Superbius et Praeiudicata
or
Darcy, Wickham, and Catullus
Disclaimer: I own a poster of Mister Darcy and several copies of Pride and Prejudice, but nothing more than that, all genius belongs to Ms. Jane Austen. The words of Gaius Valerius Catullus probably belong to public domain but I fear his hendecasyllabic wrath and will credit him anyway.
This first chapter will explain a bit about Catullus 51; the poem I chose to translate for a Latin assignment, as well as my thought process while translating, and what Fitzwilliam Darcy has to do with anything! The second chapter is a literal translation of the Latin in which Catullus 51 is written, and then the third chapter, which I suggest you skip to (let's be honest) is a literary translation tying Catullus 51 to Pride and Prejudice.
I am a fourth semester Latin student, which means I am spending this spring semester reading and studying poetry in the golden age of Rome, reading such authors as Horace, Ovid, Vergil, and of course, Catullus. Catullus was a Roman poet born circa 84 BCE; his writing is quite varied going from epitaphs to parodies, lyric to love poems. In the works of Catullus we hear all about a great love affair between him and the enigmatic Lesbia. In class we were assigned to translate one of the poems by Catullus; the first part of the assignment had required us to write a literal translation of the Latin text, remaining as true to the text as possible without sounding off in English. The second part of the assignment was to then adapt the literal translation to a literary one. We could do whatever we want with the literary translation so long as we stayed true to the general themes and tones of the poem. The last component was for us to write a brief essay explaining our choices in regards to the literal and literary translation; I have included it here if you would like some background on what is going on with either translation.
Catullus 51, an adaptation of a Greek poem by the female poet Sappho captures the physical reactions of love at first sight. Catullus expands on this theme of love to include the enigmatic Lesbia, his muse, as well as the concept of leisure. In the literal Latin translation the introduction of otium or leisure in line thirteen seems odd. Catullus jumps from describing how he feels when he sees Lesbia – ho his body reacts to her presence – to decrying having too much free time on his hands. The text does not make the connection between these two things clear. This is where I started thinking about my literary translation.
My hypothesis is this, when Catullus refers to leisure as bothersome he is speaking of the fact that his having leisure time on his hands is how he ended up in the tongue-tied predicament he is currently in. Leisure gave him time to meet Lesbia, fall in love, and play the fool. If he had a job he would be busy, not love-sick. The destruction of Kings in line fifteen show how no man is immune to a beautiful woman, my mind linked this idea with the Biblical story of King David as well as the Leonard Cohen song 'Hallelujah'.
The first time I read this poem I pictured Catullus spying on Lesbia and her date from behind a plant in a fancy restaurant. It would make for a funny moment in a sitcom, what with Catullus peeking at her, ducking, freaking out, then peeking again; but there was no poetry it. My mind then went to Jane Austen. I've been rereading Pride and Prejudice and with Colin Firth, the one true Mr. Darcy, winning an Oscar last week I have had Lizzie Bennett on the Brain. I also believe the story of Pride and Prejudice is comparable to this poem on three fronts: the problems of leisure the power of love to render one speechless, and a man who appears to be like a God.
By definition Fitzwilliam Darcy is a gentleman of leisure, his considerable income (£10,000 a year) comes from his tenants who rent land he owns. He is not a tradesman or another sort of professional such as a Doctor or Lawyer. Being born into so much money Mr. Darcy can partake of leisurely activities such as hunting and ballroom dancing. This leisure time brings him to Meryton and introduces him to Miss Elizabeth Bennett. Darcy experiences many of the feelings described in Catullus' work in particular he seems to be unable to so much as speak to Elizabeth. She takes this as a slight when in actuality t is a physical manifestation of an ardent admiration. This is the only way I can explain why Darcy goes through so much of the novel not actually interacting with Elizabeth.
In the later part of the novel Jane, Elizabeth's older sister, compares Mr. Darcy and George Wickham, saying: "One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it". Elizabeth's impressions of the two men, Darcy and Wickham, and their personalities are the crux of the novel for the sake of this poetic interpretation one only needs to know that Wickham and Darcy are enemies and Wickham is very very charming and handsome. He appears perfect, he seems like a God, but Darcy and soon Elizabeth know that appearances can be deceiving.
I choose not to write this poem in meter because I'm not very comfortable with English metrics and the names of the characters were so long they would throw off lines. Instead I choose to count words. Each of my stanzas is four lines long, the first line has four words, and the other three have six words. The word count was purely arbitrary however I choose to make the first line short because in many of the Latin poems we read the last line was shorter than the first so I thought it'd be different. The last stanza is different. The last stanza of this poem has three lines so that it is set apart from the rest of the poem. The first seven stanzas are written in the second person where the narrator both describes what Darcy is thinking and feeling as well as directly addressing him. In the last stanza the point of view shifts to a third person omniscient narration and pertains more to the overall plot of the novel rather than the inner workings of a fictional character.