Course Process
In this exercise participants are going to see some examples of poems written in two languages and discuss them, in order to get inspired for writing their own poems later on. A translation in English is provided for the verses that are in a language different from English.
Examples of Mixed-Language Poems
Maid of Athens, ere we part – Lord Byron (1810)
| Original | Translation |
|---|---|
| Maid of Athens, ere we part, Give, oh, give me back my heart! Or, since that has left my breast, Keep it now, and take the rest! Hear my vow before I go, |
|
| Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ. | My life, I love you. |
| By those tresses unconfined, Wooed by each Ægean wind; By those lids whose jetty fringe Kiss thy soft cheeks’ blooming tinge; By those wild eyes like the roe, |
|
| Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ. | My life, I love you. |
| Maid of Athens! I am gone: Think of me, sweet! when alone. Though I fly to Istambol, Athens holds my heart and soul: Can I cease to love thee? No! |
|
| Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ. | My life, I love you. |
The Waste Land – T. S. Eliot (1922) (some verses)
I. The Burial of the Dead (Some verses)
| Original | Translation |
|---|---|
| What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. |
|
| Frisch weht der Wind Der Heimat zu Mein Irisch Kind, Wo weilest du? |
The wind blows fresh To the Homeland My Irish Girl, Where are you lingering? |
| “You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; “They called me the hyacinth girl.” —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. |
|
| Oed’ und leer das Meer. | Empty and desolate the sea. |
Lament For The Makaris – William Dunbar (~1508) (some verses)
| Original | Translation |
|---|---|
| I that in heill wes and gladnes, Am trublit now with gret seiknes, And feblit with infermite; Timor mortis conturbat me. |
I who enjoyed good health and gladness, Am overwhelmed now by life’s terrible sickness, And enfeebled with infirmity; How the fear of death dismays me. |
| Our plesance heir is all vane glory, This fals warld is bot transitory, The flesche is brukle, the Fend is sle; Timor mortis conturbat me. |
Our presence here is mere vainglory, The false world is but transitory, The flesh is frail, the Fiend runs free; How the fear of death dismays me. |