Pushkin: No It's Just You (From Russian)

No It's Just You

By A.S. Pushkin

Translated by A.Z. Foreman

So you're a Pole. No harm in this.
Kościuszko is. Mickiewicz is.
You could be any kind of foreign.
Be Tatar even. No harm there.
Or be a Jew. I still don't care.
The harm's that you're Vidocq Vulgarin.*

*The original Фигляринъ is a transposition of the name “Булгаринъ” based on the word “фигляръ” (“joker, fool”). I've substituted something else that might have meaning in English.

The Original:

Не то бѣда, что ты полякъ:
Костюшко ляхъ, Мицкевичъ ляхъ!
Пожалуй, будь себѣ татаринъ, —
И тутъ не вижу я стыда;
Будь жидъ — и это не бѣда;
Бѣда, что ты Видокъ Фигляринъ.

Marina Boroditskaya: On-Call Translation (From Russian)

On-Call Translation
By Marina Boroditskaya
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Another commissioned translation. Incoming!
And an alien poet, like aliens from space,
Will enter your atmosphere, space-suit on fire,
And land as a crib on your desk in your face.

Get cracking, then. Pump his chest with your palms, 
Try and find life in this thing from out there. 
Start the heart's rhythm, give mouth-to-mouth,
Till he starts breathing the harsh local air.

Seems this one will live. But others do die. 
And who'll hear you out, if it all just fizzles,
How the muse's honey congealed in your breast,
And refused to be poured into alien vessels?

The Original:

И опять принесут заказной перевод,
И поэт иноземный, как инопланетный,
Прожигая скафандр, в атмосферу войдет
И подстрочником ляжет на стол кабинетный.

Что ж, ладонь на ладонь, жми на впалую грудь,
Силясь жизнь уловить в странном облике внешнем,
Слабый ритм ухватить, что-то влить и вдохнуть,
Чтобы смог он дышать в резком воздухе здешнем.

Этот ладится жить, а иной и помрет,
И кому объяснишь, коль пойдут пересуды,
Как густеет в груди поэтический мед,
Как не хочет он литься в чужие сосуды?

Robert Desnos: Literature (From French)

Literature

By Robert Desnos

Translated by A.Z. Foreman

How I should like to write great verse today

Much like the verse in school we'd read and hear

Sometimes it swung my dreams the other way

Or possibly my brain's a little queer

But counting syllables measuring words to stick

To boundaries seems ant drudgery and would cost

My Latin my Chinese my Arabic

And even sleep the friend I've never lost

Yeah who cares How I talk is how I'll write

And if a slinking grammar cop starts bitching

Damning me from the dark with sneery spite

There's a whole nother field where I'll outpitch him

The Original:

Littérature

 

Je voudrais aujourd’hui écrire de beaux vers

Ainsi que j’en lisais quand j’étais à l’école

Ça me mettait parfois les rêves à l’envers

Il est possible aussi que je sois un peu folle

 

Mais compter tous ces mots accoupler ces syllabes

Me paraît un travail fastidieux de fourmi

J’y perdrais mon latin mon chinois mon arabe

Et même le sommeil mon serviable ami

 

J’écrirai donc comme je parle et puis tant pis

Si quelque grammairien surgi de sa pénombre

Voulait me condamner avec hargne et dépit

Il est une autre science où je puis le confondre

Anonymous: Tidings from the Underworld (From Greek)

Greek Anthology 348
By Anonymous
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

After not getting much to eat or do
But getting sick a lot, I lived on through 
My years until I died. And fuck you, too.

The Original: 

Βαιὰ φαγὼν καὶ βαιὰ πιὼν καὶ πολλὰ νοσήσας,
ὀψὲ μέν, ἀλλ᾿ ἔθανον. ἔρρετε πάντες ὁμοῦ.

Martial: Epigram 3.69 (From Latin)

Epigram 3.69: On Cosconius' G-Rating
By Martial
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me read the original Latin

Such seemly words you write with, that in all
Your verse there is not one dick, and no balls.
None's holier. I praise what you have done. 
But all my pages are lubed-up for fun. 
Let slutty girls and pervy kids read me
And old men teased by girlfriends' coquetry,
And leave your venerable pious pages
To celibates and virgins of all ages.

The Original:

Omnia quod scrībis castīs epigrammata verbīs
inque tuīs nūlla est mentula carminibus,
admiror, laudō; nihil est tē sānctius ūnō:
at mea luxuriā pāgina nūlla vacat.
haec igitur nēquam iuvenēs facilēsque puellae,
haec senior, sed quem torquet amīca, legat.
at tua, Cōscōnī, venerandaque sānctaque verba
ā puerīs dēbent virginibusque legī.

Anonymous: Wall of Verse (From Latin)

Graffito on a Wall in Pompeii
Anonymous (1st cent. AD)
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

O Wall! I am amazed that you
Have not collapsed in disaster,
Holding the dead weight of so many
A ponderous poetaster.

Audio of me reciting this poem in Latin


The Original:

Admiror, ō pariēs, tē nōn cecidisse ruīnīs
quī tot scriptōrum taedia sustineās.

Grahame Davies: Tomb Raider (From Welsh)

Tomb Raider
By Grahame Davies
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original Welsh

Lets challenge every empire
Lets challenge Microsoft:
Rewrite the code controlling
The moves of Lara Croft.

She'll come from our cyber ghetto
On a mission even greater,
No pillager of temples
But a museum-raider.

Not swiping ancient treasures,
No English lordship's spawn
But a daughter of oppression
Shouting like a gun.

From every ancient culture
And every ravaged race
She's coming to the capitals,
A fist in the first world's face.

She's blasting through the bookshelves
To take our legends back
With guns of endless ammo,
Fluent in Welsh...and black.

Relics of ancient Egypt
Of Celts and Navajo-
She'll smash each glass display-case
To steal back what you owe.

She'll blow away the watchmen,
Blast down the iron doors.
Yo white boy! Here comes Lara
To take what isn't yours.


The Original:

Tomb Raider

Fe heriwn ymerodraethau;
fe heriwn Microsoft:
fe ail-'sgrifennwn raglen
rheoli Lara Croft.

O'n geto electronaidd
fe ddaw ar newydd wedd,
nid rheibiwr beddi mwyach
ond rheibiwr amgueddfeydd!

Nid lleidr beddi'r llwythau,
nid epil lord o Sais,
ond merch y gorthrymedig
â'u llafnau yn ei llais.

Ar ran pob hen ddiwylliant
a phob lleiafrif gwan,
fe ddaw i'r prifddinasoedd
i ddial ar ein rhan.

Mae'n dod i gipio'n chwedlau
o ffeiliau'r ysgolhaig.
Mae'n cario dryll dihysbydd.
Mae'n groenddu; mae'n Gymraeg.

Creiriau'r Celt a'r Eifftiaid,
trysorau'r Navaho;
chwelir eu cistiau gwydr,
dygir nhw yn ôl i'w bro.

Fe ddrylliai'r drysau haearn;
fe loriai filwyr lu.
Hei, Honci! Dyma Lara
i hawlio'n heiddo ni!

Heinrich Heine: "Those eyes of yours are two blue sapphires" (From German)

"Those eyes of yours are two blue sapphires"
By Heinrich Heine
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Those eyes of yours are two blue sapphires
So lovable, so sweet.
Oh, triply lucky is the man
Whom lovingly they greet.

That heart of yours is one white diamond
Pouring its noble beams.
Oh, triply lucky is the man
For whom it lovingly gleams.

Those lips of yours are two red rubies
And none more beautifully move.
Oh, triply lucky is the man
To whom they confess their love.

If only I knew that lucky man
Or caught him anywhere,
I'd drag his ass to the deep green wood
And end his luck right there.

The Original:

"Saphire sind die Augen"

Saphire sind die Augen dein,
Die liebichen, die süßen.
Oh, dreimal glücklich ist der Mann,
Den sie mit Liebe grüßen.

Dein Herz, es ist ein Diamant,
Der edle Lichter sprühet.
Oh, dreimal glücklich ist der Mann,
Für den es lieben glühet

Rubinen sind die Lippen dein,
Mann kann nicht schönre sehen.
Oh, dreimal glücklich ist der Mann,
Dem sie die Liebe gestehen.

Oh, kennt ich nur den glücklichen Mann,
Oh, daß ich ihn nur fände,
So recht allein im grünen Wald,
Sein Glück hat bald ein ende.

Catullus: Poem 105 (from Latin)

Poem 105: A Prick Named Dick
By Catullus
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original in a reconstruction of what Classical Latin sounded like
Click to hear me recite this translation in English

There once was a prick named Dick¹
Who climbed Parnassus too quick,
But the Muse with a scoff
Just jerked him straight off
With a pitchfork. He broke like a stick.

Note: -¹- i.e. Mamurra, one of Catullus' long-standing rivals, also apparently a really bad poet.

The Original:

Mentula cōnātur Pipleium scandere montem.
Mūsae furcillīs praecipitem eiciunt.