Re: A fragment of Anacreon

[Ed Cryer]

Peter J Ross wrote:
> In humanities.classics on 09 Jan 2013 01:14:57 GMT, Peter J Ross
> <p...@example.invalid> wrote:
>
>> and I'm not aware of any previous English version of this beautifully
>> subversive fragment.
>
> My attention has just been drawn to a version by Thomas Love Peacock:
>
> I love not him, who o'er the wine-cup's flow
> Talks but of war, and strife, and scenes of woe:
> But him who can the Muses' gifts employ,
> To mingle love and song with festal joy.
>
> I'm a great admirer of Peacock, but I don't think this is his best
> work.
>
>

Peacock sticks with iambic pentameters throughout. I haven't seen this
before but I know the style and metre well, and it seems competent enough.

Your version opens with two pentameter lines, but then broadens. Again
I'm familiar with that style for English poetry, so it doesn't strike me
as odd or unacceptable.

What does clash a bit is "when he boozes". That seems to go into some
cultural sphere that I can't find in "κρητῆρι παρὰ πλέῳ οἰνοποτάζων".

My verdict.
I slightly prefer yours. It has the feel of something by Byron about it.
Peacock's tamer style, however, seems closer to that of Anacreon.

Happy new year, Ed

[Ed Cryer]

Peter J Ross wrote:
> In humanities.classics on Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:22:07 +0000, Ed Cryer

> Thank you. I hear something quite vulgar in "οἰνοποτάζων", which I
> tried to represent by "boozes". I think you're a more experienced
> reader of Greek than I am, so I may well trust your judgement over
> mine.
>
>> Happy new year, Ed
>
> And to you!
>
> More of this sort of thing will probably follow, if nobody objects.
> West's anthology is arranged alphabetically, and it looks as if I'll
> have the pleasure of reading 30 pages of Archilochus next.
>
> It's important for translations of Greek verse to be faulty, because
> otherwise there'd be no incentive to learn to read the originals. :-)
>

You'll find οἰνοποτάζω in Homer.

τῷ ὅ γε οἰνοποτάζει ἐφήμενος ἀθάνατος ὥς.
(Odyssey 6;309, Nausicaa talking to Odysseus about her father King Alcinous)

Very respectful. It reminds me also of a song by Dean Martin which
includes "little old wine-drinker me". Not "me the boozer", nor "me the
drunk".

Ed

[Ed Cryer]

Peter J Ross wrote:
> In humanities.classics on Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:35:46 +0000, Ed Cryer

> <e...@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote:
>
>> Peter J Ross wrote:
>>> In humanities.classics on Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:22:07 +0000, Ed Cryer
>>> <e...@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Peter J Ross wrote:
>>>>> In humanities.classics on 09 Jan 2013 01:14:57 GMT, Peter J Ross
>>>>> <p...@example.invalid> wrote:
>

> <...>

>
>>>> What does clash a bit is "when he boozes". That seems to go into some
>>>> cultural sphere that I can't find in "κρητῆρι παρὰ πλέῳ οἰνοποτάζων".
>

> <...>

>
>>> Thank you. I hear something quite vulgar in "οἰνοποτάζων", which I
>>> tried to represent by "boozes". I think you're a more experienced
>>> reader of Greek than I am, so I may well trust your judgement over
>>> mine.
>

> <...>

>
>> You'll find οἰνοποτάζω in Homer.
>>
>> τῷ ὅ γε οἰνοποτάζει ἐφήμενος ἀθάνατος ὥς.
>> (Odyssey 6;309, Nausicaa talking to Odysseus about her father King Alcinous)
>>
>> Very respectful.
>

> I thought when reading that passage that there was a little character
> touch of Nausicaa not entirely approving of her father's drinking. In
> fact, that's partly where my impression of οἰνοποτάζειν containing a
> hint of vulgar excess came from, which may be why that subversive poet
> Anacreon used the word. Otherwise, why not use the neutral οἰνοπίνειν
> instead of a comparatively clumsy verb based on a noun stem?
>
> Elsewhere in Homer, Nestor drinks from a wine-cup so big that only he
> can lift it when it's full (and he presumably empties it), and
> Agamemnon has fresh supplies of drink delivered by ship daily.
>
> In Iliad 20.84, Apollo mocks Aeneas for the boasts he made when
> drinking:
>
> Αἰνεία Τρώων βουληφόρε ποῦ τοι ἀπειλαὶ
> ἃς Τρώων βασιλεῦσιν ὑπίσχεο οἰνοποτάζων
> Πηλεΐδεω Ἀχιλῆος ἐναντίβιον πολεμίζειν;
>
> It's the same verb. (And the other time Homer uses the verb, in
> Odyssey 20.263, Telemachus is providing refreshment for a proverbially
> greedy beggar.)

>
>> It reminds me also of a song by Dean Martin which
>> includes "little old wine-drinker me". Not "me the boozer", nor "me the
>> drunk".
>

> G K Chesterton comes to mind too:
>
> Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale,
> He ate his egg with a ladle in a egg-cup big as a pail,
> And the soup he took was Elephant Soup and fish he took was Whale,
> But they all were small to the cellar he took when he set out to sail,
> And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine,
> "I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine."
> etc.
>
>
>
>

In Homer οἰνοποτάζειν is only used of the aristocracy at high table.
There's a use of it in Odyssey 20 where Telemachos invites Odysseus
disguised as a beggar to sit down and οἰνοποτάζειν with the gentlemen.
I get a very strong feeling that Homer simply accepts that that was what
the aristocracy of the heroic age just did; a bit like knights in
medieval chivalry. They were out doing deeds of derring-do in the
daytime; but at night they gathered for the banquet, with lots of
respectable οἰνοποτάζειν.
That's where some of Penelope's suitors fall short of the mark; they get
drunk and start bullying - unacceptable behaviour for a Homeric hero,
not gentlemanly.

οἶνος has a depth of meaning in Homer that I for one can't fathom. ἐνὶ
οἴνοπι πόντῳ (wine-faced sea???) doesn't sound too beautiful to me, but
Homer used it.

Ed