Latin | A Blogger's Beowulf

Introduction
Translations
Word Issues
Liberties Taken
Closing

Introduction

So this song, “Tempus Adest Floridum,” is the origin of the tune for “Old King Wenceslas.” However, as you’ll notice from the title and from the song’s content it has nothing to do with old King Wenceslas.

You can find the full song in its original Latin here.

First my literal translation:

The time for flowers now is come, for the flowers rise up.
Spring in all things, the likeness/copy of nature.
This which ice had attacked, has recovered warmth.
We all see this weeping, by great work.

And my dolled up translation (with some rhyme):

The time for flowers now is come, for the flowers now arise.
All things now are of the spring, nature’s likeness is in all eyes.
This which winter once had attacked, has regained its fire;
We all see winter’s weeping, since spring has perspired.

The issues that came up for me during this translation were relatively minor, just a few issues with words not being in my Collins Pocket Gem dictionary. The words in question?

“Vernales” (an adjective meaning “of Spring” was the worst); “Cerno” (ere, crevi, cretum; a verb meaning to see, discern, understand, perceive, etc.); and “fleo” (ere, evi, etum; a verb meaning to weep, cry, lament, mourn for) were close seconds since I had to twist things around to make good sense of it all.

Obviously, I took some liberties with the second use of “hoc” (“this”) to bring in Winter again, but I like the personification of the seasons to which this song gives rise.

It isn’t direct personification, necessarily, but the conceit definitely helps to make the translation more fun. And, since the original image seems to be that of icicles dripping (hence weeping), making winter the weeper seems appropriate.

The conquest of spring also makes it a more joyous song, even if that joy is derived from conquest.

Though I must admit that a pop song about Spring coming in and ruining Winter’s shit might be fun as well, the cycle of nature can be pretty brutal after all.

“Transpire” could also have worked as the final word of the verse, but I think that spring is generally a wet season, and “perspire” is a wetter word. It also implies that much more effort was used, and if a season is going to be made to weep I imagine that even another season is going to need to break a sweat.

So that’s verse one of “Tempus Adest Floridum.” Expect verse two next week.

Introduction
Purposes
Wrap Up

Introduction

This blog is a platform from which I’m going to be writing, gushing, and otherwise working through the sense of my various translation projects. Currently I’m working on a translation of Beowulf from Anglo-Saxon, and another of the thirteenth century song “Tempus adest Floridum” from Latin.

Two old and gone languages might seem a little, well, anachronistic in this internet-set age of ours, but as Facebook offers its site in Latin and other blogs for old languages exist, there is definitely a readership for the thoughts and meanderings of a wit as he moves meaning from one language and into another.

Of course, to reach the conclusion that there is an audience for this sort of thing I’m applying an idea that I’ve always tried to keep firmly in mind: that among a finite number of people with access to print media there’s definitely a sizable audience for anything from a slightly more finite number of genres and forms.

To put it more simply, there are a lot of people in the world, and somewhere out there there’s got to be a solid 5000 of them interested in what I have to say or the stories that I have to tell. Scale that number up or down as you please.

However, the primary purpose of this blog is to give me a space to write about my own reactions to what I translate. These will definitely include bits where I wax academical, but there will also be bits where I just laugh at the literal translation of a word, or sit in wide-eyed wonder at how a perfectly awesome word did not make it into casual Modern English.

I might even flex some alumni muscle and pull out etymologies from the Oxford English Dictionary Online (hereafter the OEDO) to show these words’ journeys if they’ve been traced.

So, as you might guess, what I write here is going to generally be scholarly but with a more casual tone than that which you’ll find in an academic journal or book. I’ll be keeping the long sentences, though.

A Blogger's Beowulf

An Old English enthusiast's translation of Beowulf. Plus a little bit about Beowulf's impact on modern culture.

Category Archives: Latin

First Verse of "Tempus Adest Floridum" (Latin)

Salvete! Wæs hæl!