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Tue, 5 Sep 2000 01:01:50 -0400 |
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Mats Norrman wrote:
>I quote Goethes original first so you can see:
>
>"Everything transient,
>is only a Parable.
>The Uncompletable,
>is completed here.
>The Indescribable,
>is done here.
>The Eternal-Feminine,
>draws us hence."
>
>I have never seen a translation that comes closer to the original. It
>cannot get clearer than this.
Steve Schwartz seems partial to the Bayard Taylor translation:
All things transitory
But as symbols are sent:
Earth's insufficiency
Here grows to Event:
The Indescribable,
Here it is done:
The Woman-soul leadeth us
Upward and on!
which, seems to me to preserve the words but, loses Goethe's rhymes, which
are so natural and uncontrived, and his general artlessness. ("Woman-soul"
indeed! God save us!) The Barnett translation does not even pretend to
preserve rhyme and meter.
Here's my attempt:
All that is fleeting
Is but an example.
What wants completing
Now becomes ample.
What speech cannot course
Has turned into acts.
Th' all womanly force
Our striving attracts.
No, I can't give up my day-job. I'm already retired. But, except for the
admittedly strained use of the word "course", I think I've been essentially
faithful to the meaning and the poetic momentum of the original (w/out
presuming to approach the original's poetic quality).
I suspect it could even be sung to the Mahler work.
Walter Meyer
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