Das Angenehme dieser Welt
Das Angenehme dieser Welt hab’ ich genossen,
Die Jugendstunden sind, wie lang! wie lang! verflossen,
April und Mai und Julius sind ferne,
Ich bin nichts mehr, ich lebe nicht mehr gerne!
An Zimmern
Die Linien des Lebens sind verschieden
Wie Wege sind, und wie der Berge Gränzen.
Was hier wir sind, kan dort ein Gott ergänzen
Mit Harmonien und ewigem Lohn und Frieden.
—Hölderlin
His method was to take hold of every item of the original diction and wrench it across into German exactly as it stood in its syntax, word order, and lexical sense. The result was strange. He made it stranger. Judging his first versions of Oedipus “not lively enough,” he reworked them, choosing ever the more violent word, pulling toward that smell of burning.
—Anne Carson’s annotation of Wonderwater by Roni Horn
The Pleasurable of this World
The pleasurable of this world have I enjoyed,
The youthhours are, how long! how long! elapsed,
April and May and July are remote,
I am nothing more, I live not more willingly!
To Zimmer
The lines of the life are deceased
How ways are, and how the mountain’s borders.
What here we are, can there a god replenish
With harmonies and eternal meed and peace.
[Sadly, I don't think it is quite as "strange" from German to English as it was from Greek to German.]
