- #1
zoobyshoe
- 6,510
- 1,290
When I was in college I had a recording of The ThreePenny Opera, the well known Broadway/English translation by Marc Blitzstein, and some kids from Germany who'd heard it complained that it was a poor translation: the original was much down and dirtier, more crude and gritty.
Every once in a while since then I toy with trying to make a "faithful" translation of it. I've never gotten farther than working on the famous "Mack The Knife", though, because that song alone presents so many problems that it is easy to see why Blitzstein didn't so much translate it as "adapt" it into English.
Here's the first stanza in German:
Und der Haifisch
der hat Zahne
und die tragt er
im Gesicht
und MacHeath der
hat ein Messer
doch das Messer
sieht man nicht
Literally, without trying to rhyme, that translates:
And the shark
it has teeth
and it wears them
in it's face
and MacHeath, he
has a knife
but the knife
no one sees.
So, Blitzstein pulls out the stops and we get:
"Oh, the shark has
pretty teeth, dear
and he shows them
pearly white.
Just a jacknife
Has Macheath, dear,
and he keeps it
out of sight."
That's a good lyric, for sure, but it's quite embellished from the original. He's pretty much rewritten the poem as far as its poetry goes.
Trying to stick only to the information in the original the very best I've been able to come up with still requires inserting adjectives that aren't in the original just to make it scan right for the music:
And a shark has
lots of sharp teeth
wears them up front
in his face,
but though MacHeath
has a sharp knife
you won't see it
anyplace.
I'm wondering if anyone else can see to a simple translation that doesn't require modifying the teeth and knife with adjectives, or adding much of anything for that matter.
Every once in a while since then I toy with trying to make a "faithful" translation of it. I've never gotten farther than working on the famous "Mack The Knife", though, because that song alone presents so many problems that it is easy to see why Blitzstein didn't so much translate it as "adapt" it into English.
Here's the first stanza in German:
Und der Haifisch
der hat Zahne
und die tragt er
im Gesicht
und MacHeath der
hat ein Messer
doch das Messer
sieht man nicht
Literally, without trying to rhyme, that translates:
And the shark
it has teeth
and it wears them
in it's face
and MacHeath, he
has a knife
but the knife
no one sees.
So, Blitzstein pulls out the stops and we get:
"Oh, the shark has
pretty teeth, dear
and he shows them
pearly white.
Just a jacknife
Has Macheath, dear,
and he keeps it
out of sight."
That's a good lyric, for sure, but it's quite embellished from the original. He's pretty much rewritten the poem as far as its poetry goes.
Trying to stick only to the information in the original the very best I've been able to come up with still requires inserting adjectives that aren't in the original just to make it scan right for the music:
And a shark has
lots of sharp teeth
wears them up front
in his face,
but though MacHeath
has a sharp knife
you won't see it
anyplace.
I'm wondering if anyone else can see to a simple translation that doesn't require modifying the teeth and knife with adjectives, or adding much of anything for that matter.