Re: winter quote

On Wed, 10 Mar 1999 11:44:54 -0800 Sally Caves <scaves@...>
writes:
>............
>So I'm well pleased with this.  It comes from a much longer poem of
>mine written in English.
>Sally Caves
>http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves
>
Does the poem itself have anything to do with Teonaht, or was it just
something that you picked as a translation excersize?

The example on the "Conlang Member Languages Page" for Rokbeigalmki is a
translation of a poem which i also wrote in English originally (i still
haven't fully translated it), but it has a Rokbeigalmki theme and title.

Hmm...would this be AAFMC (and as for my conlang), or AAFMP (....poem) ?
;)

There are a few notes after it.


"SUDKADME NGA'FIIZHAGT-A"
                YA'STIIGIYUS

("Preceding the Time of Battle"
                by Stygius)

It's said - by me, of course -
that in the northlands there's always fighting.
And that only beyond the Unmoving Star
does peace exist.
Alone of my people
i have felt war.
I have breathed war -
breathed blood;
and spilled blood
not my own.

Ailzm!
What kind of place is this?
A place without Sea...
Ahh, the sea of the south!
Where the warmth never ceases,
and the sun never teases, never hides
behind the cold.

The River
is fickle.
Sometimes it is quiet, and the fish swim right into your net.
Othertimes it is loud, roaring like a writhing snake to burst its bounds.
And it can feel them.
Their dirty feet stomping over its banks and splashing.
Terabaj's children.
Those who were felled.
May death catch them quickly!
And if it does not, then I will catch them -
and send them screaming down to the Underworld
for what they did to me.
Monsters of the north.

Beyond the unmoving star,
there is peace.
In the northlands, however,
there is always fighting.

----------------------------------------

notes:

The first stanza has already been translated.
The Unmoving Star (Gamnuh-a Sudnihmut-a) is the North Star, which is not
visible from the southern hemisphere, where the Rokbeigalm live.
"Spilled blood not my own" is an ironic expression.....it's talking about
killing in battle, but in Rokbeigalm society, the expression "spilling
blood" or "drawing blood" alludes to the *marriage ceremony*, in which
the bride and the groom make small incisions on their own (hence "not my
own") palms, and hold hands so that their blood mixes.
"Ailzm" means "powers/spirits".  It's the Rokbeigalmki equivalent of
using the word "god" as an exclamation.
The exclamation "Ahh" in the second stanza is /?aH/, with a voiceless
pharyngeal fricative.
"The River" refers to the Anduin, the Great River which passes through
the center of the North-West region of Middle-Earth.  Stiigiyus settled
down among the Beornings/Woodmen who live on the shores of the river,
near the Carrock, between the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood.
Terabaj was one of the first elves of Cuivienen.  Him and one of his
siblings, Shalhevet, were captured by Morgoth.  Shalhevet eventually
escaped, and she joined the Rokbeigalm.  Terabaj became one of the
corrupted/mutated/tortured original ancestors of the Orcs.  So the term
"Terabaj's Children" is one of the less-common, more poetic ways of
referring to the _urkudm_.
"Beyond the unmoving star" (_nga'dratz gamnuh-a sudnihmut-a_) is an
expression meaning "(in) the southern hemisphere".


-Stephen (Steg)
 "hhalomot zeh b'emet"

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