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Old 07-07-2020, 04:49 PM   #27
Galadriel55
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Huinesoron View Post
Thanks! I went through three or four versions of that line until I was happy. The good part is, if you prefer 'Quendi' to 'Elves', you just have to remove 'naught' to make it fit.

(It was 'servants' until the very last second, but whether he's talking about the Valar or Melkor, Sauron would say slaves.)
Oh no, what you have there is absolutely perfect! I liked the Quendi reference in Russian; it actually comes out to the same rhythm as "Elves" would, but it was an extra reference to the source text, and I liked it for the erudition. But having "naught" is maybe more flavourful in English. As for the servants vs slaves, I absolutely agree - especially since Sauron uses slaves (thralls?) in a different part of the text.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hui
I believe I made it fit with some very weird beats - 'no THING y'do will CHANGE anote'. That actually matches Sauron's rhythm, but the more deliberate feel of your version works much better.
Oh, that makes sense now! I was reading "you do will" as all separate, and couldn't figure out where the downbeat was supposed to go in that spot.

Sauron tends to speak trochaically. I think the only times he doesn't is when he switches to Luthien's melody.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hui
I did have trouble with the lines that have lots of rapid syllables (like that one) ; it was hard to work out exactly how many I needed! There's a fair few instances of 'I know she said more, but we'll just make it a long note' in the translation.
Right. And sometimes the opposite - an early half-beat for an extra syllable in the beginning. It's not that noticeable if you sing it, because the melody sets the beats even if the lyrics are imperfect with that.

I think that my failure to be more flexible with it is why I can't get anywhere productive when I attempted to translate. Today I spent a ton of time trying to do Beren's arrival in Nargothrond, due to its easy structure and abundance of King/Ring rhymes. But I get stuck on duplicating both the meaning and the sentence structure, and fitting it exactly into the right rhythm and not a half beat extra/less, and as a result I scrapped my meager results into the rubbish bin as unworthy of the content they attempt to convey.
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