My First Helsem Exercice

[Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>]

lojbab sent to me, at the request of the author, a booklet containing
Lojban poems by Michael Helsem. I'll be posting a selection of them
after I have checked the language and more or less figured out the
meanings. The originals have a rather distracting orthography which
I don't reproduce in my 'corrected' versions - they will be more
accessible this way - but I'll always append the originals and also
the author's own translations.

I'll use the original translations as a guide when doing the
corrections but I'll also do a re-translation afterwards to
express MY understanding of the Lojban version - and also
sometimes due to stilistic preferences.

Here is one of the poems called 'skadji' or 'Color-Desire'.


le rozgu .a lo zgike be sekai     The rose, or all music like it
leri kamyxunre ba lunra           in redness, will turn moonlike
xarnu nundunra ri'a .ia           stubborn winter because of, so I believe,
do .e ledo darno logji            you and the aloof logic of yours.

.icu'u le pu me do [ku]           As said by the you of past
ko fi mi ca cusku fe leiva        say now to me those
smaji valsi noi mi ke'a           soft words, which I
pujeca .iecai na natfe            then and now - Oh yes - do not deny

na'emu'i rolei jitfycipra         in spite of all the proofs against...

-----
Comments:

  (Setting aside the concrete nature of Lojban and accepting the
   unmarked figurative usage)

  le rozgu ba nundunra      the rose will be an event-of-winter,
                            the rose will turn winter

    Took me a while to find an English expression for this. I rather
    like this - and stating that all rosa music turns into winter...
    I vacillated here between 'a' and 'all' but finally chose 'all'.
    The original was missing the {be}.

  kamyxunre                 replaced the obviously outdated rafsi {kaz}

  lunra xarnu               something moving with the inevitability
                            of the Moon in its orbit

  .icu'u                    the original had {.isecu'u}

  le pu me do [ku]          the {me} was missing, {ku} is elidable

  na(bo) natfe              removed the unparseable {bo}

  na'e mu'i                 replaced the erroneous {na} with {na'e}

    The second verse is an example of a sentence where {fi/fe} seem to
    be almost unavoidable. I might, however, consider

         caku tecu'u mi ko cusku leiva ...
        [ko fi mi ca cusku fe leiva...]

    as an alternative to avoid the mental juggling which distracts
    the reader from the flow of the poem.

    The structure {cu'u le pu me do ko cusku...} is quite clever and
    nicely ambiguous. The past you and the imperative you are
    speaking/ougth to speak simultaneously in a way very difficult
    to convey satisfactorily in English.

   veion

 ------------

 The original by Michael Helsem from {le pamai jbopemci cukta
 ci'a la maiky'elsym}

le ROZgu .A lo ZGIke SEkai   The rose,or a music with
LEri KAzyXUNre ba LUNra      its redness, will be lunar-
XARnu nunDUNra RI'a .IA      stubborn in its winterhood, because of (I believe)
DO .e LEdo DARno LOGji       you & your distant logic.

.IseCU'u LE pu DO ku         As said by you before,
KO fi MI ca CUSku fe LEIva   again say to me those
SMAji VALsi NOI mi KE'a      soft words that i
puJEca .IEcai NAbo NATfe     then & now--yes!--don't deny

naMU'i ROlei JITfyCIPra      in spite of all the disproofs...

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