Nick Bornak wrote:
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.
I didn't feel I can seriously comment without trying it myself, at which point my attempt became my comment.
Here's my effort, along with the Spanish original (which I can't really read, though the matching roots are pretty obvious).
Nadie rebaje a lágrima o reproche esta declaración de la maestría de Dios, que con magnífica ironía me dio a la vez los libros y la noche. Let neither tear or reproach besmirch this declaration of the mastery of God who, with magnificent irony, granted me both the gift of books and the night. sekai lo ka driklaku najenai zugytalsa kei .ainai la cevni .iocai ju'a ga'inaire'e cu catnyrai gi'e dunda sekai lo ka balranxi kei fi mi .i'a fe loi ka'e seltcidu cukta .e loi nicte tolvi'aI attempted a more literal translation, for scansion using the same number of syllables in each line (ignoring a y-hyphen in the first line) along with a simple rhyme like the original Spanish (though rhyming different lines). Attitudinals make such things easier, though they involve some degree of interpretation.
I chose to use more explanatory tanru in the last line, because I opine that Lojban poetry should err on the side of being less figurative (and because it made the line work much better). The first line happens to illustrate how I think ainai and similar denial attitudinals should be used (to reinforce a negative assertion or characterization attitudinally - attitudinals are not logical operators), though I suspect that I probably haven't been all that consistent in my practice.
My main uncertainty was the intended meaning of maestria (mastery); I don't know the Spanish, but the English word could be understood as a form of catni or as a form of certu (or even se selfu, though that seems unlikely)
lojbab