[lit-ideas] Help with Novalis?
- From: Michael Chase <goya@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 23:12:18 +0200
Just sitting around on a stormy evening in Gai Paris, I something got=20
to translating Novalis' Die Lehrlinge zu Sais (hey, I don't have a TV,=20=
so I have to amuse myself somehow, OK?). Anyhow, there'a couple of=20
lines I'm not sure of, and I wonder if I could submit them to the=20
steely, critical gaze of the List.
The original goes like this:
Mannichfache Wege gehen die Menschen.
Wer sie verfolgt und vergleicht,
wird wunderliche Figuren entstehen sehen;
Figuren, die zu jener gro=DFen Chiffernschrift zu geh=F6ren scheinen,
die man =FCberall,
auf Fl=FCgeln,
Eierschalen,
in Wolken,
im Schnee,
in Krystallen und in Steinbildungen,
auf gefrierenden Wassern,
im Innern und =C4u=DFern der Gebirge,
der Pflanzen, der Thiere, der Menschen,
in den Lichtern des Himmels,
auf ber=FChrten und gestrichenen Scheiben von Pech und Glas,
in den Feilsp=E4nen um den Magnet her,
und sonderbaren Conjunkturen des Zufalls,
erblickt.
In ihnen ahndet man den Schl=FCssel dieser Wunderschrift, die =
Sprachlehre=20
derselben;
allein die Ahndung will sich selbst in keine feste Formen f=FCgen,
und scheint kein h=F6herer Schl=FCssel werden zu wollen.
Which I've tentatively rendered as:
"Diverse are the paths of men. Who follows and compares them, witnesses=20=
the birth of wondrous figures, which seem to belong to that great coded=20=
writing we find everywhere=A0: on wings and eggshells=A0; in clouds, =
snow,=20
crystals and rock-formations=A0=A0; in freezing waters=A0; in the =
internal=20
and external forms of mountains, plants, animals, human beings=A0; in =
the=20
celestial luminaries=A0; in buffed or polished disks of resin or glass=A0;=
=20
in filings round a magnet, and in the strange circumstances of chance.=20=
In all this, we sense the key of that wondrous script and its grammar,=20=
but this premonition refuses to fix itself in definite forms, and seems=20=
not to want to become the key to anything higher".
It's especially the last phrase I'm unsure about. Literally it =
seems=20
to mean " and seems to want to become no higher key=A0", but I've=20
interpreted a wee bit.
Go for it, critics.
TIA, Mike
Michael Chase
(goya@xxxxxxxxxxx)
CNRS UPR 76
7, rue Guy Moquet
Villejuif 94801
France=
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