)
Feuersnot = Blazing Hankies (from the old Yale Music
Library toilet wall, heading "Memorable Mistranslations", reported
by William Brooks, e-mail address unreachable)
"Gott - welch Dunkel hier!" = "Jeez, a great dark beer!"
(Dale Hill, bardolph@bellsouth.net)
"In quelle trine morbide" =
- "In those morbid trills" (heard once on radio, Luis A. Catoni)
- "In this morbid latrine" (Robert T Jones )
"Liebestod" = "Froggie Went A-Courting" (from Emily
Ezust, mindel@cs.mcgill.ca)
"Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" = "Songs of a Wandering
Gazelle" (Mark Yolleck, sminki@aol.com)
Lohengrin translated by Castrone: "Nun sei bedankt mein lieber
Schwan" = Mercè, mercè, cigno gentil In Italian "mercè"
means "Have mercy". (Reported by Sottotetti Giuseppe, gsotto@aznet.it).
Here's an emendation by Davide Tortorella (quinquin@energy.it):
With reference to your quoting the wrong translation of Lohengrin's
"Nun sei bedankt" into "Mercé", it is true that
the first italian meaning of "mercé" (the most known)
is "have mercy", but it is also true that in ancient italian
it meant exactly "thank you", as attested by a lot of italian
authors of the early century, e.g. Boccaccio: "Madonna, la gran mercè".
The quoted translation of the famous aria has nonetheless a funny mistake
- it says "mercé cigno gentil, mercé cigno canor",
cigno canor meaning "Singing swan", when everybody knows swans
are mute (except from the legendary swan song before dying) - in any case,
in Wagner's opera, the swan doesn't utter a word.
"Porgi amor" = "Pig of love" (Attributed to an
unsophisticated DJ who was about to play a 78 of a well-known soprano,
reported by David R. Richie II )
"I Vespri Siciliani" = "The Four Seasons" (Yes,
I know that's the title of the ballet music, but the way it was announced
on the radio -- before and after that selection -- made it sound like a
translation.)
Die Zauberflote. Hammelin's pipe. (Luis A. Catoni)
Compiler and partial author: Lyle Neff, lneff@indiana.edu