Ausonius : Three Amusements

by Decimius Magnus Ausonius, David R. Slavitt (Translator)

Ausonius, the most famous of the learned poets active in the second half of the fourth century, was born at Bordeaux and taught school there for 30 years before being summoned to court to teach the future emperor Gratian. He subsequently held important public offices, returning to Bordeaux and private life after Gratian's death in 383. The subjects of many of his poems are typical of the academic world of the time. His Commemorations of the Professors of Bordeaux , a sequence of light verse obituaries of local teachers, in which people are honored—or gossiped about—in their daily occupations, has been called an illustrious poetic precedent to Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology . To a literary verse translation of the Commemorations David Slavitt has added versions of Ausonius's Nuptial Cento , assembled from snippets of Shakespeare (Ausonius's original is a pastiche of Virgil), and selected epigrams.

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Hardcover

First published December 27, 1998

Reviews

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Commemorations is pleasing academic collegiality. Nuptial is a witty riff on the original. Epigrams adds little.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best part which befits a rhetor are the eulogies, or more officially,
His Commemorations of the Professors of Bordeaux, which every academic in any subject should read.

Usually scratchy:

That bust of Rufinus? Him to the life! How come?
No tongue, no brain, blind, stiff, and utterly dumb...
To every aspect of him does the piece conform, or
almost. He was perhaps a little warmer.

But not always. My favorite:

Some said you'd lost it: others more
severe maintained you'd never even had it.
To hell with them, Jucundus. For
Your charm and kindness, I give you credit.
Your limitations you confessed.
You weren't the brightest but one of the best.