Friday, April 25, 2014

An Old Protest Song


The prompt today is a classic: the fake translation. You take what a poem in a foreign language sounds like in your own and then tweak it into shape.

Predicator
Predicator
Take by permission,
Come fail all they demand of her
No fast sell--
Kill over fear,
Kill all who fail to predict her

Can't predict
It's so specific
You fuckin' bitched-up adjuster
Come on simulacra,
A Cassanova
So predictable of a monster


A little Sonic Youthy, maybe? Peire Cardenal was a troubadour who saw the worst results of the Albigensian Crusade and lived. He was pissed. He was known most for--and mostly wrote--sirventes, political satires. Here's a chunk from his story about how he'd basically tell God to go to hell because God is being all Judgy McJudgmenty. It's translated by W.D. Snodgrass, who's more palatable to me than Pound; the whole is called "A New Protest Song."

"I’ll now compose a brand new protest song
Which I’ll perform on the Last Judgment Day
Telling the Lord who contrived me from clay
That if He’s planning to claim I’ve done wrong
Then stick me down with those devils that scare me,
That I’ll just say: “Have a heart, Lord, and spare me!
I had torments in that damned world enough;
If You don’t mind, keep Hell’s pitchforkers off!”

This is the original of the Cardenal piece I "translated," which I chose for its techno-metal sounding title. I have no idea what it means. I suck at French, much less Occitan.

Predicator
Tenc per meillor,
Quam fai l'obra que manda far,
Non fas selui
Que l'obra fai
Que als autres vai predicar.

Qui en predic
Met son afic
Lo fach e-l dich deu ajostar,
Car meils lo cre
Aquel que-l ve
Son predic per l'obra mostrar.

Image: The man the myth the legend, from a manuscript. I've been seeing cardinals all over the place for the past week or so, so he should have shown up here by now.

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