Poetry on the Loose

Martial x 47

Vitam quae faciant beatiorem,

Iucundissime Martialis, haec sunt:

Res non parta labore, sed relicta;

Non ingratus ager, focus perennis;

Lis numquam, toga rara, mens quieta;

Vires ingenuae, salubre corpus;

Prudens simplicitas, pares amici;

Convictus facilis, sine arte mensa;

Nox non ebria, sed soluta curis;

Non tristis torus, et tamen pudicus;

Somnus, qui faciat breves tenebras:

Quod sis, esse velis nihilque malis;

Summum nec metuas diem nec optes.

All translators agree that no translation can be altogether successful in reproducing a poem’s qualities in a new language. Yet translations remain useful for two reasons. They convey some portion of the original, allowing readers a view, though an imperfect one, of otherwise inaccessible writing. Secondly, each translation may excel in different ways, so that the reader of a number of versions of a lyric will not only develop a fuller view of the source poem but also encounter new poems, some of which are worth reading in the target language. Works like Chapman or Pope’s renderings of Homer, Fitzgerald’s Rubiayat, Pound’s Cathay, and Lowell’s Imitations are valuable in themselves as well as embodying, to varying degrees of accuracy, earlier literary works.

This principle is illustrated by an examination of several of the many translations of Martial X, 47, a poem that owes much of its celebrity to its attractive moralizing theme. The poem has been a favorite for centuries: one scholar has published an article with thirty-nine versions before 1750 (Stuart Gillespie, “Martial's Epigram 10.47: Thirty-Nine English Translations to 1750,” Translation and Literature, Volume 24, Number 1). The attraction is doubtless largely due to the author’s recommendation of a rational and moderate enjoyment of life. Martial’s theme here has been labeled an “Intellectually debased Epicureanism” as well as, more sympathetically, “a cultivated Epicurean conformist.” (The former is the opinion of Alison Keith, the latter phrase is J. P. Sullivan’s. See Allison Keith, “Epicurean Principle and Poetic Program in Martial Epigrams 10.47–48,” Phoenix Vol. 72, No. 3/4 (Fall/Winter 2018.) For a modern pagan the recommendations remain as appealing as they did to the ancients. This variety of philosophia perennis has been so attractive that this poem has been very frequently translated. While another rendering is far from necessary to convey Martial’s ideas, each version possesses unique charms and weaknesses.

Martial seems to imagine himself being advised by a philosophic mentor on that central topic of Classical philosophy (though it plays little role for today’s academic philosophers), “the good life.” Epicurus adapted the old Delphic maxim “nothing in excess” (μηδὲν ἄγαν) recommending sophrosyne (σωφροσύνη) and taught that one must strive to eliminate or minimize pain, both physical pain (ἀπονία) and mental anxiety (ἀταραξία). Avoiding suffering is surely a program most could accept as desirable. Martial here not only resembles other Classical authors (for instance Horace in Epode 2), but he is also reminiscent of the long tradition of Chinese poets retiring to mountain retreats under the influence of Buddhist or Daoist quietism or the Confucian doctrine of the mean, zhōngyōng (中庸).

A new translation of Martial x, 47

The things that make a happy life,

are these, my genial friend:

no work, but money one’s been left,

rich fields, a burning hearth,

no fights, rare togas, quiet mind,

with strength and fleshly health,

simplicity and well-matched friends,

good guests at rustic meals,

no drunken nights, but free of cares,

a joyful decent bed,

good sleep that makes the night slip by,

satisfied, with spite for none,

you’ll neither dread nor crave your final day.

The long list of desiderata makes this a comparatively simple poem to translate. I proceeded pretty much line by line. This version uses iambs with tetrameters alternating with trimeters with a bit of syncopation in line twelve and a concluding pentameter to lend the last line a gnomic air. I like the less-than-blank verse line for its casual, folksy cadence. Even without the rhyme, the background beat is like a nursery rhyme or folk song. (And a few of Surrey’s stumbles are enough to suggest why rhyme is a burden in this short lyric even in the most skilled hands.) This does, of course truncate the lines somewhat, leading to such decisions as the omission of Martial’s own name in the second line. (This detail struck me as distracting in any event, causing the reader to wonder fruitlessly who the speaker might be.) We will assume, as others do, that “rare togas” sufficiently implies a minimum of formal business.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1557)

Martial, the things that do attain

The happy life, be these, I find:

The riches left, not got with pain;

the fruitful ground, the quiet mind:

the equal friend, no grudge, no strife;

No charge of rule, nor governance;

Without disease, the healthful life;

The household of continuance:

The mean diet, no delicate fare;

True wisdom join'd with simpleness;

The night discharged of all care,

Where wine the wit may not oppress:

The faithful wife, without debate;

Such sleeps as may beguile the night.

Contented with thine own estate;

Ne wish for Death, ne Fear his might.

Surrey uses smooth and polished four beat lines, though he does use three more than the Latin. The interference of rhyme intrudes in such places as the slightly odd use of “attain” in the first line and the obscure “continuance” in line eight. Surrey expands the reference to “rare toga-wearing” in line six as suggesting avoiding government office and then repeats the meaning to pad out the line. In line thirteen the phrase “no debate,” absent in the original, calls up the convention of the termagant spouse, whereas the original simply implies passionate yet faithful. Line fourteen is memorably strong.

Surrey’s is a polished craftsman whose translations were among his most memorable and influential work. He pioneered the use of blank verse in his admirable translation of a portion of the Aeneid, and these shorter, more intimate lines are equally effective. The epigram form encourages the formulation of witty little packages of thought contained in a line or a half-line, almost every one of which delivers his thought direct without distractions. The tendency toward sententiae is foreign to the modern sensibility, but it appears here to advantage.

Ben Jonson (1640)

The Things that make the happier life, are these,

Most pleasant Martial; Substance got with ease,

Not labour'd for, but left thee by thy Sire;

A Soyle, not barren, a continewall fire;

Never at law; seldome in office gown'd;

A quiet mind; free powers; and body sound;

A wise simplicity; freindes alike-stated;

Thy table without art, and easy-rated:

Thy night not dronken, but from cares layd wast;

No sowre, or sollen bed-mate, yet a Chast;

Sleepe, that will make the darkest howres swift-pac't;

Will to bee, what thou art; and nothing more:

Nor feare thy latest day, nor wish therfore.

Jonson, a close student of Martial and the expert author of many epigrams himself, employs pentameters. “Gown’d” is a clever word for the phrase about togas. “Friends alike-stated” is clumsy and unclear, and its rhyme “easy-rated” is little better. “Cares laid waste” is another casualty of the rhyme scheme, and the phrase itself suggests the opposite of temperance. Simply saying one’s wife ought be neither sour nor sullen yet chaste seems rather too modest an aim. The penultimate line is neatly crafted, but the final word seems weak enough to spoil the otherwise good effect of the whole.

Jonson is, as in all his work, professionally competent. I find this piece, however, to contain few delights. Though in fact he uses a syllable less per line than Martial, his English sounds slightly loosened. The rhymes for me come round with too great a regularity, promising a conclusion with every other line that does not always arrive (and which sometimes arrives at more inopportune points).

Abraham Cowley (1656)

Since, dearest Friend! 'tis your desire to see

A true receipt of happiness from me;

These are the chief ingredients, if not all:

Take an estate neither too great, nor small

Which quantum sufficit the doctors call.

Let this estate from parents' care descend;

The getting it too much of life does spend.

Take such a ground, whose gratitude may be

A fair encouragement for industry.

Let constant fires the winter's fury take,

And let thy kitchen's be a vestal flame.

Thee to the town let never suit at law,

And rarely, very rarely, business draw.

They active mind in equal temper keep,

in undisturbed peace, yet not in sleep.

Let exercise a vigorous health maintain,

Without which all the composition's vain.

In the same weight prudence and innocence take;

And of each does the just mixture make.

But a few friendships wear, and let them be

By nature and by fortune fit for thee.

Instead of art and luxury in food,

Let mirth and freedom make thy table good.

If any cares into the daytime creep,

At night, without wine's opium, let them sleep,

Let rest, which nature does to darkness wed,

And not lust, recommend to thee thy bed.

Be satisfied, and pleas'd with what thou art;

Act cheerfully and well th' allotted part;

Enjoy the present hour, be thankful for the past,

And neither fear, nor wish th' approaches of the last.

One first notices the length. At thirty-one lines Cowley’s rendering is two and a half times as long as Martial’s. In part this expansion is due to vestiges of the amplificatio characterizing much medieval rhetoric and Renaissance euphuism. Thus the two words denoting “fertile soil” here become two lines on the ideal size for an estate, an attribute unmentioned in the original, including the clause “which quantum sufficit the doctors call,” words that seem rather like an altogether unnecessary footnote. Though neglected at first the simple word “ingratus” had not been forgotten, as it bobs up a few lines later in “Take such a ground, whose gratitude may be/ A fair encouragement for industry.” The four word recommendation for “prudens simplicitas” and “pares amici” becomes here four lines instead.

This relaxed unfolding of Martial’s laconic phrases has its own charm, however, as Cowley generates a tone of leisurely discursiveness, implying a persona at ease, whose unhurried portrait of the civilized life is exemplary of the peaceful ease he has achieved. In spite of his expansions and deviations from the Latin Cowley’s poem has much to recommend it. He sounds like a baronet with a glass of port by the fireside, not Martial perhaps, but appealing. (Cowley’s poetry and essays are, is in my opinion, unjustly neglected.)

Sir Richard Fanshawe (c. 1660)

The things that make a life to please,

Sweetest Martial, they are these:

Estate inherited not got:

A thankful field, hearth always hot:

City seldom , lawsuits never:

Equal friends agreeing ever:

Health of body, peace of mind:

Sleeps that till the morning bind:

Wise simplicity, plain fare:

Not drunken nights, yet loos'd from care:

A sober, not a sullen spouse,

Clean strength , not such as his that plows:

Wish only what thou art, to be;

Death neither wish , nor fear to see.

Fanshawe is notably concise, with each four-beat line a unit. Tight expressions such as “estate inherited not got” are followed by satisfying rhymes, here “a thankful field, hearth always hot.” Similarly

“city seldom , lawsuits never” admirably conveys the sense, completed by “equal friends agreeing ever” where the melody compensates for the phrase’s awkwardness. As with many other translators, Fanshawe decorously minimizes the marital joy with “a sober, not a sullen spouse,” which implies nothing positive at all. The antepenultimate line “clean strength, not such as his that plows” seems to come from nowhere, owing little to the corresponding Latin “somnus, qui faciat breves tenebras.” Was he desperate to rhyme “spouse”? And why does its apparent closer translation “sleeps that till the morning bind” occur earlier? The concluding couplet, on the other hand, is accurate, shapely, and sweet-sounding.

Sir Richard Fanshawe translated ably from Portuguese, Latin, and Italian. This version of Martial has much to admire was well as several lapses.

James Elphinston (1782)

Of things that heighten human bliss,

The sum, sweet Martial, may be this.

A freehold, not amast by care;

But dropt on a deserving heir:

A soil, that ev'ry culture pays,

A hearth, with never-dying blaze:

No contest, and but little court;

A quiet mind, her own support:

A gale, to fan ingenuous flame;

Exertion, to enforce the frame:

Simplicity, that wisdom blends;

Equality, the bond of friends:

An easy converse, artless board,

With all the little needfull stor'd:

A night not soaking, care effac'd;

A couch not dismal, always chaste:

Sleep stealing o'er the gloom so sweet,

That evening bids and morning meet.

content, which nought beyond aspires;

And death nor dreads, nor yet desires.

Though Dr. Johnson’s friend James Elphinston was a considerable linguistics scholar, he seems to have been an indifferent poet. Expanding the verse to twenty lines, he managed to include considerable extraneous material. The meaning of “a soil, that ev'ry culture pays” is not immediately obvious; “enforce the frame” is awkward; and “not dismal, always chaste” hardly sounds positive. A couplet like “Sleep stealing o'er the gloom so sweet,/ That evening bids and morning meet” has regular cadence and a neat rhyme but the syntax requires untangling. “With all the little needful stor’d” comes out of nowhere and the meaning of “not soaking” is not clear at once. Such difficulties are obstacles that the smooth metrics glide over. His final line is tidy and effective, but perhaps more memorable than Elphinston’s translation is Burns’ epigrammatic reproach to its author.

To Mr E - on his translation of and commentaries on Martial

O Thou, whom Poesy abhors,

Whom Prose has turned out of doors;

Heards't thou yon groan? - proceed no further!

'Twas laurell'd Martial calling, Murther!

While I would hardly imagine the shade of the Roman poet calling out for revenge, I do find Elphinston’s translation marred by awkward phrasing and shackled by rhyme.

Rolfe Humphries (1963)

Here are the things, dear friend, which make

Life not impossible to take:

Riches bequeathed, not won by toil;

Fire on the hearth; responsive soil;

No law suits; seldom formal dress;

A frank but wise disarmingness;

A healthy body, and a mind

Alert, but peaceably inclined;

Congenial guests; a table set

Without excessive etiquette;

Nights free from exigence and worry,

But not too bleary or too blurry;

In bed, a wife not frigid nor

Too reminiscent of a whore;

Slumber, to make the shadows swift;

Contentment with your native gift;

And, without longing or dismay,

The prospect of your final day.

Humhries is a professional, but his wit sometimes leads him beyond his original. Lines like “life not impossible to take” are clever but misleading. The rare term “disarmingness” is distracting. “Bleary” and Blurry,” again, are ingenious but off-focus for tone. “Exigence” is too formal a word for this usage, and “too reminiscent of a whore” is too inventive.

In spite of these strictures, Humphries’ is an excellent version. He is capable of juggling even the rhymes while staying on course.

Peter Porter (1972)

Friend and namesake, genial Martial, life’s

happier when you know what happiness is:

money inherited, with no need to work,

property run by experts (yours or your wife’s),

Town House properly kitchened and no bus-

iness worries, family watchdogs, legal quirks.

Hardly ever required to wear a suit,

mind relaxed and body exercised

(nothing done that’s just seen to be done),

candour matched by tact; friends by repute

won and all guests good-natured -- wise

leavers and warm stayers like the sun;

food that isn’t smart or finicky,

not too often drunk or shaking off

dolorous dreams; your appetite for sex

moderate but inventive, nights like sea-

scapes under moonlight, never rough;

don’t scare yourself with formulae, like x

equals nought, the schizophrenic quest!

What else is there? Well, two points at least --

wishing change wastes both time and breath,

life's unfair and nothing's for the best,

but having started finish off the feats --

neither dread your last day nor long for death.

Peter Porter called his 1972 collection After Martial since his intention was not to follow closely upon his original. He stretches out Martial’s thirteen lines to twenty-four five-beat lines, allowing himself to introduce considerable new material. His rationalization of the name in the first line (“friend and namesake”) serves a purpose, but the second half of line four is not only absent in the Latin but, more seriously, it adds nothing in the English. Suspending the word ”business” at the end of line five only to complete it on line six is surely distracting and fussy to most peoples’ taste. Breaking “seascapes” into two parts is less jarring due to its being a compound word and the whole phrase “seascapes under moonlight” is pretty enough to be satisfying though there is nothing in Martial to give it birth. Lines seventeen and eighteen, though, run seriously awry with the peculiar formula “x equals nought” and the modern term “schizophrenic.” Whatever it may mean to “finish off the feats,” the phrase enfeebles the conclusion here, though the final line is neatly crafted. The “sneer” and “the poisoned sigh” are elaborations, vivid in English but absent in the original.

Peter Whigham (1984)

My carefree Namesake, this the art

Shall lead thee to life's happier part:

A competence inherited, not won,

Productive acres and a constant home;

No courts, few formal days, your mind stable,

A native vigor in a healthy frame;

A tact in candor, friendships on a par,

Convivial courtesies, a plain table;

A night, not drunken, yet shall banish care,

A bed, not frigid, yet not one of shame;

A sleep that makes the dark hours shorter:

Prefer your state and hanker for none other,

Nor fear, nor seek to meet, your final hour.

A follower of Pound, Whigham was capable of sounding like an eighteenth century neo-Classical poet at times, yet he has loosened his model to allow many half-rhymes in a pattern that will seem unpredictable at first reading. His use of a pentameter line allows regular caesurae, and the whole proceeds most smoothly.

This is the best in my view of the modern translations.

Brendan Kennelly (2008)

What constitutes a happy life?

Enough money to meet your needs

steady work

a comfortable fire

a clear distance from law

a minimum of city business

a peaceful mind and a healthy body

simple wisdom and firm friends

enjoyable dinners and plain living

nights free from care

a virtuous wife who's not a prude

enough sleep to make the darkness short

contentment with the life you have,

avoiding the sneer, the poisoned sigh;

no fear of death

and no desire to die.

Kennelly is a talented modern poet whose version flouts the regularities of the original, preferring free verse with the line varying from three syllables to ten and little attention to rhyme or assonance. Alliteration is allowed a subdued effect: the proximity of “money” and “meet” in line two, “”firm” and “friends” in line eight, “sneer” and “sigh” in eleven, and “desire” and “die” in thirteen. This casual form and the lack of punctuation until the end supplies an appropriate off-hand tone that reinforces the theme. M any of the lines are out so efficiently into English that, though Kennelly‘s version has three more lines than the Latin, many of the terms are expressed in fewer syllables. “Steady work” deviates from his source which is closer to meaning no work at all, but perhaps this is a concession to modernity which frowns upon the idle aristocrat. Like others, Kennelly neglects the positive term in describing the connubial bed. “Make the darkness short” is both accurate and neatly phrased.

His rendering is smooth and natural in modern American usage and conveys the poem’s essential elements without asserting any translator’s peculiarities. Its weakness arises from the same qualities: an offhand prosiness that, as it draws no attention to itself, run s the risk of sounding artless, though it is more successful than versions with distracting characteristics not found in the original.

Poetry on the Loose

Search This Blog

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Index

A Look at Ten Versions of Martial's Guide to the Good Life

William Seaton

Followers

Blog Archive

About Me