phaedra 814
Today, I rolled Seneca the Younger's Phaedra, line 814, off the reading list. I've never actually read this play, but I have been assured I'd enjoy it. I'm going for a particularly long chunk partially because of that and partially because the lines are quite short and partially because I haven't done much Latin in the last few days.
Seneca Minor, Phaedra 795–819
Vexent hanc faciem frigora parcius,
haec solem facies rarius appetat:
lucebit Pario marmore clarius.
quam grata est facies torua uiriliter
et pondus ueteris triste supercili!
Phoebo colla licet splendida compares:
illum caesaries nescia colligi
perfundens umeros ornat et integit;
te frons hirta decet, te breuior coma
nulla lege iacens; tu licet asperos
pugnacesque deos uiribus audeas
et uasti spatio uincere corporis:
aequas Herculeos nam iuuenis toros,
Martis belligeri pectore latior.
si dorso libeat cornipedis uehi,
frenis Castorea mobilior manu
Spartanum poteris flectere Cyllaron.
Ammentum digitis tende prioribus
et totis iaculum derige uiribus:
tam longe, dociles spicula figere,
non mittent gracilem Cretes harundinem.
aut si tela modo spargere Parthico
in caelum placeat, nulla sine alite
descendent, tepido uiscere condita
praedam de mediis nubibus afferent.
Winters disquiet your face only a little,
your face craves the sun only rarely:
it will shine brighter than Parian marble.
How appealing is you manly fierce face,
and the severe weight of your aged eyebrow!
You could compare your shining neck to Phoebus:
your hair, never known to be neat, pouring
over your shoulders, adorns and covers;
a shaggy brow is fitting for you, shorter hair
lying without rule; you may venture against
rough and warlike gods by your courage and
conquer them by the size of your vast body:
for as a youth, you match muscular Hercules,
wider than the chest of martial Mars.
If it is pleasing to ride on a horse's back,
you can break the Spartan Cyllaron with reins,
more agile with your hands than Castor.
Stretch the strap with your forefingers
and direct the javelin with all your strength:
the Cretans, skillful in aiming darts,
do not send their slender shafts so far.
Or if you want, like a Parthian, to hurl a spear
into the sky, none will fall without a bird:
after finding a home in warm viscera,
they will bring down loot from the middle sky.
My style points for the day come from the enjambment of "pouring/over", which was exceptionally pleasing to me.
notes
Pario marmore: Parian marble is an exceptionally fine and highly prized white marble from the island of Paros. Some of the finest surviving Greeco-Roman sculptures (including the Nike of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo) are made of Parian marble. It was strongly associated with love elegy: "Thus, in classical poetry, white marble (especially Parian) became a favoured metonym for the porcelain complexion, the alabaster ankle or the ivory neck. Horace tells us that, ‘the sparkle of stunning Glycera, purer than Parian marble, sets me on fire’; and, in Petronius, Encolpius claims that the flesh of his adolescent lover ‘puts Parian marble in the shade’."[1]
splendida: This is the same word from my blog title!
Cyllaron: Cyllaron is the horse of Pollux (Castor's twin brother), given to hin by Juno.
works cited
- Barry, Fabio. “A Whiter Shade of Pale: Relative and Absolute White in Roman Sculpture and Architecture”. In Revival and Invention: Sculpture through Its Material Histories, edited by Sébastien Clerbois and Martina Droth, 31–62. Bern: Peter Lang, 2011.
- Barry, "Whiter Shade", 36. Barry has some really terrible takes on race, among other things, which really shine through in this article about whiteness in ancient statuary. Nonetheless, my classical art prof assured our seminar just this spring that this chapter remains the definitive work in the field on the variances between different types of marble.^