#lucanposting

[gorgon-heap]

rip pompey u will be missed :’(

[allegedlyfranzferdinand]

bitches be like “gotta construct narrative devices to delay caesar’s progress in the civil war” my brother in jove you are writing the poem

[catilinas]

hi :-) your lucan propaganda worked and now i want to read the pharsalia, do you have a preferred translation?

i’ve only read braund (oxford world’s classics) and duff (loeb) all the way through and would say they’re both generally good! braund has an extensive introduction and end notes which are soooooo useful if you’re unfamiliar w the history of the civil war. duff does not But it’s always fun to be able to look at the latin. also he has the occasional extremely sexy turn of phrase (the one about like. the blood of empire the pulse of the machine. bop.) but then again his translation is prose and sometimes it sucks!

also if you want to go nuts there are the haunted and potentially cursed translations of yore…… marlowe translated book 1 And Then Died. and thomas may translated the whole thing and then ‘finished’ the poem w the Supplementum Lucani. lucan’s ghost travels through time to drink julius caesar’s blood to become necromanced Enough to inspire/possess thomas may to finish the poem. maybe this worked Too well bcs thomas may then died in the english civil war :/

i do Not recommend the penguin translation bcs i remember thinking the proem was weak and had bad vibes. i have not read brian walters’ translation but have heard some of it slaps so hard But other parts of it fail to translate absolutely crucial parts :/ also i have not read jane wilson joyce’s translation but i e read parts of her thebaid and if her pharsalia is anything like it then yeah!!!!!! sexy. the one i want to read next!

[thoodleoo]

i think it's about time i read more than just book 1 of the pharsalia in latin....can any of my beloved lucanposting mutuals recommend some commentaries for me

[gorgon-heap]

pov you’re lucan and you can’t decide on who the main character will be

[gorgon-heap]

lucan really made julia girlboss gatekeep gaslight huh

[allegedlyfranzferdinand]

pharsalia

hi i am translating lucan’s bellum civile, this is the first forty-odd lines. this definitely is not a perfect translation (it adheres to no rules) but i think it’s rather fun. all credit to @plasmapop for the translation of “nefas” as “godcriminal”. i’m in love with that.

--

WARS through Emathian fields, more than civil

And of laws given to crimes we sing, and of a powerful people

Who buried their victorious right hands in their own guts

And of kinsmen in battle-lines, and, since the kingdom’s concord was broken, 

The powers of the whole concussed earth contended

In mutual godcrimes, of standards opposing the hateful

Standards, eagles equal against eagles and spear threatening spear.

WHAT fury is this, citizens? What wantonness of iron?

To offer this Latian gore to hateful peoples

And–with proud Babylon still standing, with her trophies 

Ausonian!–to let Crassus wander, an unavenged shade.

Does it please you to wage these triumphless wars? 

Come on! How much land, how many seas could you have had? 

With all this blood that civilian right hands spilled. . . 

From where Titan comes, and the night, from where stars conceal

To where fiery midday burns its hot hours

And where winter is freezing, and doesn’t know how to cede to spring,

Where the icy cold freezes the sea with a Scythian chill

Even Seres would be under the yoke, even the barbarian Araxes,

And the people who know where the nascent Nile lies.

Only then, if you still have such a love for godcriminal wars, Rome, 

When you have the whole world under Latin laws,

Turn your hand against yourself: you’ve never lacked enemies.

But now it’s the walls and roofs hanging, half-ruined

In Italian cities, and the walls have fallen, huge

Stones fall and the houses are kept by no guard.

And the rare inhabitant wanders through antique cities,

Horrid with thornbush and unplowed for many years

Hesperia is; her fields demand hands that aren’t there.

Not even you, fierce Pyrrhus, will be the author of such great defeats,

Nor the Phoenician: no sword has happened to pierce so far within;

Wounds made by civil hands sink deep.

BUT IF the fates, for the coming of Nero(!!!) no other way 

Found, and if they purchased for such a price these eternal

Kingdoms–even the gods in heaven could not serve their Thunderer

Except after the wars with the savage giants.

Now I don’t, you gods, protest. These unspeakable godcrimes themselves

Please for such a prize. Let Pharsalia, her dire fields,

Satisfy the Phoenician, and let her be steeped with blood,

Let the last battles run together at deadly Munda.

For this, Caesar, Perusinian hungers and Mutinian labors

Came, and the fleets whom he pressed, rough

Leucas, and the servile wars under burning Etna.

Much indeed does Rome owe to these civil arms,

Because it was for you these things were done.

[gorgon-heap]

finally at pompey’s death in the pharsalia. lucan i think is one of my favorite authors

“And the Pellaean boy (Ptolemy XIII) cut your neck with a sword, Magnus, your sword.”

[gorgon-heap]

rip lucan you would have loved the year of four emperors