Translating Livy's Account of the Rape of Lucretia

During the Romans' protracted siege of Ardea there are long periods of idleness which gives the young noblemen plenty of opportunities for drinking and partying, as we see in today's translation.

Today's passage did not pose too many knotty translation issues. Even so, once I had made my own translation, I fed the Latin into ChatGPT and had to challenge ChatGPT on its version, as we shall see.

First, though, a note on how my translation process is evolving.

My Translation Method

Write down the sentence to be translated, and start working on the basic or literal meanings of each word.
Check my dictionary, or Google, or ChatGPT, for the meanings or grammatical structure of individual words or phrases where necessary.
Create a basic/literal translation.
Seek further clarification where necessary.
Create my proposed translation.
Only now do I feed the whole Latin sentence into ChatGPT and compare its translation with my own.
Challenge ChatGPT to justify its version against my own.
Check a couple of other translations.
If necessary, in the light of steps 6-8, polish up my own verision.

Today's Translation Challenge

In the previous sentence we read that,

In these permanent military quarters, as is usual in a protracted rather than severe war, there was plenty of freedom to come and go, for the noblemen however, rather than for the common soldiers.

Today's passage shows us how those noblemen spent their time:

regii quidem iuvenes interdum otium conviviis comisationibusque inter se terebant.

Excuse the wine stain, but here is how I worked out the translation:

Partly from personal experience (yeah, once upon a time, I too was - or thought I was - a "young prince"), and partly from a familiarity with some of the Latin terms in this sentence, and with the story, it was not difficult to see what the young bucks were up to.

"regii... iuvenes ... otium ... conviviis ... inter se..."

"the kings' ... youths ... leisure ... parties ... among themselves..."

You don't say!

And so here is my final version:

Indeed, the young princes sometimes passed their free time feasting and merry-making among themselves.

When I put ChatGPT to the test, this is what it came up with:

Screenshot 2023-06-04 8.07.59 PM.png

"The young princes, indeed, sometimes passed their time in leisure through banquets and revelry among themselves."

It looks okay, but, based on my own translation work, I felt something was a bit off with this part:

"...sometimes passed their time in leisure through banquets..."

The problem, as I saw it, was that "otium" = leisure = free time, whereas the verb "terebant" = "they wore away" = "they passed" [their time]. So ChatGPT had kind of doubled up the translation of "otium ... terebant" by attaching "time" to "passed" instead of translating "otium" as "free time."

So I challenged ChatGPT on that point:

Screenshot 2023-06-04 8.16.37 PM.png

I'll chalk that up as another victory of Human Intelligence over Artificial Intelligence (always keeping in mind that AI is a product of HI).

Here is the good vicar's translation, which seems to go off the rails towards the end:

"The royal princes sometimes spent their leisure hours in feasting and entertainments, and at a wine party." (Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912)

"...and at a wine party!"

Where did he get that from? It sounds rather twee, like something the vicar's wife might host for privileged members of the congregation after evensong.

It takes a don to get into the proper, masculine, spirit of things:

"the young princes for their part passed their idle hours together at dinners and drinking bouts." (Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D.)

"dinners and drinking bouts," and the roast beef of old England - that's more like it!

(Actually, Benjamin Oliver Foster was an American academic who provided the translations for the Loeb edition of Livy, and a popular teacher who was, nota bene, "a gourmet cook who enjoyed preparing elaborate meals for colleagues."
Source: https://dbcs.rutgers.edu/all-scholars/8705-foster-benjamin-oliver )

Vale.

David Hurley

#InspiredFocus