Translation Bakeoff Finalist: Goes
 

Steps

Your first step will be small, my child,
your last step, small as well.
With the first, you'll hold my hand,
the last, you'll take yourself.

Soon you will walk many steps,
and wander from my sight.
Who knows what kind of steps you'll take
through daylight, through the night?

Walk a bold step, take a brave step.
The world is great and yours.
After the last step we will be
together, child, once more.

Die Schritte

Klein ist, mein Kind, dein erster Schritt,
Klein wird dein letzter sein.
Den ersten gehn Vater und Mutter mit,
Den letzten gehst du allein.

Seis um ein Jahr, dann gehst du, Kind,
Viel Schritte unbewacht,
Wer weiß, was das dann für Schritte sind
Im Licht und in der Nacht?

Geh kühnen Schritt, tu tapfren Tritt,
Groß ist die Welt und dein.
Wir werden, mein Kind, nach dem letzten Schritt
Wieder beisammen sein.

– Albrecht Goes



Literal:

The Steps

Your first step, my child, is small,
your last will be small.
The first you'll walk with Father and Mother,
the last you'll walk alone.

After a year, then you'll walk, child,
many steps, unguarded,
who knows what kind of steps they'll then be,
in the light and in the night?

Walk a bold step, take a brave step,
the world is great and yours.
We will, my child, after the last step,
be together again.

Judge's comments
 

This poem is fully realized, in sound, form and content. It needs no suggestions from me. Simple, innocent and effective. Instinctively, it knows that “Father and Mother” is not essential to the poem, because of the address in line 1, “my child.”

“..from my sight” is not exactly to fit, but brings across some feeling. Here is a prime example of a translator who makes “sing-song” translation look effortless – something it most definitely is not. Well done, Sieben.

DG

I think this successfully captures the simplicity and serenity of the original, while including enough variations to avoid monotony.

Susan

I'm very taken with this translation, but 'my' child, for me, eclipses the Vater und Mitter specific. In this day and age with so much single parenting, "my" carries very different connotations and speaks of the absent rather than a dual present. Perhaps it's nonetheless possible to get Mother and Father in, or at the least use "our". But other than that, lovely work.

A good solid version here, and not a slave to rhyme, but, as has been mentioned, Vater und Mutter should have been retained. I can almost see this as a song sung to a child, with a bit of lyrical tweaking. In all, fine work nevertheless.

I'm with Seree and Skip: the exclusion of Father and Mother alters the tone of the piece, particularly with the use of the unsupported "my," S2/L2.

Given the departure from a serious attempt at rhyme, I don't think the vague slant justifies "yourself" for the original "alone," S1/L4. The translator might also consider "in daylight and at night" for S2/L4, which would be truer to the original.

Sweet, musical, a fine effort.

"My child" came across to me as no more than a simple mode of address. There is one person speaking, on behalf of both parents. So using "our hands" and "our sight" would make no difference to rhyme or scansion and restore the picture of the family relationship without spoiling the pleasing simplicity of the poem.

I speak only of the poem in English, having no German.

Given that the original is a simple poem that uses perfect rhymes throughout, I found the combination of slant/perfect/no rhymes disappointing. It gets off to a particularly bad start with

xxYour first step will be small, my child,
xxyour last step, small as well.
xxWith the first, you'll hold my hand,
xxthe last, you'll take yourself.

where lines 1 and 3 don't even pretend to rhyme, and lines 2 and 4 are what some might call a 'slant' rhyme, but I see as a failed attempt at rhyming.

Overall, it's not bad, but this aspect spoils it for me completely.

I agree with Ann--simply changing to "our steps" and "our sight" I think makes the poem stronger plus retains the sense of the original

I'm afraid I'm with Brian. The off rhymes in this type of poem are harmful. Simplicity and truthfulness-these come in part through the simple accentual rhyming of the German.

Due to travel I've come late to this competition. I am not as enthusiastic as others about this translation which is a fatherly meditation about a child taking its first steps. Goes was a clergyman.

ist is present tense, not future. Klein is often, perhaps usually, translated as small , but in this instance I would prefer "short". A child learning to walk takes "short steps" (as compared to "long strides").

Moreover, and this may seem a petty distinction to some, "short" has an undertone of the brevity of life and prepares the reader for the message of death. That said, I find the original poem depressing and grimly old-school Lutheran, but that is my fault, not the poet's.

I don't claim these slant rhymes to be brilliant, but the poem cries out for sométhing more than haphazard rhyming.

Short, my child, your early steps
and short will be your last one
now you have parental help
the rest you walk alone.

I am not expert in German, but I think there is an apostrophe missing in S2L1 Sei's. That would then translate into something like "For (about) a year, child it will be thus, then alas, your steps will be unguarded. Who knows if you will then walk in the light or in darkness?" Again one hears the voice of the clergyman father speaking, this is straight from the Bible.

I think it is vital to the poem that the biblical echo is there.

1 John 1:5-7 King James Version (KJV). (Note, this is not St. John, but 1John.)
5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

The third stanza is all paternal advice and optimistic promise: "Walk boldly and walk bravely. The wide world belongs to you. We will, my child, be reunited after your final step."

This is, in my opinion, the essence of the original poem. I don't think it is excellent suggestion, but I haven't any more time to put into it. IMO the translator has not been successful in replicating either the content or the rhyme scheme. Sorry.