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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9223464" data-attributes="member: 8461">I've been in a bit of a reading rut lately, with almost a half-dozen books that I've made some progress on but can't seem to get through, along with several other reading projects in various stages short of completion. To that end, I did what seemed like the most logical thing, and started reading a different book altogether: James Michie's translation of Ovid's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Amatoria" target="_blank">Ars Amatoria</a> (&quot;The Art of Love&quot;), managing to finish it last night.I have to compliment the translator here, as he keeps the playful, self-aware tone of the original (the original Latin is opposite each page), while still keeping it readable. The one change he makes is that he tweaks the text so that the couplets rhyme, which is impressive that he made that change without altering the substance of Ovid's original lines, even if some of the specifics (i.e. how things are phrased, even if the point is the same) are altered. It helps that English has so many synonyms.Having said that, while I know that this was written in a different time and place, a lot of what's here is...yowza. I know that Ovid was being ironic at points, and so you can't take this as being entirely straightforward, but even so, there are things in here that would make Barney Stinson hold up his hands and say &quot;that's going too far.&quot; (Also, unless you're a connoisseur of Greek and Roman mythology, be prepared to look up a lot of old stories, as Ovid likes to drop references.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 9223464, member: 8461"] I've been in a bit of a reading rut lately, with almost a half-dozen books that I've made some progress on but can't seem to get through, along with several other reading projects in various stages short of completion. To that end, I did what seemed like the most logical thing, and started reading a different book altogether: James Michie's translation of Ovid's [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Amatoria'][I]Ars Amatoria[/I][/URL] ("The Art of Love"), managing to finish it last night. I have to compliment the translator here, as he keeps the playful, self-aware tone of the original (the original Latin is opposite each page), while still keeping it readable. The one change he makes is that he tweaks the text so that the couplets rhyme, which is impressive that he made that change without altering the substance of Ovid's original lines, even if some of the specifics (i.e. how things are phrased, even if the point is the same) are altered. It helps that English has so many synonyms. Having said that, while I know that this was written in a different time and place, a lot of what's here is...yowza. I know that Ovid was being ironic at points, and so you can't take this as being entirely straightforward, but even so, there are things in here that would make Barney Stinson hold up his hands and say "that's going too far." (Also, unless you're a connoisseur of Greek and Roman mythology, be prepared to look up a lot of old stories, as Ovid likes to drop references.) [/QUOTE]

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