Books: Old Doggerel, New Tricks

AVE OGDEN! NASH IN LATIN Translated by JAMES C. GLEESON and BRIAN N. MEYER 94 pages. Little, Brown. $5.95.

This small volume of Ogden Nash's better verse translated into Latin was put together, no doubt, to amuse those admirable scholars who actually understand Latin. Never mind them. The soul in real need of Nash in Latin belongs to a middleaged, indifferently educated individual who once, perhaps 25 years ago, earned an A-minus on a Latin test.

Of course this clod does not retain enough usable Latin to translate a tombstone, but he cannot admit it. What is excellent about the Nash translations, however, is not only that the English original is on the facing page (an indispensable prop to dignity) but that the poems are very short. This is a great advance over a famous similar confection of a few years back called Winnie IIle Pooh.

Our ex-Latin student begins wistfully with "In the world of mules/ There are no rules." Without pause or hiccup he sprints through "Mundus mulorum/ Non est regularum." Triumph! Wistful no longer, the poseur sweeps on to

The panther is like a leopard, Except it hasn 't been peppered.

Should you behold a panther crouch, Prepare to say Ouch.

Better yet, if called by a panther Don't anther.

Latined, this becomes:

Panthera leopardo similis est, Nisi quod nan pipere nota est.

Si distraheris pantherae flexu, Para dicere Heu.

Praestat vocato a panthera, Non respondera.

The newly hatched self-confidence man decides that Heu is quite good but that Non respondera is not up to snuff as a translation of "Don't anther." Generally, that sort of Nashian distortion is not handled really well, the arbiter elegantiarum decides comfortably, but translations that do not require puns or word twists are sometimes perfect. Exempli gratia:

Strange as it seems, the smallest

mammal

Is the shrew, and not the camel.

And that is all lever knew, Or wish to know, about the shrew.

In Latin:

Mirabiliter, minimus mammalis

Sorex est, et non camelus.

Quod est totum quod ego umquam

Scivi aut scire de sorice cupiam.

It should be added that the amusement provided is roughly doubled if the reader is running about four degrees of fever

John Skow