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The Silesian Weavers
I read The Silesian Weavers poem a couple of years ago when SelenaK showed it to me. It's in German (naturally) and there are a couple of existing translations online here by Edgar Alfred Bowring (which is probably the best) here by Sacha Foreman (which is terrible - apparently she thinks weavers use spinning wheels) but I wanted to see what I could do myself. It's a political poem about the exploitation of workers at the start of the Industrial Revolution.
The problem with translating any poem is trying to translate the meaning while also keeping to a pattern of rhyme and scansion. Especially if one wants to retain something of the original rhythm.
To me, this poem has a very staccato rhythm, that makes me thinks of the sound of a shuttle flying back and forth across the loom with a regular bang, making it important to try and retain some of that (easier in some verses than others)
You can read my translation attempt under the original German.
Here's the German original by Heinrich Heine
Die Schlesischen Weber
Heinrich Heine
Im düstern Auge keine Träne,
Sie sitzen am Webstuhl und fletschen die Zähne:
»Deutschland, wir weben dein Leichentuch,
Wir weben hinein den dreifachen Fluch -
Wir weben, wir weben!
Ein Fluch dem Gotte, zu dem wir gebeten
In Winterskälte und Hungersnöten
Wir haben vergebens gehofft und geharrt,
Er hat uns geäfft und gefoppt und genarrt -
Wir weben, wir weben!
Ein Fluch dem König, dem König der Reichen,
Den unser Elend nicht konnte erweichen,
Der den letzten Groschen von uns erpreßt,
Und uns wie Hunde erschießen läßt!
Wir weben, wir weben!
Ein Fluch dem falschen Vaterlande,
Wo nur gedeihen Schmach und Schande,
Wo jede Blume früh geknickt
Wo Fäulnis und Moder den Wurm erquickt -
Wir weben, wir weben!
Das Schiffchen fliegt, der Webstuhl kracht,
Wir weben emsig Tag und Nacht -
Altdeutschland, wir weben dein Leichentuch,
Wir weben hinein den dreifachen Fluch,
Wir weben, wir weben!«
The Silesian Weavers. (Judith Proctor's translation)
With gloomy eyes, no tears beneath,
They sit at the loom and bare their teeth.
Deutschland, we're weaving your funeral shroud,
A triple curse within endowed,
We're weaving. We're weaving!
A curse on God - to him we prayed
In Winter's cold and hunger's need.
We hoped and waited all in vain,
He mocked us, and teased us, and fooled us again.
We're weaving. We're weaving!
A curse on the king, the king of the rich,
Even our pain could not move him a stitch.
He stole our last coins, that we needed to eat,
And let us be shot, like dogs in the street
We're weaving. We're weaving!
A curse on this false Fatherland,
Where shame and dishonour together band,
Where every flower is plucked too soon,
Where mould, corruption and maggots bloom.
We're weaving. We're weaving!
The shuttle flies, it crashes loud,
Day and night we weave your shroud,
Old Deutschland we weave, and in each verse,
We weave within the triple curse,
We're weaving. We're weaving!
*applauds*
"The King, the head of state" instead of "the King of the Wealthy" made me stop and consider when I first read it, but you bring in the money aspect in the following verses, and "state" has that short sharp sound which "wealthy" in English does not.
(I also suspect you know more about weaving than Heine did, but he still wouldn't have made a mistake like imagining a spinning wheel!)
(And speaking of the other translations you linked - "white teeth" took me out of the translation, because dirt poor Silesian Weavers about to revolt in the mid 1840s don't have them, they're lucky if they have any kind of teeth at all. )
Re: *applauds*
It took a lot of rewrites to try and get the rhythm I wanted. (Though 'state' was partly me confusing Reich and Reichen!)
It's also important to me to avoid unnatural sentence structures like:
“A curse on the King of the wealthy, whom often
“Our misery vainly attempted to soften;
(ending lines in an English poem with a verb always strikes me as desperation...)
How about:
A curse on the king, the king of the rich,
Even our pain could not move him a stitch.
Or
A curse on the King, the king of the rich,
Even our pain couldn't cause him to switch.
He stole our last coins, that we needed to eat,
And let us be shot, like dogs in the street
We're weaving. We're weaving!
Deutschland was a very conscious choice, for exactly the reason you give:)
Re: *applauds*
A curse on the king, the king of the rich,
Even our pain could not move him a stitch.
He stole our last coins, that we needed to eat,
And let us be shot, like dogs in the street
We're weaving. We're weaving!
Re: *applauds*
I'd reached the same conclusion.
I'll edit the original post.
Someday, I'll show you my version of a lesser known poem that I found by accident and liked, but I can't find my translation notes at the moment. It's one with more of a galloping rhythm - about a hussar.
no subject
(Also, Heine is always welcome...)
The first line of the fourth verse sounded rhythmically off to me compared to the others, and I couldn't work out why, given that it's practically identical to the original -- but on further reflection I think it's *because* it's closer to the original than the other verses, which are all rhymed on a strong syllable at the end of the line. In order to match that for this line you need to distort the natural stress-pattern of "FATH-erland" (accented like "Igenlode" :-p) into Father-LAND, and I think that's why it sounded somehow 'false'.
"A curse on our false homeland's name
That nurtures infamy and shame"? (Or "nurtures only blight and shame"? Closer in one way to the original but a little farther in another.)
The other thing that jolts me, but I can't work out why, is the chorus of "We're weaving" -- but again, that's identical in meaning and metre to the original. It just seemed... the wrong tense, somehow; too *continuous* to be something that would naturally be used as the refrain of a poem in English, or to carry the ominous threat of the original. ("We are weaving" isn't the same thing, exactly, as "We weave" -- the latter is more existential and the former a description of current status.)
"We weave on -- we weave on!"
"We're weaving, and weaving."
I don't know...
Looking at the other two translations, I see that they both went for "We're weaving" as well :-)
I actually like the Sasha Foreman translation better, not having strong feelings about spinning wheels :-p
The Bowring one is very oldfashioned ("A curse on the God to whom our petition/We vainly address'd when in starving condition"), and the Foreman one has got some terrific lines in it (the God "who mocked us and poxed us and cast us aside"/"We weave unfailing, night and day").