Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Echo

Here is today's distich by John Owen, with an English translation by Thomas Harvey, 2.213. Of course, the sentiment expressed here - that sound cannot be reproduced, except in the form of an echo - has been superseded by the technology of audio recording. You can read about the history of sound recording here in this Wikipedia article; the first audio recordings date back to the primitive "phonautograms" back in the 1850s!

Echo
Vocem nulla potest ars sculpere, pingere nulla.
Sola repercussos exprimit echo sonos.


THE ECHO
No skill nor Art a voice can form, or sound:
Sole Echo doth reiterate the sound.

Vocabulary:

echo - echo
vox - voice, sound
nullus - not any, none
possum - can, be able
ars - art, technique, skill
sculpo - carve, engrave, sculpt
pingo - paint
solus - only, alone, sole
repercussus - reflected, rebounded
exprimo - squeeze out, express, portray
sonus - sound