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I've been trying to translate some of my favourite Norwegian poems lately. Alas, I fear I am more suited to physics. Still, here's the best I can do for one of our more famous war poems :
quote: May 17th, 1940
Today the flagpole stands naked 'midst Eidsvoll's springtime greens. But in this very hour we know what freedom means. There rises a song in the country victorious in its speech though whispered from closed lips where strangers' ears might reach.
We found a newborn wisdom : Freedom and life are one. So simple, so necessary not missed until they're gone. We felt, when thralldom threatened, a gasping struggle for breath as in a sinking U-boat. We will not die such a death.
Worse than burning cities is the war you cannot see, which lays a poisoned slime trail on earth and snow and tree. With fear of spy and informer they invaded our land. We cannot forget our dream of peace howsoever it be banned.
Slowly the land became ours with yield of sea and field and in us rose a loving for the land that lets us be healed. We did not follow the times we built on defiant peace. And those whose deeds are ruin have reason for mocking fleers.
Now we fight for the right to breathe : We know the day must dawn when spring arises in Norway with a single united song. We left our comrades southwards, pale, weary fighting men. To you is given a promise : That we shall come again.
Here we shall honour the dead who gave their lives for our peace the soldier in reddened snow the sailor under cold seas. We are so few in this country; each fallen is brother and friend. The dead come marching with us the day that we come again.
Written while we were still fighting in the North, though we had been forced to abandon the country south of Trondhjem. The first of many broadcasts by Nordahl Grieg (the poet) to an occupied nation.
I am particularly unhappy with the fifth stanza, where I had to twist the meaning around a bit to preserve any semblance of a rhyme. A literal translation would read
Now fight we for right to breathe We know there must dawn a day when Norwegians unite in same liberating breath.
The trouble is that I can't think of a good synonym for that final 'breath,' while Grieg could use 'åndedrag,' something like 'spirit-drawing,' 'life-drawing.' I had a similar problem in the second stanza, but I there I could remove 'åndedrett' (noun form of åndedrag) from the first half and rhyme with 'death' in the second half. Any suggestions?
Incidentally, Eidsvoll is the city where our constitutional convention met, and the modern nation of Norway was born, "united and faithful 'til Dovre falls." The Constitution was adopted on the 17th of May, our national day, hence the date.
Anyone want to try translating poetry from another language?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Would replacing the line, "with a single united song." with " and our unified breath is drawn " be anywhere close to what you were looking for? .
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King of Men, I am very impressed. Translating poetry is challenging, and this is lovely. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Well, to be honest, I think our Resistance has been hyped just a little. I mean, compare with places like Poland and (especially) Yugoslavia, which was essentially free by its own effort at the end of the war. Much as I admire the people who blew up the Rjukan plant, that was the only major blow we struck. What with the 400000 troops Hitler thought necessary to guard our coastline, you'd think we could have bombed the occasional garrison.
Of course, the Nazis treated us with kid gloves, comparatively speaking; 'Aryan brothers,' as it were. I have to say, I'm very glad I wasn't alive then; at six foot, blond, blue-eyed, and (as a kid) lonely and intellectual, I could very easily have been sucked into Nasjonal Samling or the hird. I would have been precisely the sort of misfit they attracted. Brrr.
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