we could faintly hear the 'Russel'ing...............................
Translating Russian obscene speech into English is difficult, as Russian mat (as such swearing was called, a word with the same root as the word for "mother") tends to be far more varied, complex, and lavish than English swearing, and often quite different in form. For example, the original here, gonite pozhalusta ginirala karnilova k khuiam sobachim (the many misspellings are in the original), literally means "please drive General Kornilov to the dog pricks."
The Taco Bell guy and Machiavelli present this:
JOAN: So, you are saying what?
AIDAN: My upright friend,
One whom you once deemed pure as crystal birch
Has--
Let me stop.
JOAN: No! Carry on, my friend.
AIDAN: I can't. You'll tell her. You owe more to her
In like than you to me do. So I'll shout
Let silence set you free where truth cannot.
For truly, if I were to tell this vice
That tripped your kindness like a circus fool,
You'd beat her, whom you loved, whom I love still;
You know that cruelty's never as cruel
As when it is returned. Besides, my friend;
I am a loyal and very decent man:
You said this many times, to Vondila.
A secret, when made secret inside me,
Is never--for the artic seas--betrayed.
Let your blood pressure rest. Forget my words!
JOAN: Aidan, I'm asking you, I'm begging you, tell me. What did she do?
AIDAN: Do you implore to know?
JOAN: Yeah, yes, that's obvious.
AIDAN: But, please, mon cher,
Your vanity--I mean your honour--will
Be bruised by such vain, hateful manhandling
By which she treated you. Yet, she's mislaid;
And you and I, we righteous theorists,
Would not have one another killed for madness,
Even if madness tainted all our honour
Or lessened it so that it seemed a speck--
It would be so unfair. So that is that.
JOAN: Call my old theories idle if you want, but if someone's ******* around with my honour it's fine to throw them away; without honour, no one will listen to my theories in the first place.
AIDAN: That's very true.
You know the high regard with which I treat
Your theories; they shine like cedars in spring,
And, if luck works, they'll permeate everything.
[A maid enters]
AIDAN: Don't clean; I'll do that job. But I just need
To see you later, to give salary.
LEIA: Thank you, Aidan.
[The maid exits]
AIDAN: Where was I--?
JOAN (quickly:) You were telling me what she did.
AIDAN: A nice trick, but not one that will fool me.
(Pauses:) At any rate, Joan, I must leave you now.
I have business, to which I must attend:
Rooms to sweep, and the like. We'll talk, sometime.
[Aidan walks toward the door, but Joan restrains him]
JOAN: Oh, tell me the truth now, I must know.
AIDAN: So,
If I do tell this to you, you will see
I do this under torment of the heart:
One good friend's will against another's safety. [J. nods.]
AIDAN: Jezebel, whom you loved with half your heart,
And wanted as a conquest; well--I can't.
JOAN: Snap out of it and tell me!
AIDAN: You are rough
In begging me to tell you!
JOAN: Sorry, chum. I'm just worried.
AIDAN: Fair, fair enough. I'll start again. But hear:
If you once tell this truth to her, I'll pound
A million truths directly from you, or
Have someone else do this. Are you with me?
JOAN: Yes, Aidan. There is no one else that I would respect as much as you, or envy, or love. You amaze me; you know that?
AIDAN: You sing my praise too much
As though I were a maiden in the fog
And you a knight. However, I'll proceed.
Women, to me, are higher, but to you
Form some amusement--do not question this.
Our history has span like Jews' toys do.
You and I got talking nine months' ago,
When you were with that Northern Irish girl,
And we met on a ?'site for younger folks
That I had come to because Jezebel
Showed it to me, and pushed me into joining.
You, due to some consequence unbeknown,
Started to write on my board, the French board.
Like this, we started talking. On the board,
You loved a stern French girl called Aurélie,
Though she deplored you, like the sand hates sea.
And one day, you woke up, and took your ?'phone,
And found your friends had died in an attack
That wrecked Madrid. You posted your debris
Onto the French board. All, apart from two,
Offered condolences, bogus or true.
But, out of one, you noticed Jezebel,
Who offered hugs and kisses through your time
Of turmoil; thus, you cherished Jezebel.
JOAN: But I cherished her as a friend--
AIDAN: You lie.
You loved her as the famished love sick fruit
That, from despair, they take as gold. You gorged
Upon each false word that she threw to you--
Out of her love, of course.
But you soon found she was fallen in love
With some unworthy boy from Slough's grey depths,
And so, your love stopped there--or so you thought.
However, when she had broken her ties
With this bombastic choice of hers, you rushed;
And in vainglory, you held her despair
As your own pleasure. But, you had your doubts.
Firstly, you asked us whether she'd succumbed
To what you called ?'my gifts,' and--knowing not--
You made believe you wished I had her love,
How you thought that best friends should always find
Their friendship turn to something else. You then
Proceeded in your unattractive shot
At making her ?'fall,' as others have done.
She was repulsed, with obvious reason,
But, rather than shine in her prudishness,
She thought she'd turn the tables; despite my
Objections, she had fortified a plan:
-- ?'I'll be a fragrant fish,' is what she said,
?'I'll pierce the ocean's roof with my bobbing,
Until he tries to catch me with his hook,
And I will make myself the only carp
He wishes to call his. He'll set his eye
Upon me as ?'a loop, ?'til, happily,
I swoon up near his rod, gasping for air--
And then, when he is just about to win,
I'll fall back down into vast secrecy,
And show his time as wasted. So, my friend;
JOAN: She never loved me?
AIDAN: Hoping that she had
Even the slightest like of you, was vain.
She found you reprehensible. [Joan seethes]
AIDAN: To make the matters worse, my noble friend,
She never loved a man in her whole life--
She loves an awful creature called Raven.
There is the truth; you heard it not from me.
Although it hurts your pride, far better be
The less deceived. I'll see you here at nine?
JOAN: Yeah, of course.
AIDAN: Great. Now, I bid you fare well.
[Joan exits; the maid enters.]
AIDAN: You lower yourself, wearing that maid' garb.
LEIA: You have little place, Aidan,
To carp me about clothes. It's no importance.
What is ?'though is, what you've said to that Joan lad:
?'You know that cruelty's never as cruel
As when it is returned.' - So, do you now?
AIDAN: You know that there is nothing worse than copying others' quotes; one could at least change the words around a little, to make it seem like yours.
LEIA: Oh, I will remember that in future!
How much a fount of knowledge you can be!
They say the wisest men are those who can
Repeatedly dodge questions; if it's so,
You must have wit enough to change the sea.
AIDAN: Ha. You exactly know my plans.
LEIA: I don't.
AIDAN: Well, I need sleep. I'll tell them to you soon;
Vengeance shall be ours; counter what I said.
LEIA: But you've spent seven days doing nothing
Since you heard what she said. You, dear, must know
The window-'f anything shortens each day--
AIDAN: The wind of anything? Indeed it does;
And someone gave to us the dreary sentence
Of wasting breath. Goodnight, my master, mistress.
[Exit Leia, and us]
Act II scene i
We enter Jezebel's room, in Birmingham. This scene takes place seven days before Act I scene ii; it is free to the director to choose how to show this. Jezebel sits in front of a computer.
JEZEBEL: ?'My heartstrings only beat when she returns
My love, as sweet as nectar to a bee.
All other passions I had held before
Have faded out, in their antiquity.' [Aidan slinks in.]
AIDAN: Sweet words, my friend.
JEZEBEL: Indeed, good sir, ?'twere yours.
AIDAN: You use them well.
JEZEBEL: They mark my mind exactly.
AIDAN: Who are you
Imitating to-day from Austen's works?
JEZEBEL: I imitate myself, for it is me
That Raven loves. I needn't emulate
A heroine a man fell in love with.
AIDAN: Yet, you persist in speaking like Tudors,
Or persevere in trying.
JEZEBEL: Yeah, you see
The Tudors were cool.
AIDAN: (Sarcastically:) Oh?
JEZEBEL: They were! they were.
Look at today. A Prince can't smack his kid--
And if he does, he'll find his way to court.
Those days, your son annoyed your head,
You locked him up for sick years; let the bugs
Change his impertinence--
AIDAN: So, basically,
You love the strictness that, if here today,
Would have you locked up? [she remains silent]
How are you and ?'Ray?'
JEZEBEL: O, going brilliantly.
When she was gone, I read inside my soul
All of its dents, its failures and misshapes,
But this did not depress me. I could see
She covered all of them. She's all I'd want.
AIDAN: How marvellous--a few days past, you said
How things would never work between you two,
And now everything's perfect. What has changed?
JEZEBEL: When she left me, -- I know she never was with me, I meant she was on the other side of the computer--, that was when I saw how much I loved her.
AIDAN: So, what you say
Is that you saw the depth of your ardour
The days, precisely, when she'd gone away?
JEZEBEL: You just won't understand.
AIDAN: O? Will I not?
You are right; I will not. Your love, to me,
Shows desperation's shadow; nothing else.
O, I may as well leave.
JEZEBEL: No, you may wait.
Your counsel to me has been good, throughout the past. And although I am completely certain of what I'm doing, your advice against what I'll do is still always appreciated.
AIDAN: (bitterly:) I am a happy duma, for you, then.
No rapport works well, when it works on pure,
Complete obsession on one part. Fare well. [Exits]
JEZEBEL: Another message from my love? What luck. I wonder what it'll say. (Reads:) you are a smitten kitten, ain't you, well I loves you for it. Maybe I'd loves you more if you really were a kitten.
-- How interesting.
I do observe Aidan is against Ray
So strongly that he can't see eye to eye
With me, or even view me directly.
But what's it got to do with him? Nothing.
At least I think nothing; it seems that way.
It must be nothing, but his hardened try
To make me miserable; he sees I do rely
On him more when I'm down than when I touch
The softened pangs of joy with my bare hands.
O joy I've never felt but I still feel!
He must be jealous of Ray; yes, that's it.
Ignore his words, Jez; don't be snared again.
Fall for this Ray and give all you to her.
--'Though I know this love won't ever come off
I want the pleasure that I never got,
And anyone can give me this: but her!
She, she would make this passing labour sweeter.
I must return her love.
[We exit]
dròm_et_rêve wrote:nimh wrote:Translating Russian obscene speech into English is difficult, as Russian mat (as such swearing was called, a word with the same root as the word for "mother") tends to be far more varied, complex, and lavish than English swearing, and often quite different in form. For example, the original here, gonite pozhalusta ginirala karnilova k khuiam sobachim (the many misspellings are in the original), literally means "please drive General Kornilov to the dog pricks."
That's really interesting; I wish that English had a proper equivalent to 'please drive General Kornilov to the dog pricks.' Much classier.
Yes. This was from a footnote to a translation that was made to read "Please drive out that ******* son of a bitch General Kornilov". Its just not the same thing.
dròm_et_rêve wrote:(Incidentally, Nimh; have you studied more Hungarian since the last time?)
Nah. Nuthin.
We should start making incomprehensible curses now!
May Kafka lovingly lick your left earlobe.
Nabokovinertiadvertiseminarymansbookstorehabilitationwardchristiansoldiersatzitzikamandolin
Australia is not europe you know ! ! We don't have kangooroo in the parking of our supermarket !
Truly a perplexing game; "we exit"
you being Jezebel or Aiden; ot the Taco Bell Guy?
Clary wrote:Nabokovinertiadvertiseminarymansbookstorehabilitationwardchristiansoldiersatzitzikamandolin
Here is a thought: I wonder how people in the future will take this part of the site?
O, I am neither Aidan or Jezebel (certainly not the latter.) There is a Taco Bell guy in all of us. Most of which are Michael Moore.
Here's a VERY bad Dutch joke for our patron saint:
Een beroemd Amerikaans romanschrijver ontmoette bij een bezoek aan New York eens een wereldberoemd pianist. 'Ik ben op mijn manier ook musikus,' zei de schrijver. 'Mijn muzikaal talent heeft me eens het leven gered. Er was een grote overstroming in ons dorp, en toen het water ons huis bereikte, klom mijn vader op de keukentafel, en dreef de rivier af, totdat hij gered werd.'
'En U?' vroeg de musikus diep geroerd. 'O. Ik!' zei de schrijver. 'Ik begeleidde hem op de piano.'
*Bo dom, tish*
Possibly a touch funnier, if one spoke a little Dutch;
pianissimo.
But without money we couldn't start anything, and the money was in the banks. At the time, some believed that it was heretic when people like us, who were against capitalism and money, would get our money from the banks. Now thats become the most normal thing in the world. After all, we didnt need the money for ourselves. We took it because the revolution needed money. We were the first, at the time in Spain, the inventors so to say. At the time it was said that it was immoral. Now everyone knows its moral; at the time, people thought it was unjust; now everyone knows it is just.
Für Clary und anderes:
So we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night;
Though the heart be still as loving
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath
And the soul outwears the breast
And the heart must pause to breathe
And love itself to rest
Though the night was made for loving
and the day returns to soon
Yet we'll no more go a roving
By the light of the moon.
dròm_et_rêve wrote:Clary wrote:Nabokovinertiadvertiseminarymansbookstorehabilitationwardchristiansoldiersatzitzikamandolin
Here is a thought: I wonder how people in the future will take this part of the site?
since they probably won't be able to read, at that point, they may simply pray to it!
How awful would that be? I have my suspicions that they would think it as a get-rich-quick scheme that they need to decipher.
