tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 05 21:51:41 1995
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
A Klingon terzina
- From: Nick Nicholas <[email protected]>
- Subject: A Klingon terzina
- Date: Mon, 6 Nov 95 7:46:14 EET
While in London, I had a brief liaison with a woman, to whom, a few
weeks later, I wrote a crown of sonnets in English. (A crown of sonnets
is a sequence of 15 sonnets; the first sonnet starts with the first line
of the 15th, and end with the 2nd line of the 15th; the second sonnet
starts with the 2nd line of the 15th, and end with the 3rd; and so on,
until the 14th sonnet.) It had the following terzina as a proem, which
I'm sending to you for your delectation as my first (!) original Klingon
work.
PROEM
raHel! raHel! qaratlhmoHmeH qapong;
HutHu' qatlheDmo'. DaH Hut Hogh vIchel,
'ej wej matay'. jIHvaD Dach yablIj 'ong;
Dach je ghopDu'lIj mach. Dach --- Su', raHel ---
je ghoghlIj yu'egh. rut, 'ach, qaqawHa'DI',
QIt jIHvaD qetqa' ponglIj. pong vIqel;
vIwuv, raHel, raHeloy. loj qawHaq DI,
'ej jIHvaD nov DumojmoH moDbogh tup.
bInovchoH je, bInotlh 'e' vIchaw'Ha'DI'.
qachIl, raHel! HIchol! chu', ru', 'ej Qup
malja'maj Huj, wIchevDI'. DaH 'oH taHmoH
'oH taghbogh mu'. 'ej qoghlIjDaq vItlhup:
"ratlhmeH vay', bomHomvam, raHel, qajaHmoH.
wej ghu'maj DIch vIghaj, 'a pIch vIDIS:
bong tIqmajDaq jIpachchoHDI', jIyaHmoH.
vIyajmeH DaH vIjon vInIDDI' --- nIS."
Myrtia (Varvari), Crete, 1995-9-29
***
Rachel! Rachel! I call you out to make you stay;
for I left you eight days ago. Now I add eight weeks,
and we are still not together . I miss your cunning mind,
as well as your small hands. I miss too --- hark, Rachel ---
the wave of your voice. Yet often, when I cease remembering you,
your name slowly runs back to me. I consider the name;
I depend on it, Rachel, dear Rachel. The memory banks' debris is lost,
and the hastening minute makes you a stranger to me.
You become a stranger even when I forbid your obsolescence.
I am losing you, Rachel! Come to me! New, transitory, and young
was our strange business, when we severed it. Now it is continued
by the word that started it. And I whisper in your ear:
"I make this little song go to you, Rachel, so that something may remain.
I do not yet have certainty on our situation, but I confess my guilt:
As soon as I accidentally planted it into our hearts, I had it taken away.
Now, when I try to capture it in order to understand it --- I disrupt it."
--
Nick Nicholas. Linguistics, University of Melbourne. In Greece until Feb. '96.
Normally: [email protected]
TEMPORARILY (until end of '95): [email protected]