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Old 07-10-2020, 03:05 AM   #44
Huinesoron
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Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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Huinesoron is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Huinesoron is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Oh, excellent! I've just had a singthrough of Beren In Nargothrond, and it works pretty well. It's clear you work with the scansion differently to me (I sacrifice syllable count to put the emphasis where I feel like it naturally falls, you accept emphasis that falls a little oddly to keep the syllables in place), but both ways work fine. Translating songs is always a balancing act.

I'm... not quite going to go through this line-by-line, but it might feel that way a bit.

-wonder-filled - given that you use 'fain' later, I think 'wondERous' wouldn't be inappropriate; it's slightly old fashioned but makes the point well. I also considered 'magical', but that shades a bit too much of Samwise.

-Refuge that to mortals has been forbidden? - this is one of those scansion lines. There's a slight pause in the middle of 'mor-tals'; if I were writing it I'd have said something like 'Refuge that to Men has been long forbidden'. But I'm not; I'm just noting it because I noticed it.

-You worked Felegund in! Nice. ^_^

-To my father once you have made a promise - I'm not sure that tense structure works. Technically it would be 'once you did make', but that's awful; 'once you had made' is probably better.

-I think 'jewelled' works well; jewels are a bit of a thing in this story, so it fits, and in Version Two I'm pretty sure what he's holding is a huge prop gem.

-I think if the original text repeats the lines in these two verses, it's probably best to stick to that. I'd probably go with the versions from the first repeat.

-I like Finrod's first lines a lot.

-'Elvenking' is nice... but 'Felagund' scans exactly as well, so I'm not sure why you didn't use it.

-I don't even recognise 'peccant' (neither does spellcheck!), so I'd stick with 'bitter'.

-To me love is greatest of gifts I bear - how about 'Love to me is greatest of jewels I bear'? It ties back to the jewel theme, explicitly connecting their love to the Silmaril; makes a direct comparison with the Ring of Barahir; and doesn't imply he's planning to give said love to Finrod.

-'Pure love' &c - I think your parenthetical version works pretty well, actually! 'commands my heart' is a nice turn of phrase.

-What would you have of me? - I think we can actually preserve the ambiguity here. What do you think of this:

What were you thinking, friend
Whose kin I owe my freedom?
What aid can I now lend
Son of the Younger Children?


-The 'fain' verse. I really like 'fain', but my reworked proposal drops it entirely (because I think it works best as a pair, and I had to drop at least one):

I wish but to fight my love to defend
I would not reject the will of another
I'm prepared to fight to the bitter end
Against the Lord of Fetters in northern tower!


If you don't like the extra syllable in 'against', it can be 'With'. (And 'Lord of Fetters in' can be 'Lord of Pain in his', but I enjoy Lord of Fetters.) I'm pleased to hear you didn't like 'black of colour'; I stumbled badly over that line.

-I think 'who would help me fight' works better grammatically.

-Not comma needed after Him. I mean, grammatically it might be, but this is a sung denunciation.

-A vow from slumber rises - For interlinking purposes, surely we have to say 'The Oath from slumber rises'? Finrod would definitely know that his houseguests are going to react badly to this.

-Beren's denunciation of Finrod is powerful stuff. I would change 'it has come to be' to it has proved to be', to give overtones of 'your promise was never worth anything'.

-I think the 'naught but madness' version of the line is better.

-Thus finds me the chalice with my doom brewing - I think the grammar is doing too much work here. How about In this poisoned chalice is my doom brewing? The 'poisoned chalice' idiom in English has an implied 'handed to me', so I don't think it needs to be in there directly.

-The honour/fey lines are great! I'm not at all surprised you like them.

-The final stanza. I'm going to cheat here, because Melian says something very similar in her Aria. So:

If you have loved until
Love was your breath and water
You'd bathe the Silmaril
In your heart's blood and sorrow


(I know; I just rhymed 'water' and 'sorrow'. In my defence, British English barely pronounces final Rs, and the vowels are pretty close too.)

Phew! That was fun. I think you've done a great job with this one. It's interesting, because I never really noticed this song while watching; it just sort of passes me by. Different folks, &c.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Galadriel55
PS: one of my friends read your translations and was very impressed, especially at how faithful they are to the original. She is eager for more songs, and may even be able to coordinate a small ensemble of equally enthusiastic people to trial them with music. :-)
Please thank your friend for me. It is nice to know the work is appreciated. The idea of someone actually singing these is incredible; would they work from the chords in the full Russian lyrics, or what? (I am not wise in the ways of music.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Galadriel55
PPS: Going back to the Oath, I think that while typing in snatches of breaks I forgot to mention that I absolutely love the new lines, "One single hope for the House of the Houseless, Sworn is the Oath, though all Arda reject us!". Both the earth part, which I told you about, but the layers of meaning to Houseless as well. Among other things, the fact that their houses have just been destroyed in the Bragollach and they are refugees more than guests in Nargothrond. Perfection.
Thank you! It's always really nice to find a line you can just stuff with meaning. I also really like the Arda/rejection part, so thank you again for highlighting it.

I will come back to Emo Sauron later; I've been an hour at this post already!

hS
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