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A comment on Stanisław Lem. Parent comment

Re:Stanisław Lem by mcv on Monday November 04, 2019 @04:25AM (#21440061)
I'm particularly impressed by the translation of The Cyberiad. There are some amazingly clever poems in there that must have been impossible to translate. I'd love to see an analysis of how much of those poems was translated, and how much was just rewritten from scratch because some things are just impossible to translate while sticking to such a tight form.
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Re:Stanisław Lem by oldgradstudent on Monday November 04, 2019 @04:50AM (#21440172)
> "Have it compose a poem—a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter s!!"

> Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.

> She scissored short. Sorely shorn,

> Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,

> Silently scheming,

> Sightlessly seeking

> Some savage, spectacular suicide.

I've found an article that compares the translation the original Polish. The translator had to change the premise of the poem and write a completely new poem:

https://medium.com/@mwichary/seduced-shaggy-samson-snored-72...

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Re:Stanisław Lem by mcv on Monday November 04, 2019 @08:24AM (#21441356)
As I expected: it's a total rewrite, just with similarly restrictive requirements. But the theme changed from cybererotica (though there wasn't much cyber about the original) to biblical tragedy.
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