Werner Aspenström: Spelman och upptecknare (Fiddler and compiler/Fiddler and transcriber)

A translation by John Irons of a poem by Werner Aspenström:

http://johnirons.blogspot.com/2012/02/another-poem-by-swedish-writer-werner.html


Fiddler and compiler

The old fiddler could no longer play,
only sing the tunes.
The old toothless fiddler could no longer sing,
only hiss the tunes.
In the hissing the singing was audible,
in the singing the bow-strokes,
in the bow-strokes the untamed rapids.
Quite content the compiler cycled homewards
with thirty miles of Västerdal river in his briefcase.

I was looking for this poem on the web, as I had just been re-reading it in the collection The Wind Itself, Werner Aspenström, Selected Poems, translated by Robin Young (Planet, 1999).


This is Robin Young's translation:


Fiddler and transcriber 


The old fiddler couldn't play any longer,
only sing.
The toothless old fiddler couldn't sing any longer,
only wheeze.
In the wheezing you could hear the singing,
in the singing the stroke of the bow,
in the bow-stroke the untamed torrents.
Really pleased, the transcriber pedalled homewards,
thirty miles of the Västerdal River in his bag.


Which translation do you like best?


It goes well with this poem by the Gotland poet Gustaf Larsson (Gustaf Larsson - diktare i ord och bild, 1993:

and with this Hungarian photograph by Karoly Escher:

Blind Musician, Karoly Escher, 1933