From Troilus & Criseyde

[mirrorshard]

To go with my current research obsession, a little bit of free translation (original):

Go, little book! Go, my little tragedy! Before I die,
God grant thy maker might to make a comedy.
But, little book--don't envy other work,
but bow down and kiss the ground
where Virgil, Ovid, Omer, Lucan, and Stace walk.

I fear there's such diversity in English,
pray God that none miscopy thee!
- or worse, mismeasure your lines aloud.
And wherever you're read, or even sung,
I beseech God you're understood!

Comments

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Hm, I see what you mean on both. If I avoid "thee", though, I'll need to change the order of the line around to avoid having the soft falling sound of "you" at the end - "pray God you're not miscopied!" perhaps.

"God grant thy maker might make" I'd rather avoid I think - that gives a lot of close alliteration, whereas "thy maker the might to make" sets up a repeating ababab, with the punch of the th->t shift in the third. It might work with a line split, and putting one in there anyway wouldn't hurt. Hm.

Edit: Oh, I hadn't used "the might" anyway. Maybe I should change that and stick a line split in.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

As you'll have realised by now, I took "might" as "would be possible", and I think this may confuse an audience. The line break could work for that.