I readily admit, I've got a soft spot for dog-poetry. I've read yards and yards of it, and I've written yards and yards of it, and I don't view it as a poor cousin the verse in general. Men have forged their relationships with dogs for as long as there've BEEN men, or dogs - such a relationship is surely worthy of a song or two. I wish that 'dog' and 'doggerel' weren't so closely linked, but there's nothing I can do about that.
So let's try this one out for our panel of severe judges and see what they make of it:
Elisabetta
The old dog lifts his head, snaps at an insect;
Roused, attempts to get up, raggedly does so,
Hind-legs sprawling on the polished travertine,
Back hunched from lying, and pads across the floor
To find a cooler, more comfortable place.
Where would that be? Here, or else here? He noses
Beneath the curtained windows ... Nowhere pleases,
And he collapses randomly, breathing hard,
With a muffled knock of bones, out of the sun
At least.
Sunburned, robust, Elisabetta
Follows him with her eyes, leaning on a broom
(Her sweeping interrupted to let him pass),
And comments, "Ha bisogno della morte!"
That's by Robert Wells, and I kind of like it. Now let's hear why I shouldn't.
5 comments:
"Has need of death"? Is that what that says?
I don't get that quote, maybe I translated it wrong, but otherwise I think it captures the dog train of thought perfectly. Doesn't have a care in the world, as long as he/she can get somewhere cool soon.
Gianni doesn't quite have the Italian down right - anybody else care to dust off their high school language courses and take a crack at it?
"Has need of darkness/the lights off"?
"Has need of the cold"?
literally translated, I think Gianni's right, but we're clearly we're missing something.
Well,
A) to a much greater degree than English, most Romance languages carry the noun, the DOER of the verb, INSIDE the verb ... so all these renderings without a 'he' in them make the thing sound more awkward than it really is
and
B) Alas, Sam is probably right. I think it might be possible that the poet was harking back to a time when he could EXPECT his readers to know Italian, but in 2007 it doesn't save the thing, I guess. Is there ANY argument to be made for the poem if the reader knows no Italian and DOESN'T have Computo translating for him? I mean, is there any way the poem works if the final phrase is - and remains - opaque to the reader?
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