Crtice
Verses Cut in Stone, Harmonious Poetic Renditions The translating aspect of Duje Rendić-Miočević
Tonko Maroević
Sažetak
A most valuable contribution to the Croatian literary culture has been made by the book Carmina epigraphica by Duje Rendić-Miočević. In the book its author collected and neatly and in an inspired manner poetically rendered the very interesting Greek and Latin verses cut in stone
at various Classical monuments and sites. Most part of the texts are epitaphs, tombstone inscriptions synthesizing the diseased person's character and expressing the grief for the loss, but there are other texts as well, among which by its size and significance stands out the eulogy to the spring (by Licinianus and Pelagia) cut in the rock in Živogošće, making a poetic and cultural sign of exceptional value. As the editor, and especially as a scrupulous translator – loyal to the original meter, yet sensitive and elegant in the Croatian wording – Duje Rendić-Miočević deserves an acclaim beyond archaeology and philology: a gratitude from the literary profession and audience. The collection begins with ten Greek fragments, votive texts and epitaphs, followed by seventy-five Latin epigram works and fragments, of various provenances, but dominantly from Salona (45 items, that are to be added five more Greek epitaphs). While presenting both translations and original texts, the editor also provided adequate comments and, where necessary,
opened discussions on possible restitutions and interpretations of gray places, showing thereby an exceptional reliability and competency. The book also contains various indices and reviews, thus enabling easy getting along and diversified usage of the texts, ending with
certain photo documentation of the available sources, monuments and sites.
The poetic title of the introductory essay, The Sounds of Siring, at the very beginning marks also the specific spatial disposition of the gathered material. Namely, the author is aware that most of the inscriptions are from the regions of provincial character, and that in the East-Adriatic
and Balkan ambients could have been preserved also an even older, mythical tradition leaning on Pan as the primal creator of music and poetry. Dalmatia, from where come most part of the epigraphic traces, Duje Rendić-Miočević justly compares with Arcadia, the pastoral
and rural ambient (»of cattle breeders and foresters«), providing us, thus, with the idea of a cultural substrate from which emerged the poetry (or at least the versification) concerned. The editor, of course, pays particular attention to typological and social aspects of the phenomenon of poetic inscriptions in stone. He underlines the poetic dominancy of the texts dedicated to marking graves, preserving memories of the deceased. Particularly significant and expressively pointed out is the often case of the parents erecting monument to their early demised children: this ominous inversion and singular misfortune inspired numerous expressions of singular grief. A number of epitaphs relates to the immigrants from various lands (including the local people demised abroad), and to the soldiers died in their service, giving us very interesting onomastic and toponomastic components. Often similar formulations are found in different inscriptions, differentiated mostly by the particular name. However, everything that is said so far, no matter how exciting and valuable, is put in the shade by the hexameters inscribed in a rock above the water spring at the beach in Živogošće. Cutting verses in a rock is extraordinary by itself, the motif of gratitude to Nymph and a kind of dialog between the spouses in love is also almost without comparison, whereas the freshness of the expression appears to be in a pleasant harmony with the nature of the water that appears there from a rock spring, just a few meters later forever to blend with the sea (today completely sank in the ground).
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
186051
URI
Datum izdavanja:
8.9.2017.
Posjeta: 969 *