English Poetry Translated to Latin

Wow, just wow… So way back when, when all the educated English gents knew Latin, some of them published a book of English (and American) Victorian Poetry that was translated into Latin. It’s hundreds of pages long and includes dozens of well-known poets from that era. Here is Edward Lear, for a very lighthearted example:

FORTES CREANTUR FORTIBUS ET BONIS 
 Smyrnaeo coluit Smymam virgo aemula vati :  
quae, minitante avia saevis comburere flammis,                                                                       arrepta fele, "Hanc" ait "banc, avia alma, cremato."                                                                         prudentes adeo neptes tu, Smyrna, creasti!  
                               --trans. Robert Velverton Tyrrell 

This book is called the Florilegium Latinum: Victorian Poets (Volume 2). What a fun find! There is also a volume of Pre-Victorian Poetry translated into English–it’s Florilegium Latinum: Pre-Victorian Poets (Volume 1), naturally. It has some Shakespeare in it, and so I will leave you all this morning with a sample of that–enjoy!

TEMPUS EDAX RERUM TUQUE INVIDIOSA  VETUSTAS  OMNIA DESTRUITIS  
En confecta aevi pereunt monumenta peracti, 
    temporis infesta despoliata manu :  
celso procumbunt aequatae vertice turres,
  firmaque mortalis destruit aera furor : 
ingruit oceanus, fluctuque instante rapaci  
  litora in imperium subtrahit usque suum ;
inque vicem tractus invadit terra madentes ;  
   cuique aliena nocet copia, damna iuvant.  
mutatos quotiens ego sic contemplor honores ; 
   sive etiam totum deperiisse decus, 
hoc me perpetuae rerum monuere ruinae, 
  tempore quam noster sit periturus amor, 
sic ego discrucior moriens, lacrimisque coactis
  perdere quae metuo, dum fruor ipse, fleo.  
                                                                              --W. C. G.  

TIME AND LOVE

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced / The rich proud cost of out-worn buried age; / When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,/ And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; / When I have seen the hungry ocean gain/ Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, / And the firm soil win of the watery main. / Increasing store with loss and loss with store; / When I have seen such interchange of state. / Or state itself confounded to decay; / Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate — / That Time will come and take my Love away : — This thought is as a death, which cannot choose / But weep to have that which it fears to lose. –Shakespeare. (Sonnet 64.)