[Janice D. Soderling]

Elegant translation, Birthe. The "som var de vand" (as though they were water) would work to strengthen the English, I think. That you changed the last line's "cloud" to "sky" doesn't bother me, on the contrary, instead of being a cutsey "tree kisses cloud" it reminds me that the entire spring sky can be white, overcast, and for me that works better.

I translated this a long time ago and remember deciding to use "spruce" (Picea abies translates as European spruce, Norway spruce, and Abies isfir, spruce fir, fir tree) . I'm not saying it is better or worse, just that it was my decision.

In that Octavio Paz essay I mentioned in another thread is this: "We all read Goethe, but each of us reads him with different eyes".

Vive la difference.

PS. I am not reneging on my appreciation of "as though", but it just struck me that one of the characteristics of the Finno-Swedish modernists (Södergran, Hagar Olsson, Diktonius was that they did not use the "as though". Like Vladimir Vladimirovitj Majakovskij who had a cloud in his trousers. No "as though".

Still so much prosaic poetry abounds that the orthodox translation "all my dreams have run off like water" seems weak in English. IMO.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Originally Posted by Marion Shore

All these castle images, sand castles, cloud castles, ice cream castles, tenement castles, etc. etc. why?

Because it's not cliché. It's classic.

Because what better image is there for ephemeral beauty, for disappointed love, for dreaming the impossible dream... If you can come up with one, let me know.

If this poem does it for you, Marion, there’s no arguing that fact. But your defense doesn’t get around the issues people were pointing to here.

Just because a metaphor is perfect for a particular emotion doesn’t mean it can’t wear thin—aka become cliché or hackneyed. It’s probably quite some time since anyone here wrote an earnest poem with nightingales and roses in it to describe their experience of love—and did it in such a way that readers felt the intensity and meaningfulness of it. And yet those metaphors worked for centuries, were considered excellent ways of expressing those feelings.

But even allowing that an old metaphor might be resuscitated, it’s going to need memorable language or some surprise to carry it. And this translation doesn’t have that. It’s not a question of who’s romantic or not, and in fact the poem is very easy to understand. It’s a question of all the cells of the poem—imagery, metaphors, sonics—coming to life and being memorable.

Joni Mitchell’s “ice cream castles in the air” works because the song is good, and maybe because adding “ice cream” gives the metaphor a lighter touch.

[Ilmar Lehtpere]

Sorry, wrong forum again. I'll get the hang of it.

[Ilmar Lehtpere]

Or I am in the right place after all...
Janice's observations (#9) go straight to the heart of the art of translation. A translator needs to be intimately familiar with the author's culture. This is what makes translating from a literal translation problematic - the result may be a very good poem but is often not a particularly accurate translation, if by "translation" we mean the author's poem written in another language. A translator needs to hear the author's voice with all its idiosyncracies and be familiar with the nuances embedded within the author's culture. It is often said that these nuances can't be translated, but many superb translations prove that they can.