The Thousandth Regiment - 29. "Once upon a war, a new fairytale says"

To me, these are the sad, sad hours Hans writes about; the dreary days of hard toil between attacks and battle; days in which to contemplate life which was, and which may one day come again - but not for the doomed soldier. You translate these lines for us, and they convey the cold greyness of this existence between life and ending. 

„Darum bin ich...nicht mit meinem Silhouetten zufrieden. Weil nur das Leid darin ist, Hass, Mordlust und nicht der Weg zum Licht, der starke Wille, die Erlösung. Es wird aber anders werden, und darum möchte ich nicht sterben jetzt.“

"That's why I'm ... not satisfied with my silhouettes. Because only suffering is in it, hatred, lust for murder and not the way to the light, the strong will, the redemption. But it will be different, and that's why I do not want to die now. "

Wrote Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele about his own poems -- published during the war -- in a letter to a friend. (Oswald, Stefanie: Siegfried Jacobsohn, Briefe) S.209

I was just transcribing this, befor I read your post of the translation. 

The sonnet has lots of style elements creating the sound of a horrible fairy tale. (And original fairy tales as genre are mostly cruel) But here is no happy ever after possible and the reader know this. Hans did knew this. His desire to live already rejected. This is so heartbreaking.

On 10/3/2019 at 8:43 AM, Parker Owens said:

To me, these are the sad, sad hours Hans writes about; the dreary days of hard toil between attacks and battle; days in which to contemplate life which was, and which may one day come again - but not for the doomed soldier. You translate these lines for us, and they convey the cold greyness of this existence between life and ending. 

Yes, the hurry up and wait nature of conflict. That and the long hours of idleness punctuated by moments of adrenaline seeming to last for hours. I don't know of any other soldier-poet who has ever put it so succinctly and so perfectly understandable as Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele. This little poem is a masterpiece of the war genre.

Thank you, Parker, as always for your support and comments    

On 10/3/2019 at 2:21 PM, Lyssa said:

„Darum bin ich...nicht mit meinem Silhouetten zufrieden. Weil nur das Leid darin ist, Hass, Mordlust und nicht der Weg zum Licht, der starke Wille, die Erlösung. Es wird aber anders werden, und darum möchte ich nicht sterben jetzt.“

"That's why I'm ... not satisfied with my silhouettes. Because only suffering is in it, hatred, lust for murder and not the way to the light, the strong will, the redemption. But it will be different, and that's why I do not want to die now. "

Wrote Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele about his own poems -- published during the war -- in a letter to a friend. (Oswald, Stefanie: Siegfried Jacobsohn, Briefe) S.209

I was just transcribing this, befor I read your post of the translation. 

The sonnet has lots of style elements creating the sound of a horrible fairy tale. (And original fairy tales as genre are mostly cruel) But here is no happy ever after possible and the reader know this. Hans did knew this. His desire to live already rejected. This is so heartbreaking.

Thank you, Lyssa. You have mentioned fairytale aspects to Hans' Regiment poems a few times. Such fine matters of texture are the hardest things to translate (except German prepositions!!! lol). So I feel self-aware of this as a weakness of my translated versions. I should try to work on this between now and January, when I plan to bring this test out as a book on Amazon.

This poem is heartbreaking, and because of it, I doubly thank you for reading and supporting my efforts. Muah