Multiple variants
8 February 2026 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI heard a woodpecker drumming this afternoon -- an unusual sign of spring, but a sign nonethless...
Thinking out loud:
I have almost translated the final section of my current song project -- or to be more precise I have translated it in multiple variants, none of which are entirely satisfactory :-(
Literal version, so far as I can make it out (the syntax is a bit obscure):
The second and fourth lines need to rhyme, or at least have a close assonance (the original rhymes id' with it'), so I've ended up with two sets of possibilities, the first set revolving around rhyming 'love' with 'much' (which is a bit of a stretch as assonances go) and the second rhyming 'sting' with 'thing', which is obviously a better match sound-wise but doesn't lend itself to so close a translation.
Possibilities:
This is probably the closest translation, with the major problem for me being that in English 'does it not count for much' tends to imply 'is it not of little worth' as opposed to the literal 'does it not count for a lot' :-(
Hence the other alternative readings, which however get progressively further from the original text of 'is it really little', as opposed to 'is it not as much as', which creates a comparison not actually present in the Russian...
Second attempt:
This is a much better translation of the final line, but only a vague equivalent of the second -- and completely misses out the repeated invocation of 'life' in its shifting sense, which I suspect may have been important to the original lyricist. Of course it may also have been simply clumsy repetition on his part!
Thinking out loud:
I have almost translated the final section of my current song project -- or to be more precise I have translated it in multiple variants, none of which are entirely satisfactory :-(
Literal version, so far as I can make it out (the syntax is a bit obscure):
When we love, in the world there is no old age
Life, don't injure/offend us with lovelessness
And even if happiness does not fall to our lot
Is it really so little simply to love life?
The second and fourth lines need to rhyme, or at least have a close assonance (the original rhymes id' with it'), so I've ended up with two sets of possibilities, the first set revolving around rhyming 'love' with 'much' (which is a bit of a stretch as assonances go) and the second rhyming 'sting' with 'thing', which is obviously a better match sound-wise but doesn't lend itself to so close a translation.
Possibilities:
When we're in love, old age does not exist for us
Life, don't you scorn us with a lack of love
[So don't you scorn us, life, with lack of love]
And even if that gladness is not granted us
Does simply loving life not count for much?
[Is simply loving life (not worth)/(not just) as much?]
This is probably the closest translation, with the major problem for me being that in English 'does it not count for much' tends to imply 'is it not of little worth' as opposed to the literal 'does it not count for a lot' :-(
Hence the other alternative readings, which however get progressively further from the original text of 'is it really little', as opposed to 'is it not as much as', which creates a comparison not actually present in the Russian...
Second attempt:
When we're in love, old age does not exist for us
Let lack of love not wound us with its sting
And even if that gladness is not granted us
Is simply loving life so small a thing?
This is a much better translation of the final line, but only a vague equivalent of the second -- and completely misses out the repeated invocation of 'life' in its shifting sense, which I suspect may have been important to the original lyricist. Of course it may also have been simply clumsy repetition on his part!