29.4.11

Translated from the Hittite

A baby girl was born to Hulsa and Amani
The third year after the barley dearth
A baby girl was born to Hulsa and Amani
And she was preferred by the birds

Amani was so proud of her baby girl
But Hulsa wanted a boy and begrudged her food
Amani gave the baby girl to a sage
And she was still preferred by the birds

A baby boy was born to Hulsa and Amani
The fifth year after the barley dearth
The birds circled above and the liver
Told of things ominous in the future

Hattalippi the sage took good care
Of the girl and taught her many things
How to read the birds’ flight
How to make balms and vanishing creme

The boy fell ill in his eleventh year
The girl knew it from the birds’ flight
The sage sent her off to her family
And she cured her brother with a balm

But then the Assyrians came one year
And no-one in the village was spared
Except the girl and her brother
Because they’d applied her vanishing creme

And the girl and her brother lived alone
In the village for many many years
And they were known all over Hatti lands
For their balms and vanishing creme

Reconstituted and translated from an anonymous Hittite fragment and rendered by L. Blumfeld in condensed form in modern English.

Posted for NaPoWriMo day 29. Today’s task would have been “an act of homophonic translation. In other words, ‘translate’ a poem from a language you don’t know into English, based on how the words look or sound.” This post is different, of course, in that it is not a homophonic but a more or less accurate (i.e. semantically based) translation. However, Hittite is definitely a language I don’t know.

– Iself

8 comments:

Mary said...

This story really captured my attention. You did well with a difficult prompt!

Mariya Koleva said...

That story is really fascinating. And the verse is so well-woven. It's very delightful to read again and again.

Stan Ski said...

Great post! Any of tht vanishing creme left?

Andy Sewina said...

Yeah great story and the bit about vanishing creme is a brilliant stroke!

flaubert said...

Love how you tackled this prompt. Nice.

Pamela

Anonymous said...

You did well with this horrible prompt.

Rosemary Nissen-Wade said...

This is gorgeous. I love the tale.

Anonymous said...

such a great story, beautifully recomposed... it reads so "smoothly" throughout. And Hittite! Thought I might give it a go: took one look at the script and ran gibbering back to Greek. Excellent stuff.