Following the discussion which started with Post #175215, I submit to you six translations of the Renaissance Sonnet 18 by Louise Labé, five of which are in verse and one in prose.
Whose verse do you like the best? Do you prefer verse or prose? You are allowed to vote for more than one option.
For the French original please refer to Post #175215, however in my opinion you can also appreciate English without speaking the SL.
Here are the six translations, as numbered in the original thread (Thank you, Nanna for putting them together! With the new editor it takes hours to copy and paste and fix and refix. Just adding sonnet numbers to the original post took me half an hour this morning because the post fell apart as a result):
1. Graham Dunstan Martin
2. James Kirkup
3. Peter Low
4. Annie Finch
5. Edith R. Farrell
6. Gerard P. Sharpling (prose)
Kiss me again, kiss, kiss me again;
Give me the tastiest you have to give,
Pay me the lovingest you have to spend:
And I’ll return you four, hotter than live
Soals. Oh, are you sad ? There! I’ll ease
The pain with ten more kisses, honey-sweet,
And so kiss into happy kiss will melt,
We’ll pleasantly enjoy each other’s selves.
Then double life will to us both ensue:
You also live in me, as I in you.
So do not chide me for this play on words
Or keep me staid and stay-at-home, but make me
Go on that journey best of all preferred:
When out of myself, my dearest love, you take me.
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(2) Version by James Kirkup: http://colecizj.easyvserver.com/pflabbai.htm
Kiss me - O come on,
kiss! And yet another kiss!
Give me one of your
smackers, the juiciest kind -
send me one of your hot jobs!
I'll give you in turn
four more fiery than fire.
O, you're complaining?
I'll cure that ache, and give you
ten more, all sweeter than sweet.
Mingling our happy
osculations thus, let us
enjoy each other
in whatever fashion we
may find most agreeable...
When each has gone his way
each lives on for his friend, and
himself. - Love, let me
think up some new folly:
I'm still feeling so randy -
living discreetly
I can't give myself any
satisfaction, if
I don't get out now and start
some further hanky-panky.
-------------------
Kiss me, re-kiss me, kiss me again and more!
Give me a flavoursome delicious one,
give me an amorous ambitious one,
and I’ll give you a hot reply of four!
Oh, are you sad, let me relax you, please,
with ten sweet ones, kiss after honeyed kiss,
for by this means, the mingling of our bliss,
we’ll best enjoy each other at our ease.
Here is the double life lovers discover -
each lives in self and also in the other.
Permit me, love, to share a crazy thought:
I’m always sad when living self-contained;
my happiness can’t grow and be sustained
unless I take these risks and sally forth.
-------
Kiss me again, rekiss me, and then kiss
me again, with your richest, most succulent
kiss; then adore me with another kiss, meant
to steam out fourfold the very hottest hiss
from my love-hot coals. Do I hear you moaning? This
is my plan to soothe you: ten more kisses, sent
just for your pleasure. Then, both sweetly bent
on love, we'll enter joy through doubleness,
and we'll each have two loving lives to tend:
one in our single self, one in our friend.
I'll tell you something honest now, my love:
it's very bad for me to live apart.
There's no way I can have a happy heart
without some place outside myself to move.
-------
(5) Version by Edith R. Farrell: http://poems.com/special_features/prose/essay_townsend.php
Kiss me. Again. More kisses I desire.
Give me one your sweetness to express.
Give me the most passionate you possess.
Four I'll return, and hotter than the fire.
There, did they burn? I'll change that hurt to pleasure
By giving you ten others—all quit light,
Thus, as we mingle our kisses with delight,
Let us enjoy each other at our leisure.
This to teach one a double life shall give.
Each by himself and in his love shall live.
Allow my love this mad and foolish thought:
I'm always sad when living so discreetly,
And never find my happiness completely,
Unless a sally from my self I've sought.
Kiss me again, kiss me again and kiss me. If you give me one of those long, loving kisses of yours, I will give you four more kisses, hotter than live coals. And if you are feeling sad, I will soon ease the pain by giving you ten more sweet, gentle kisses. Our kisses will melt into another, and we will relax and enjoy being with one another. We will each lead a double life. You will live in me, and I in you. I know these are mad thoughts. But I wish, at least, that Love will give me the pleasure of holding them in my mind. And even if I am forced to lead a discreet and mundane life for a while, I take pleasure in the thought that I could be happy when you take me on a mad journey beyond myself. |