So on 3/7/22, as I read through the diary entry for 26/9/09 for dating info for the HS3 Catullus translation, I see the sentence «Distrahor a poema prov[entiali] cuius traduco partem» (I get distracted by a provençal poem which I partly translate). What? Where is this translation? Does it even still exist? Into what language was it? I have no memory of it… well, not entirely true. See, I remember this poem, "Farai un vers de dreit nien" by William IX of Aquitaine, which had a translation into Italian on its side whose l. 1 was «Una poesia farò di puro nulla», and I believe I noticed that was a hendecasyllabic and tried to render the whole of verse 1 into hendecasyllabics, or perhaps alternating those with settenari or quinari the way the original alternates longer and shorter lines.
Therefore, I'd guess this translation was either done on computer, in which case it's completely lost, presumably to the famous broken Hard Disk, or written on the Italian notebook as I studied Italian, in which case I have to find the dang thing. Unfortunately, the HS3 Italian stuff does not include this translation, so if we ever access that broken HD we will know if I even ever wrote it down. In any case, I now (12/11/22) add the translation that inspired me to do this kinda divertissement in the "not mine" tab.
In any case, it's time for a
IAFI quote: 「With the inspiration of "If I don't find that old translation, I'll still have one on the blog", at 1:51-1:55 on 6/7/22, I translate the first two lines to Italian, with l. 2 having the variants «Né su di me né su dell'altra gente» and «Né su di me né inver su altra gente» along with another forgotten one. On 20/7/22 0:26-0:34 I complete verse 1, and start verse 2 with «Io non so in quale ora sono nato,» at 17:07. 29/7/22 23:11 I change «Altro lui è» to the below, then after remaking the extra line within the same minute I change it to mi sia => io sia at 23:12.」 And that's the story. Well, while drafting this post, at 0:51 on 6/8/22 I come up with the three -ato lines of stanza 2 that aren't the first one, one of them being «Da tanto che di notte fui stregato», with the idea to copy the short lines from
here, but since I don't really like how "pueg", which should mean "poggio", became "crinale", I try hard, and at 0:55-0:56 I finally solve this riddle.
Actually, I also have one line in French: «While I work on the Italian, I randomly think that "joven" in l. 3 would be jeunesse in French, and as a rhyme with that, at 1:56 I come up with l. 1», which reads «J'farais un vers de pleine videsse». On 5/8/22 at 22:56, just to get that rhyme going, I write «Ça n' s'ra d'amour ni de jeunesse / Ni de rien d'autre,», commenting «Meh, also no way we're rhyming that with the last line». For now, I'm leaving this buried here as trivia, and in IAFI when I update it, but I don't really plan to continue this. Especially since it's already been done and is available
on Lyricstranslate.
Not wanting to make a whole new post just for this, I decided to extract the last item of
A few last poems and put it here instead. So let me quote that item: 「Chantars no pot gaire valer, aka verse 1 of a poem by Bernart de Ventadorn, which I translated into Italian hendecasyllabics and English octosyllabes, both keeping the rhymes, either between Feb 4 and 5, or in the morning of Feb 4, in 2010, while lying in bed; except that's incorrect; that's the date of the Italian, but the English was made only on 14/2/10; this also means that I mis-layouted the thing, because the English now has to move down and the Italian sides with the original; that neapolitanism in the Italian is a real pity, but I found no other way to make the rhyme; the English originally had the line «Thus is my love perfect and rare:», which was identified as a translation mistake and fixed as part of a series of changes to my translations and my poem called Revisio I, which took place «die Aprili XII cenatus post Striscia» (on 12/4 after dinner and Striscia, so on 12/4/10 after watching Striscia La Notizia on Canale5 on TV).」The 5/2/10 says that I translated this «heri in lecto» (yesterday in bed) into Italian, so in the night between 4 and 5. The manuscript in the diary actually has «Ché nel gaudio d'amore ordino e tenno / La bocca, gl'occhi, l'animo e lo senno» overwritten with «Ché al gaudio d’Amore ordino e tenno / La bocca, gl’occhi, l’animo ed il senno.». The change to the first line got lost on the way to the blog, for whatever reason. At 17:21 on 21/3/23, as I note these two changes, I think of fixing it to «Poi ch'al gaudio» to avoid the hiatus. Maybe I reverted the change to «al gaudio» at some point for this reason? Maybe one day I'll translate that into some other language and avoid the lonely centered English at the bottom of this post.
OK, let's see these!
Farai un vers de dreit nien
Non er de mi ni d'autra gen
Non er d'amor ni de joven
Ni de ren au
Qu'enans fo trobatz en durmen
Sus un chivau
No sai en qual hora.m fui natz
No soi alegres ni iratz
No soi estranhs ni soi privatz
Ni no.n puesc au
Qu'enaisi fui de nueitz fadatz
Sobr'un pueg au
Chantars no pot gaire valer,
Si dins dal cor no mou lo chans;
Ni chans no pot dal cor mover,
Si no i es fin'amors coraus.
Per so es mos chantars cabaus
Qu'en joi d'amor ai et enten
La boch'e·ls olhs e·l cor e·l sen.
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Una poesia farò di puro niente,
Non sarà su di me né su altra gente
Né su amor, né su gioventù: su niente
Altro lui è,
Anzi, a cavallo andando e dormïente
Scritto è da me.
Io non so in quale ora io sia nato,
Non sono allegro né sono adirato,
Non son straniero né qui sono nato,
Che posso fare?
Così su un monte, di notte, stregato
M'ebbi a trovare.
Una poesia farò di puro nulla:
Non sopra me né sopra gli altri,
Neppur d’amore e di gioventù,
E di null’altro,
Ch’anzi fu scritta mentre dormivo
Sopra un cavallo.
Non so in che ora io sono nato,
Non sono allegro, non sono afflitto,
Non son scontroso né amico stretto,
E non poss’altro,
Perché di notte così fui stregato
Su un alto poggio.
Non può valer gran cosa il poetare
Se non muove dal cuor profondo il canto.
Né canto fuor dal cuor non puote andare
Se non vi posa fino amor sincero.
Perciò perfetto è ’l mio cantar davvero,
Poi ch'al gaudio d’Amore ordino e tenno
La bocca, gl’occhi, l’animo ed il senno.
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A song cannot be worth a lot
If from the heart it does not move.
And song move from the heart cannot
If perfect love does not live there.
Thus is my song perfect and rare:
In joy of love I have and fit
My mouth and eyes and heart and wit.
