[89202] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: chIjwI' qanqu' bom: 'ay' wa'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rohan Fenwick - QeS 'utlh)
Sun Aug 28 10:03:06 2011
From: Rohan Fenwick - QeS 'utlh <qeslagh@hotmail.com>
To: <tlhingan-hol@kli.org>
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 23:57:24 +1000
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
jIghItlhpu', jIjatlh:
>chIjwI' qanqu' bom: 'ay' wa'
mujang Qov:
>You can see where I was confused, but whether that's by the poetry or
>the translation -- dunno.
Probably a bit of both! The original English is archaic enough and uses
odd enough imagery at times to make me go "huh?", but from your comments
I see there are still problems that aren't Coleridge's fault. Either
way, thank you for the comments.
jIH:
>naDev Duj chIjwI' qan tu'lu', 'ej wej nuv'e' wa' mev.
Qov:
>If I didn't know the English I wouldn't get "wej nuv'e' wa' mev". I'd
>read it as a weird version of "he doesn't stop yet one person."
...
>If I'm missing some canon where mev and nuv'e' wa' serve the purpose
>here, then that's why I'm not getting it.
All fair enough. I wasn't overly happy with this construction either.
With {nuv'e' wa'}, I didn't intend it as a unit noun phrase, since a
type 5 can't be on the first noun of a noun-noun construction. But I
see your point. Your suggestion of {-vo'} is not bad. As for {mev}, we
have a transitive usage in TKW: {bIjatlh 'e' yImev. yItlhutlh} "stop
talking; drink!". Ordinarily I'd go for {mevmoH} as well, but as you
say, it'd mess with the metre.
>Hmm, not sure what I think of "wej ben puq" but I knew what it meant
>right away.
maj. {wej ben puq} parallels the canon {cha'vatlh ben HIq} "200-year-
old ale", from PK.
>Cowed isn't quite the right meaning. Somewhere between that and held.
>It works. You like it better than jon?
The original is "The Mariner hath his will". I do like {chargh}, but
{jon} would work fine too; I may go back to that.
>(SawwI' lopwI' would be nicer than Sawghach for me)
yajchu'. That's a good suggestion; I hated using {Sawghach} but didn't
think of rephrasing with {SawwI'}.
>Or maybe it was SuStel did it.
pay' 'e' vItlhoj je jIH. :)
>Our ship began to roll and pitch; even the brave old horn-blowing
>warrior cried out.
>It was like an impatient follower that hunts his enemy's shadow and
>a hunter on his felled prey.
I thought things might get hairy here.
Coleridge has: "With sloping masts and dipping prow / As who pursued
with yell and blow / Still treads the shadow of his foe / And forward
bends his head". The headless relative makes it hard to parse even in
the English. What I intended here was:
jach gheb je lo'bogh SuvwI' yoH, : A brave warrior who uses yell and
horn,
jaghDaj QIb wambogh tlha'wI' boH, : An impatient chaser who hunts his
enemy's shadow,
nach torwI' je rurlaw', : and one who bends [his] head it
seemed to resemble.
So, more freely: "It seemed to resemble a brave warrior who used yell
and horn, an impatient chaser who hunts his enemy's shadow and keeps
his head bent". I had misremembered {jach} as having a noun form; I
should have used {bey}. And because I used {je} in the last clause I
guess it does sound like three different things being talked about.
>We passed by ice in the water, we visited it, ice like tall blue
>mountains.
>(we visited it? huh?)
The idea is they're not deliberately visiting it, but because the ice
is floating past them, they are anyway. Do you think I'm stretching
the sense of {Such} too far?
>One seemed to hear sounds from it. An apparently passed out coward
>resembled it.
>Huh? Is the simile deliberately inverted?
Yep, solely for the sake of the end-rhyme.
Coleridge's original is "It cracked and growled, and roared and howled
/ Like noises in a swound!". "Swound" is an archaic word for "swoon"
(both as noun and verb), so the way I read that is that the noises are
like the sounds made by someone passing out. (Maybe {vulchoHbogh} is
better than {vullaw'bogh}.) I assumed a Klingon would think only a
coward would make so much noise while falling unconscious, but if
that assumption doesn't work (I admit it's laboured) I'm open to any
suggestions.
QeS 'utlh
