What is the difference, for you, between translating a poem and translating a piece of prose?
The more formal constraints there are, in a text, the more difficult it is to stay very close to the original. In a poem with line breaks, and especially, of course, in a poem with a regular meter and a rhyme scheme, you have to compromise right and left. If you’re going to keep some sort of a rhyme scheme and meter, something else will have to go. The translator has to do more inventing, substituting, creating equivalents. In a piece of prose, you’re much more likely to be able to stay very close to the original. Why did you choose to translate this shorter version of the song, rather than the full 14 verses? I was familiar with the shorter version and only discovered the longer one after I had embarked on the translation. I suppose I thought this presented enough problems as it was—but that is a good idea! I know that you studied music quite seriously when you were younger. Do you still play piano or violin? How does that training inform your own writing, and how useful was it in tra
