uzzi, University of Southern Maine
  • Translated by Jeffrey Thomson, University of Maine, Farmington
  • Book:
    The Poems of Catullus
    Published online:
    05 October 2015
    Print publication:
    04 June 2015, pp 29-179

  • Summary

    DEDICATION

    To whom do I give my witty little book,

    newly buffed and pressed?

    To you, Cornelius: your singular audacity

    consigned to three sheets the history of the world –

    pithy but damned belabored.

    You always thought my little nothings something,

    so take this book, whatever sort it is,

    and, dear Muse, let it last.

    ATALANTA

    Bird, little toy of my love,

    the one she teases and holds close,

    provokes to nip and bite when the heat demands diversion,

    distraction from desire to soothe the burning ache

    (at least that's how I see it):

    if only I could play with you like that,

    relieve the pain of wanting her …

    … this would be my golden apple

    like the one that freed a nimble maiden

    from a chastity belt so long bound tight.

    DIRGE

    Venuses and Cupids, Lovers and Literati,

    Mourn!

    Dead is my love's little fetish,

    the bird she cherished

    more than life.

    He was delicious

    and knew her to the quick.

    Never leaving her lap,

    hopping about

    he'd chirp only for her.

    Now he commences the shadowy journey

    whence no bird returns.

    Shame on you, shady henchmen

    of Orcus

    feasting on beauty: from me

    you have snatched a bird of great price.

    Evil deed, wretched bird:

    you streak red

    the swollen little eyes of my love.

    PERSONIFICATION

    Friends, that pirogue claims

    to be the fastest of all boats,

    claims it could outpace all other ships

    by oar or by sail. It says

    the driving Adriatic will confirm this,

    as will the Cyclades, grand Rhodes

    and Marmara, stiff with Thracian storms,

    along with the sullen Pontic gulf

    where that skiff was once a comate

    branch whose greeny whispers issued

    forth from the Cytorian ridge.

    Cities of the Black Sea,

    this boat says it is known best by you,

    claims to have stood on your heights,

    dipped its little blades in your waters

    and from there to have born its master

    through countless impossible straits

    whether winds blew starboard or port

    or Jupiter struck both sheets.

    When finally it left the sea for this quiet pool

    it made no vows to the gods of terra firma.

    That was long ago: now in tranquil old age

    it offers itself to you, Castor and Pollux.

The Poems of Catullus
  • An Annotated Translation
  • Catullus
  • Edited and translated by Jeannine Diddle Uzzi
  • Translated by Jeffrey Thomson
  • Published online:
    05 October 2015
    Print publication:
    04 June 2015
  • The Roman poet Catullus is one of the most popular and frequently studied ancient authors. His poems were written just over two thousand years ago during the chaotic but culturally vibrant final decades of the Republic and deal with themes of passion and grief, friendship and enmity, politics, literature and myth. This new translation, the product of a collaborative effort between a classicist and a poet, allows modern readers to experience his poems rather as his ancient Roman audience did. The poems are presented as contemporary and concise with a new energy and pace that both enhance Catullus' appeal for non-specialists and challenge specialists to consider his work from a fresh perspective. Extensive notes are provided, as well as an introduction which takes account of modern poetics and popular culture. The translation will appeal not only to classicists but also to lovers of literature in general and poetry in particular.