Some purely unintentional travesties of songs are really the most laughable and amusing, as, for instance, the absurd translations given in the English libretti of the Italian operas. Those who can appreciate comic songs should certainly also read Messrs. Augner’s edition of Schubert’s songs with English and German words. The song “Alinde” commences thus in the English version: “The sun sinks down into the meer, forth hast she not ridden?” This is intended to be a translation of “Die Sonne sinkt in’s tiefe meer, da wollte sie nicht kommen.” What is a meer? In several other cases the German word meer (sea) is translated meer. As a second example take “The Fisher.” “The water rushed, the water swelled, A fisher there bestow’d, With lazy angle, felt the hush, His heart with coolness load!” How could any man with his wits about him write such arrant nonsense? It certainly seems like an attempt to translate literally, but in the “Nachtstück” (night piece) an unpardonable deviation is made from the original. “Luna mit gewölken kämpft” we are told means “Luna camped upon the clouds!” Last, but not least, in that exquisite little song “Der Tod und das Mädchen,” which is unpoetically called “Death and the Girl,” the German runs thus: “Vor über ach vor über, geh wilder knochenmann.” Surely the translator struck the summit of absurdity in rendering it, “Pass onward, pass onward, wild man with skinless bone!” It is not a matter for surprise that we seldom hear any of Schubert’s works, except perhaps “Ave Maria,” in an English drawing-room, when the translations offered are hardly fit for nigger minstrels. There is much room for improvement in the poetry of our modern popular sentimental songs, whether intended for the stage, or the concert room. Yet ridiculous as these often are, they do not approach the nonsense, called translations from Italian, French, or German songs, where the effort required to render the sense in a metre suitable to the melody seems too much for any ordinary translator to cope with.
MORE ABOUT LORD TENNYSON’S JUBILEE ODE.
Several parodies of this Ode were given in Part 43 (June) but since then some others have appeared.
The universal opinion that Tennyson’s poem was a failure, and altogether unworthy of his reputation has been expressed in several ways, one London evening paper printed a couple of the Laureate’s verses “as they ought to be” thus:—
“You then loyally, all of you, deck your houses, illuminate all your towns for a festival, and in each let a multitude loyal, each, to the heart of it one full voice of allegiance, hail the great Ceremonial of this year of her Jubilee.”
“You, the Patriot Architect, shape a stately memorial, make it regally gorgeous, some Imperial Institute, rich in symbol, in ornament, which may speak to the centuries, all the centuries after us, of this year of her Jubilee.”
Instead of being poetry of transcendent merit, it seems to be a poor imitation of the language of Scripture. Others declare it to be an imitation of the style of Walt Whitman, and the Ode has even been compared to a badly-written catalogue! One satirist went so far as to plead in the Laureate’s latest style:—
You, the Patriot poet,
Shape a statelier poem;