A
Anonymous
Guest
Can someone please help with this quote from The Tempest,
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
QFM is certainly right. But here context can be found in the play itself (iv: 1); Prospero addresses Ferdinand in this speech at the conclusion of the spirit-acted "wedding masque". More fully:
...these our actors,
As I fortold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
A major theme of the play is (it seems to me) a examination of "illusion" in opposition to "reality". Prospero is so much in charge of events at this point that he can afford to advance this philosophic discussion, even at the expense of social plausibility. If as a young man I had married, and my father-in-law started talking like this at the reception, I suspect that I would not have been pleased. I might have wondered if, with all the excitement, he'd maybe forgotten to take his antidepressant.
But Prospero can and does get away with comparing the theatrics he has orchestrated on his isle with "real life"-- and with musing out loud about how "real" the latter "really" is.
So the context isn't too hard to figure out. I wish I could say the same for the Latin.
To begin with this is verse-- a somewhat loose iambic pentameter. To make things worse, we have (in the source-phrase) the end of one line, all of the next, and the beginning of a third).
So let's start with a plain prose rendering. The second part is easier; perhaps:
Et vita paula nostra somno consummatur.
"We are such stuff as" might be
Sumus talis (or qualis) materia...
But then big trouble. What does "that dreams are made on" mean, exactly? "About which dreams are made"? "Of which dreams are made"?Or perhaps "By means of which dreams are made?". I confess that I'm not at all sure, and even a visit to the OED has not helped much. And it surely matters in the Latin. My idea (for what it is worth) is that an ablative of substance is wanted here: ex qua somnia fiunt.
I suppose we could say talis (or qualis) materia huius modi ex quo..., but (a) that seems to me weaker than the English and (b) I'm not 100% sure that it should be quo (to agree with modus) and not qua (to agree with materia).
When wholly out of my depth (as I clearly am here) I tend to favor the simple solution. So I offer:
Qualis materia sumus, ex qua somnia fiunt. Et nostra paula vita somno consummatur.
It must be understood that I have grave doubts about this; I hope to be corrected by some more competent Latinist.
...these our actors,
As I fortold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
A major theme of the play is (it seems to me) a examination of "illusion" in opposition to "reality". Prospero is so much in charge of events at this point that he can afford to advance this philosophic discussion, even at the expense of social plausibility. If as a young man I had married, and my father-in-law started talking like this at the reception, I suspect that I would not have been pleased. I might have wondered if, with all the excitement, he'd maybe forgotten to take his antidepressant.
But Prospero can and does get away with comparing the theatrics he has orchestrated on his isle with "real life"-- and with musing out loud about how "real" the latter "really" is.
So the context isn't too hard to figure out. I wish I could say the same for the Latin.
To begin with this is verse-- a somewhat loose iambic pentameter. To make things worse, we have (in the source-phrase) the end of one line, all of the next, and the beginning of a third).
So let's start with a plain prose rendering. The second part is easier; perhaps:
Et vita paula nostra somno consummatur.
"We are such stuff as" might be
Sumus talis (or qualis) materia...
But then big trouble. What does "that dreams are made on" mean, exactly? "About which dreams are made"? "Of which dreams are made"?Or perhaps "By means of which dreams are made?". I confess that I'm not at all sure, and even a visit to the OED has not helped much. And it surely matters in the Latin. My idea (for what it is worth) is that an ablative of substance is wanted here: ex qua somnia fiunt.
I suppose we could say talis (or qualis) materia huius modi ex quo..., but (a) that seems to me weaker than the English and (b) I'm not 100% sure that it should be quo (to agree with modus) and not qua (to agree with materia).
When wholly out of my depth (as I clearly am here) I tend to favor the simple solution. So I offer:
Qualis materia sumus, ex qua somnia fiunt. Et nostra paula vita somno consummatur.
It must be understood that I have grave doubts about this; I hope to be corrected by some more competent Latinist.