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Martial
Epigrams
I BEGAN TRANSLATING Martial's Epigrams
several years ago, out of a growing impatience with the euphemistic and
bowdlerized renderings of his poems that were available. I also felt
(and the feeling has since hardened into a conviction) that free speech
in the United States was steadily being enervated by our neurotic fear
of offending anyone or any group. I hoped that, in a small way, my
translations of Martial would testify that it was not an assigned task
of literature to be nice to everyone.
For this reason I chose to translate those
epigrams of Martial that were especially vituperative or sexually
graphic (they never seemed to get into the anthologies), and to
translate them in ways that evoked for modern readers the full measure
of nastiness embedded in the original Latin. I chose, whenever
possible, appropriate contemporary equivalents for ancient idioms and
references, and I kept to a metrically loose format allowing for the
free play of colloquial rendering.
Responses were predictable: after reading some of my Martial
translations in public, I was excoriated by the usual contingent of
born-again Christians and militant feminists. Some academic careerists
quietly urged me to drop the project of translating so repellent an
author, lest I offend those inscrutable forces that dole out promotion
and tenure. Editors showed even less spine; only six American journals
out of fifty-four would publish selections from Martial--and this from
a literary establishment that proclaims itself a defender of artistic
freedom against Senator Helms. Typical was the comment of one trendy
New York editor: "I enjoyed your translations immensely, but I could
never print them."
It was this sort of negative response, half
cowardly and half censorious, that impelled me to continue my labor of
translation. If Martial could evoke such fear and loathing over the
distance of two millenia, he was clearly doing something right, and I
was right to give him voice in English.--Joseph S. Salemi
Martial
I.73
Caecilianus,
There wasn't a guy in this whole damn city
Who would have touched your old lady without a stud fee
When she was easily available.
But now, with all those chaperones you've hired,
There's a pack of cocksmen waiting to bang her.
You sure are clever.
(Translated from the Latin by Joseph S.
Salemi)
Martial
IX.41
Ponticus, you only fuck your fist.
That complaisant left hand is your sole mistress.
No big deal, you say?
Believe me pal, it's a major crime--
More than you can imagine.
Horatius fucked just once, and sired three sons;
Mars did the same, and Ilia bore twins.
If either guy had jerked off in his hand,
Down the drain with natural increase!
Mother Nature is displeased. She chides you:
"The sticky stuff that's dripping from your fingers
Is a human being, Ponticus."
(Translated from the Latin by Joseph S.
Salemi)
Martial
XII.95
Instantius Rufus, go ahead and read
Those depraved pornographics of Musaeus,
The ones that are filthier
Than the Sybaritic sex manuals.
Read those hot and salty pages.
Just be sure your girlfriend's with you
So that Mrs. Fist and her five lusty daughters
Aren't your sole bridal party,
And you become a husband-plug
Without a wife-socket.
(Translated from the Latin by Joseph S.
Salemi)
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