• Quot linguas calles, tot homines vales. — attributed to the polyglot Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
• • You’re worth as many people as the languages you speak.
• • The more languages you speak, the more people you are.
• • Speak a new language, be a new person.
• • New language, new person.
• • New tongue, new man.
Category Archives: Translation
Lord, What Fuels These Portals Be!
Midnight, one more night without sleeping.
Watching ’til that morning comes creeping.
Green Door: what’s that secret you’re keeping?There’s an old piano and they play it hot behind the green door!
Don’t know what they’re doing but they laugh a lot behind the green door.
Wish they’d let me in so I could find out what’s behind the green door.Knocked once, tried to tell ’em I’d been there.
Door slammed — hospitality’s thin there.
Wondering just what’s going on in there.Saw an eyeball peepin’ through a smoky cloud behind the green door.
When I said “Joe sent me” someone laughed out loud behind the green door.
All I want to do is join the happy crowd behind the green door.
Otra noche mas que no duermo.
Otra noche mas que se pierde.
¿Que habrá tras esa puerta verde?
Suena alegremente un piano viejo
tras la puerta verde.Todos ríen y no se que pasa
tras la puerta verde
No descansaré hasta saber que hay
tras la puerta verde.Toqué, y cuando contestaron
dije ¡Ah! que a mí me llamaron.
Risas, y enseguida me echaron.Sólo pude ver que mucha gente allí se divertía,
y entre tanto humo todo allí se confundía.
Yo quisiera estar al otro lado de la puerta verde.Otra noche mas que no duermo.
Otra noche mas que se pierde.
¿Que habrá tras esa puerta verde?
¿Que habrá tras esa puerta verde?
¿Que habrá?
Elsewhere Other-Accessible…
• “The Green Door” (1956), music by Bob “Hutch” Davie and lyrics by Marvin J. Moore
Cosa Globosa
• Il calcio è la cosa più importante delle cose meno importanti — Arrigo Sacchi
• • “Football is the most important of the unimportant things in life.” — Arrigo Sacchi
Cats and Dogmas
« Les chats furent créés dans notre monde pour réfuter le dogme que toutes choses furent créées pour servir l’Homme. » — Froquevielle
• “Cats were created in our world to refute the dogma that everything was created to serve mankind.”
Post-Performative Post-Scriptum
I can’t find any more details of “Froquevielle”, which may be a misspelling.
Félosophisme
« Tous les chats sont mortels, Socrate est mortel, donc Socrate est un chat. » — Rhinocéros (1959) par Eugène Ionesco (1931-94)
• “All cats are mortal, Socrates is mortal, therefore Socrates is a cat.”
ზამვარდები
ვარდები
მე, ზამთრისაგან ჯაჭვაწყვეტილი,
ნაცნობ ბაღისკენ მივემართები,
სად ფერად უცხო, ყნოსვად კეთილი,
ზამთარ და ზაფხულ ჰყვავის ვარდები.
Roses
Unchained from winter,
I walk to a long-known garden,
Where, sweet-scented and bright,
Roses grow winter and summer through.
• ვარდები, გალაკტიონ ტაბიძე
• “Roses”, Galaktion Tabidze — a translation into English
Genoa Ultramarina
«Il mare è la civiltà», disse [Franco Scoglio] una volta, «il sentimento, la passione, le tempeste, ma l’amore, gli sbarchi, le partenze, il mare è tutto. La follia va di pari passo con il mare». — Ultrà. Il volto nascosto delle tifoserie di calcio in Italia, Tobias Jones (2020)
• “The sea is civilization,” [Franco Scoglio] said once, “sentiment, passion, storms, love, landings, leavings, the sea is everything… madness walks with the sea.” — Ultra: The Underworld of Italian Football, Tobias Jones (2019)
Post-Performative Post-Scriptum
I’m not sure if the Italian is the original Italian or an Italian translation of Jones’s English translation of the original Italian. But it seems to be the former.
Elsewhere other-accessible…
• Franco Scoglio en italiano
• Franco Scoglio in English
Homnibus
Omnes una manet nox. — Horace, Odes 1, 28.
• “One night awaits us all.”
Pascal’s Paradox
« Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. » — Blaise Pascal, Lettres provinciales (1657)
“I’ve made this [letter] longer only because I haven’t had time to make it shorter.” — Blaise Pascal
Monetomania
« La couleur est mon obsession quotidienne, ma joie et mon torment. » — Claude Monet (1840-1926)
“Color is my day-long obsession, my joy and my torment.” — Claude Monet
Overlord In Terms of Core Issues Around Maximal Engagement with Key Notions of the Über-Feral 