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spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
nemo est qui tibi sapientius suadere possit te ipso: numquam labere, si te audies.What's the Latin for "bullshit"?*
The edition translated by D.R. Shackleton Bailey is my favourite, although I've also read and translated the original Latin (kill me). However, Shackleton Bailey's translation is not without its flaws: notably, he rearranged the order of Cicero's letters for no discernable reason, so I'd suggest that anyone not already familiar with Cicero's writing have a list of the correct order in which to read the letters.
Here are a few of my personal favourite lines from Cicero's letters, along with Shackleton Bailey's translation, for comparison:
Marcellus candidatus ita stertebat ut ego vicinus audirem.From Letters to Atticus, IV.III. Shackleton Bailey's translation:
My neighbour Marcellus (the candidate) is snoring loud enough for me to hear him.This is a fine translation, very literal. The parenthetical around candidatus in the translation is awkward—"Marcellus the candidate" would've worked just as well—and Shackleton Bailey switches the location of the word vicinus (neighbouring, nearby), but otherwise no complaints from me.
(I love this particular line because Cicero wrote this around 2.1 thousand years ago, but it's a sentiment most people could relate to even today—I mean, who hasn't been stuck with a roommate who snores loudly? And Cicero couldn't sleep, so he wrote about it to his
hic Abdera non tacente me. dices "tamen tu non quiescis?" ignosce, vix possum.From Letters to Atticus, IV.XVII. Shackleton Bailey's translation:
All Fools Festival there, not without a protest from me. ‘Still not keeping quiet?’ you’ll say. Sorry, I scarcely know how to.(I also really love this fragment because Cicero has a big mouth and it got him in trouble a lot.) Abdera was an ancient city in Thrace, known for its inhabitants' apparent foolishness; the adjective abderitanus could mean either "pertinent to the city of Abdera" or "foolish, idiotic." The first sentence, hic Abdera non tacente me, literally means, "It's crazy town, [but] not shutting me up." The second, dices "tamen tu non quiescis?" literally means, "You'll say 'yet you don't keep quiet?'" The third, ignosce, vix possum, literally means, "Pardon [me], I'm scarcely able to."
utinam illum diem videam cum tibi agam gratias quod me vivere coegisti.From Letters to Atticus, III.III. Shackleton Bailey's translation:
I hope I may see the day when I shall thank you for making me go on living.This is the very first line from the second letter Cicero wrote after his exile. There's a lot going on in the sentence—Cicero was a poet, and he loved his syntactical trickery—but the translation is quite good, in my opinion. Also quite good at making me tear up, so I may be biased.
*This is a joke; I know it's one of the following, depending on context: stercus (manure), merda (shit), nugae (nonsense), fabulae (nonsense), logi (rubbish [words]).
laure_d's review against another edition
Read or translated them in Latin. Cicero seemed very human and the grief he has over his daughters dead was very touching, he wrote some things that are very accurate today.
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