[Gregory Dowling]

This is a lot of fun and works very well. The long lines are handled beautifully.

I agree with Roger that maintaining the full sense of the closing "moral" is probably not all important, but it would be good to keep something of the play between plural and singular, and "don't lose your heads" doesn't quite do that. But then the "read's / heads" rhyme is fun.

[Janet Kenny]

This is funny and magical. I don't usually comment on translations from languages which are closed to me but the literal translation makes the grammatical fun clear enough. A little gem.

[R. Nemo Hill]

I would disagree about maintaining the content of the final line moral. I think the change has been too great, and that the translation's moral is not nearly as funny or wise or pithy, resorting as it does to cliche (don't lose your heads) as opposed to morphing cliche in an unexpected way to gain insight as does the original. The translation's moral is too slight light verse for me.

I also don't like the construction of L2 at all, with the pronouns separated by the em-dash (or is it a hyphen? I can't tell). I find it a needlessly distracting and confusing path to get to the rhyme word.

But then I confess I'm not all that fond of the poem to begin with. All it has going for it is that strangely convoluted moral, which is gone in translation.

Nemo