In stale blank verse a subject stale
I send per post my Nightingale;
And like an honest bard, dear Wordsworth,
You'll tell me what you think, my Bird's worth.
My own opinion's briefly this—
His bill he opens not amiss;
And when he has sung a stave or so,
His breast, and some small space below,
So throbs and swells, that you might swear
No vulgar music's working there.
So far, so good; but then, 'od rot him!
There's something falls off at his bottom.
Yet, sure, no wonder it should breed,
That my Bird's Tail's a tail indeed
And makes it's own inglorious harmony
Æolio crepitû, non carmine.
Notes
From a letter from STC to Wordsworth after writing The Nightingale:
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Comments
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From one end of the nightingale you get beautiful music but from the other end you don't!
To put it crudely, in more ways than one, Coleridge is saying that the nightingale's farts are not a musical sound.
Crudely continuing (my Latin grammar is non-existent but I think you'll get the idea):
Aeolio: relating to Aeolus, god of the winds. Aeolia, the mother of all winds
crepitu: to break wind with noise
non carmine: not song-like or tuneful. Carmen=song; Bizet's operatic heroine is well-named.
Edited on May 29, 5:33 p.m. because ''. -
The line is Latin. I can't give an exact translation. Aeolius was the keeper of the winds. Crepitu means foundation, or base, or pedastal. Non carmine means not song, or not a song. So it has to be put together to make some kind of sense.
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I have checked several translation services and can find no explanation as to the meaning of that last line.
However if anyone reading here can offer a translation it would be greatly apprepciated.
Von
Oldpoetry Site Supervisor -
what does Æolio crepitû, non carmine; mean?????????
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