Skipped through a few of the dry Adams ones, but this picks up again big time with canto 39, the one on Circe's island, with the ritual sex rite scene at the end. Spent a nice morning in bed reading through it a few times along with the notes, one of my favourites so far. (36, the translation of that Italian lyric poem looks good as well but knotty, haven't cracked it yet)
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Canto XXXIX
Desolate is the roof where the cat sat,
Desolate is the iron rail that he walked
And the corner post whence he greeted the sunrise.
In hill path: "thkk, thgk"
of the loom
"Thgk, thkk" and the sharp sound of a song
under olives
When I lay in the ingle of Circe
I heard a song of that kind.
Fat panther lay by me
Girls talked there of fucking, beasts talked there of eating,
All heavy with sleep, fucked girls and fat leopards,
Lions loggy with Circe's tisane,
Girls leery with Circe's tisane
κακά φάρμακ έδωκεν
kaka pharmak edoken
The house of smooth stone that you can see from a distance
λύκοι όρέστεροι ήδε λέοντες
lukoi oresteroi ede leontes
wolf to curry favour for food
---born to Helios and Perseis
That had Pasiphae for a twin
Venter venustus, cunni cultrix, of the velvet marge
ver novum, canorum, ver novum
Spring overborne into summer
late spring in the leafy autumn
καλὸν ἀοιδιάει
KALON AOIDIAEI
ἢ θεὸς ἠὲ γυνή..... φθεγγώμεθα θᾶσσον
e theos e guné.... ptheggometha thasson
First honey and cheese
honey at first and then acorns
Honey at the start and then acorns
honey and wine and then acorns
Song sharp at the edge, her crotch like a young sapling
illa dolore obmutuit, pariter vocem
ἀλλ' ἄλλην χρὴ πρῶτον ὁδὸν τελέσαι καὶ ἱκέσθαι
εἰς Ἀίδαο δόμους καὶ ἐπαινῆς Περσεφονείης,
ψυχῇ χρησομένους Θηβαίου Τειρεσίαο,
μάντηος ἀλαοῦ, τοῦ τε φρένες ἔμπεδοί εἰσι:
τῷ καὶ τεθνηῶτι νόον πόρε Περσεφόνεια,
When Hathor was bound in that box
afloat on the sea wave
Came Mava swimming with light hand lifted in overstroke
sea blossom wreathed in her locks,
"What are you box?"
"I am Hathor."
Che mai da me non si parte il diletto
Fulvida di folgore
Came here with Glaucus unnoticed, nec ivi in harum
Nec in harum ingressus sum.
Discuss this in bed said the lady
Euné kai philoteti ephata Kirkh
Εὺνή καἰ φιλότητι, ἕφατα Κἱρκη“
es thalamon
Ες θάλαμον
Eurilochus, Macer, better there with good acorns
Than with a crab for an eye, and 30 fathom of fishes
Green swish in the socket,
Under the portico Kirké:......
"I think you must be Odysseus....
feel better when you have eaten....
Always with your mind on the past....
Ad Orcum autem quisquam?
nondum nave nigra pervenit.....
Been to hell in a boat yet?
Sumus in fide
Puellaeque canamus
sub nocte....
there in the glade
To Flora's night, with hyacinthus,
With the crocus (spring
sharp in the grass,)
Fifty and forty together
ERI MEN AI TE KUDONIAI
Betuene Aprile and Merche
with sap new in the bough
With plum flowers above them
with almond on the black bough
With jasmine and olive leaf,
To the beat of the measure
From star up to the half-dark
From half-dark to half-dark
Unceasing the measure
Flank by flank on the headland
with the Goddess' eyes to seaward
By Circeo, by Terracina, with the stone eyes
white toward the sea
With one measure, unceasing:
"Fac deum!" "Est factus."
Ver novum!
ver novum!
Thus made the spring,
Can see but their eyes in the dark
not the bough that he walked on.
Beaten from flesh into light
Hath swallowed the fire-ball
A traverso le foglie
His rod hath made god in my belly
Sic loquitur nupta
Cantat sic nupta
Dark shoulders have stirred the lightning
A girl's arms have nested the fire,
Not I but the handmaid kindled
Cantat sic nupta
I have eaten the flame.