illustration form The Vicar of Wakefield, by RackhamLyrics of Oliver Goldsmith, Translated into Latin by Joseph S. Salemi The Society July 7, 2025 Poetry, Translation 14 Comments . When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly… by Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy, What art can wash her guilt away? The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom—is to die. . Translation into Latin by Joseph S. Salemi Cum delabitur in vitium perpulchra puella, Seroque experta est fraudem hominumque dolos, Maestitiam bene quod carmen tunc mulceat istam, Abluat ars quaenam spurcitiam et vitium? Indignum crimen si vult celare puella, Abdere conspectu flagitiumque suum, Ac poenis meritis sceleratum prosequi amantem, Et cruciare animum, sponte sua pereat. . Translator’s Note These lovely tetrameter lyrics of Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) are from his novel The Vicar of Wakefield. They are sung by the character Olivia Primrose, after her seduction and abandonment by a faithless lover. They have become well known, and were partially parodied by T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land, where he uses them to describe a bored typist after an act of uninspiring intercourse. I have translated them as Latin elegiac couplets, a meter often used by Roman poets as a vehicle for non-heroic poetry. I cannot answer for the quality of my Latin translation, but I believe it is very accurate as regards the meaning of Goldsmith’s English. . . Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide. He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. ***Read Our Comments Policy Here*** 14 Responses Roy Eugene Peterson July 7, 2025 I remember who Oliver Goldsmith was, but I do not recall this particular poem. I suppose one can take “die” either literally or figuratively. I really like the English poem and am certain you make a great translation, because you are you. Reply Joseph S. Salemi July 7, 2025 Thank you, LTC Peterson. The translation was done many years ago. When a respectable girl found herself in an embarrassing predicament in the 18th century, she really had only two socially acceptable choices: get the responsible male to marry her; or take her own life. A lower-class girl had more freedom, since sexual affairs, common-law marriages, and bastardy were very frequent in her milieu. Reply Brian Yapko July 7, 2025 This is a fascinating switch on the typical translation, Joe! We are far more used to seeing ancient Latin translated into modern or slightly archaic English than we are to English being translated into Latin. But there is great fun in this exercise for the those who love both ancient and modern poetry, as well as for the linguistic dilettante who is privileged to see how the translation road goes both ways. I have a book called X-Treme Latin which is full of irreverant Latin phrases, including insults and cuss words and although I don’t use them it’s enjoyable to know them, to see that Latin is not a dead language and is as capable as English of beautiful (if different) expression. I always enjoy analyzing the etymology of words as well — to see how a word like “fraudem” is the ancestor of the word “fraud” or “cruciare” is the ancestor of “excruciating.” Along these lines, I sense that you have actually expanded the text a little since Latin is usually so much more economical than English because it is so heavily inflected. My Latin is weak at best. Does “Et cruciare animum” mean “to torture his soul”? If so, I would regard that as a deepening of meaning and an improvement upon the original which, though beautiful, is not as shattering. It’s a treat to read this. Reply Joseph S. Salemi July 7, 2025 Dear Brian — Deepest thanks or your comments. Yes — “Et cruciare animum” does basically mean “and to torture his soul.” This Latin rendering of the English “And wring his bosom” is somewhat extreme, but there is a problem when translating Latin which is parallel with the problem of translating any rhyming foreign poem into rhyming English. Putting a rhyming poem into an English translation that also rhymes means that you have to wrack your brain for not just English words that have an appropriate meaning, but that also fit into the rhyme scheme you are using. Since ancient Latin poetry doesn’t rhyme, a translation of English into Latin doesn’t have to do that. But you have this knotty problem: you have to maintain the Latin meter of long and short syllables, and this means finding Latin words that not only mean what the English says, but that also have to fit a certain quantitative metrical scheme. It’s just as tough as translating something into rhyme. In some cases it’s just not possible. I was very lucky with these Goldsmith lyrics. Reply Cheryl A Corey July 8, 2025 To translate any foreign language poem into English makes for an interesting challenge. As far as I know, yours is the first that I’ve seen on this site. Reply Joseph S. Salemi July 8, 2025 Thank you for your comments. I’ve translated several foreign language poems into English for this website, but this is the first time I have submitted a translation from English into a foreign tongue. Reply Bruce Phenix July 9, 2025 Thank you, Joseph, for your very stylish and accurate translation – such a difficult thing to do as successfully as you have, and a delight to read. I continued with Latin prose composition at university myself, but never dared attempt verse composition! Congratulations and best wishes, Bruce. Reply Joseph S. Salemi July 9, 2025 Thank you, Bruce. As I mentioned in my comment to LTC Peterson, this translation was done many years ago, when I was a young student of Latin. The presence of a great many elisions in the Latin text is a sign of my amateur status. Reply Frank Rable July 9, 2025 Hello Dr. Joe, I had two years of Latin in high school, which makes me an expert. 🙂 I know how to address a table in the vocative case! I know that “veni vidi vici” is not “come see the village.( a classmate thought so) My teacher told me that “sub ubi” meant “underwear”. That rascal! I knew better. And I still remember some of my alter boy prayers (et coom speery two two oh) All that said, my question is, did you use puella for the alliteration with perpulcha? Or was femina not used because it indicated an older (perhaps married) female who was more mature and less likely to be taking lovers.(or hid it better). If the former, then why not, it works well. If the latter, then I suppose that it is an indication of Roman thought regarding the roles of their females. My other question, more historical, was whether Roman women of the 100 BC – 400AD were under that same pressure as European women of the 17th and 18th centuries. My guess is that people are people and their behavior doesn’t vary from era to era except as prevailing religion dictates(and maybe not even then) I think that Oliver Goldsmith was a dirty old man who would love to see women take all the blame where it takes two to tango. Or course, I might have missed the point that females of any age will refer to their age peers as “girls”. Dr. Joe, if you want to say that I have given this all too much thought, then that will be acceptable. Reply Joseph S. Salemi July 9, 2025 Many thanks, Frank. All of us have some Latin, or as Dr. Johnson said of Greek, we all try to get as much of it as we can. I used “perpulchra” with “puella” (which simply means “a very lovely girl”) primarily to make metrical position — that is, to fill out the ending of a hexameter line. The Latin “femina” wouldn’t have worked, since the first syllable of “femina” is long. But you are correct about the use of “puella” in Latin love poetry — it is generally used to speak of one’s beloved, whereas “femina” is definitely a mature lady. Even today, as you point out, “girls” could be used to refer to women of several ages. A man might refer to his 35-year-old mistress as “My girl.” Out-of-wedlock pregnancy is almost always a problem in a wide range of human cultures, in the sense that it usually is seen as a violation of societal norms. If it happens with a couple who are already betrothed to each other it is frequently winked at, as it was in European peasant cultures. As long as the promised marriage took place eventually, who cared? In cultures infected with Puritanism (as is the case with almost all Anglophone bourgeois cultures), out-of-wedlock pregnancy is considered deeply disgraceful and shameful, and all kinds of steps are taken to deal with it secretly. I recall in the 1950s that some parents would send a teenage daughter away for some months because of alleged “illness,” or “for a vacation with relatives.” In a few cases the mother of the family would feign pregnancy, and when the daughter’s child was born it would be said to be the daughter’s baby sibling. This happened in the case of a famous rock singer of the 1950s, who only found out when he was an adult that his “sister” was in fact his biological mother. In Goldsmith’s novel Olivia Primrose is a respectable girl, and extramarital pregnancy in an 18th-century England heavily permeated by Low-Church or Dissenter sects would have been a social disaster, as it was for Hester Prynne in Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter,” set in Puritan New England. Hester proudly bears and raises her illegitimate child, wears her scarlet letter without shame, and tells the surrounding society of Bible-thumpers to fuck off. But most girls back then didn’t have that sort of gumption. Reply Frank Rable July 9, 2025 Dr. Joe: I know I joked around about my command of Latin. I never regretted taking the courses though. What I asked you, I really wanted to know, and I am grateful for the time and effort you took to answer my questions in a serious and complete way. I hadn’t thought about having to assemble the metrical poem puzzle in a language that’s not your primary. That has to make it at least twice as challenging, right? As to the 1950’s and early 1960’s I do remember unmarried pregnancies being dealt with in just that way. But that was then. Reply Joseph S. Salemi July 9, 2025 An old friend once told me that, when he was about five years old, the teenage daughter of his building’s superintendent was a favorite companion of his. She would come visit his apartment, and play and joke with him, and bring him cookies and candy, and even babysit with him when his mother had to go out. My friend was crazy about her. One day she simply disappeared. He wondered where she was, and asked his mother about it. His mother claimed ignorance, but he said that he could tell from her tone and demeanor that she wasn’t being truthful. This was in 1952. It was only years later that he learned the girl had become pregnant, and was sent secretly back to relatives in Puerto Rico. He never saw her again. Usually a girl in such a situation gave birth quietly and anonymously, and put up the child for adoption with some agency. But keeping the baby and going through the charade of pretending that your mother had given birth, and that this child was your baby sibling, took a lot more doing. The psychological tension of that secret in the family must have been very draining. Susan Jarvis Bryant July 9, 2025 There is something for everyone on this site, and Joe, your amazing translation proves just that – thank you! My knowledge of Latin is sparse. The translation may be out of reach for this Latin-challenged reader but how intriguing, enlightening, and entertaining the poetry and the comments section are. I am heartened and humbled. Reply Joseph S. Salemi July 9, 2025 Thank you for your kind words, Susan. The SCP is one of the few poetry sites where intellectual freedom still exists. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Roy Eugene Peterson July 7, 2025 I remember who Oliver Goldsmith was, but I do not recall this particular poem. I suppose one can take “die” either literally or figuratively. I really like the English poem and am certain you make a great translation, because you are you. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi July 7, 2025 Thank you, LTC Peterson. The translation was done many years ago. When a respectable girl found herself in an embarrassing predicament in the 18th century, she really had only two socially acceptable choices: get the responsible male to marry her; or take her own life. A lower-class girl had more freedom, since sexual affairs, common-law marriages, and bastardy were very frequent in her milieu. Reply
Brian Yapko July 7, 2025 This is a fascinating switch on the typical translation, Joe! We are far more used to seeing ancient Latin translated into modern or slightly archaic English than we are to English being translated into Latin. But there is great fun in this exercise for the those who love both ancient and modern poetry, as well as for the linguistic dilettante who is privileged to see how the translation road goes both ways. I have a book called X-Treme Latin which is full of irreverant Latin phrases, including insults and cuss words and although I don’t use them it’s enjoyable to know them, to see that Latin is not a dead language and is as capable as English of beautiful (if different) expression. I always enjoy analyzing the etymology of words as well — to see how a word like “fraudem” is the ancestor of the word “fraud” or “cruciare” is the ancestor of “excruciating.” Along these lines, I sense that you have actually expanded the text a little since Latin is usually so much more economical than English because it is so heavily inflected. My Latin is weak at best. Does “Et cruciare animum” mean “to torture his soul”? If so, I would regard that as a deepening of meaning and an improvement upon the original which, though beautiful, is not as shattering. It’s a treat to read this. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi July 7, 2025 Dear Brian — Deepest thanks or your comments. Yes — “Et cruciare animum” does basically mean “and to torture his soul.” This Latin rendering of the English “And wring his bosom” is somewhat extreme, but there is a problem when translating Latin which is parallel with the problem of translating any rhyming foreign poem into rhyming English. Putting a rhyming poem into an English translation that also rhymes means that you have to wrack your brain for not just English words that have an appropriate meaning, but that also fit into the rhyme scheme you are using. Since ancient Latin poetry doesn’t rhyme, a translation of English into Latin doesn’t have to do that. But you have this knotty problem: you have to maintain the Latin meter of long and short syllables, and this means finding Latin words that not only mean what the English says, but that also have to fit a certain quantitative metrical scheme. It’s just as tough as translating something into rhyme. In some cases it’s just not possible. I was very lucky with these Goldsmith lyrics. Reply
Cheryl A Corey July 8, 2025 To translate any foreign language poem into English makes for an interesting challenge. As far as I know, yours is the first that I’ve seen on this site. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi July 8, 2025 Thank you for your comments. I’ve translated several foreign language poems into English for this website, but this is the first time I have submitted a translation from English into a foreign tongue. Reply
Bruce Phenix July 9, 2025 Thank you, Joseph, for your very stylish and accurate translation – such a difficult thing to do as successfully as you have, and a delight to read. I continued with Latin prose composition at university myself, but never dared attempt verse composition! Congratulations and best wishes, Bruce. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi July 9, 2025 Thank you, Bruce. As I mentioned in my comment to LTC Peterson, this translation was done many years ago, when I was a young student of Latin. The presence of a great many elisions in the Latin text is a sign of my amateur status. Reply
Frank Rable July 9, 2025 Hello Dr. Joe, I had two years of Latin in high school, which makes me an expert. 🙂 I know how to address a table in the vocative case! I know that “veni vidi vici” is not “come see the village.( a classmate thought so) My teacher told me that “sub ubi” meant “underwear”. That rascal! I knew better. And I still remember some of my alter boy prayers (et coom speery two two oh) All that said, my question is, did you use puella for the alliteration with perpulcha? Or was femina not used because it indicated an older (perhaps married) female who was more mature and less likely to be taking lovers.(or hid it better). If the former, then why not, it works well. If the latter, then I suppose that it is an indication of Roman thought regarding the roles of their females. My other question, more historical, was whether Roman women of the 100 BC – 400AD were under that same pressure as European women of the 17th and 18th centuries. My guess is that people are people and their behavior doesn’t vary from era to era except as prevailing religion dictates(and maybe not even then) I think that Oliver Goldsmith was a dirty old man who would love to see women take all the blame where it takes two to tango. Or course, I might have missed the point that females of any age will refer to their age peers as “girls”. Dr. Joe, if you want to say that I have given this all too much thought, then that will be acceptable. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi July 9, 2025 Many thanks, Frank. All of us have some Latin, or as Dr. Johnson said of Greek, we all try to get as much of it as we can. I used “perpulchra” with “puella” (which simply means “a very lovely girl”) primarily to make metrical position — that is, to fill out the ending of a hexameter line. The Latin “femina” wouldn’t have worked, since the first syllable of “femina” is long. But you are correct about the use of “puella” in Latin love poetry — it is generally used to speak of one’s beloved, whereas “femina” is definitely a mature lady. Even today, as you point out, “girls” could be used to refer to women of several ages. A man might refer to his 35-year-old mistress as “My girl.” Out-of-wedlock pregnancy is almost always a problem in a wide range of human cultures, in the sense that it usually is seen as a violation of societal norms. If it happens with a couple who are already betrothed to each other it is frequently winked at, as it was in European peasant cultures. As long as the promised marriage took place eventually, who cared? In cultures infected with Puritanism (as is the case with almost all Anglophone bourgeois cultures), out-of-wedlock pregnancy is considered deeply disgraceful and shameful, and all kinds of steps are taken to deal with it secretly. I recall in the 1950s that some parents would send a teenage daughter away for some months because of alleged “illness,” or “for a vacation with relatives.” In a few cases the mother of the family would feign pregnancy, and when the daughter’s child was born it would be said to be the daughter’s baby sibling. This happened in the case of a famous rock singer of the 1950s, who only found out when he was an adult that his “sister” was in fact his biological mother. In Goldsmith’s novel Olivia Primrose is a respectable girl, and extramarital pregnancy in an 18th-century England heavily permeated by Low-Church or Dissenter sects would have been a social disaster, as it was for Hester Prynne in Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter,” set in Puritan New England. Hester proudly bears and raises her illegitimate child, wears her scarlet letter without shame, and tells the surrounding society of Bible-thumpers to fuck off. But most girls back then didn’t have that sort of gumption. Reply
Frank Rable July 9, 2025 Dr. Joe: I know I joked around about my command of Latin. I never regretted taking the courses though. What I asked you, I really wanted to know, and I am grateful for the time and effort you took to answer my questions in a serious and complete way. I hadn’t thought about having to assemble the metrical poem puzzle in a language that’s not your primary. That has to make it at least twice as challenging, right? As to the 1950’s and early 1960’s I do remember unmarried pregnancies being dealt with in just that way. But that was then. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi July 9, 2025 An old friend once told me that, when he was about five years old, the teenage daughter of his building’s superintendent was a favorite companion of his. She would come visit his apartment, and play and joke with him, and bring him cookies and candy, and even babysit with him when his mother had to go out. My friend was crazy about her. One day she simply disappeared. He wondered where she was, and asked his mother about it. His mother claimed ignorance, but he said that he could tell from her tone and demeanor that she wasn’t being truthful. This was in 1952. It was only years later that he learned the girl had become pregnant, and was sent secretly back to relatives in Puerto Rico. He never saw her again. Usually a girl in such a situation gave birth quietly and anonymously, and put up the child for adoption with some agency. But keeping the baby and going through the charade of pretending that your mother had given birth, and that this child was your baby sibling, took a lot more doing. The psychological tension of that secret in the family must have been very draining.
Susan Jarvis Bryant July 9, 2025 There is something for everyone on this site, and Joe, your amazing translation proves just that – thank you! My knowledge of Latin is sparse. The translation may be out of reach for this Latin-challenged reader but how intriguing, enlightening, and entertaining the poetry and the comments section are. I am heartened and humbled. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi July 9, 2025 Thank you for your kind words, Susan. The SCP is one of the few poetry sites where intellectual freedom still exists. Reply
