Persicos Odi
Horace 1.38
Horatii Flacci Carmina I.xxxviii
Persicos odi, puer, apparatus,
displicent nexae philyra coronae,
mitte sectari, rosa quo locorum
sera moretur.
Simplici myrto nihil adlabores 5
sedulus, curo: neque te ministrum
dedecet myrtus neque me sub arta
vite bibentem.
Persicos Odi: Horace, Odes, I.xxxviii
Young fellow, I dislike Persian foppery,
Nor do wreaths woven from linden bark please me.
Do not seek to cut the blooming rose that lingers
Here at Winter's end.
I wish not that you be eager to serve me
By trying to surpass the simple myrtle:
It suits you who serve, and me who drink the juice
Of the darkling vine.
------------------
Myrtle is sacred to lovers, poets, Venus and The Muses. It is a powerful emblem of love, creativity and generative grief. The tale of Venus and Adonis encapsulates all these motifs. Adonis, the lover of Venus, is born out of the metamorphosis of his mother, Myrrhina (Myrtle) into a myrtle tree. He makes Earth fertile with his blood, and heralds the cycle of the seasons. Myrtle branches also were emblematic of the innermost arcana of the Eleusinian Mysteries and their promised victory over mortality and decay.
The meter of Horace's poem is the Sapphic strophe, three hendecasyllabic lines (eleven syllables each) followed by an Adonic (five syllables). The English version approximately the Latin scheme through maintaining syllables count.
In line 7 shouldn't it be 'I' rather than 'me'? The authorial 'we' would also suffice, but would seem inconsistent.
Surely it would be a pity to spoil such an excellent translation of such an excellent poem with such a minor fault.
Pour votre service extraordinaire en temps de guerre, je vous décerne 4 cœurs pourpre supplémentaires, en gratitude pour votre grand sacrifice dans la cause du triomphe du pays aztèque, celui de cette rue, ou autrefois là-bas. Vous avez combattu l'ennemi avec acharnement contre des obstacles écrasants. Nous avons été honorés de vous avoir avec nous. Vous pouvez le croire. Nous regrettons que ce modeste témoignage ne puisse égaler votre véritable distinction, qui était et est infiniment plus grande. Je me demande s'ils accompagnent l'attribution de cet honneur de mots similaires? Eh bien, je décerne le mien de toute façon, à toute personne digne de cet honneur. Eh bien, comme vous l'avez sans doute remarqué, il est ce moment de la journée.