Friends! I am at a beautiful and exciting part of my translation! This is the scene where a group of youths, playing music, comes up and attempts to poetically seduce a group of maidens, or at any rate afford them vaguely sexualized entertainment. They approach and begin to sing in this really harmonious and beautiful way, heavily alliterative and uniquely tight in that delightful Hebraic syntax. And it means that, like most poetry, it's very hard to render meaningfully into English.
Any advice?
The specific line I am having the most trouble with is the very first line of the scene:
הנה הן, הנה הן,
בנות החן ביהודה!
Heinah hein, heinah hein
Bnot ha-chein be-yehudah!
Literal translation:
Here they [female pronoun] are, here they are,
The daughters of beauty/grace of Judah!
Obviously this cannot stand. And I really want to incorporate the beautiful alliteration of sounds, the multiplicity of "hei" (h) sounds.
A clumsy attempt:
Hark, they are here! Hark, they are here!
The gracious girls of Judah!
Any other advice/sallies/attempts?
Love,
T
So here's one idea: what about leaving Heinah hein, heinah hein in the original, and then translating the second line? Other thoughts? Let's see what your colleagues have to say.
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