Re: Who's crazy?

In a message dated 11/18/01 11:04:37 AM, aquamarine_demon@YAHOO.COM writes:

<< Wait... you added the tense to "crazy"? Neat! :) >>

    Not uncommon, I think.  Verbs that express stative adjectives?  Anyway, I
did notice something else.  Rather than putting the [i] present tense ending,
I wrote /ii/ once.  Itty bitty mistake.  It actually came from a project I'm
doing.  I'm translating Shakespeare's "The Tempest" into Megdevi, and it's
too difficult on my IPA font to constantly type [I] and [V], which both
require extra buttons.  That reminds me...  I never realized how difficult it
was to translate Shakespeare.  There's this line near the beginning of Act I,
Scene ii.  Prospero indicates to Miranda that she should ask about her past,
and she says that she has before: "You have often begun to tell me what I am,
but stopp'd and left me to a bootless inquisition, concluding 'Stay: not yet'"
    A "bootless inquisition"?!  What the heck is that?!  I don't even know in
English!  I've read this play at least four times, and I can only imagine
that every time I read that line I just passed it off and simplified it in my
mind as, "He started to tell her a bunch of times, but didn't", which is
essentially what the passage means.  But really, how the heck would you
translate a "bootless inquisition"?  Is it implying that inquiries are people
and that if they're not answered then they give up their boots?  I just
cannot wrap my brain around this metaphor.

-David

"s&m raSalo SirejsatIm, spAjs Zi v&TIl dZaGagzaZA."
"If it keeps on rainin', the levee's going to break."
        --Led Zeppelin

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