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Translating Polish poetry: About the sparrow


Silly Druid

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(Note: It's NOT about Jack Sparrow and Pirates of the Caribbean. Sorry to disappoint you.)

I haven't posted anything here lately, so I thought I would post a translation of an interesting short poem by a famous Polish author.

The original is here: https://wolnelektury.pl/katalog/lektura/galczynski-o-wrobelku.html

Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński, About the sparrow (1947)

The sparrow is a small bird,
the sparrow is a tiny creature,
it devours the ugly centipede,
but no one supports the sparrow.
So I cry out: Does no one remember
that the sparrow is our honest friend?!
Love the sparrow, girls,
love it, for
[censored]'s sake!

I used Google Translate, and it did a surprisingly good job, I didn't have to do any corrections, except a small censorship at the end :-P The rhymes are unfortunately lost in translation.

  • Brohoof 3

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@Fluttershutter

Spoiler

Cholera. It's considered a swearword in Polish. And the last part of the poem, translated literally, is "to the bright cholera!", which is a common usage of this word in Polish.

Edited by Silly Druid
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