English translation: to listen to the quiet babbling of the brook
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17:45 May 3, 2010
Danish to English translations [Non-PRO] Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature / natur
Danish term or phrase:at lytte til bækkenes fortrolige klukken
Er det "en bæk" eller "et bækken"? Og hvad med "klukken"? Er det noget med "brook/brooklet gurgle"?
There are lots of options on this: why has the Danish writer chosen ´klukken´ rather than ´rislen´, which is often associated with a ´bæk´?
´Fortrolig´... intimate, as in friendly, soothing,
The sound is homely and comforting in the background, perhaps like a small child gurgling contentedly in its cot or playing in its own little world, talking to the toys.
I am not musical, and often ´tone deaf´ to poetry, but this one, which I learned by heart at school, got through even to me!
Tennyson has lots of suggestions... http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-brook-2/
The Brook by Alfred Lord Tennyson
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
Christine Andersen Denmark Local time: 08:42 Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 14
The translation workplace 
