GR translation: Though thy Glass today be run

kelber at mindspring.com kelber at mindspring.com
Fri May 13 11:49:27 CDT 2016


Yes, congratulations, Mike! What an accomplishment!

Laura

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID

János Széky <miksaapja at gmail.com> wrote:

>1. Yes, it's the Hand of God Almighty.
>2. Although God is Almighty, you, personally, may (and surely will) die before He can turn the time.
>I don't remember where I read an analysis that said the logic derails from the third line. A recommend translating the poem literally.
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>And congratulations! 
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>2016-05-13 12:04 GMT+02:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
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>Elegy
>
>Tichborne's Elegy (his rhyming, final soliloquy poem [10] ), uses two favorite Renaissance figures of speech - antithesis and paradox - to crystallize the tragedy of the poet's situation.Antithesis means setting opposites against each other: prime of youth / frost of cares (from the first line). This is typical of Renaissance poetry, as for example in Wyatt's "I find no peace, and all my war is done", with the lover freezing/burning. We also see it in the poem by Elizabeth I, "I grieve and dare not show my discontent", e.g., "I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned."A paradox is a statement which seems self-contradictory, yet is true, e.g., "My tale is heard, and yet it was not told", or "My glass is full, and now my glass is run."Often a Renaissance poem will begin with antithesis to establish circumstances and reveal its themes through paradox..
>
>The Elegy is remarkable for being written almost entirely in monosyllables (every word in the poem is of one syllable, with ten words in each line, Monostich style), with the possible exception of the word "fallen". However, in early editions it was written as "fall'n" which is monosyllabic.[11]
>
>The Elegy has inspired many homages and 'answers' including those by Jonathon Robin at allpoetry.com ; a rap version by David A More at www.marlovian.com ; After Reading Tichborne's Elegy by Dick Allen (2003) and an affecting reworking by Nick Montfort called Tichborne's Lexicon, which is an alphabetical list of the words in the Elegy (http://nickm.com/poems/#riddles). The Elegy has also been set to music many times from the Elizabethan era to the present day by, among others, Michael East, Richard Alison (fl1580-1610, in An Hour's Recreation in musicke, 1606), John Mundy (1592) and Charles-François Gounod (1873) and more recently Norman Dello Joio (1949) and Jim Clark (see [1]).
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>On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 5:02 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>I'm surely not the only one on the list to know this great poem:
>
>My prime of youth, is but a frost of Cares,
>My feast of joy, is but a dish of pain,
>My Crop of Corn is but a field of tares,
>And all my good is but vain hope of gain:
>    The day is past, and yet I saw no Sun,
>    And now I live, and now my life is done.
>
>The Spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung;
>The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves are green:
>My youth is gone, and yet I am but young:
>I saw the world, and yet I was not seen.
>    My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun:
>    And now I live, and now my life is done.
>
>I sought my death, and found it in my womb,
>I look'd for life, and saw it was a shade:
>I trod the earth, and knew it was my tomb,
>And now I die, and now I am but made.
>    The glass is full, and now my glass is run,
>    And now I live, and now my life is done.
>
>I wonder if you have to be not a native speaker to recognize what it makes so special.
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>2016-05-13 9:22 GMT+02:00 Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>:
>
>V760.28-35, P776.1-8
>There is a Hand to turn the time,
>Though thy Glass today be run,
>Till the Light that hath brought the Towers low
>Find the last poor Pret’rite one . . .
>Till the Riders sleep by ev’ry road,
>All through our crippl’d Zone,
>With a face on ev’ry mountainside,
>And a Soul in ev’ry stone. . . .
>
>I assume the "Glass" means hourglass, is that correct?
>
>
>Also, is the "Hand" the Hand of God?  And what exactly is the sense of "Though" here?
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