New translations: Gregory of Nazianzus

These two fourth-century AD poems by Gregory are part of a long sequence (8.2-11) mourning the death of his close friend, Basil, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (the modern Kayseri). Basil was an important advocate of the doctrinal orthodoxy hammered out at the Council of Nicaea and expressed in the new Nicene Creed; he was also one of the founding fathers of monasticism. He is a saint to both the Catholic and Orthodox faiths, the latter of which awards him the epithet Οὐρανοφάντωρ, ‘Revealer of Heaven’.

A couple of the other poems from this sequence are forthcoming in Epigrams from the Greek Anthology, published later this year, but these two translations are new. Gregory feels like a good poet to be translating right now.

8.3

On the same Basil the Great

When godly-minded Basil sped away,

Snatched by the Trinity and glad to go,

The whole of Heaven’s host rejoiced he came;

But all of Cappadocia’s city sighed.

And not alone; the world cried out in pain:

Gone is our messenger, and with him gone

The one who bound us in majestic peace.

8.4

On the Same

Now all the world is rocking to and fro,

The portion due to balanced Trinity, 

As rival words fight for the upper hand.

It is disgraceful. And I cry in pain —

For Basil’s lips are sealed and speak no more.

Only awake, and all the storm will cease

To hear your sermon, know your ministry.

For you alone were seen to be your match:

Living, you matched the legend told of you;

And your own legend rose to meet your life.

update: I've now translated the whole sequence of Gregory's poems to Basil. Enjoy? if that's the word.

From book 7 of the Anthology: brief lives

Three young lives cut short, for these uncertain times. The first was a famous author; the others, nobody in particular, except that each of them meant everything to someone.

AP 7.7 (Asclepiades)

This sweet work is ERINNA’s — it is small,

For she was but a girl of nineteen years,

And yet it is more powerful than most.

If Hades had not come for me so soon,

What other might now own so great a name?

AP 7.170 (Posidippus, or Callimachus)

He played beside the well, Archianax,

A boy of three. His mute reflection called.

The mother pulled him soaking out, her son,

To see if any trace of life remained. 

The child did not pollute the spring with death;

He slept upon her knee, and here sleeps sound.

7.185 (Antipater of Thessalonica)

Italian earth holds me, a Libyan girl:

Beneath these sands near Rome I lie unwed.

Pompeia raised me like I was her own,

And set me free, and wept to lay me here.

She hoped to see my marriage-torch ablaze;

But she was thwarted, and my brand was lit

Not as we’d prayed, but by Persephone.

I'm getting the urge to translate more Gregory (AP 8), the Anthology's most concentrated poet of loss.

World's Classics Greek Anthology update

I hope readers will be pleased to know that my new translation, 'Epigrams from the Greek Anthology', is now on the online catalogue for release this autumn, between Joyce and Trollope:

https://global.oup.com/ukhe/disciplines/literature/oxford-worlds-classics/?cc=ie&lang=en&

It has an ISBN and everything, so it must be very nearly real now. I had the pleasure of dealing with a most excellent copyeditor who completely understood what I was about, and the latest from my handler at the Press is that I can probably expect to see page proofs by the end of the month. At which, point, indexing, yay! (I love indexing; I know this makes me weird.)

The cover is a beauty: it's a detail from Lawrence Alma-Tadema's Spring (1894), currently at the Getty. That's the very same painting from which the cover of my World's Classics 'Martial' was also excerpted; I wanted to weave in a family connection.