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[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Please give me your feedback to my translation of the following poem. There are a few lines I think I am not quite translating correctly. This is a more or less literal translation with no attempt at rhythm or rhyme. Thanks!

Михаэль Энде
Ящик для игрушек

В ящике этом разные разности:
Компас, указывающий, где радости,
Листик засушенный Розы Ветров,
Книжка с живыми картинками снов,
Гвоздь золотой от подковы Пегаса,
Воздушный шар с веселящим газом,
Огарок блуждающего огонька,
Из хвоста кометы два волоска,
Камень, который на сердце лежал,
Зерно, посади его — выйдет коралл,
Радуги бывшей цветной черепок,
Словесного кружева цельный моток,
От воздушного замка воздушный ключик,
Копилка для звезд — там их несколько штучек,
Королевы пчел золотая корона,
Четыре пера от белой вороны,
Ракушка — слушать море звезд,
Солнечного зайчика хвост,
Лошадка на палочке деревянной,
Чтоб ускакать на ней в дальние страны,
Цветов фантазии свежий букет...

Может быть, ценности в этом и нет,
Может быть, все это — ерунда
И не пригодится вообще никогда,
Но поищите, а вдруг и у вас
Что-нибудь вроде есть про запас?

A Box for Toys
By Michael Ende

In this box are some odds and ends:
A compass, pointing toward happiness,
A dried leaflet of the Wind Rose,
A book with living pictures of dreams,
A golden nail from Pegasus' shoe,
The balloon with the cheerful gas,
The stub of a wandering candlelight,
Two threads from the tail of a comet,
The stone which lay in the heart,
A seed, plant it—and coral will appear,
A shard from a colorful rainbow of the past,
An entire skein of words on lace,
The inflatable key to an inflatable lock,
A box for stars—in it, a few doodads,
The golden crown of a queen bee,
Four feathers from a white crow,
A shell to listen to a sea of stars,
The tail-end of a ray of light,
A rocking horse on a wooden pole,
To gallop away on to distant lands,
A fresh bouquet of the flowers of imagination…

Maybe there is value in it and maybe not,
Maybe it is all junk
And will never be of any use,
But search there, and will you suddenly find
Something for a rainy day?

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

it's very good! just a few comments

лепесток - petal
веселящий газ - laughing gas (nitrous oxide)
блуждающий огонек - jack-o'-lantern; will-o'-the-wisp
Камень на сердце is an idiom meaning some (possibly secret) grief
воздушный зАмок (not замОк) is a castle in the air, a cloud-castle
Копилка для звезд — там их несколько штучек, - а piggy-bank for stars, with a few [stars] inside

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Ok, thank you. One question though... where are you seeing лепесток?

[oryx_and_crake]

oh, my mistake, it's листик, not лепесток - "Листик засушенный Розы Ветров"
Сan you really use "leaflet" for a small leaf? For me, a leaflet is a piece of printed paper.

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Leaflet means a small piece of printed paper. That's what I thought it was supposed to be. The Wind Rose is a man-made design as far as I know, so I thought it was some kind of small printed leaflet. What do you think?

[oryx_and_crake]

Certainly not. First, листик is certainly a plant leaf (a paper one would be листок). Second, a wind rose is, in a poetic sense, a rose, isn't it?

[oryx_and_crake]

I.e. I know that a wind rose is a special design on a map, but here the poet clearly regards it as being at the same time some sort of mysterious flower (telling us about far and mysterious countries, romantic seafaring, faraway lands, etc.)

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Also, do you have any suggestions for how to translate the "kamen na serdtse" line? Is this just a plain old idiom, in which case I should not translate it literally but say something like "A thing which caused a lot of grief"... or is it literally supposed to be a stone, and maybe also happens to be a play on words indicating that the stone was the cause of some grief?

[oryx_and_crake]

It's an idiom, so it's not "literally" supposed to be a stone. Is there an equivalent English idiom?

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

I'm going with...

The thorn that lay in my side. (closest equivalent I could think of).

Thanks for the help

[oryx_and_crake]

Yes, that sounds fine.

[zveriozha.livejournal.com]

Good job! =)

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

Ты молодец! (Untranslatable positive responce. :)

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Thanks, eh!

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

"But search there, and will you suddenly find"
- I would say, "you MAY suddenly find" - "а вдруг" implies both suddenty and unsureness.

[zverolov.livejournal.com]

It's not a rocking horse. It's a stick with a head of the horse:

[helen-ricky.livejournal.com]

Nice :)

[ammaelis.livejournal.com]

This is really beautiful, both the original and the translation...where did you find it? I know Michael Ende wrote the Neverending Story...did he write lots in Russian? Or is the Russian itself a translation from German?

[whitest-owl.livejournal.com]

As far as I know - Ende did not know Russian.

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Yes it was a Russian translation from German. One of my Russian students brought it to class and said she could not find an English translation, so I translated it. I don't think the author knew Russian. Yes, he was the writer of the Neverending Story. Here is a pretty good article about him on Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ende .

[aylie-serinde.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, it's a really beautiful poem, I've never read it before.
To my mind 'Огарок блуждающего огонька' means will-o-wisp..
And I would rather say..
'But search there, and maybe you'll suddenly find
Something like this for a rainy day?'
And is it really so that Michael Ende wrote the Neverending Story? Could you please tell me something about it, I admire the film from my childhood..