DE NIHILO

OK, so I decided a while ago to attempt a verse translation of Jean Passerat’s (French late sixteenth-century scholar) poem ‘De nihilo’. I thought this would be fairly easy. The poem is a humorous disquisition on the theme of ‘nothing’, along the lines of those ‘paradoxical encomia’ that were inexplicably popular in this period (Erasmus’s ‘Encomium moriae’, Berni’s praise of the Plague, Pirkheimer’s praise of Gout, Du Bellay’s praise of Deafness… and so on). It proved a little trickier than I had anticipated. Nevertheless, I present the (sort of) finished product to the generous reader here. The original poem is in Latin elegiac couplets (hexameter + pentameter); I’m not entirely sure what English metre is usually used to translate the elegiac couplet; but I have seen several texts use the ‘heroic couplet’ (which is also used for the epic – hexameter – metre, I believe) – that is to say, the iambic pentameter rhymed couplet. In any case this seemed to be the easiest option, so I went for it.

The translation is fairly loose, by modern standards. It’s more of an imitation, an attempt to reproduce the textual enargeia of Passerat’s piece, to reconfigure the core identity of the text within a different matrix of phrasis. In other words, it’s lazy. But I’ve tried to render the central conceit of the Latin (that NIHIL is to be understood simultaneously non-substantively and substantively) without departing too far from the original – something, by the way, that is nigh on impossible in French. I’ve omitted line 27 (because I thought it superfluous) and 34-35 (because I couldn’t for the life of me understand the allusion).

Anyway, here’s my translation. Feel free to offer corrections/suggestions/ information about the rules of metre in English and where I’ve gone wrong.

Original text here: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/passerat.html



Of Nothing
by
Jean Passerat



The two-faced god begins the year anew
But I’m undone: my tribute’s overdue.
Castalia’s in drought, the Muses fled
And I’m fresh out: all inspiration’s dead,
The Janitor expects to find me keen
And I seek what is nowhere to be seen.
My Muse looks ev’rywhere for a refrain
And NOTHING’s there, her efforts are in vain.
But that’s a thing mirac’lous to behold
For NOTHING’s of more worth than jewels and gold.
So listen hard and good: don’t frown or pout:
‘Cause what I’m here to say is without doubt
A novelty that’s ne’er before been heard.
You smile, dear reader? tell me that’s absurd?
That ancient bards made ev’ry word cliché
And after them there’s NOTHING left to say?
Well: whereso Ceres surveys her domain
Or Father Ocean clasps the wat’ry main
There’s NOTHING e’er that lacks an end or source
And NOTHING lives beyond its nat’ral course.
So if we worship Him who ends our days,
Why don’t we deem THIS worthy of our praise?
The warmth of Springtime NOTHING can surpass,
And NOTHING beats the smell of fresh-cut grass
Or is more welcome than the Zephyr’s breath.
In wartime NOTHING sacred dodges death,
In peacetime NOTHING’s fair and NOTHING’s just
And what is more, if you Tibullus trust,
The man who NOTHING has is bless’d indeed;
He fears not ambush, fears not knavish greed.
And if you study lessons Zeno gave
Then NOTHING you’ll desire, and NOTHING crave.
Socratic scholars on this point agree:
That knowing NOTHING is his sole decree.
It’s what the kids in school would love to learn
To win the wealth and fame for which they yearn.
The alchemists’ Mercurial pursuit
By secret arts base metals to transmute
Is all-consuming. In the end, they’re spent
They’ve pissed away their fortunes and lament
A big fat NOTHING’s all that they’ve produced
And its dimensions cannot be deduced.
The man who counts the sand grains on the beach
In Lib-ee-a finds THIS beyond his reach.
Th’Olympian god that plays the golden lyre
Leaves NOTHING out; than stars there’s NOTHING high’r.
You’re clever, right? In percentile the first?
In mysteries and secrets you’re well-versed?
Then let me say, dear reader, by your leave,
You’re ignorant of NOTHING, I believe.
It’s clearer than the sun or purest flame
Try touching NOTHING: please do test my claim
That without body NOTHING’s been touched yet;
Try seeing NOTHING: and I’ll gladly bet
That without colour NOTHING is perceiv’d.
Mute NOTHING speaking’s easily conceiv’d
And NOTHING can fly wingless; legless, pace;
Dimensionless, can traverse time and space.
There’s NOTHING of more use to man and beast
Than medicine; no mage or pagan priest;
Idalian wands or herbs from Thessaly
That druids find at t’summit of Dict-ee.
And NOTHING soothes the wounds of Cupid’s darts;
Not even those that practise Circe’n arts
The passenger of Chiron shuns th’abyss,
But NOTHING’ll bring him back from fiery Dis
Th’infernal Lord takes NOTHING on the chin;
The Fates will stop for NOTHING as they spin.
Found Titans routed on Phlegraean fields:
The thunderbolt to NOTHING eas’ly yields.
The Gods fear NOTHING; do you get the gist?
There’s NOTHING else. Need I complete this list?
More striking or more splendid NOTHING is
Than Jove, and NOTHING, in the end, is his.
No, that’s enough: this poem’s uninspir’d
Of NOTHING, I’ve no doubt, you’re sick and tired.


Next entry: more on my design for a perpetual-motion wanking machine.

Q by Luther Blissett

Q is a novel set in the Northern European Reformation of 1517 and thereafter; I’m reading (and hugely enjoying) it at the moment. It is focused on the Anabaptists, who were the political activists, communists (Omnia sunt communia!), fundamentalists, freedom fighters and terrorists of their day. The novel reads like a cross between a ‘novel of ideas’, a historical textbook and a classic mystery or political intrigue. I must admit, I have a special interest in the period, but I’m sure that the casual reader would find things of interest here too. Q has, inevitably, been compared to the work of Umberto Eco: the comparison is not an inappropriate one.

Luther Blissett is often described on the internet as an Italian anarchist group; I’m not convinced that this is required information for any reader that chooses to tackle this book. Having said that, I wouldn’t want to diminish the achievements of the Luther Blissett collective, among whose publications is:

Guy Debord is Really Dead: The Major Failures of the Situationist International Considered in Their Historical, Cultural, Psychological, Sexual and Especially Political Aspects, Appended with the Modest Proposal That We Cease Allowing the Traditions of the Dead Generations to Dominate the Lives of the Living

If you care to look, you’ll also uncover in the darkest recesses of the internet the information that Luther Blissett was an English football (soccer) player who had a brief stint with AC Milan in the early 80s. Hilariously, it is generally believed that Milano really wanted to sign John Barnes (Watford’s other black player), but somehow fucked up. None of this is news to yours truly, for I myself had the privilege of seeing the great Luther Blissett play at Highbury back in 1987. I was (and still am) an Arsenal fan, and my granddad took the eight-year-old me to see Arsenal play Watford in the FA Cup quarter final. This was the first time I ever went to a football match. You can imagine how devastated I was, then, when Arsenal were duly humbled by the underdogs Watford, losing 3-1 to goals by John Barnes and Luther Blissett (2). I think I cried. Still, I stuck with Arsenal throughout the failures and successes of the George Graham era, when Arsenal had the dubious privilege of being the most boring side ever to grace the football field, but still managed to win the league title in ‘89 (miraculously) and ’91 (inevitably). I stuck with them still throughout the Stuart Houston and Bruce Rioch eras (not really ‘eras’, more ‘episodes’), when Arsenal were mediocre once more. I even stuck with them when Arsène Wenger came along and they started to be successful one again – even though, this time around, they were winning things and playing great, entertaining football. Nowadays, I’ve lost all loyalty to Arsenal: they just can’t offer the disappointment, boredom and abject misery that I’m looking for in a football club; they’ve become too…good.

So much for the prolegomenon. More on Q in the next entry.

Old Cary Grant fine. How you?

Woyzeck will have to wait for the time being. Watch this space, though! (actually, don't bother, it could be months...).

I just put down Thus Spoke Zarathustra, having slipped a bookmark in between pages 96 and 97 (Penguin Classics edition), at the start of the section entitled ‘Of Voluntary Death’. It immediately occurred to me that this unthinking gesture could have dire consequences: what if, in the next 24 hours, I meet my demise in some unlikely set of circumstances, overdosing on nicotine gum (a distinct possibility at the moment: I’m desperately addicted to the stuff) or inadvertently defenestrating myself as I take in the morning air? What conclusions, I further speculated, would the investigators at the scene reach if they happened upon the volume in question, pointedly bookmarked at the section on suicide? What if they went on to search through all my books, seeking out underlined passages in The Myth of Sisyphus and the Tusculan Disputations, revealing distinct suicidal tendencies in the troubled mind of the subject? What if they were to go through my CD collection, skimming over the uplifting, euphoric stuff like the Polyphonic Spree album or the ‘95 Trance Anthems compilation (I know, I know…) and making a beeline for the Smiths, the Cure, Tindersticks, Leonard Cohen? What would my mother say? And as for my porn collection…

Now I am fully aware that this kind of reverie is nothing but a narcissistic fantasy. It’s akin to the adolescent daydream of being present at one’s own funeral: “Then they’ll understand how misunderstood I was! Ha!”. But, even having long left my adolescence behind me, I still find myself absurdly self-conscious about my reading habits, my listening habits, my movie-watching habits. Those underlinings, those marginal comments, those indecipherable symbols traced on the pages of my books: how could they possibly be understood by anyone other than me? How could they fail to be misunderstood? I’m an inveterate book underliner and commentator, and I get great pleasure in looking over the comments I wrote 4 or 5 years ago, when I was an undergraduate, in my editions of Montaigne or Baudelaire. I often strongly disagree with the sentiment expressed by the previous me (and sometimes I fail to understand what the hell the previous me was getting at), so it’s an endless source of pleasure to write in responses, question marks, rebuttals. You’re more likely to find two people’s opinions the same than the same person’s at different times, to (clumsily) paraphrase M. de Montaigne.

Having sung the praises of marginalia privata (to coin a phrase), I must add that I strongly disapprove of the practice of writing comments in library books. Even so, I do derive pleasure from browsing the indignant scribblings of bygone scholars in the books I read at my University Library: incredulous reactions to the outrageous claims of august authors and angry comments directed at lazy proof-readers. Sometimes one is fortunate enough to stumble upon a graffiti-ed conference call between opinionated scholars, each one a partisan of his age or critical school. I myself am guilty of the odd transgression of library regulations (in pencil, naturellement: I am not an animal!). I’m especially fond of the ! manoeuvre: whenever I come across an author commenting authoritatively on a book they patently have not read, having failed to do their research properly, I show my contempt by slashing the margin with a confident !. Ha! What are you going to do about that, you long-dead academic, you!

Disclaimer: the author is fully aware of how petty and self-involved this entire entry must sound.