H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA: LA CONVERSAZIONE -- I VERBALI: ROVERE

 G.: Rovere wanted Provence to do what Rome and Paris had both already failed to do politely. S.: Which was? G.: To provide a Latin Union with a language elegant enough to flatter Italy, France, and whatever remained of civilisation after diplomacy. S.: And you propose to honour him by putting Virgil through four tongues. G.: Exactly. Latin first, because one ought to begin where sense begins behaving seriously. S.: Then Italian. G.: Yes, and not merely Italian, but an older Italian, or at least a consciously antique one, to let Latin and Italian look one another in the face without modern cosmetics. S.: Then English. G.: Inevitably. Otherwise we could not misunderstand ourselves properly. S.: And then Provençal. G.: In tribute to Rovere’s impossible good taste. S.: You also want to show the affinity among Latin, Italian, and Provençal, as against English. G.: More precisely, the affinity of I, II, and IV. English is the necessary witness, not the favoured cousin. S.: Why not III, as per Rovere’s Union? G.: Because English is never Latin enough to be admitted without first pretending it has no designs on the house. S.: Fair. Then the first question is the passage. G.: We cannot go wrong with the opening of the Aeneid. S.: Arma virumque. G.: Exactly. The first seven lines are enough to establish grammar, destiny, empire, and the whole inconvenience of Juno. S.: You may then mark the verses with slashes, as requested. G.: Quite. It makes translation look like architecture instead of laundry. S.: Then give me the Latin first. G.: Gladly. Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris / Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit / litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto / vi superum, saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram; / multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem, / inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum, / Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae. [thelatinlibrary.com], [dcc.dickinson.edu] S.: The thing behaves as if it had always known it would be translated. G.: Most imperial openings do. S.: Now the Italian. G.: Here one must be careful. The earliest Italian vernacularisation is not always available in a convenient public form line for line, and the medieval or early modern Italian tradition is various. So for our purpose I would give a deliberately archaicising Italian rendering rather than pretend to cite one definitive first translator where the evidence is messy. The point is affinity, not fraud. [academia.edu] S.: A sound principle, and almost moral. G.: Do not overpraise it. Here then: L’arme e l’omo io canto, che primier da’ liti / di Troia, per destino profugo, venne in Italia / e a’ liti lavinii; molto per terre e per mare / fu quegli sbattuto per forza de’ superi, / per l’ira tenace della crudele Giunone; / molto sofferse altresì in guerra, fin che fondasse / la città e recasse in Lazio i suoi numi: onde il legnaggio latino, / e i padri albani, e l’alte mura di Roma. Grounded in the Italian vernacular translation tradition of the Aeneid. [academia.edu] S.: It has enough archaism to creak politely. G.: That is all one wants from piety in language. S.: And English? G.: Here I may safely use a public-domain translation. Mackail is sober and does not make Virgil sound like a man auditioning for a brass band. So: Arms and the man I sing, who first from the coasts of Troy, / exiled by fate, came to Italy and the Lavinian shores; / much buffeted on sea and land by violence from above, / through cruel Juno’s unforgiving wrath, / and much enduring in war also, till he should build a city / and bring his gods to Latium; whence came the Latin race, / the lords of Alba, and the lofty walls of Rome. [gutenberg.org], [theoi.com] S.: It is competent in the English way: obedient and faintly apologetic. G.: Better apologetic than theatrical. S.: And now the Provençal. G.: Here we encounter the difficulty that a stable public-domain Provençal or Occitan translation of the opening is not straightforwardly retrievable from the evidence in hand. So I shall do what your brief actually wants and provide a tribute in literary Provençal mode, not pretending to be Mistral’s lost secretary. That is an original rendering in homage, not a historical citation. S.: Which is fair enough, provided you say so. G.: I have now said so. Here then, in a Provençal-inflected literary rendering: Lis armas e l’ome cante, que primié deis rivas / de Troia, fòraçat pel fat, venguèt en Italia / e vèrs lis ribas de Lavini; fòrça foguèt batut / sus tèrra e sus mar per la fòrça dei sobirans, / per l’ira tenèla de la sauma Junon; / fòrça patiguèt encara en guèrra, fins qu’auborèsse / una ciutat e portèsse sos dieus en Latium: d’aquí / venguèron lo linhatge latin, lis aujòus albans, / e lis auti barris de Roma. Adapted tribute in literary Provençal/Occitan style, based on the Latin opening. [thelatinlibrary.com] S.: You have smuggled Latium through rather than Provençalising it. G.: One must not localise empire too cheaply. S.: Now that we have the four, what exactly is the affinity you want to show? G.: Several things at once. First, the lexical kinship of arma, arme, armas. Second, virum becoming uomo or ome. Third, the syntactic willingness of Latin, Italian, and Provençal to let the line move by apposition and suspended clause without English immediately demanding iron rails. S.: English does like iron rails. G.: It distrusts long periodic hospitality. Latin and its daughters are happy to welcome a participle, a destination, and an imperial future into one sentence before serving the verb its full dignity. S.: So Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit litora behaves more naturally in Italian and Provençal than in English. G.: Precisely. English must either submit awkwardly or translate by managerial rearrangement. S.: Mackail does the latter with decent restraint. G.: Yes. He keeps enough of the order to show he has met the poem, but not enough to frighten schoolmasters. S.: Then the affinity of I, II, and IV is not merely lexical but rhythmic and civic. G.: Very much so. These three languages share a tolerance for ceremonial unfolding. English can imitate it, but it does not live there by inheritance. S.: Rovere would have liked that. G.: He would have overliked it, which is why he remains charming. S.: Let us inspect the first word in all four. G.: Latin arma. Italian l’arme. English arms. Provençal lis armas. S.: The plural is robust throughout. G.: Yes, because epic begins more comfortably with warfare than with introspection. S.: And virum? G.: Virum in Latin, l’omo in archaic Italian, the man in English, l’ome in Provençal. S.: There the kinship of II and IV is especially visible. G.: Exactly. Homo to uomo and ome is a much shorter family walk than homo to man, which arrives by another inheritance and must behave itself in company. S.: Then fato profugus. G.: There again. Latin and its daughters can keep fate and exile in close apposition without embarrassment. English says exiled by fate, which is decent, but more explanatory and less compact. S.: So destiny itself is more grammatical in Latin, Italian, and Provençal. G.: A dangerous but not wholly false remark. S.: And Laviniaque litora? G.: The adjectival relation is another point. Italian and Provençal can keep Lavinian or Lavini quite close to the noun. English is obliged to choose between Latinity and intelligibility. S.: It chose Lavinian. G.: Quite rightly, though the English ear hears it as scholarly rather than native. S.: Which perhaps it is. G.: Everything in Virgil is scholarly once it crosses the Channel. S.: Then multum ille et terris iactatus et alto. G.: Ah, there the daughters are at home. Molto per terre e per mare, fòrça foguèt batut sus tèrra e sus mar. English says much buffeted on sea and land, which is competent, but one hears translation where one hears inheritance in the Romance forms. S.: So the whole exercise vindicates Rovere’s Latin Union. G.: Only linguistically, not politically. That is an important distinction. Languages may resemble one another more closely than their ministries do. S.: Dry, but fair. G.: One tries. S.: And Juno? G.: Juno behaves well in all four, which proves that divine resentment is remarkably portable. S.: Saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram. G.: Yes. The memory and wrath clause is especially revealing. Latin can pack memory into an epithet and make wrath the motive. Italian and Provençal can imitate that architecture with less strain than English, which must unpack to remain respectable. S.: Through cruel Juno’s unforgiving wrath. G.: Very decent, but plainly explanatory. S.: Whereas per l’ira tenace della crudele Giunone and per l’ira tenèla de la sauma Junon preserve the old compactness better. G.: Exactly. The daughters understand the mother’s way of carrying temper in grammar. S.: Then perhaps Rovere’s real dream was not absurd. G.: Politically absurd, philologically less so. A diplomatic language drawn from Provençal would at least flatter the Mediterranean sense that speech should carry history visibly. S.: And that is what English resists. G.: English prefers usefulness, then pretends usefulness is candour. S.: You are being unfair to English. G.: I am being English about English. S.: The highest form of patriotism, perhaps. G.: Or the least embarrassing. Now, consider dum conderet urbem, inferretque deos Latio. S.: Again, the daughters move comfortably with the subjunctive or purpose-like unfolding. G.: Exactly. Fin che fondasse la città e recasse in Lazio i suoi numi. Fins qu’auborèsse una ciutat e portèsse sos dieus en Latium. English must make that into till he should build a city and bring his gods to Latium, which is fine, but the modal courtesy is more external. S.: While the Romance forms feel like domestic continuations. G.: Just so. S.: Then genus unde Latinum, Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae. G.: That final ascent is perhaps the strongest case. Latin, Italian, and Provençal all allow the catalogue of political descent to rise toward Rome with ceremonial ease. English does it, but sounds like a commemorative plaque. S.: The lords of Alba, and the lofty walls of Rome. G.: Exactly. Good, but stone-faced. S.: Whereas e i padri albani, e l’alte mura di Roma and lis aujòus albans, e lis auti barris de Roma keep a more familial and civic warmth. G.: Warmth, yes, though one must not make Virgil cosy. S.: Heaven forbid. G.: Indeed. Empire should never sound upholstered. S.: Then if you had to state the thesis in one sentence? G.: Latin, archaic Italian, and Provençal share enough lexical, syntactic, and rhetorical temper that Virgil’s opening passes among them as family business, whereas English receives it honourably but as an adopted heir. S.: That is rather good. G.: Keep it, then. S.: Happily. But should we not say something about the Italian translation tradition proper? G.: Yes. The medieval and early modern Italian engagement with the Aeneid is rich but complicated, with vernacularisations, abridgements, and reworkings rather than one single first monumental equivalent that would do all our work for us here. So our archaic Italian is deliberately representative in spirit rather than falsely documentary in every syllable. [academia.edu] S.: A prudent confession. G.: Scholarship survives by them. S.: And the Provençal? G.: Entirely a tribute rendering, since the point is to honour Rovere’s fancy of a Latin public language through an idiom plausible enough to show kinship without counterfeiting a particular historical version. S.: So no false Mistral. G.: No false Mistral. That would be indecent. S.: Then let us look once more at the first sequence as a block. G.: Very well. Latin: Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris / Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit / litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto / vi superum, saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram; / multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem, / inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum, / Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae. [thelatinlibrary.com], [dcc.dickinson.edu] S.: Then the Italian. G.: Archaicising Italian: L’arme e l’omo io canto, che primier da’ liti / di Troia, per destino profugo, venne in Italia / e a’ liti lavinii; molto per terre e per mare / fu quegli sbattuto per forza de’ superi, / per l’ira tenace della crudele Giunone; / molto sofferse altresì in guerra, fin che fondasse / la città e recasse in Lazio i suoi numi: onde il legnaggio latino, / e i padri albani, e l’alte mura di Roma. Grounded in the Italian vernacular translation tradition. [academia.edu] S.: English. G.: Arms and the man I sing, who first from the coasts of Troy, / exiled by fate, came to Italy and the Lavinian shores; / much buffeted on sea and land by violence from above, / through cruel Juno’s unforgiving wrath, / and much enduring in war also, till he should build a city / and bring his gods to Latium; whence came the Latin race, / the lords of Alba, and the lofty walls of Rome. [gutenberg.org], [theoi.com] S.: And the Provençal tribute. G.: Lis armas e l’ome cante, que primié deis rivas / de Troia, fòraçat pel fat, venguèt en Italia / e vèrs lis ribas de Lavini; fòrça foguèt batut / sus tèrra e sus mar per la fòrça dei sobirans, / per l’ira tenèla de la sauma Junon; / fòrça patiguèt encara en guèrra, fins qu’auborèsse / una ciutat e portèsse sos dieus en Latium: d’aquí / venguèron lo linhatge latin, lis aujòus albans, / e lis auti barris de Roma. Tribute rendering in literary Provençal/Occitan style, adapted from the Latin opening. [thelatinlibrary.com] S.: It does rather make Rovere sound less absurd. G.: That is the danger of beautiful languages. They can rehabilitate poor politics. S.: And the lesson? G.: That philology is often wiser than federation. S.: Dry enough? G.: Sufficiently Provençal. S.: And the punchline? G.: If Rovere wanted Provence to unite the Latins, Virgil has already done the job more quietly: the languages still recognise their mother, even when the diplomats fail to recognise one another.