The song of the Moldau - A translated poemsteemCreated with Sketch.

in #poetry5 years ago (edited)

Sometimes I descend into hours of procrastination nerdy nerdery of all kinds. Today I have translated a German poem into English... even though neither of these languages are my mother tongue.

Bertold Brecht

Das Lied von der Moldau

Am Grunde der Moldau wandern die Steine
Es liegen drei Kaiser begraben in Prag.
Das Große bleibt groß nicht und klein nicht das Kleine.
Die Nacht hat zwölf Stunden, dann kommt schon der Tag.

Es wechseln die Zeiten. Die riesigen Pläne
Der Mächtigen kommen am Ende zum Halt.
Und gehn sie einher auch wie blutige Hähne
Es wechseln die Zeiten, da hilft kein Gewalt.

Am Grunde der Moldau wandern die Steine
Es liegen drei Kaiser begraben in Prag.
Das Große bleibt groß nicht und klein nicht das Kleine.
Die Nacht hat zwölf Stunden, dann kommt schon der Tag.


In my fast translation...

The song of the Moldau

The stones wanders slow on the bottom of Moldau
Three emperor's corpses are buried in Prag.
The great will not stay great, and small not the small.
The night has twelve hours, and then comes the day.

The times they are changing. Magnificent plans of
The mighty will come to a halt in the end.
And are they still crowing like some bloody roosters
The times they are changing, and no changing that.

The stones wanders slow on the bottom of Moldau
Three emperor's corpses are buried in Prag.
The great will not stay great, and small not the small.
The night has twelve hours, and then comes the day.



Bertold Brecht in his apartment in Berlin 1927. image source

This beautiful poem that was written in Bertholt Brecth's exile in the US in 1943 had a big influence in the left wing in Denmark. There's still a publishing house named after the first line of the second verse, Tiderne Skifter, the times are changing.

Here's a Danish version from the late seventies:

I am sure also Bob Dylan had this poem in mind when he wrote his,The times are a changing...

Lats a version with the original German text and the original German music by Hans Eisler:


I have made a few other posts with translations mostly from Danish to English but also from Old Norse, Swedish and Spanish: Here they are:

Sort:  

Hello @katharsisdrill, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.35
TRX 0.12
JST 0.040
BTC 71288.26
ETH 3580.30
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.77