On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 10:44 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
>
> I don't think you want -'a' for vast; that's more like tInqu'. Replace
> mIllogh'a''e' Delbogh qo' qa' with mIllogh tInqu' Delbogh Spiritus Mundi.
> Stick an -'e' on tInqu' if you're not concerned with any kind of meter and
> you think you need to disambiguate the head noun.

I had the line with {mIllogh tIn'e'} for a while. But then I thought that the image is not merely vast, but also very significant and important -- no mere ordinary image, but almost some kind of vision. So it might make sense to use {-'a'} to convey that. I see your point about using the Latin rather than translating Spiritus Mundi literally, though.

> I don't understand what stony sleep means in the original, but I'm not sure
> that QongwI' let hard sleeper fits it. (When let says it means hard (like a
> stone), that doesn't mean let means stone-like. It's disambiguating from
> hard (difficult).)

My interpretation of "stony sleep" was that the sleep was hard to disturb, like a rock. We do know that {let} can be used metaphorically in a sense like "unyielding" or "tough" - {let mInDu'Daj; Separmey rur}. In this sense, {QongwI' let} was based on the same metaphor as "stony sleep". I had a phrase with {nagh rurbogh} in the sentence for a while, but the line was getting pretty ungainly at that point, so I replaced the relative clause with a one-syllable adjective. (Well, one-syllable stative verb.)

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 11:47 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
> Ooh! How about lIb pawpu'ghach cha'DIch the Second Coming is imminent.

{lIb} is a really good word. I do like the {tugh -bej} parallel I currently have in the first two lines of that stanza. The original has a parallelism too ("Surely... at hand") and it's always nice to be able to keep the poetic structures of the original when translating. How about {tugh lIbbej pawpu'ghach cha'DIch}? The {tugh} and {lIb} are a little redundant but it does preserve the parallelism and also uses a much more interesting verb than just {qaSbej}.

Here's a second draft, with some of the suggested changes (the ones that I haven't argued about, at least):

pawpu'ghach cha'DIch

Sachbogh ghoDaq tlhe'taH 'oH.
wamwI' QoylaHbe' wammeH bo'Degh.
Sab Dochmey. ngaDlaHbe'taH botlh.
qo'Daq chutmey Hutlhbogh nugh'e' 'uchHa'lu'.
bIQ'a''e' HurghmoHbogh 'Iw 'uchHa'lu' 'ej Dat
chuntaHghach tay SoD bIQ'a'.
pagh Har nIvqu'wI'pu' 'ach
pe'vIl nongqu' QIvqu'wI'pu'.

tugh vay' 'anglu'bej.
tugh lIbbej pawpu'ghach cha'DIch.
pawpu'ghach cha'DIch! mu'meyvetlh vIjatlhpu'DI'
SIbI' mInDu'wIj Suj
mIllogh'a''e' Delbogh Spiritus Mundi.
Deb voghDaq QIt 'uSDu'Daj vIHmoH
vIghro''a' porgh, loD nach je ghajbogh tu'qom.
pagh 'agh lumInDu'Daj 'ej vupbe' bIH. jul lurur.
Dechbogh retlhDajDaq jIr Deb bo'Deghmey QeH QIbmey.
pumqa' QIb 'ach
cha'SaD DIS poH QongwI' let
najHa'moHpu' Davbogh ghu QongDaq DaH 'e' vISov.
'ej tagha' repDaj lop Ha'DIbaH naH
'ej boghmeH betle'HemDaq QIt yItHa'lI'.

> majQa'! This is the sort of translation I like: you've done a close reading
> of the original and remained sensitive to what the poet was trying to
> convey, rather than just convert the words grammatically. You tried to
> replicate the feel of the poem in flow and concept without being
> ungrammatical with a call-out to poetic license as an excuse for things you
> couldn't make work.

Thank you!