Borges Translation II

[Nick Bornak <n.bornak@yahoo.com>]

coi .i mi'e merus.

I've never much been a fan of mail listings, but as
Borges came up I received something akin to a
challenge:

[jadenbane] Let neither tear nor reproach
[jadenbane] Besmirch this decleration of the Master of
God
[jadenbane] Who with magnificent irony
[jadenbane] Gave me both books and the night.

I'm not nearly skilled enough in lojban to demonstrate
a poetic translation of the above that also imitates
the grammatical structure of the original, as skilled
translators are wont to do.

The translation I offer:

[[
lo cevni cu dunda mi
lo cukta .e lo nicte
serai lo ranxi

.i e'usai lo dapma
.e lo talsa na darsi
xusra la'eda'u
]]

It parses, of course, but there are a couple things I
dislike about it.  The last line of the first stanza,
which emphasized the irony at the end of the poem,
becomes obnoxious in the translation, and also
hyperbolic: the original certainly doesn't say or mean
"superlative in irony".

The only witty thing I feel was accomplished here was
the use of {la'eda'u}, but I killed^Wstretched the
meter to fit it in.  The stresses are all wrong, too.

Yours,
Nick Bornak (merus)


 
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