Jordi Alonso, Independent Scholar
Ubertino Carrara’s Columbus is a neo-Latin poem in twelve books which casts the
eponymous protagonist as a latter-day Aeneas who “added world to world for Spanish
kings.” Since Columbus has never before been fully translated into verse in any
language, my presentation will seek to both give a taste of the fusion of the (early)
modern sensibilities of Columbus as well as show its indebtedness to its Roman models,
ranging from the Aeneid to the Thebaid by reading my translation myself alongside a
reader performing the Latin original. By the time of the conference I hope to have a
draft of at least the first six books.
Book I
Let my theme be he who first saw the sun’s
tomb profaning seas with sails arrived from Europe
and added world to world for Spanish kings.
Let ancient fame invent wherever it may
as it has lied about the Greeks before.
It never will bring forth a hero like
the one Italian soil once brought about.
Let us admit audacious Alcides
went happily to subterranean lands,
tried to pierce chaos against his somber uncle,
that he held up the sky with his own head.
And what is more, stepmother at his back,
he sought the sea and wearily stopped there;
and having seen its depths he paled to think
it could be conquered; raising up the pillars,
he carved a legend for the centuries:
It’s fair for ships to sail here, not beyond—
impiety to outdo Hercules.
Remove the obstacles that until now,
had clung to sailors’ ships in former years.
Here, a new world is born. It does not end;
the greatest of Ligurians crossed the sea.
He dared to leave unmeasured Cadiz back
and follow unknown stars and nameless winds.
I have a task before me just as weighty
as adding world to world: I must describe
the world’s discoverer. It’s no small task.
I won’t tell all, since there are spots
that broach no comment. There’s no Homer or
no Hesiod who has walked this way before
where now we step. Wherever my eyes turn
beyond the barbarous, they just see truth.
That’s why I ask for help in this endeavor,
oh, Cyrrhan goddess who can close Fame’s temple
and unlock it. You alone can join
both land to land and centuries together.
A pleasant sight, and worthy of praise in Rome
it was when theatres, once built back to back,
turned in about themselves by force of art
little by little, with the spectators
moving within. And so, with two halves joined
an amphitheatre grew where once was none.
And gradually, the airy travelers
looked at their opposites across the stands
and traded greetings with each other. What
a gift it’d be if, likewise, neighbor states
close by our feet, whose kings and patron gods,
cities, and forests differ from our own,
would make themselves be present thanks to you
so that, at last, the light of truth revealed,
this newest age would know the Antipodes.