Thanks for sharing the images of your copy! [I've removed the one image of the page with Tolkien's work on it, as that is still under copyright]

Urulókë wrote:
Thanks for sharing the images of your copy! [I've removed the one image of the page with Tolkien's work on it, as that is still under copyright]

Urulókë Are you sure the other images are also out of copyright, how do we know?

Images of the book covers, title page, table of contents, and copyright info I consider to fall into fair use for works still under copyright.

It would be good to credit the artist for the gryphons that appear on the TOC if possible though?

[Admin removing infringing video, sorry - Urulókë ]

I have two translations of the poem, one from a YouTube channel which is now deleted and one from a member who I will not name unless they feel the need to do so themselves. I feel this is a decent translation, especially for someone who does not speak the language they are translating from. I will compare it to the other two and see how it sits with them.

Thanks for posting the video Trotter.

onthetrail wrote:

I have two translations of the poem, one from a YouTube channel which is now deleted and one from a member who I will not name unless they feel the need to do so themselves. I feel this is a decent translation, especially for someone who does not speak the language they are translating from. I will compare it to the other two and see how it sits with them.

Thanks for posting the video Trotter.

Having looked over it with the other translations I have I would conclude that it doesn't stand up against them. But I do like the effort he has put into it.

I absolutely loved the story and research they put into the first 8 minutes, that was excellent.

I’ve spoken at length (previously) with the Estate about this poem. It was made quite clear to me that they still do not want to publish the work in any form outside of the Klett-Cotta Almanac already released, and that includes translations.

An admirable effort and I am quite happy that people take on personal projects like this, but publishing and linking to it here is tantamount to announcing it to the Estate for a takedown request. Enjoy it while you can!

Thanks for sharing Trotter! I wonder why the Estate does not want to publish this text... Urulókë did they give you any information about its date of composition ?

I don’t have any information on when it was written, sorry.

(Just for posterity) - Klett-Cotta and Scull/Hammond’s Companion and Guide (Reader’s Guide, 2017, p. 261) also have no indication.

I am quite happy to see someone try their hand at German but as a professional translator I am always only one tiny aneurysm away from a stroke when I see people using Google Translator when there is a much, much better translation option online with DeepL (a company based in my hometown of Cologne, by the way.) If you ever need English/German translations that's the place to go to, not GT.

Having said that, a re-translation of a poem by an artist steeped in 19th century traditions, working in parts inspired by 19th century German texts and/or scholarly editions, I would presume ('Nibelungenlied' etc.), and then translated into German, supposedly around 1985/1986 for this 1987 publication, by a translator born in 1936 (Schütz passed away in 2004) and therefore working from cultural traditions of the late 19th, early 20th century, into 'modern-day English' is what we call in German a 'Himmelfahrtskommando.'

Just one detail, to give you an example:

The Complaint of Mîm, the Dwarf is translated as "Mîms Klage" into German and the YTer opts for "Lamentations" - but if you do not know anything about the Nibelungenlied and even less about Richard Wagner's operas (oh, the Wagnerian crowd is going to love this ) then you will not know about "Mimes Klagegesang."

"Mime" is the name of the smith in Wagner's SIEGFRIED (Sigurd) and there is "Mimes Klagesang" in the first movement of the opera. He is the brother of Alberich, a dwarf.

To any German with a minimum level of what some people might term "classical education" there can only be a "Klage", a "complaint", and the reason why the German poem title does not include "the Dwarf" is because any reader would subconciously and immediately assume that "Mîm" is a dwarf, so no need to actually mention that.

I would have to finally read the two Wagner books at Walking Tree Publishers whether they mention this tiny detail but there might be a link between Tolkien and his like/dislike of Wagner in this, quite besides the perennial question of the RING cycle as an inspiration for Tolkien