Rampolli - A Year's Diary of an Old Soul
Home - George MacDonald - Rampolli - A Year's Diary of an Old SoulPrev | Next | Contents
RAMPOLLI: A YEAR'S DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL
PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATIONS.
I think every man who can should help his people to inherit the earth by bringing into his own of the wealth of other tongues. In the flower-pots of translation I offer these few exotics, with no little labour taught to exist, I hope to breathe, in English air. Such labour is to me no less serious than delightful, for to do a man's work, in the process of carrying over, more injury than must be, is a serious wrong.
I have endeavoured, first of all, to give the spirit of the poetry.
Next, I have sought to retain each individual meaning that goes to form the matter of a poem.
Third, I have aimed at preserving the peculiar mode, the aroma of the poet's style, so far as I could do it without offence to the translating English.
Fourth, both rhythm and rime being essential elements of every poem in which they are used, I have sought to respect them rigorously.
Fifth, spirit, matter, and form truly represented, the more literal the translation the more satisfactory will be the result.
After all, translation is but a continuous effort after the impossible. There is in it a general difficulty whose root has a thousand ramifications, the whole affair being but an accommodation of difficulties, and a perfect translation from one language into another is a thing that cannot be effected. One is tempted even to say that in the whole range of speech there is no such thing as a synonym.
Much difficulty arises from the comparative paucity in English of double, or feminine rimes. But I can remember only one case in which, yielding to impossibility, I have sacrificed the feminine rime: where one thing or another must go, the less valuable must be the victom.
But sometimes a whole passage has had to suffer that a specially poetic line might retain its character.
With regard to the Hymns to the Night and the Spiritual Songs of Friedrich von Hardenberg, commonly called Novalis, it is desirable to mention that they were written when the shadow of the death of his betrothed had begun to thin before the approaching dawn of his own new life. He died in 1801, at the age of twentynine. His parents belonged to the sect called Moravians, but he had become a Roman Catholic.
Perhaps some of Luther's Songs might as well have been omitted, but they are all translated that the Songbook might be a whole. Some, I cannot tell how many or which, are from the Latin. His work is rugged, and where an occasional fault in rime occurs I have reproduced it.
In the few poems from the Italian, I have found the representation of the feminine rimes, so frequent in that language, an impossibility.
Table of Contents
RAMPOLLI: A YEAR'S DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL
PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATIONS.
FROM NOVALIS.
HYMNS TO THE NIGHT
HYMNS TO THE NIGHT.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
LONGING AFTER DEATH.
SPIRITUAL SONGS.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
HYMN.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
A PARABLE.
FROM SCHILLER.
THE TRYST
THE WORDS OF
THE WORDS OF
SAYINGS OF
FRIEND AND
EXPECTATION AND
THE TRYST.
HOPE.
THE WORDS OF FAITH.
THE METAPHYSICIAN.
THE PHILOSOPHERS.
SAYINGS OF CONFUCIUS.
I.
II.
KNOWLEDGE.
MY FAITH.
FRIEND AND FOE.
EXPECTATION AND FULFILMENT.
THE DIVER
KNIGHT TOGGENBURG.
LONGING.
FROM GOETHE.
POEMS
THE CASTLE ON THE
POEMS.
LEGEND.
AFTER THE MANNER OF HANS SACHS.
THE CASTLE ON THE MOUNTAIN.
FROM UHLAND.
THE LOST CHURCH
THE LOST CHURCH.
THE DREAM.
FROM HEINE.
LIEDER, IV.
LYRISCHES INTERMEZZO, XXXVIII
LIEDER.
IV.
LYRISCHES INTERMEZZO.
XXXVIII.
LYRISCHES INTERMEZZO.
XLI.
LYRISCHES INTERMEZZO.
XLV.
LYRISCHES INTERMEZZO.
LXIV.
DIE HEIMKEHR.
LX.
LXII.
DIE NORDSEE
FIRST CYCLE.
XII.
PEACE.
FROM VON SALIS-SEEWIS.
THE GRAVE.
PSYCHE'S MOURNING
THE GRAVE.
PSYCHES MOURNING.
FROM CLAUDIUS.
THE MOTHER BY THE CRADLE
THE MOTHER BY THE CRADLE.
CONTENTMENT.
FROM GENESTET.
THREE PAIRS AND ONE.
FROM THE GERMAN
SONG OF THE LONELY.
FROM PETRARCH.
PART I. SONNET LIX.
PART II. SONNET LXXV.
MILTON'S ITALIAN POEMS.
I.
II.
III.
CANZONE.
IV.
V.
VI.
LUTHER'S SONG-BOOK.
DAME MUSIC.
LUTHER'S SONG-BOOK.
I. ADVENT
II. CHRISTMAS
III. EPIPHANY
IV. EASTER
V. PENTECOST
VI. THE TRINITY
VII. THE CHURCH AND WORD OF GOD
VIII. GRACE
IX. THE COMMANDMENTS
X. THE CREED
XI. PRAYER
XII. BAPTISM
XIII. REPENTANCE
XIV. THE LORD'S SUPPER
XV. DEATH
XVI. THE PRAISE OF GOD
OF LIFE AT COURT
I. ADVENT.
II. CHRISTMAS.
I.
II.
III
A SONG OF THE LITTLE CHILD JESUS, FOR CHILDREN AT CHRISTMAS.
TAKEN OUT OF THE SECOND CHAPTER OF THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE
IV.
ANOTHER CHRIST-SONG.
III. EPIPHANY.
IV. EASTER.
I.
II. A SONG OF PRAISE FOR EASTER.
V. PENTECOST.
I.
II.
III.
A SONG OF PRAISE.
VI. THE TRINITY.
I.
II.
VII. THE CHURCH AND WORD OF GOD.
I.
THE TWELFTH PSALM.
II.
THE FOURTEENTH PSALM.
III.
THE FOURTY-SIXTH PSALM.
IV.
THE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOURTH PSALM.
V.
A CHILDREN'S SONG, TO SING AGAINST THE TWO ARCHENEMIES OF CHRIST AND HIS
HOLY CHURCH, THE POPE AND THE TURKS
VI.
A SONG OF THE HOLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH, FROM THE TWELFTH CHAPTER OF THE
APOCALYPSE
VII.
A SONG CONCERNING THE TWO MARTYRS OF CHRIST, BURNT AT BRUSSELS BY THE
SOPHISTS OF LOUBAINE, WHICH TOOK PLACE IN THE YEAR 1523
VIII. GRACE.
I.
THE SIXTY-SEVENTH PSALM.
II.
THE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHTH PSALM.
III.
A SONG OF THANKSGIVING FOR THE BENEFITS MOST GREAT WHICH GOD HATH SHOWN TO
US IN CHRIST
IX. THE COMMANDMENTS.
I.
II.
X. THE CREED.
XI. PRAYER.
I.
THE LORD'S PRAYER, BRIEFLY AND PLAINLY SET FORTH, AND TURNED INTO METRE.
II.
THE LITANY.
III.
XII. BAPTISM.
A SPIRITUAL SONG, CONCERNING OUR HOLY BAPTISM, WHEREIN IS BRIEFLY
CONTAINED WHAT IT IS, WHO HAS INSTITUTED IT, WHERETO IT SERVES,
XIII. REPENTANCE.
THE HUNDRED AND THIRTIETH PSALM.
XIV. THE LORD'S SUPPER.
I.
A SONG OF ST. JOHN HUSS, IMPROVED BY DR. MARTIN LUTHER.
II.
A SONG OF PRAISE.
XV. DEATH.
I.
II.
SIMEON THE PATRIARCH'S SONG OF PRAISE.
XVI. THE PRAISE OF GOD.
I.
II.
THE SONG OF PRAISE "TE TEUM LAUDAMUS," TURNED INTO GERMAN BY DR. MART.
OF LIFE AT COURT.
Prev | Next | Contents