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Translated from the Sanskrit by C. John Holcombe
The Cloud Messenger is a masterpiece of Sanskrit literature, and was
composed by the court poet Kalidasa some time before AD 634 in northern
India. A Yaksha or nature deity begs a passing cloud to carry a message
across the subcontinent to his grieving consort in the fabled city of
Alaká. Under this fiction, Kalidasa presents a sympathetic portrait
of northern India, and weaves in the various moods of love traditional
in classical Sanskrit poetry. The version here is taken from the standard
1912 Hultzsch text, and employs accomplished English verse to render
the simple magnificence of the original while remaining faithful to
the meaning. Free.
Translated from the Sanskrit by C. John Holcombe
The Gita Govinda is a cycle of Sanskrit songs, commentaries and invocations
that depict Krishna's courtship of the cowherdess Radha. The text was
added to temple inscriptions, set to music, choreographed for dance,
and studied as a religious text. Countless poems, recitations, songs
and dances point to its continuing popularity. With frank lyricism,
the Gita Govinda explored the many aspects of passion, from first awakening
through fierce regrets and jealousies to the rapture and contentment
of bodily possession. On one level it narrates the loves of Radha and
Krishna as simple cowherds, but the poem also celebrates nature's regeneration
through sexual congress, the interplay of the human and divine, and
the profound mystery of erotic experience. Free.
A new translation by C. John Holcombe
Phaedra is Racine's best known play and contains some of the most
celebrated lines in French poetry. It was performed in 1677, when Jean
Racine had nine plays to his credit, but was poorly received, causing
the writer to retire to marriage and a court position. With a character
described as voluptuous, uneasy and jealous, Jean Racine was an ambitious
courtier, an astute businessman, and a frequenter of actresses, but
he was also a childhood believer in the Jansenist doctrine that man
is a miserable creature saved only by God's grace.
A translation in rhymed couplets that closely follows the French hexameters.
Free.
A new translation by C. John Holcombe
Oedipus at Colonus was the last play Sophocles wrote, and was not
performed until BC 401, four years after his death. Oedipus comes to
Colonus as a defeated man, but grows in stature as he recognizes the
old prophecies are coming true. The play is not realistic in our sense
of the word, but has a taut dialogue interwoven with passages of poetry,
music, singing and probably dance. The play is in verse, in places of
a very high order, with several of the choral pieces among the most
famous of Greek poetry.
A tightly-rhymed version that closely follows the structure and line
length of the Greek. Free.
Translations by C. John Holcombe
With over thirty poems from eight languages, this free Diversions
ebook is both an handy compilation of some of the world's most famous
poetry, and an introduction to the translator's art. Most pieces are
faithful renderings, reproducing the form, content and rhyme schemes
of the original. Each poem is accompanied by notes on the literary conventions
of the time, help on unfamiliar words and allusions, and a summary of
the challenges the form presents to reproduction in English.
A new translation by C. John Holcombe
Sextus Propertius published in his first collection of Elegies in
29 or 28 BC, and brought something new to Latin literature: a slavish
subjection to love expressed in vivid elegiac couplets that no one has
bettered. Catullus was more intense and personal, but published only
short pieces in the metre. Tibullus was more continuously graceful,
but seems over-refined when set against the turbulent moods that Propertius
depicts in his love affair with Cynthia. Apuleius identified the model
with Hostia, a vivacious demi-monde, which there is no reason to doubt,
but Cynthia is also a literary stalking-horse, a persona Propertius
created to explore the many facets of romantic infatuation.
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