Ovid (43 B.C. - 17 A.D.)
Ovid's poetry was much imitated up until the Middle Ages and has had a major influence on Western Art and Literature.
Attempt your first guided translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, lines 5 to 7.
Here is the text:
5 Ante mare et terras et, quod tegit omnia, caelum
6 unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe
7 quem dixere Chaos, rudis....
Read my literal translation:
Long before the sea and the earth,
and the heavens that cover them all, existed,
the universe had one unique and indistinct aspect,
which was called Chaos;
Compare with a poetic translation by John Dryden:
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And Heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
justly Chaos nam'd.
Beautiful.
N.B.:
Try to construct your sentence by paying due attention to the word order both in Latin and in English. You will find this exercise quite meaningful and a significant help to enter into the structure of the Latin sintax.
Once you are satisfied with your translation, read the original Latin text several times till you learn its meaning in Latin rather than in English. After a while you will appreciate that although the meaning of your translation, or mine, is correctly conveyed, the power of depth, focus, beauty and flow of the original text cannot be matched. Of course, this is partly understandable: we have rendered a poem into prose, poetry into a narrative.
Pagina Recensita: a.d. XIX Calendas Februarias, MMIX