[Another go at translating Propertius]

Propertius Book III Poem iii

Et in Arcadia ego, relaxing on a cool mountain

slope in Greece, where it is said that Pegasus once stamped

his hoof upon the earth to open up a gushing spring, I fancied I was.

A magnum opus on the kings and queens of times

gone by and of their deeds I seemed to have the power

to sing to the sound of strummed strings.

I had already dabbled a little my clumsy little fingers

in those mighty streams (the ones from which Chaucer

and Shakespeare once had supped their tales:

of how the feuding mobs of old fought out

their family grudges with spears; the royal spoils conquered

and shipped from Macedon to Rome by Lucius Aemilius;

the softly-softly approach adopted by Quintus Fabius; the massacre

at Cannae; gods answering prayers; All Souls booting

the Punic general out of their Roman abode; Jove

on the Capitol finding salvation in the honking of geese)

when, in that wooded valley of the dolls they call their muses,

Apollo leant on the gilded crossbar of his lyre and eyed me

from the opening of his cave and spoke. “What are you up to,

Dumbo, meddling with rivers great as these?” “Who on this earth

gave you the right to tinker with works of art about our national heroes

and foes?” “No name awaits you here, young scallywag.

Your work’s more lawn-mower than Lamborghini or Rolls.

Fit for some bird to flip through on a sun-bed on the beach,

waiting for Mr. Right to stroll along the sand. Don’t bother trying

your writer’s hand at wresting yourself from your predestined course.

Your art’s no oil tanker, more of a pleasure barge for punting

along shallow streams out of harm’s way.

The high seas with their churning surge

 are not your cup of tea.” Thus spake Apollo

and gestured with narwhal-tusk-crafted plectrum

towards a patch of mossy ground upon which crazy

paving already had been laid. Drums hung up in a cave

carved out of pumice, adorned with pebbles and greenery,

the paraphernalia of the Muses lying around, a graven image

of the bawdy old don who tutored Dionysus, the pipes of Pan;

a flustering flock of doves awaited me—

compliments of our mistress, Aphrodite—

wetting their purple-tinted peckers in the pool

sprung from the hoof stamp of the Gorgon’s spawn.

Here each of the nine girls busies her soft hands

with the duties she’s allotted by fate. One gathers

holly and ivy for the decorations; another tunes

strings ready for song; a third, green-fingered, tends

a garden full of roses. And of this bevy of deities,

the one they call Calliope (if I rightly recall)

gently laid hand upon me and advised:

“Stick to the snow-white swans. Don’t bother the warhorses.

It’s not your job to blast out The Last Post upon a cornet

or sully the snug bar-room of the Ploughman’s Arms

with tales of gore, or grace our ears with updates from Afghanistan

or lamentations from the bloodstained lands east of the Rhine.

Your lot’s to sing about folk getting off: cuckolded husbands

staggering back home from the pub, while lover boy attends

to her indoors. So be it,” Calliope spoke, drawing a little

crystal-clear water from her fount and dabbing my lips with it.

Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash