[lit-ideas] Gabberbochus
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:10:29 EDT
In a message dated 4/17/2011 6:43:54 P.M. , jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx
writes in "jibber jabber":
Whilom was a word I loved ere I met erstwhile. Erst satisfies an edgy
thirst like none other. Gnarl and gnaw are lagniappes to the
lumpenproletariat from whom I hail which rhymes with jail, and hard as a
nail. This need
for crunchy phonemes oft catches me offguard. I can't say what it is, why
it is, this need that comes upon me to speak words that wrench. Once upon
a time, I thought ineffable said it all -- such a marshmallow word -- now
I scrounge for scurfy sounds that one can knock upon like scute, and hear
the ring of the real. Mike Geary
Indeed.
Oddly, 'jabber' and 'jibber jabber' are translations from the older Latin,
Gabber -- as in Gabberbochus
Hōra aderat briligī. Nunc et Slȳthi̯a Tova
Plūrima gȳrābant gymbolitāre vabō;
Et Borogōvōrum mimzēbant undique formae,
Mōmiferīque omnēs exgrābūre Rathī.
Coesper erat: tunc lubricilēs ultrāvia circum
Urgēbant gȳrōs gimbiculōsque tophī;
Moestenuī vīsae borogōvides īre meātū;
Et profugī gemitūs exgrabuēre rathae.
“Gabrobocchia”
Est brilgum: touī slīmicī
In uābō tererōtitant
Brōgōuī sunt macresculī
Mōmī rastī strūgitant.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Note that here we have, clearly, three accentual iambic tetrameters and a
cretic dimeter.
One should perhaps wonder why two "translators" went for elegiacs and not
the freer iambo-trochaic meters.
Or not.
JLS
At the Swimming-Pool Library, reading.
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