Appreciating non-English poetry

We have a thread for composing non-English poetry, but how about for appreciating it?

These stanzas are taken from The Battle of Maldon, an Old English poem commemorating a confrontation on the South-Eastern coast of England between the English and the Norse, following the English refusal to pay danegeld, or “protection money”. This battle took place in 991.

Translation by W. Berridge.


First Line-Half Second Line-Half Modern English
Þa stod on stæðe, stiðlice clypode Then stood forth on the strand and sternly spake
wicinga ar, wordum mælde, the messenger of the Vikings, delivered his tidings;
se on beot abead brimliþendra he boastfully spoke, for the seafarers
ærænde to þam eorle, þær he on ofre stod: their sentence to the earl, where he stood on the shore.
-
"Me sendon to þe sæmen snelle, ""They sent me to thee, those bold seamen,
heton ðe secgan þæt þu most sendan raðe and bade me to say that thou must send swiftly
beagas wið gebeorge; and eow betere is ring-money for pledges. For you were it better
þæt ġē þisne rrǣs mid gafole forġyldon that you buy off this spear-rush with your tax,
þon we swa hearde hilde dælon." than that we should have so hard a battle."
Byrhtnoð maþelode, bord hafenode, Brithnoth made answer - his buckler he grasped,
wand wacne æsc, wordum mælde, brandished his slender spear - and spoke.
yrre and anræd ageaf him andsware:
-
"Gehyrst þu, sælida, hwæt þis folc segeð? "Hearest thou, sea-robber, what this people say?
Hi willað eow to gafole garas syllan, For tribute they’re ready to give you their spears,
ættrynne ord and ealde swurd, the edge poison-bitter, and the ancient sword.
þa heregeatu þe eow æt hilde ne deah. War-gear that will bring you no profit in the fight.
Brimmanna boda, abeod eft ongean, Thou messenger of the seamen, back with thy message.
sege þinum leodum miccle laþre spell, Tell to thy people, these far more hateful tidings,
þæt her stynt unforcuð eorl mid his werode, there stands here a good earl in the midst of his men,
þe wile gealgean eþel þysne, who will this country ever defend,
Æþelredes eard, ealdres mines the kingdom of Aethelred, mine overlord,
folc and foldan-" the folk and the ground-"
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Here at home I have a book of old Irish poems. I’m translating in English from an Italian translation, which follows a strict metric and therefore makes me doubt about its accuracy. Here’s one of the shorter ones:

Carsam, ním ráinic a less,
Cuirithir int ath-éces;
inmain fíadu dá coss nglass;
bid dirsan a bithingnas.

He loved me, but I had no advantage out of it,
Cuirithir, an ex-poet;
fair is the grey-footed lord,
he shall be miserable without him.

In lecc fri derthac an-dess
forsa mbid int ath-éces,
meinic tíagar di im cach ndé
fescor íar mbúaid ernaigde.

The stone near the wooden church
where the ex-poet stood:
every day I go there at twilight
after the triumph of the prayer

Nícon bía aice bó,
ná dáir inna dartado;
nícon bía cnáim do leiss
for láim deiss ind ath-écis.

No cow he shall have, nor shall the cow
Be mounted by the bull;
and my ankle shall not be
at the right side of the ex-poet

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El Go

Hoy, 9 de septiembre de 1978,
tuve en la palma de mi mano un pequeño disco
de los trescientos sesenta y uno que se requieren
para el juego astrológico del Go,
ese otro ajedrez de Oriente.

Es más antiguo que la más antigua escritura
y el tablero es un mapa del universo.
Sus variaciones negras y blancas
agotarán el tiempo;
en él pueden perderse los hombres
como en el amor o en el día.

Hoy, 9 de septiembre de 1978,
yo, que soy ignorante de tantas cosas,
sé que ignoro una más,
y agradezco a mis númenes
esta revelación de laberintos
que ya no exploraré…

Jorge Luis Borges


Today, September 9th, 1978,
I had in the palm of my hand a small disk;
just one of the three hundred sixty-one needed
to play the astrological game of Go,
that other chess from the Orient.

It is older than the oldest writing
and the board is a map of the universe.
Even time itself cannot exhaust
its variations of black and white.
Just as in love or in the passing of the day,
men can lose themselves in this game.

Today, September 9th, 1978,
I, who am ignorant of so many things,
know that I am ignorant of one more,
and I thank my numina
for revealing these labyrinths
that I shall no longer explore.

translated by Brian J. Olive


(From MySanRenSei, from Sensei’s Library, from rec.games.go. I took the liberty of dividing it into stanzas and making some formatting tweaks.)

There’s also some discussion on the SL page of an alternative ending que nunca será mio… and how it should be translated.

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From MySanRenSei, which in turn cites Zu-yan Chen, Binghamton University – CHINA & INNER ASIA SESSION 171 / AAS Annual Meeting, 6th-9th April 2006, San Francisco

Shao Yong (1011-77), one of the founders of Neo-Confucianism, was also a learned historian and prolific poet. His poem “Great Chant on Observing Weiqi,” totaling 360 lines and 1,800 characters, is one of the longest poems in pre-modern China. It is in fact 15 characters longer than “Peacock Flies Southeast,” which has widely been considered the longest. The significance of Shao Yong’s poem, however, goes far beyond the number of its lines and characters.

It employs weiqi as a metaphor for cognition and is an exemplar of Shao’s three-step epistemological mode: one proceeds from visual perception to rational contemplation, and finally to the third stage of analytical comprehension. Structurally, this poem can be divided into three parts, or three levels of observation. It begins with a description of the emotional intensity and unpredictability involved in weiqi games. The major body of the poem is devoted to the contemplation of patterns of history as weiqi analogies. The poem concludes with the poet’s view of Principle implicit within the cosmic games, identifying the modes of change drawn from both weiqi activities and the historical events previously observed.