[lojban-beginners] Re: Another Song

["Jonathan Gibbons" <jonored@gmail.com>]

Yuppers; I'm running from having memorized a particular verson of the
song, so I haven't had a good page to refer it to, although I probably
ought to have looked it up in the child ballads.

And to fitting it, yes, I'm trying, although considering swapping out
"li'erme'i" for just "lidne", as it's currently a bit hard for me to
get right; but that might also just be that I don't remember it fitted
to the rhythm as well as I could.
Part of my purpose in translating is giving me something that I will
remember that will give me vocabulary... music is a /very/ powerful
learning tool, when you get down to it, especially for me. Becuase of
that, I have a significant interest in making it singable :)

A swing at another verse or two, omitting the repeating parts:

.i catke ra mo'i ne'i .i viska le nu ra jaurvasmro
viska le nu re fulta me'i to'o

(perhaps viska le nu le xadni be re fulta me'i to'o, but that doesn't
feel like it'd fit as well.)

.i ra fulta me'i zo'a .i go'i me'i zo'i
go'i -
Ah, and here I run out of what I can find. How would one express that
something is happening until something else happens?
Alternately,
ra fulta klama le molki djacu bo bitmu

Is there / how would one go about putting together a word for "dam"?
it seems something that it makes sense to have a lujvo for, but my
attempts I think are ending up ungrammatical, at least, they are not
being parsed by jbofi'e the way "li'erme'i" was.

The whole song, as I know it, is approximately:

There were two little sisters walking along,
/hey, the gay, the crying day/
Two little sisters walking along,
/by the bonnie bonnie boughs of london./

And the eldest put her sister in,
/hey, the gay.../
Pushed her sister into the stream,
/by the bonnie.../

And she pushed her in and she watched her drown
Watched her body floating down

And she floated up and she floated down
Floats 'till she comes to the miller's dam

And out then comes the miller's son
"Father dear here swims a swan"

and they laid her out on the banks to die
Fool with a fiddle come riding by

and he took some strands of her long yellow hair
Made some strings from her long yellow hair

and he made fiddle pegs from her long finger bones
Made fiddle pegs from her long finger bones

And he made a fiddle from her breastbone
Sound would pierce a heart of stone

But the only song the fiddle would play was
"Oh, the boughs of london" (replaces the similar line)
Only song the fiddle would play was
"the bonnie bonnie boughs of london".

Now the Queen's gone away to the King's high hall
There'll be music, dancing and all

And he laid this fiddle all out on the floor
Played so loud and it played all alone

It sang "yonder sits my father the king"
"Yonder sits my father the King"

"And yonder sits my mother the Queen"
"Now she'll be at my burying"

"And yonder sits my sister and
She who pushed me into the stream."

- approximately, because I tend to sing something slightly different
each time I sing it.

-Jonathan