(no subject)

Okay. Back again with Pushkin. LJ friend avva pointed out a couple of things about yesterday's post:

1) Perhaps something like "trembling" or "quivering" would better render "трепетанье" (instead of my "babble"). Трепетанье is derived from трепетать and трепет, not трёп ("babble", a modern slang word).

2) Жизни мышья беготня... is more like the running-around-like-a-mouse crazy aspect of life. This is somewhat better phrased than my "running-around-like-crazy aspect of a mouse's life" though upon further reflection, they mean much the same thing, if you take account of the fac that the mouse doesn't enter as an actor here (as noted by avva), only as an adjective qualifying "беготня" and adding, perhaps, overtones of smallness, insignifance, that one might associate with a mouse.

These comments relate to yesterday's try for the lines:

Парки бабье лепетанье,
 Parcae prattling about nothing,
Спящей ночи трепетанье,
 Babble of a night that's sleeping,
Жизни мышья беготня...
 Frantic pace of mouse's tread...
Что тревожишь ты меня?
 Why do you disturb my bed?

Which I don't really like, since the nothing/sleeping combination is not a good rhyme at all, and of course there is that mouse.

(As an aside, I find it interesting how, having understood that "mouse" was an adjective in the line, I nonetheless allowed the mouse to slip back in as I freewheeled the last couplet. I had, in fact, at first understood the line the way avva explains it, but apparently not down to the rock-bottom foundation, not viscerally.)

Информация к размышлению: Further research on the Fates indicates that they aren't exactly given to "prattle." These are serious ladies about on serious business. On the other hand, Pushkin may be trying to say that the sounds he hears from them (in his mind) have become like old ladies carrying on about nothing.

Added note: Performing a "mousectomy" is easy.

Here's the revised section (rev. 2):

Парки бабье лепетанье,
 Empty talk The Fates deliver,
Спящей ночи трепетанье,
 Sleeping night is all a-quiver,
Жизни мышья беготня...
 Frantic pace of humdrum's tread...
Что тревожишь ты меня?
 Why do you disturb my bed?

And onward, in a freewheel:

Что ты значишь, скучный шепот?
 Tedious whisper, what's your point?
Укоризна или ропот
 Grumbling, are you out of joint
Мной утраченного дня?
 Jealous of the day that's fled?

That trochaic tetrameter is a real pain. There are four lines left, but casting them in the correct manner, in accordance with the rhyme scheme is going to be interesting.

To be continued.

Cheers...