(1) Derek Days (Literal):
Having traveled through many peoples and many seas
I arrive at these miserable offerings to the dead, brother,
So that I might bestow you with the last gift of death
And that I may talk to silent ashes in vain.
Since Fortune stole you, your very self, from me.
Oh, sad brother, taken away from me indignantly,
Now however, meanwhile this, with ancient custom of parents which
Having been handed over with sad duty to sacrifices for the dead,
Accept many of these things dripping with brotherly tear,
And into eternity, brother, hail and farewell.

(2) Anne Carson (Very literal, not very dynamic):
Many the peoples many the oceans I crossed—
I arrive at these poor, brother, burials
so I could give you the last gift owed to death
and talk (why?) with mute ash.
Now that Fortune tore you away from me, you
oh poor (wrongly) brother (wrongly) taken from me,
now still anyways this—what a distant mood of parents
handed down as the sad gift for burials—
accept! Soaked with tears of a brother
and into forever, brother, farewell and farewell.

(3) Aubrey Beardsley (Less literal, more dynamic):
By ways remote and distant waters sped,
Brother, to thy sad grave-side am I come,
That I may give the last gifts to the dead,
And vainly parley with thine ashes dumb:
Since she who now bestows and now denies
Hath taken thee, hapless brother, from mine eyes.
But lo! these gifts, the heirlooms of past years,
Are made sad things to grace thy coffin shell,
Take them, all drenchèd with a brother’s tears,
And, brother, for all time, hail and farewell!

(4) Derek Days (Dynamic):
Counting waves and journeys
I’ve finally come to your side, your coffin.
This gift—Take it! My heart—
But I know you can’t.
It falls through your ashen hands
Like you slipped through mine
By chance or dice.

I still can’t let you free
From my mind. I give you these treasures
Even if they’re earthly and transient—
Even if they won’t reach you
You have to take them
It’s all I have, I’m crying
Forever and ever, hailing forever.

As I wrote my translation of Catullus 101, two things were on my mind: formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. Formal equivalence is a word by word literal translation from one language to another, as demonstrated by my literal translation in poem (1) and Anne Carson’s poem (2). On the other hand, dynamic equivalence refers to a conservation of the original intent of the source by whatever means necessary, seen in Aubrey Beardsley’s rendition (3) and my dynamic translation in poem (4).

Regarding the benefits of formal equivalence, a reader can easily see the archaisms present in the original text. For example, “Fortune” is referred to as a deity, as indicated by the capitalization. However, no such analog exists in modern English, except for rare and colloquial terms like “Lady Luck.” Additionally, the emphasis on “offerings to the dead” from the original Latin “inferias” is not a major aspect of American culture, so a formal equivalence highlights the existence of an ancient ritual.

Nevertheless, formal equivalence has numerous downsides. The primary strength of formal equivalence in the context of ancient literature—a preservation of datedness—is also a weakness. Phrases like “ancient custom of parents” simply do not elicit a strong emotional response from modern readers. Additionally, word for word translation butchers the poetic meter of the source text. For example, line 3 of the original Catullus is “ut te postremo donarem munere mortis,” which notably contains the maximum amount of spondees allowed in dactylic hexameter, creating a somber tone. This feeling is completely absent in line 3 of poems (1) and (2): “so I could give you the last gift owed to death” feels much drier compared to the original Latin. Lastly, the awkwardness of literal English translations such as “Having been handed over” make formal equivalence feel clunky. In fact, Cicero himself once warned against translating “verbum pro verbo” (word for word).

Therefore, my dynamic translation of Catullus 101 in poem (4) seeks to address all of the issues with a formal translation while maintaining the original feeling and intent of the source text. For one, I have decided to use free verse as opposed to the rhyming scheme of Beardsley’s translation. Since attempting to maintain the original Latin elegiac couplet is infeasible, Beardsley opted to instead use an English poetic form to mimic the structured verse of Catullus as much as possible. However, with the modernist revolution of the 20th century, free verse began to dominate poetry, and I believe that its sheer literary expressiveness compensates for the lack of poetic structure. For the same reason, I made my translation fourteen lines instead of the original ten. Catullus’ meter requires a set amount of syllables per line, allowing him to use dactyls and spondees to express emotion. With my free verse, I can compensate with enjambment and more natural-sounding lines.

As for the actual word choice of my poem, I tried to maintain all of the original content while discarding outdated phrases. For example, my first line “Counting waves and journeys” was chosen for “Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus.” I chose to replace “gentes,” which means peoples, for “journeys” since we do not generally classify peoples anymore. In these lines from my poem “This gift—Take it! My heart— / But I know you can’t,” I wanted to maintain the spirit of giving in the source text without the archaic traditions of funeral gifts (“inferias”). Also, I chose to define Catullus’ gift as being his “heart.” It has been interpreted that Catullus’ “postremo munere” (“last gift”) is the poem itself, a pure expression of his mourning, so equating his heart with the poem seems a good fit. The phrase “nequiquam,” which means “in vain,” was also replaced with another line “But I know you can’t.” This is an example of why I expanded the number of lines in my translation—to be more expressive.

Notably, I do not refer to Catullus’ brother at all in the poem. This is because a lack of a suitable term for “brother” in English that does not sound archaic or colloquial. Instead, a modern-day American Catullus would likely address his brother by his actual name, but we have no record of the name of Catullus’ brother.

These principles by which I made my dynamic translation—maintaining Catullus’ expressiveness while omitting archaisms—informed all of my word choice and content.