Exhibited in Art Among the Stars 2025
Translation of Aratus' Phaenomena, lines 19-62
2025
poetic translation into English meter
printed, 8.5 x 11 inches (4)
This is a translation into English poetic meter of a small section of Aratus' ancient Greek astronomical poem, the Phaenomena. Composed during the 3rd c. BCE, the original is a 1154-line treatise primarily about the night sky, describing in detail the stars and constellations that were visible from Greece throughout the year, along with some digressions on their mythological origins. It was perhaps intended for use by sailors, who could reference the
exhaustive poem as a guide for navigating according to the stars, and it is accurate enough that it could still be used today to learn the locations of the constellations. As a didactic poem, it exists as a single unified work at the intersection of art and science, combining accurate knowledge of the sky with impressive literary creativity.
exhaustive poem as a guide for navigating according to the stars, and it is accurate enough that it could still be used today to learn the locations of the constellations. As a didactic poem, it exists as a single unified work at the intersection of art and science, combining accurate knowledge of the sky with impressive literary creativity.
My translation covers a small section close to the beginning, after an invocation to Zeus, when Aratus begins his description with the center of the northern celestial hemisphere. Although there are modern translations into prose, I chose to render it instead into iambic pentameter in order to highlight the poem's existence not merely as an astronomical textbook but as a work of art. Translation itself, especially into meter, is a creative act that requires the careful arrangement and rearrangement of language to convey not only the literal meaning, but also the sense, of the original. I hope that my translation can be a small window to Aratus' poem, which in turn was a window to understanding the night sky for those who lived thousands of years ago.
Christian Wolfgram
Classics Department, 1st year Ph.D.
Christian Wolfgram is a PhD student in Classics whose research interests focus on Greek and Latin didactic poetry, which includes treatises intended to educate their readers on diverse topics such as farming practices, atomic theory, fine cooking, venomous snakes, and astronomy, all rendered in poetic meter. As an undergraduate, he majored in Biology and Latin while performing scientific research on mosquitos, and his current favorite hobby, besides reading poems in foreign languages, is bird-watching.
