Re: TRANS: a lament under the rain

Boudewijn Rempt <bsarempt@...> wrote:

> I had more-or-less vowed not to do translations until at least
> my description of the nominal morphology of Denden was finished,
> but this is far too beautiful to let pass... It could almost
> have been written in Charya, and the author of the poem could
> have counted on a lucrative sinecure at the Imperial Court, overseer
> of the Imperial Sugar Procuring, or something like that.
I guess that's good for me. Sorry if your work gets behind.
I'll tell my muses to shut up for a while (since I have some
work to do as well, I have to eat and sleep and so on! :)

> Over the fields of Mirilir,
> The dark, clear, distant, not dark, unclear, not distant sun is always =
sad,=20
>=20
>    The tegimentive locative case particle _tayr_ TEG indicates that
>    the sun is all above, but not necessarily touching, the fields,
>    covering them with his rays. The elaborate serial adjective (or stat=
ive
>    verb?) construction is typical Southern Colloquial. =20
I like it. I use stative verb series all the time in Drasel=E9q, but not
to that extent.

>   Mirilir is the goddess of rice, so _mirilir tan raygin_ is the
>   poetic way of saying rice-fields. The plain version would be _razgin_
>   or _razlyer_, _raz_ being one of the 'false friends' Denden has so
>   many of - it really means rice, and is a Barushlan loan. The durative
>   aspect <-za> DUR indicates that the sun is always sad. I couldn't get
>   the sexual ease in, though, even though the sun a fairly hot subject.
Your translation is more poetic than the original! I really like the
metaphor... metonym... whatever that's called. And the very word, 'Mirili=
r',
is like a dream come true. :)

The 'sexual ease' was in the Teonaht word. When I borrowed it, I changed =
a
bit to something more... hmm... elevated. Though a few centuries *could* =
end
up with the word meaning that.

> Laush.laush laush.nuno, andain.ain zelash
> rain.DUP    rain.DUR     bird.DUP   wet-through
>=20
> lauy=E9 helai widab  laush hye  wau
> dhara gray  silver water with ADESS
>=20
> It drizzles and rains continuously, the birds are soaked
> Near the gray fountains, silver with water.
>=20
>    The lauy=E9 is a central place in both the Charyan villages and the
>    cities. It's function is comparable to the Nepali _dhara_, it is
>    the central place or square, where there's a fountain or a well. It=20
>    is the seat of many local deities, and therefore holy. The reference
>    of lauy=E9 extends beyond the well or fountain itself, to include th=
e
>    square, and this line means that the rain has overflowed the well,
>    which is gray from reflecting the sky, covering the square with wate=
r,=20
>    reflecting the silver clouds. _laush_ means both 'rain' and 'water'.=
=20

I should have clarified that my _rrenm=FCnd_ 'square' meant the geometric=
al
shape only, not a city square. Here it refers to the subdivisions of the
rice terraces into square sections at different heights. But then, you ar=
e=20
including the sense of 'fountain' in your _lauy=E9_, which keeps the feel=
ing
right there.

I really haven't thought of a word for 'city square'. I guess I could use
a compound, _=F3rensl=E0m_ 'stone garden', 'stone park'. That would inclu=
de
some trees and a maybe a couple of temples in the corners, *maybe* with
a fountain.


> If the unstopping cold rain continues and continues
> the earth won't give birth to Mirilir's children.
That's really beautiful. *And* consistent.

>    The reduplication of _ilor_ continue is not a case of delimitative
>    aspect, since the whole verb is reduplicated, not only the last
>    syllable. The meaning is therefore more like 'continues and continue=
s'.
>    There is a partice _daha_ 'if', but it's use is not necessary in thi=
s
>    context, and would have unbalanced the line.
So there's no explicit conditional? Which is the context?
Would you change the intonation of the line?


--Pablo Flores