November 3, 2008

(The following have been deduced from a German translation of an excerpt from the Apocolocyntosis, a Latin work written by Seneca. I just love it when I get to figure out what's being said in two different languages that I'm not familiar with. Particularly because I'm also studying Latin.)

Da nahm Mercurius, der an des Mannes Talent immer sein Wohlgefallen gehabt hatte, eine von den drei Parzen auf die Seite und sprach: "Wie magst du doch, grausames Weib, den armen Mann so leiden lassen? Nie hätte er so lange geplagt werden sollen! Es sind jetzt schon vier und sechzig Jahre, dass er mit etwas zu kämpfen hat, was doch nur Luft ist. Warum bist du ihm und dem Staat so gram? Lass doch endlich einmal eintreffen, was die Astrologen sagen, die ihn, seitdem er den Thron bestiegen hat, jedes Jahr, jeden Monat zu Grabe tragen. Und doch darf es nicht befremden, wenn sie irren; niemand weiß seine Stunde, denn kein Mensch hat ihn jemals als geboren betrachtet. Tu deine Pflicht!

"There Mercury, who had always had his favor on the man's talent, took one of the three fates on the side and said: "But how do you like, cruel woman, to let a poor man suffer so? Never should he have been plagued for so long! It is now 64 years, that he had struggled with that, that is but only spirit. Why are you so (envious?) to him and the state? But finally let at once (I really have no idea what ein + treffen amounts to...), what the astrologers say, that they carry that since he had the throne, every year, every month to his grave. But it is not strange, if they err; no one knows his hour, then no man had ever considered him as being born. Do your duty!"

(Well, I sort of knew that Gefallen was some sort of word relative to favor, but I guess adding "Wohl" in front of it makes it a good favor, I guess. Parzen = fates; the Greek ones; Weib = woman; not as common as Frau, I guess. plagen = to plague; at least I think that's the infinitive; irren = to err; probably. The seine Stunde was the same as it was in the Latin; I believe they're referring to his death. betrachten = to consider; Pflicht = plight (that's actually where the English word comes from); duty)
Gib ihm den Tod; es nehme den Thron ein besserer Fürst ein!"

"Give him death; it takes the throne a better...(sorry, don't know that one either.)"
Aber Clotho sprach: "Fürwahr, ich gedachte ihm noch ein wenig Zeit zuzulegen, bis er die Handvoll Leute, die noch übrig sind, mit dem Bürgerrecht beschenkt hätte." (Er hatte ja beschlossen, alle Griechen, Gallier, Spanier, Britannier in der Toga zu sehen.) "Weil du es aber für gut hältst, dass noch einige Ausländer als Samen übrig bleiben, und du es so haben willst, wohlan!" Sie öffnete hierauf eine Kapsel, und langte drei Spindeln hervor. Die eine war die des Augurinus, die andere die des Babas, die dritte die des Claudius. Diese drei, sprach sie, will ich in einem Jahr bald hintereinander sterben lassen, er soll nicht ohne Gesellschaft dahingehen. Denn es wäre nicht in Ordnung, den auf einmal allein zu lassen, der eben noch erlebte, wie so viele tausend Menschen ihm voranzogen, so viele ihm nachfolgten, so viele sich um ihn drängten. Indessen mag er mit diesen Weggefährten zufrieden sein.

"But Clotho said: "For truly, I still thought to leave him a little time, until he had presented a hand full of people that are still remaining with the state." (He indeed had decided to see all the Greeks, Gauls, Spanish and British in the toga.) "But because you held it for good, that staying as a seed remaining... still an outsider (I have no idea how the grammar works there...I feel like I'm missing a verb or it's all in the wrong order.), and you want to have it so well!" Here she opened a chest, and before him, three long spindles. One of them was that of Augurinus, the other that of Babas, the third, that of Claudius. These three, she spoke, I want in a year should be killed soon, one after the other, he should not go away without company. Then it was not alright to let him at once be alone, who still had "seen" so many thousand men before him, so many after him, so many around him. He liked to be at peace with these wayfarers."

(Handvoll = hand full; it's just Hand + Voll; übrig = remaining, left over; ja = indeed; when used as a conjunction, beschlossen = to decide; Kapsel = capsule; maybe chest as it is in Latin; Spindeln = spindles; maybe the singular is Spindel; hintereinander is just hinter + ein + ander; one behind the other; Gesellschaft = company; allies--I shall have to see if I did actually see this in Final Fantasy VII. I might have...)
(Additional notes: I have finally considered that there is a posessive article for masculine nouns. At least. It's "des". I suspect you just use die and das for the other genders, but I've noticed the "des" used throughout this passage like that. I have considered this outside of this passage, but I conjecture that certain verbs have a past tense form which involves replacing the main vowel with "a". So sehe becomes "sah", finden, "fand", isst, "asst", treffe, "traf", nehme, "nahm", gebe, "gab", etc. These verbs are probably the ones that have "e" in them. As for the verbs that contain "a", I wouldn't really know...maybe they become "e"s? The form that I have found seems to replace either the first person singular or the third person singular--or both.)