Persnicuit gladio

[truepenny]

misia has discovered a trove of Jabberwocky translations, including "Le Jaseroque," which has been stuck in my head since I first encountered it in the notes to the Annotated Alice at a tender age. For some reason "Un deux, un deux, par le milieu, / Le glaive vorpal fait pat-à-pan! / La bête défaite, avec sa tête, / Il rentre gallomphant" works just as well for me as "One two! One two! And through and through / The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! / He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back," and is just as likely to go jingling through my head at inopportune moments.

But what I really wanted to point to are the three Latin versions, of which my favorite (from which the title of this entry comes) is Augustus A. Vansittart's Mors Iabrochii.

And the Iabrochium is inspiring me to post a poem which my undergraduate classics department used as part of the course description for the first-year Latin class.


The Motor Bus

What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!
Implet in the Corn and High
Terror me Motoris Bi:
Bo Motore clamitabo
Ne Motore caedar a Bo--
Dative be or Ablative
So thou only let us live--
Whither shall thy victims flee?
Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!
Thus I sang; and still anigh
Came in hordes Motores Bi,
Et complebat omne forum
Copia Motorum Borum.
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!
          --A. D. Godley, January 1914


("The Motor Bus" can also be found online here, (with English translations for all the Latin bits) here, (set to music) here--and, no, I haven't listened to it and don't intend to. Also, Dorothy Sayers pays homage to Godley and his poem in an article here.)

Comments

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

I think I like "snicker-snack" better than "pat-a-pan" (too lazy to look up the HTML for the accent).

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Okay, fine. The French works almost as well as the English.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

That's, um, slightly disturbing.

It did, though, inspire me to get out my Annotated Alice (which I flipped open and found myself on the Jabberwocky page--Sortes Alicianae?) and to see what Martin Gardner has to say about translations.

     Jabberwocky has been translated skillfully into several languages. There are two Latin versions. One (http://www76.pair.com/keithlim/jabberwocky/translations/latin2.html) by Augustus A. Vanisttart, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was issued as a pamphlet by the Oxford University Press in 1881 and will be found on page 144 of Stuart Collingwood's biography of Carroll. The other version (http://www76.pair.com/keithlim/jabberwocky/translations/latin1.html), by Carroll's uncle, Hassard H. Dodgson, is in The Lewis Carroll Picture Book on page 364. (The Gaberbocchus Press (http://www.gaberbocchus.nl/), a whimsical London publishing house, derives its name from Uncle Hassard's Latin word for Jabberwock.)
     The following French translation by Frank L. Warrin first appeared in The New Yorker, January 10, 1931. (I quote from Mrs. Lennon's book [Victoria Through the Looking-Glass], where it is reprinted.)
[here he gives Le Jaseroque (http://www76.pair.com/keithlim/jabberwocky/translations/french1.html) in full]
     A magnificent German translation was made by Robert Scott, an eminent Greek scholar who collaborated with Dean Liddell (Alice's father) on a Greek lexicon [which is sitting on my shelves even as I type this]. It first appeared in an article, "The Jabberwock Traced to Its True Source," Macmillan's Magazine, February 1872. Using the pseudonym of Thomas Chatterton, Scott tells of attending a séance at which the spirit of one Hermann von Schwindel insists that Carroll's poem is simply an English translation of the following old German ballad: [and here he quotes Der Jammerowch (http://www76.pair.com/keithlim/jabberwocky/translations/german1.html)]
(The Annotated Alice 193-4)

Which is maybe more information than anyone really needed, but wotthehell, as mehitabel says.

WORKS CITED
Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Alice. Illus. John Tenniel. 1865, 1871. Introd, Notes Martin Gardner. 1960. New York: Wings Books-Random House Value Publishing, 1998.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Having read your comments for some time in mutual friends' journals, I'd been thinking of adding you to my friends list anyway. This (brought to my attention by porcinea) clinches it.

May I *swoon*?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Please do!

Just don't hurt yourself *swoon*ing. :)

[libskrat]

The Motor Bus is, like, my favorite two-language poem ever. I used to have it up on my desk in the TA office. I'm embarrassed, though, at how long it took me to figure out how the Et complebat couplet parses.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Putting aside the fact that I love languages anyway, and love Jabberwocky anyway, the fact that I just started my an elementary Latin class made me squee out loud at this post. Thanks!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! Of the four languages I've learned (French, Latin, Ancient Greek, Old English), Latin is my favorite, tho' I am terribly rusty. And I've found that reciting Mors Iabrochii out loud is remarkably satisfying. I recommend it highly. :)

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

ah, my favourite macaroni - and *so useful* ;-)

[vass]

The Motor Bus! I know that!

Thanks for the Sayers link, too.