The other day while my toddlers forced me to hear “Let it Go” the thousandth or hundred-thousandth time, I found myself wondering how to express the idea in Ancient Greek (because, you know, that’s how I roll). Then, I thought it might be fun to have some students work on it.
But all of my daydreaming is for naught, a student let me know that the act has already been done (and with higher production values than I would have achieved).
Now, one might quibble with the missing accents (it drives me nuts) or even question the basic idea that “let it go” should be a second person singular active imperative (and not middle, plural or, more daringly, some type of first-person subjunctive injunction). One might definitely have a bit of a fit over the vowel length given to τό.
But I won’t. This just entertains me too damn much. I am going to convert this to an Mp3, switch it out when my kids ask for Frozen and see what happens.
I suggest χαιρέτω for “let it go.” In addition to being well-attested Classically, it resolves your qualm about vowel length.
Still, an amazing effort!
Nice suggestion. And now i have the song in my head again.
But you are right, the effort is amazing and insane
After deeper thought, I think that using ἐρρέτω for “let it go” would not only closer to the English sense (“screw it”) and sound (that long omega would work out well) but it would also create a powerful intertext between the translation and Archilochus fr. 5
ἀσπίδι μὲν Σαΐων τις ἀγάλλεται, ἣν παρὰ θάμνωι,
ἔντος ἀμώμητον, κάλλιπον οὐκ ἐθέλων•
αὐτὸν δ’ ἐξεσάωσα. τί μοι μέλει ἀσπὶς ἐκείνη;
ἐρρέτω• ἐξαῦτις κτήσομαι οὐ κακίω.
And I will not lie. Though we discussed this earlier, I was reminded of it this morning by a nice paper on the poem:
https://www.academia.edu/9493304/_Let_it_go._Archil._Fr._5_West_and_Homeric_Interpretation