David R. Slavitt

Mary Zimmerman

This play is based on David R. Slavitt's translation of The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Monologues.

A Play

Metamorphoses

Boethius

Seth Lerer

Consolation of Philosophy

Roman

Die Exhibitionisten

Within its 200,000 verse lines in Sanskrit the Mahabharata takes on many roles: epic poem, foundational text of Hinduism, and, more broadly, the engaging story of a dynastic struggle and the passing of an age when man and gods intermingled. David R. Slavitt’s sparkling new edition condenses the epic for the general reader. At its core, the Mahabharata is the story of the rivalry between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, two related noble families who are struggling for control of a kingdom in ancient northern India. Slavitt’s readable, plot-driven, single-volume account describes an arc from the conception and birth of Bhishma to that hero's death, while also introducing the four goals of life at the center of Hinduism: dharma (righteousness, morality, duty), artha (purpose), kāma (pleasure), and moksa (spiritual liberation). The Mahabharata is engaging, thrilling, funny, charming, and finally awesome, with a range in timbre from the impish naivete of fairy tales to the solemnity of our greatest epics, and this single-volume edition is the best introduction available.

Mahabharata

Ovid

The Tristia of Ovid

Joachim Du Bellay

A bilingual edition of one of the finest sonnet sequences of the Renaissance As a member of the mid-sixteenth-century literary group La Pléiade, Joachim du Bellay sought to elevate his native French to the level of the classical languages-a goal pursued with great spirit, elegance, irony, and wit in the poems that comprise The Regrets. Widely viewed as one of the finest sonnet sequences in all of French literature, this Renaissance masterpiece wryly echoes the homesickness and longing of Ovid's poetry written in exile--because du Bellay finds himself lost in Rome, the very home Ovid longed for. In this translation by David R. Slavitt, these brilliant performances retain their original formal playfulness as well as their gracefully rendered but nonetheless moving melancholy. In decadent Rome, among hypocrites, thieves, and snobs, du Bellay uses his poetry as an opportunity for social satire and caustic self-criticism-it becomes a salvation of sorts, an approach peculiarly modern in its blending of the classical, the social, and the personal.

The Regrets

In his twelfth book of original verse David R. Slavitt leads us to a crossroads where terror, loneliness, and despair are transfigured by love and art. Much of the collection centers on the poet’s family history. In the title poem, Slavitt imagines the “dour landscape” of the Polish hamlet his grandparents left in search of a safer haven, at the same time that he reflects ruefully on the hazards of contemporary life in America: but what they abandoned is what I dream of now, asleep, while people who don’t even know my name monitor consoles that show what zones in my house have been violated—what doors or windows opened, or motion sensors tripped by the cat or some intruder. On the street, cars are stolen and stripped by desperate men, wild children . . . Who can say? In another poem, he recalls his mother and his discovery only after her death—her murder—that the name she had been given was not Adele but Ida. As a young woman she had chosen to call herself something “not too cute, but not too plain, not Ida.” And it is Adele he decides on for her grave marker, in deference to her whimsical and brave spirit. Not only family but also the worlds of art, music, and literature animate Slavitt’s verses—from a consideration of the modes of salvation suggested by El Grenco’s and Goy’s paintings of Saint Peter to a reflection upon our common response to a discordantly tuned instrument, from echoes of Paradise Lost to witty and deft variations on Catullus. Throughout this collection David Slavitt’s keen intelligence, wry humor, and deep compassion shine through. Crossroads allows us to observe a poet working at the peak of his powers.

Poems

Crossroads

Slavitt's sixtieth book, titled to reflect his Library of Congress identification.

PS3569.L3

The Sacrifice

I would urge anyone who thinks that Statius only wrote gruesome epic and Claudian only dull panegyric to read this slim and sprightly volume."—Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Two Roman Epic Fragments: "The Achilleid" of Publius Papinius Statius and "The Rape of Proserpine" of Claudius Claudianus

Broken Columns

Peter Green

As in her Tony Award–winning Metamorphoses, Mary Zimmerman transforms Greek mythology—here the story of Jason and the Argonauts—into a mesmerizing piece of theater. Encountering an array of daunting challenges in their “first voyage of the world,” Jason and his crew illustrate the essence of all such journeys to follow—their unpredictability, their inspiring and overwhelming breadth of emotion, their lessons in the inevitability of failure and loss. Bursts of humor and fantastical creatures enrich a story whose characters reveal remarkable complexity. Medea is profoundly sympathetic even as the seeds are sown for the monstrous life ahead of her, and the brute strength of Hercules leaves him no less vulnerable to the vicissitudes of love. Zimmerman brings to Argonautika her trademark ability to encompass the full range of human experience in a work as entertaining as it is enlightening.

The Voyage of Jason and the Argonauts

Argonautika

The Vedas are ancient books of hymns. There are four—the Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda—and they are the primary texts of Hinduism. They had an enormous influence also on Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. According to Hindus, the text of the Vedas is as old as the universe itself. Scholars have determined that the Rig Veda, the oldest of the four, was composed sometime between 1700 and 1100 B.C.E., codified about 600 B.C.E., and was finally committed to writing around 300 B.C.E. The Rig Veda, composed of ten books, or Mandalas, each of which is a collection of hymns (s?ktas), is one of these “great books,” but most people—even the well-educated—have never read it. It is very long and the previous translations are unsatisfactory. This book is an attempt to offer a succinct, accurate and readable translation.

First Mandala

The Rig Veda

Ibn Gabirol

The Royal Crown (or, "A Crown for the King" in Slavitt's translation) is the greatest of Gabirol's poems. Its theme is the problem of the human predicament: the frailty of man and his proclivity to sin, in tension with a benign providence that must leave room for the operation of man's free will and also make available to him the means of penitence. The Royal Crown is still printed in prayerbooks of the Sephardic rite for the Day of Atonement, and among North African Jewish communities (and their offshoots in Israel and elsewhere) it is read communally before the morning service of the Day. In northern Europe and the West this custom has lapsed, however the Royal Crown is still used for private penitential reading.

David R. Slavitt

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