Talk:Marcus Manilius

iv 5There are textual problems affecting some of these quotations. Some give the wrong sense, others give no sense at all. Also, some of the translations are not quite right, even of correct texts. However, since most of my efforts to adjust some of these keep getting reversed, I shall leave the page alone, for the present at least, with this warning. Sgd Seadowns 09:32 6th July 2017


 * I just removed your floating comment "The variant is absurd!" from the page, labeled the variant translation "disputed", and added G. P. Goold's accurate translation; you're the one who's been reverting yourself since. ~ DanielTom (talk) 23:35, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I don't really understand how things work technically. The absurdity was not so much linguistic, but lay in attributing the changes described to the laws of man. I wish I could read what Housman would have said! Sgd Seadowns 11:13 7 July 2017 Creech has "All mortal things must change", and Dryden translated "All humane things are subject to decay". Seadowns (talk) 20:21, 21 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Here are a few notes:

I 90 Alia is impossible metrically. Should be alias. (The error seems to come from here.) II 115 Munera makes no sense syntactically. Read munere. IV 5 Agimus means "act" in the theatrical sense, according to both Watt and Nisbet in conversation. "We are always acting the part of people who are going to live, but never actually live", in a wordy, clumsy translation of my own. IV 155 Both readings ipse and ipsa seem to be perfectly acceptable general maxims, but in fact they are not. The reading should be ipse, and it is a particular remark about the life of Gemini births, who become musicians. Their very work is a pleasure. Sgd Seadowns 16:13 9 July 2017 I 90 (again) From the context, the noun to be understood in this line is artes. You could translate roughly "the practice of some skills is always generating others". Sgd Seadowns