Friday, 2 May 2025

The stars, the moon, and the official languages of Europe

So, today we have a Sappho fragment. We've already seen it here and also here, as well as in the various editions: it's the one about the stars around the moon, LP 34. Alongside the idea described at the sister post of this titled «Le stelle, la luna, e i dialetti italiani», I had the idea of making an episode for every continent, translating this thing to one official language per country of that continent. So let's see what I got for Europe:
  1. German from , dated «around 19 on 5/3/21, with the corrections suggested around 19:45 by this comment;
  2. Italian from the edition:
    • First two lines at 20:07 on 25/3/21;
    • At 20:08 «Or che più che mai...», changed to «Or che, piena, lei più che mai la terra / Riempie di luce.», then «... più che mai d'argento / Illumina il mondo.»;
    • At 21:58 «Or che, piena, argentea, brilla più che / Mai sulla terra», with the later annotation «=>splende»;
    • Finally at 22:03 «Or che, piena, argentea, più di tutto / Splende sul mondo.»;
  3. English from the post with the German, dated to «the night between 28 and 29/3/21, specifically around 1:25»;
  4. Albanian, dated 8/4/25 14:13-14:37;
  5. French, dated 9/4/25 8:43-8:45;
  6. Hungarian, dated 10/4/25 13:24-15:03, an actual Sapphic stanza;
  7. Spanish, dated 10/4/25 20:39-20:47 with plata suggested 23:37;
  8. Czech, dated 11/4/25 11:04-13:34, an actual Sapphic stanza;
  9. Slovak, dated 24/4/25 16:21-17:20, another actual Sapphic stanza; I hoped to quickly Slovakify the Czech, but no luck, kolem -> okolo just didn't fit the meter, and měsíc becoming mesiac too, and more such changes;
  10. BCMS (Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian), which came in its original form completely out of the blue 4/6/25 21:09/10, then I tried to make it metrical as per version Metrical-1 10/6/25 23:42 - 11/6/25 0:54, but several errors were in there; lots of back and forth with the author of the original version, namely Transatlantic on Quora, led to versions Metrical-2 and Metrical-3 at 12:52:48 on that same 11/6, and eventually, with more interactions, I got to the final version at 18:37:36 on the same day, which unfortunately «doesn't read like good poetry in Croatian. For several reasons: The filler words (sve, tu, našu) sound a lot of like pop or rock song writing from the 60s to the 90s, where they often used to add words just because they needed an extra syllable. Also, the non-canonical word order sounds unnecessarily perturbed (just to shoehorn the words into the desirec metre)», according to Transatlantic, but then again, I need something to sing to the tune;
  11. Portuguese, made specifically to pair it with Spanish and have something to pair with BCMS when adding it here, i.e. made 12/6/25 16:16-16:19; again, tried to Portuguesify the Spanish, ended up stuck at "cercano" :).
As you can see, still a long way to go.

Greek:

Ἄστερες μὲν ἀμφὶ κάλαν σελάνναν
ἂψ’ ἀπυκρύπτοισι φάεννον εἶδος,
Ὄπποτα πλήθοισα μάλιστα λάμπῃ
ἀργυρία γᾶν.



German:

Um den schönen Mond ihr Gesicht verdecken
Und ihr Licht noch wieder die Sterne, wie er
Voll und silberfarben, mit Strahlen Lichtes
Füllet die Erde.



Portuguese:

Cada estrela toda a sua luz esconde
Se está cerca da bela luna cheia
Quando ca sua luz prateada ela
Enche a Terra.



Hungarian:

Újra minden csillag a Hold körül most
Rejti fényét míg a csodálatos Hold
Á, telik megtölti ezüsttel ezt a
Földet az égről.



Czech:

Hvězdy opět teď všechny kolem měsíce
Své schovávají světlo, teď kdy, krásný,
Úplněk svět náš zaplnit se stříbr-
ným světlem, ó, svým.



French:

Les étoiles autour de la lune si belle
Cachent une autre fois leurs radieux visages
Maint'nant qu'elle est pleine et d' rayons d'argent em-
plit toute la terre.
Italian:

Ogni stella attorno alla bella luna
La brillante faccia nasconde ancora,
Or che, piena, argentea, più di tutto
Splende sul mondo.



English:

All around the beautiful moon, the stars
Once again their bright shining faces hide
As it, full and silver, more than them all
Lights up the Earth.



Spanish:

Cada estrella toda su luz esconde
Si la linda luna le está cercana,
Llena, mientras que todo el mundo llena
Con luz de argento(/plata?).



Albanian:

Yjet t' gjith' përreth hënës shum' së bukur
Prap' tani fytyrën të ndritsh'm e fshehin,
Esht' e plot' ajo, edhe Tok'n e mbush me
Rreze t' argjendtë.



Slovak:

Hľa, schovávajú všetok jas teraz svoj
Hviezdy blízko splnu zatiaľ čo, krásny
I streborný, on naplni svet, ó, svo-
jím svetlom jasným.
BCMS:

Okolo di̱vnoga mjese̱ca zvije̱zde
Iznova skriju svetlucav svo̱j li̱k
Kada god o̱n pun pona̱jjače sja̱
Svud po zemlji posrebrenoj.
BCMS:

Sve zvije̱zde mje̱sece bli̱zu kra̱snog
Svetlucav svo̱j li̱k kriju͜ ope̱t, kad o̱n, pun
I srebren, tu/tu̱ zemlju popli̱vi ra̱ža-
ma svetlosti svog.
BCMS:

Sve zvije̱zde u blizini mjese̱ca
Kra̱snoga svo̱j svetlo ope̱t kriju sve
Kad, pun i srebren, popuni̱ svetla zra-
kom našu zemlju.
BCMS:

Sve zvije̱zde u blizini mjese̱ca
Kra̱snoga svo̱j svetlo ope̱t kriju sve
Kad, pun i srebren, puni o̱n svetla zra-
kom našu zemlju.
BCMS:

Sve zvije̱zde u blizini mjese̱ca
Kra̱snoga svoje svetlo͜ ope̱t kriju sve
Kad, pun, o̱n srebra zrakama prepla̱vi̱
Tu̱ našu zemlju.

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