Since a full Chinese edition of Sappho isn't enough, I thought I'd try to convert some Sappho poems into songs. For the moment, I only have a fragment. Basically, on 20/3/19 I had a dream featuring a song, a Japanese one as far as I could recall upon waking up, which had a Chinese version where one line ended with 小时候. I took the part of the tune I remembered, cut the last 4 notes off, and fit a translation of Sappho LP 125 to it. This was started with the first two lines in the afternoon of 18/8/19, completed during dinner, and finally written down at 20:36. The video of the fragment (with the Chinese version at 4:39-4:54) is the occasion for this post.
因我自己 在年轻时候 也来编制花环 |
Yīn wǒ zìjǐ Zài niánqīng shíhòu Yě lái biānzhì huāhuán |
Upon thinking of this idea, I probably already had a few song ideas in mind. One of them I finally got to realize all the way forward in the night between 16 and 17/5/23. So, I took Edmond's restoration of Sappho LP 20, and converted it into a Chinese song which I will upload the video of precisely the weekend I post this on. In that night, I started by writing the chorus's lyrics and tune, then doing the whole song's lyrics. The next evening, I did the tune and tweaked the lyrics, and tweaks went on even the next morning. In the meantime, the English translation happened, 17/5/23 23:43 - 18/5/23 0:04, with a couple tweaks around 13 the next day. I then changed «在暴力的风暴里， / 海员都变得恐惧» -> «在暴力的风暴下 / 海员都真的害怕» 20/5/23 16:28 and «货物愿不得失去» -> «货物情愿不失去» -> «货物宁愿不失去» 25/5/23 23:25. I'm pretty sure that, by then, the swap of the lines «愿我从未来出发 / 当海浪高风很大» was already conceived and accepted. It would seem the tune of this song was subconsciously heavily inspired by a soundtrack commonly heard on the Youtube channel Sultan Sketches. The song is called 刮大风时 Guà dà fēng shí, "When strong winds blow". I introduced it as a normal Chinese song in the video, only to add at the end:
这首歌的原版就是一首埃德蒙兹教授修复的莎孚诗歌。 | The original version of this song is a Sappho poem restored by Professor Edmonds.
在别个视频，我会把那首诗歌谱曲而翻译成意大利语。 | in another video, I will set that poem to music and translate it into Italian.
Let's see it!
这首歌的原版就是一首埃德蒙兹教授修复的莎孚诗歌。 | The original version of this song is a Sappho poem restored by Professor Edmonds.
在别个视频，我会把那首诗歌谱曲而翻译成意大利语。 | in another video, I will set that poem to music and translate it into Italian.
Let's see it!
副歌： 刮大风时 浪好高时 在暴力的风暴下， 海员都真的害怕： 货物都扔入海里， 船舶引导到土地 副歌 当海浪高风很大 愿我从未来出发： 无论贵无论便宜， 货物宁愿不失去 副歌 如果海洋的大王 在海下的宝座上 有时得到我的货， 求求他退还给我 |
Fùgē: Guā dà fēng shí Làng hào gāo shí Zài bàolì de fēngbào xià, Hǎiyuán dōu zhēn de hàipà: Huòwù dōu rēng rù hǎi lǐ, Chuánbó yǐndǎo dào tǔdì Fùgē Dāng hǎilàng gāo fēng hěn dà Yuàn wǒ cóng wèi lái chūfā: Wúlùn guì wúlùn piányí, Huòwù nìngyuàn bù shīqù. Fùgē Rúguǒ hǎiyáng de dàwáng Zài hǎi xià de bǎozuò shàng Yǒushí dédào wǒ de huò, Qiúqiú tā tuìhuán gěi wǒ |
Chorus:
Strong winds blowing,
HIgh waves growing.
When a storm rages violently,
Sailors very fearfully
Throw their cargo out to sea
Steer to land so hastily.
Chorus
May I ne'er set off to sea
With winds blowing violently:
However cheap it may be,
May my cargo stay with me.
Chorus
If the ruler of the sea,
On his throne so watery,
Things of mine should ever see,
May he send them back to me!
Strong winds blowing,
HIgh waves growing.
When a storm rages violently,
Sailors very fearfully
Throw their cargo out to sea
Steer to land so hastily.
Chorus
May I ne'er set off to sea
With winds blowing violently:
However cheap it may be,
May my cargo stay with me.
Chorus
If the ruler of the sea,
On his throne so watery,
Things of mine should ever see,
May he send them back to me!
Another idea I had was to draw inspiration from a certain list of fragments to create a huge grieving-love song in Chinese. I started giving form to this idea in the night between 1 and 2/3/21, taking ROS 1.H.vii (Sappho 36) and converting it into the chorus of the song. After the tweak 燃成灰烬->燃烧不尽 from the night between 3 and 4/3/21, I never got back to it. Notice how that older version is blatantly copied from Wǒ rúhé zhīdào nǐ ài wǒ? Mandarin version. For the intro to this one, I devised the line «这首歌就是由许多莎孚诗歌编制的。 | This song is weaved together from several Sappho poems.» (Chinese 12/6/23 1:11, English as I put the line in here). Let's see it!
我的渴望 叫我发狂， 将我的心 燃烧不尽 |
Wǒ de kěwàng jiào wǒ fākuáng, Jiāng wǒ de xīn ránshāo bù jìn |
