tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 05 17:53:54 1997
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bom qonbogh _Virgil_
- From: Irene Gates <[email protected]>
- Subject: bom qonbogh _Virgil_
- Date: 05 Mar 97 20:50:59 EST
Virgil's exhortation to a warrior race (Aeneid: book 6 lines 847 - 853) is as
fitting to the Klingons of the 24th century as it was to the Romans of the first
century BC:
Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera
(credo equidem), vivos ducent de marmore vultus,
orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus
describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent:
tu regere imperio populos, Romanae, memento
(hae tibi erunt artes), pacisque imponere morem,
parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.
Virgil wrote in the classical dactylic hexameter based on syllable weight, in
which the first four feet may be dactyls or spondees, the fifth must be a
dactyl, and the sixth a spondee or trochee, with a caesura in the third or
fourth foot. Lord Bowen (1835 - 1894) wrote a translation in which he retained
the meter but modified it to suit English by basing it on syllable stress and
shortening each line by a syllable; and he also introduced a rhyme scheme.
Others will mould their bronzes to breathe with a tenderer grace,
Draw, I doubt not, from marble a vivid life to the face,
Plead at the bar more deftly, with sapient wands of the wise
Trace heaven's courses and changes, predict us stars to arise.
Thine, O Roman, remember, to reign over every race!
These be thine arts, thy glories, the ways of peace to proclaim,
Mercy to show to the fallen, the proud with battle to tame.
I have copied Lord Bowen's adaptations to the meter and his rhyme scheme in this
translation to the Warrior's Tongue:
Doch 'IH chenmoHDI' latlh bIH Dun law' DochlIj Dun puS,
nagh chIrgh DojmoHDI' chaH (vIHarqu' jIH), ta'lIj lujuS,
bo'DIjDaq ngachtaHvIS nIv, maS Hovmey je HemeyHey laD
jan nap lo'taHvIS chaH 'ej nuSeHlaw'bogh yuQmeymaj HaD:
_Rome_ngan, bIHoS 'e' yIqaw, Hoch Seghmey Dache' 'e' yIbuS
(Dochmeyvam bIH chavlIj'e'), 'ej nuvpu'vaD Daqumbogh yIroj,
jeghbogh pujwI'Hey yIvup 'ej HemwI'Hey DajeymeH yIQoj.
bomvam nuDchu'mo' ghaH, 'Iwvan vItlho'.
T'Lark