Groups - A website dedicated to translating poetry.

Cobre

Nice find. now that is what you call a body of work. and i was worried i spent too much time on this stuff. Nice to know im not alone. i do wonder sometimes.

the voltaire quote rather misses the point dont you think? obviously i would disagree with the sentiment that you  cant translate poetry since it presupposes a correct and official mental state that can only be reached by reading the original text. 

to be sure there are awful translations, . t other day  l googled a bible quote and there are some truly prosaic and dull alternatives available out there. perhaps its even better still in the original greek but i think its usually obvious when the translator has worked hard to be faithful to the original and when they are dumbing down or just mechanically substituting words.  Whilst it is patently obvious that  translating something will always distort it I still think its a worthwhile excercise especially when you are learning a language since, i believe, it requires a different appreciation of the language to that required for ordering a coffee and donuts

re El Señor de los anillos

I cant help but feel that perhaps it should be uno anillo not un anillo since the this is THE one ring not just any indefinite article ring. It is the number of rings that is important. this passage is from a longer piece in which the number of rings and their distribution is detailed. nine for mortal men yada yada yada

 i think i prefer reinar to gobernar, as i dont remember many governments in middle earth but i like atraer for "bring" even though it could be argued its not as obscure as the original. what is immediately interesting is that atraer, "to attract" and traer "to bring" are so closely related. ill have a guess here that the aditional "a" is a to, ie to bring and "to bring to" . little things like this are what i enjoy most about learning spanish

 and tinieblas is a cool word to learn. darkness with a moral dimension. made my day.

Donperigo,

The title with anillos is that of the introductory poem of the book series, I clipped the poem down to the quote on the ring itself.  Foreign languages often add their gifts to the dimensions expressed. I liked the Swede version in the official translation. It had so many gutterals that it almost made you quake while reading it and the norse-germanic roots of much of the story mean that each word has a mountain of fables behind it.

And Voltaire, Music doesn't need translation. I think he is lamenting the probable loss of meter, at least in spots.

It's funny, I was searching for a translation of a Lorca quote a friend used in her signature, and Lorca says.

"La traducción destroza el espí­ritu del idioma" Federico García Lorca

For what it's worth, I never found the Spanish translation in the time I had, maybe he wrote it in English. Here is the quote.

"The poem, the song, the picture is only water drawn from the well of the people, and it should be given back to them in a cup of beauty so that they may drink – and in drinking, understand themselves."

-- Federico García Lorca

either way its a cool quote.