Poem of the Day: Song of the Dwarf

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Thanks for this, Jochen. Wonderful to see the translator's notes along with both versions, and your comments as well.

LK
-----Original Message-----

From: Jochen Stremmel 

Sent: Dec 6, 2015 3:16 AM

To: David Morris , Joseph Tracy 
, Mark Kohut 

Cc: P-list List 

Subject: Re: Poem of the Day: Song of the Dwarf



Das Lied des Zwerges

Meine Seele ist vielleicht grad und gut;
aber mein Herz, mein verbogenes Blut,
alles das, was mir wehe tut,
kann sie nicht aufrecht tragen.
Sie hat keinen Garten, sie hat kein Bett,
sie hängt an meinem scharfen Skelett
mit entsetztem Flügelschlagen.

Aus meinen Händen wird auch nichts mehr.
Wie verkümmert sie sind: sieh her:
zähe hüpfen sie, feucht und schwer,
wie kleine Kröten nach Regen.
Und das Andre an mir ist
abgetragen und alt und trist;
warum zögert Gott, auf den Mist
alles das hinzulegen.

Ob er mir zürnt für mein Gesicht
mit dem mürrischen Munde?
Es war ja so oft bereit, ganz licht
und klar zu werden im Grunde;
aber nichts kam ihm je so dicht
wie die großen Hunde.
Und die Hunde haben das nicht.


Song of the Dwarf

Maybe my soul is straight and good,
but she's got to lug my heart, my blood,
which all hurts because it's crooked;
its weight sends her staggering.
She has no bed, she has no home,
she merely hangs on my sharp bones,
flapping her terrible wings.


And my hands are completely shot, 
shriveled, worn: here, take a look
at how they clammily, clumsily hop
like rain-crazed toads.
As for all the other stuff,
it's all used up and sad and old—
why doesn't God haul me out to the muck
and let me drop.


Is it because of my mug
with its frowning mouth?
So often I would itch
to be luminous and free of fog 
but nothing would approach
except big dogs.
And the dogs got zilch.

Translator's notes:
"My poem is more properly a version, rather than a felicitous translation
 (I don’t speak a lick of German except what I learned from watching Hogan’s Heroes).
 What I wanted to do is bring out the song-nature of the poem, and the 
wounded plainspokenness of its speaker (though these may be delusions of
 mine), and so my decisions were made on the side of rhyme, meter, and 
forthrightness of locution. An obvious problem “The Voices” presents is 
how to preserve the strict rhymes of the originals, and in my earlier 
versions I ended up drifting into “heigh-ho heigh-ho” territory. In the 
end, I sacrificed literal precision for the sonic whole that I was 
after.

Rilke’s original concludes with a maddening degree of ambiguity, which 
means that a translator either preserves it, or picks her poison and 
chugs, by making a decision about what exactly the dogs don’t have. I’ve
 kept some of the mystery of the ending, while concluding with a word 
that I think is very much in keeping with what I imagine is the lexicon 
of dwarves (again, a delusion). I’ve also taken the liberty of giving 
the poem a few of my own clarifications that aren’t validated by the 
original, though I’m still up in the air about those big dogs." 
 


For anybody who wants to look further into it I have put together the two poems, original and what the translator made of it, her version, as she calls it, and her notes. Funny I found what she put between brackets. I could stop here, but will add that the points where she deviates most are the ending (the dogs got zilch is most definitely not what Rilke wrote ("haben das nicht": don't have that, and of course you have to ask to what that "das" refers) and the simile with the toads which are not rain-crazed in Rilke's poem but small and wet and heavy. 

I hope that helps.








2015-12-05 18:10 GMT+01:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
KAFKA. 

Sent from my iPad
On Dec 5, 2015, at 9:53 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:

That is excellent. Where is it from?

Www.innergroovemusic.com
On Dec 5, 2015, at 7:07 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

Quote of the day: All language is but a poor translation. 
( NOT a comment on Jochen nor this translation of Rilke) 

Sent from my iPad
On Dec 5, 2015, at 2:56 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:

I need a bit time to elaborate which I don't have at the moment – hopefully tomorrow.

Am 5. Dezember 2015 um 04:26 schrieb Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>:
Have to admit it strikes me as funny in a self deprecating way, but only if it is taken as  metaphoric autobiography, the exaggerated feeling one can have about oneself that is really just pathetic self pity. God won’t even bother to throw me away.



Could it be one of those things that only works as funny if it works as not funny?

> On Dec 4, 2015, at 8:12 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

>

> How so?  Please explain. The translation is surely morbid, but it has a punchline. It speaks of futility, but also absurdity. Absurdity is sublime humor.

>

> David Morris

>

>

> On Friday, December 4, 2015, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:

>

>

> That poem isn't funny. In German it aint:

>

>

> Das Lied des Zwerges

>

> Meine Seele ist vielleicht grad und gut;

> aber mein Herz, mein verbogenes Blut,

> alles das, was mir wehe tut,

> kann sie nicht aufrecht tragen.

> Sie hat keinen Garten, sie hat kein Bett,

> sie hängt an meinem scharfen Skelett

> mit entsetztem Flügelschlagen.

> Aus meinen Händen wird auch nichts mehr.

> Wie verkümmert sie sind: sieh her:

> zähe hüpfen sie, feucht und schwer,

> wie kleine Kröten nach Regen.

> Und das Andre an mir ist

> abgetragen und alt und trist;

> warum zögert Gott, auf den Mist

> alles das hinzulegen.

>

> Ob er mir zürnt für mein Gesicht

> mit dem mürrischen Munde?

> Es war ja so oft bereit, ganz licht

> und klar zu werden im Grunde;

> aber nichts kam ihm je so dicht

> wie die großen Hunde.

> Und die Hunde haben das nicht.

>

> 2015-12-05 1:10 GMT+01:00 David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>:

> >

> > Who knew Rilke could be funny?

> >

>



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