A COUPLE of years ago, in a caffeine den in Ranelagh, I was basking in satisfaction at the recent publication of my children's book The Most Beautiful Letter in the World, when I was approached by a tall man with a patrician air and a sonorous voice. "Did you do Latin at school?" he asked. "Armagh virumque" I replied, revealing my Northern CBS upbringing that would ever-afterwards have him referring to me as The Bard. He laughed loudly in tones only a Gonzaga Old Boy can produce, introduced himself as Ronan Sheehan, and proceeded to tell me of his plans for The Irish Catullus.
It seemed to me then a wonderful, if quixotic, crusade, to try to persuade writers and friends to come up with translations, in Irish or English, of the Roman poet Catullus, with a view to eventually producing a book that would have all 116 poems in three languages – Irish, Latin, and English – linked together in solidarity, as a protest at the decision by Queen’s University to close its classics department. He reamed off a list of names already on board, including Longley, Mahon, Ni Chuilleanain, and asked me if I was familiar with Catullus. I told him of my first encounter with the man from Verona.
I was a college student in Dublin in the late 1970s, on the doss as usual, and poking around a music sale in McCullough Pigott's in Suffolk Street. I found a boxed set of Carl Orff's loose trilogy of choral works Trionfi, containing the famous Carmina Buranabut also Catulli Carmina, the Songs of Catullus, and all for a fiver. The purchase made, I subsequently discovered that the booklet accompanying the LPs had significant gaps where no English translation was given for some of the Catullus. With a mixture of intellectual curiosity and erotic anticipation, I got my eager young hands on the Penguin Classics translation and searched for the naughty bits. Of course I found more than sexual satisfaction between those covers.
There was wit, romance, pathos, and a sometimes vicious satire, both political and personal.
Catullus was considerably more than a sex-obsessed funny guy.
SHORTLY AFTER that encounter with Ronan Sheehan in Ranelagh, I received an email from him attaching four short poems of Catullus, and suggesting, in his uniquely persuasive way, that I might like to have a go at translating them, “in your own Irish idiom” (whatever that meant). I still had my well-thumbed Penguin Classics paperback at hand and armed with that and the original Latin, together with a couple of literal translations and a sizeable dictionary, I sat down in the study room of Rathmines Library and proceeded to work out my own versions of the poems.
The pieces Ronan Sheehan had given me were, in the main, satirical, with the young Catullus having a swipe at prominent figures in power, including a certain J Caesar Esq. As the bold bard disappeared from the history books at the tender age of 30, I wondered if perhaps he had somewhat overstepped the mark and received an unwanted caller in the middle of the night. Or did he receive a warning? Did a soothsayer ask him to lend him his ear, and then whisper something in it about the Ides of March or whenever it was? We shall never know. The poet vanished, but the poems remain. Ars longa, vita brevis, as the man says.
Given the leeway to update and adjust the poems as I saw fit, I found the experience of translating an enjoyable one. But finding in today’s Irish political scene equivalents to the corruption, skulduggery and hypocrisy that seemed evident in Caesar’s Rome, was an absolute nightmare, as you can imagine. I tossed and turned in bed at night trying to come up with feasible comparisons. Such a struggle. But somehow I managed, and I sent my four little contributions to Ronan, pleased that I had done my bit for the Classics and I could get back to writing children’s stories. And then . . .
Just when I thought it was safe . . . a tall dark shadow appeared at my door. “This is it”, I thought, gulping at the snib, “I must have gone too far”. I opened the door . . .It was Ronan. “Would you like to try another couple?” he said, proffering me the carmina. It is a credit to my self-control that I didn’t strike him there and then, although his superior size and strength may have had something to do with it.
Secretly, too, I was delighted, even though I never really expected that the poems would ever see the light of day.
But I underestimated Ronan’s determination and energy, and the wonderful generosity of the numerous contributors and patrons who freely gave their time and art and money in the cause of this unique Irish project which has finally come to fruition. I am very proud to be included in A&A Farmar’s beautifully-produced book and wish it well as it sails off into the bookshops.
Ave atque vale.