Inspiration

Wednesday, 6 May 2009 07:47
lnhammer: the Chinese character for poetry, red on white background (Default)
[personal profile] lnhammer
You've looked upon my temple walls and seen
    Some joking poems the chaste won't read aloud.
Don't be offended that it's all obscene:
    The verse my prick provokes is not highbrowed.

—20 March 2006

A translation of poem #46 from Priapeia, a collection of Latin epigrams to and about Priapus, a fertility god usually worshipped as an ithyphallic statue. The original:

Tu, quicumque vides circa tectoria nostra
   non nimium casti carmina plena ioci,
versibus obscenis offendi desine: non est
   mentula subducti nostra supercilii.


Needless to say, I have more.

---L.

Date: 6 May 2009 16:20 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com
Nice! I appreciated the rhyme.

Are you deliberately doing a checkerboard pattern in your postings (alternating days)?

About

Warning: contents contain line-breaks.

As language practice, I like to translate poetry. My current project is Chinese, with practice focused on Tang Dynasty poetry. Previously this was classical Japanese, most recently working through the Kokinshu anthology (archived here). Suggestions, corrections, and questions always welcome.

There's also original pomes in the journal archives.

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