Sulpicia!

These are my translations of poems by Sulpicia, perhaps the most notable of the ancient Roman female poets. Her poems remind me of Sappho, who may well have been one of her models...

The Favorite Poet by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Sulpicia is one of the few female poets of ancient Rome whose work survives, and she is arguably the most notable. She is certainly the best that I’ve discovered so far, and a worthy heir of Sappho, if not as prolific.

Other ancient female poets associated with the Roman Empire include Perilla, a Latin lyric poetess whom Ovid deemed second only to Sappho but may have been a scripta puella (a "written girl" and male construct); Aelia Eudocia, a Byzantine empress; Moero, another Byzantine poetess; Claudia Severa, remembered today for two surviving literary letters (and one of those a fragment); Eucheria, who has just one extant poem; Faltonia Betitia Proba, a Latin Roman Christian poet of the late empire who left a Virgilian cento with many lines copied directly from Virgil with "minimal" modification; Julia Balbilla, who has four extant epigrams; and Caecilia Trebulla, who has three. There was also a second Sulpicia, known as Sulpicia II, who lived during the reign of Domitian, for whom only two lines of iambic trimeters survive.

Alas, it seems there was little little effort wasted on preserving the work of female poets in male-dominated Rome!

The original Sulpicia was the author of six short poems (some 40 lines in all) written in Latin during the first century BC. Her poems were published as part of the corpus of Albius Tibullus. Sulpicia's family were well-off Roman citizens with connections to Emperor Augustus, since her uncle Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus served as a general for Augustus and was made consul in 31 BC, replacing Mark Antony.

These translations of mine were suggested by Carolyn Clark, to whom I have dedicated them. Her dissertation "Tibullus Illustrated: Lares, Genius and Sacred Landscapes" includes a discussion of Sulpicia on pages 364-369 and is highly recommended.

I. At Last, Love!
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

It's come at last! Love!
The kind of love that, had it remained veiled,
would have shamed me more than baring my naked soul.
I appealed to Aphrodite in my poems
and she delivered my beloved to me,
placed him snugly, securely against my breast!
The Goddess has kept her promises:
now let my joy be told,
so that it cannot be said no woman enjoys her recompense!
I would not want to entrust my testimony
to tablets, even those signed and sealed!
Let no one read my avowals before my love!
Yet indiscretion has its charms,
while it's boring to conform one’s face to one’s reputation.
May I always be deemed worthy lover to a worthy love!

A signatis tabellis was a letter written on wooden tablets and sealed with sealing-wax.

II. Dismal Journeys, Unwanted Arrivals
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

My much-hated birthday's arrived, to be spent mourning
in a wretched countryside, bereft of Cerinthus.
Alas, my lost city! Is it suitable for a girl: that rural villa
by the banks of a frigid river draining the fields of Arretium?
Peace now, Uncle Messalla, my over-zealous chaperone!
Arrivals of relatives aren't always welcome, you know.
Kidnapped, abducted, snatched away from my beloved city,
I’d mope there, prisoner to my mind and emotions,
this hostage coercion prevents from making her own decisions!

Arretium is a town in Tuscany, north of Rome. It was presumably the site of, or close to, Messalla’s villa. Sulpicia uses the term frigidus although the river in question, the Arno, is not notably cold. Thus she may be referring to another kind of lack of warmth! Apparently Sulpicia was living with her overprotective (in her eyes) Uncle Messalla after the death of her father, and was not yet married.

III. The Thankfully Abandoned Journey
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Did you hear the threat of that wretched trip’s been abandoned?
Now my spirits soar and I can be in Rome for my birthday!
Let’s all celebrate this unexpected good fortune!

IV. Thanks for Everything, and Nothing
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Thanks for revealing your true colors,
thus keeping me from making further fool of myself!
I do hope you enjoy your wool-basket whore,
since any female-filled toga is much dearer to you
than Sulpicia, daughter of Servius!
On the brighter side, my guardians are much happier,
having feared I might foolishly bed a nobody!

Upper-class Roman women did not wear togas, but unfree prostitutes, called meretrices or ancillae, did. Here, Sulpicia is apparently contrasting the vast difference in her station to that of a slave who totes heavy wool baskets when not sexually servicing her masters. Spinning and wool-work were traditional tasks for virtuous Roman women, so there is a marked contrast here. Sulpicia doesn’t mention who is concerned about her, but we can probably intuit Messalla was one of them.

V. Reproach for Indifference
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Have you no kind thoughts for your girl, Cerinthus,
now that fever wilts my wasting body?
If not, why would I want to conquer this disease,
knowing you no longer desired my existence?
After all, what’s the point of living
when you can ignore my distress with such indifference?

VI. Her Apology for Errant Desire
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Let me admit my errant passion to you, my love,
since in these last few days
I've exceeded all my foolish youth's former follies!
And no folly have I ever regretted more
than leaving you alone last night,
desiring only to disguise my desire for you!

Sulpicia on the First of March
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“One might venture that Sulpicia was not over-modest.” – MRB

Sulpicia's adorned herself for you, O mighty Mars, on your Kalends:
come admire her yourself, if you have the sense to observe!
Venus will forgive your ogling, but you, O my violent one,
beware lest your armaments fall shamefully to the floor!
Cunning Love lights twin torches from her eyes,
with which he’ll soon inflame the gods themselves!
Wherever she goes, whatever she does,
Elegance and Grace follow dutifully in attendance!
If she unleashes her hair, trailing torrents become her train:
if she braids her mane, her braids are to be revered!
If she dons a Tyrian gown, she inflames!
She inflames, if she wears virginal white!
As stylish Vertumnus wears her thousand outfits
on eternal Olympus, even so she models hers gracefully!
She alone among the girls is worthy
of Tyre’s soft wool dipped twice in costly dyes!
May she always possess whatever rich Arabian farmers
reap from their fragrant plains’ perfumed fields,
and whatever flashing gems dark India gathers
from the scarlet shores of distant Dawn’s seas.
Sing the praises of this girl, Muses, on these festive Kalends,
and you, proud Phoebus, strum your tortoiseshell lyre!
She'll carry out these sacred rites for many years to come,
for no girl was ever worthier of your chorus!

Related Translation Pages of Ancient Female Poets:

Wulf and Eadwacer
The Wife's Lament
Sappho
Sulpicia Translations
Ono no Komachi