1

This is an amazing song and I desperately want to know what this poem means

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYj8eBFUTp4

By listening I could make out the words:

Heu ... nostrum ... Heu ... solatea
arbitrium refusi late mare sol serenum
laca tum lustravit pedibus posuit procellam
Heu domiti ... se de repondere fluctus

I know that the poem had to exist on the very hard to remember

http://mizar.unive.it/mqdq/public/

So I did some googling and found out that the name of the poem is wrong. It's not 'Carmen Nautarum' but 'Carmen Navale', located here:

http://mizar.unive.it/mqdq/public/testo/testo/codice/CARM_NAV|cele|001

It turns out that they were actually saying:

Heia, uiri, nostrum reboans echo sonet heia!
Arbiter effusi late maris ore sereno
Placatum strauit pelagus posuitque procellam,
Edomitique uago sederunt pondere fluctus.
Heia uiri nostrum reboans echo sonet heia!
Annisu parili tremat ictibus acta carina.
Nunc dabit arridens pelago concordia caeli
Ventorum motu praegnanti currere uelo.
Heia uiri nostrum reboans echo sonet heia!
Aequora prora secet delphinis aemula saltu
Atque gemat largum, promat seseque lacertis,
Pone trahens canum deducat et orbita sulcum.
Heia uiri nostrum reboans echo sonet heia!
Aequore flet Corus: uocitemus nos tamen heia.
Conuulsum remis spumet mare: nos tamen heia.
Vocibus adsiduis litus resonet: tamen heia.

The mqdq database got the song from a book published in 1879 by Behrens located here

https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5Qac4igOb31WAwT9nv3pEjFh22v0ZsX4r_9YJx5KHufJyngar8WGdUusvGiXFWPEg9MN1pWorqUaeH0k2UFEmOUAEvgBxfMCxyAeGrE00h8pL_AzRNnloCT6ZaQjI9lVXAxdHtwn3uplAuIpX6LLAyX6gbDd2DFPAiHdKFuq0zWn-ozFzQslxRiwXvR5NinHeDaiPYdPPhClGP36cTmlZu4M7JbZZpfcu1uj8S5Ka0cCTHklq9C0-_kFbf1FVlWeg5T99e0Ri

but the book itself is in Latin. The verse also appears here

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006W11CIA/ref=x_gr_bb_kindle?caller=Goodreads&tag=x_gr_bb_kindle-20

But it is not translated. There is a discussion of the poem here

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20649790.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A4a9f5eff19dc640d790247b3b8d8ad45&ab_segments=&origin=

But no translation. A lot of the poetry in Latin after Juvenal to my knowledge is not translated. So my current plan is to just get good enough in Latin to read it without translation, but this is one poem that I cannot wait for, I need to understand it now.

bobsmith76
  • 2,279
  • 3
  • 14

1 Answers1

1

As Sebastian Koppehel pointed out, the poem has been translated by Howard Mumford Jones

Heia, fellows! Echo, resounding, sends back our heial
Placid lies the wide-spread floor of the sea; the tempest,
Calmed by the serene face of ocean's arbiter, slumbers;
Under their sliding weight, conquered, the waves are quiet.
Heia, fellows! Echo, resounding, sends back our heia!
Beat with your equal oar-stroke, steadily shake the keelson
Soon the smiling peace of sea and sky shall permit us,
Under our bellying sail, to run with the wind's swift motion.
Heia, fellows! Echo, resounding, sends back our heia!
So that our emulous prow may cut the waves like a dolphin,
Row till the timbers groan and the ship leap under your muscles
Backward our whitened path flows in a lengthening furrow.
Heia, fellows! Echo, resounding, sends back our heia!
Over the waves play the Phorci: sing we, however, heia!
Stirred by our strokes the ocean foams; however, sing heia!
Voices unwearying, echo along the shore — sing heia!

bobsmith76
  • 2,279
  • 3
  • 14