As I have continued my project of writing poetry in Latin, I have begun attempting more and more complex meters and larger ideas. This week, I wrote a love poem in three Sapphic stanzas.
Versa (Latin)
Āvolastī amāta columba dulcis,
Auferēns fūrim in manibus meum cor,
Tum per altās flōrigerāsque silvās
Ad peregrīnās.
Factus ergō sum studiōsus auceps,
Et per altās flōrigerāsque silvās
Transque montēs ad capiundam amātam
Fortiter īvī.
Sī tamen captīva avis aegraque esset,
Cor meum nōn iam caperētur illā.
Āvolā fūrāx igitur columba.
Laetus erō auceps.
Translation (English)
You flew away, beloved sweet dove,
Bearing away my heart in your hands like a thief,
Then through deep and flowering forests
To foreign lands.
Therefore I became a studious bird hunter,
And through deep and flowering forests
And across mountains in order to capture the beloved
Bravely I went.
If, however, she were to be a captive and sickly bird,
My heart would no longer be captured by her.
So fly away, thieving dove.
I will be a happy bird hunter.
Meter
This poem is written in three Sapphic stanzas. The Sapphic stanza, named after the great Greek poetess Sappho, are groupings of three Lesser Sapphic lines and one Adonic line.
Lesser Sapphic lines are hendecasyllabic (meaning having eleven syllables) lines with the following pattern long and short syllables:
– u – x – u u – u – –
(For the uninitiated, – = a long syllable, u = a short syllable, x = an anceps, meaning a syllable that can be either long or short. Long and short syllables in Latin have to do with the amount of time taken to pronounce the syllable. English does not have vowel length in this sense, though some other modern languages do, such as Japanese.)
An Adonic line consists of five syllables:
– u u – –
I am treating the last syllable of each line as an anceps, meaning it can be either long or short, because a short vowel coming at the end of a line ends up sounding like a long vowel, anyway.
At the end of this post, I’ll include a lengthier section detailing how the poem is read out loud (i.e., scansion).
Commentary
Perhaps it is folly to comment on one’s own poem, but I don’t really expect anyone else ever to do so, so here you go!
Images
The whole poem begins with the Latin idiom mea columba, which is a term of endearment that means “my dove”. The idiom suggests to me many images: of flight, of stealing something and flying away, of flying through different landscapes, of a hunt to recover the bird or the stolen thing, and of a caged bird. Most of the poem is spoken by the hunter to the dove, though briefly in the third stanza the hunter speaks to himself or to the reader.
Repetition
The verb avolasti – “you flew away” – governs the whole stanza. Many words, including this one, show up two or three times in the poem, and these words help the poem to cohere. Āvolāre appears in stanzas 1 and 3, as does columba – “dove”. Amāta – “beloved” – appears in stanzas 1 and 2. Fūrim – “like a thief” – and fūrāx – “thieving” – unite stanzas 1 and 3, as does cor meum/meum cor. The third line of the first stanza reappears almost verbatim in the second line before it is expanded to include the crossing of mountains. Auceps – “bird catcher/hunter” – appears in stanzas 2 and 3, as do various words all derived from capio – “to take”: capiundam – “she who is to be captured” – in stanza 2, and captiva – “captive” – and caperetur – “she would [not] capture” in stanza 3. Who, exactly, is doing the capturing is playfully variable.
Theme and Meaning
I had in mind, for the most part, my relationship with my wife and the idea of my love-motivated pursuit of her as her husband and suitor. There is something about her that is wildly and creatively independent. She is an adventurous soul, and she has captured my heart, but I never feel like I fully know her. She routinely surprises me. So I am ever in pursuit of the knowledge of her.
The irony of the chase of love is that once the free dove is captured and caged, it no longer is the same bird that stole the heart of the hunter in the first place. If I were to presume to know everything about my wife and to suppress her individuality and her adventurousness, she would be a captiva avis – “captive/captured bird” – and no longer be the dove by whom my own heart had been captured. So my blessed fate is ever to hunt in love, never to presume ever to capture or fully possess my wife.
Scansion
In this section, I will show you how to read the poem out loud, showing where the long and short syllables are and where elision (the dropping of certain vowel sounds at the ends of words) takes effect. I will not here explain exactly what makes syllables long or short in Latin (there are many excellent articles about this online, if you are curious).
Stanza 1
“Āvolastī amāta columba dulcis,” – elision between the first and second words.
ā-vo-las-ta-mā-ta-co-lum-ba-dul-cis
- u - x - u u - u - x
“Auferēns fūrim in manibus meum cor,” – elision between the second and third words.
au-fe-rēns-fū-rin-ma-ni-bus-me-um-cor
- u - x - u u - u - x
“Tum per altās flōrigerāsque silvās”
tum-pe-ral-tās-flō-ri-ge-rās-que-sil-vās
- u - x - u u - u - x
“Ad peregrīnās.”
ad-pe-re-grī-nās
- u u - -
Stanza 2
“Factus ergō sum studiōsus auceps,”
fac-tu-ser-gō-sum-stu-di-ō-su-sau-ceps
- u - x - u u - u - x
“Et per altās flōrigerāsque silvās”
et-pe-ral-tās-flō-ri-ge-rās-que-sil-vās
- u - x - u u - u - x
“Transque montēs ad capiundam amātam” – elision between the fourth and fifth words.
trans-que-mon-tē-sad-ca-pi-un-da-mā-tam
- u - x - u u - u - x
“Fortiter īvī.”
for-ti-te-rī-vī
- u u - -
Stanza 3
“Sī tamen captīva avis aegraque esset,” – elision between the third and fourth words, and between the fifth and sixth words.
sī-ta-men-cap-tī-va-vi-sae-gra-ques-set
- u - x - u u - u - x
“Cor meum nōn iam caperētur illā.” – the i in iam is a consonant that sounds like English y.
cor-me-um-nōn-iam-ca-pe-rē-tu-ril-lā
- u - x - u u - u - x
“Āvolā fūrāx igitur columba.” – the letter x by itself counts as a double consonant, because it is a combination of a k sound and an s sound.
ā-vo-lā-fū-rāx-xi-gi-tur-co-lum-ba
- u - x - u u - u - x
“Laetus erō auceps.” – elision between the second and third words.
lae-tu-se-rau-ceps
- u u - -
Bite-Sized Exegesis 