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On Contempt for the World 2 part 3/3

Latin original · 2 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 2:72–2:73 (73 verses in all)

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ℹ️ This corpus has no morphological tagging. Glosses are matched by word form against a dictionary — a match does not prove it is the same word (an inflected form can coincide with another word’s lemma). Verify against the original and a specialist lexicon where precision matters.
ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
2:72
Ob mala grandia si modo praemia celsa darentur, Non mala promptius aut bona tardius appeterentur. Dum loquor horreo. Non scio, non queo, non volo fari, Fanda nefandaque, quis queat utraque vel lacrimari? Quae rogo flumina quaeve volumina sint lacrimarum Sufficientia tergere turpia tot furiarum? 960 Si furialia dixero talia, non erit aequum, Si scelus est minus; heu! iacet eminus actio legum. Carmen arans fleo; carmine non queo, non queo prosa, Tot mala dicere, probra retexere, ferre probrosa. Plurima sunt ea, defit eis mea vox referendis, Non ea vocibus est pudor omnibus his retegendis; Deficiet scio charta, locutio, tempus et hora, Si volo tangere, si reprehendere vel graviora.
If for great evils lofty rewards were now to be given, evils would not be more eagerly nor goods more slowly sought after. While I speak I shudder. I do not know, I cannot, I do not wish to speak. Things to be spoken and things unspeakable—who could even weep over both? What rivers, I ask, or what volumes of tears would be enough to wipe away so many foul deeds of so many furies? If I should tell such frenzied things, it would not be fair, if the crime is less; alas! far off lies the action of the laws. Ploughing my song, I weep; with my song I cannot, nor in prose can I tell so many evils, recount so many disgraces, bear such disgraceful things. They are very many; my voice fails for recounting them; it is no shame to all that these things must be uncovered with words. The paper will fail, I know, the speech, the time and the hour, if I wish to touch on, if I wish to reprove, even graver matters.
倘若如今要為大惡賜下高崇的賞賜,人追求惡也不會更急切,追求善也不會更遲緩。我說話之時便戰慄。我不知,我不能,我不願言說。當說與不可言說的事——誰能為這兩者哭泣呢?我問,要有何等的淚河、何等的淚卷,才足以拭去這許多惡魔般如此眾多的醜行?我若說出這等瘋狂的事,那也不公平,假若罪行較輕;唉!律法的施行遠在天邊。我耕著我的詩歌而哭泣;以詩歌我不能,以散文我也不能,說出這許多惡事、重述這許多恥辱、承擔這等羞恥之事。它們極多;我的聲音不足以述說;要用言語揭露這些事,對眾人原非羞恥之事。我知道,紙張、言詞、時間與時辰都必不夠用,假若我要觸及、要責備那更嚴重的事。
2:73
Musa quidem mea, iam nimis est ea lassa notare, Non tamen est rea progenies ea lassa patrare. 970 Ergo parum stylus isteque dactylus hic reprimetur. Secula perdita post quoque subdita Musa loquetur, Alta per aequora currimus anchora nunc iaciatur; Vis ubi plenior auraque gratior ibit, eatur.
Indeed my Muse is now too weary to record these things; yet that offspring is not too weary to commit them, and not guiltless. Therefore for a little while this stylus and this dactyl shall be restrained. The Muse shall afterward speak of the lost age and of what comes after, once subdued. We run over the deep seas; let the anchor now be cast; where fuller force and a more favorable breeze shall go, there let us go.
我的繆斯如今實在太疲倦,無法記下這些事;然而那族類卻不嫌疲倦去犯下這些事,並非無罪。所以這筆與這揚抑抑格暫且要被約束片刻。繆斯日後要述說那失喪的時代,以及隨後被制伏之事。我們在深海上奔馳;如今且拋下錨;何處有更充沛的力量、更宜人的微風吹拂,我們便往那裡去。
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