The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #81449   Message #1491691
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
24-May-05 - 12:33 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Aloha 'oe / Farewell to thee
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Aloha 'oe / Farewell to thee
I started to note differences between the version posted by Haruo and the song as printed in "Nā Mele o Hawai'i Nei," 101 Hawaiian Songs, collected by Samuel H. Elbert and Noelani Mahoe, 1970, but the song (p. 35-36) is short and error is less likely if their version is given complete.

Lyr. Add: Aloha 'oe

Ha'aheo 'ē ka ua i nā pāli
Ke nihi a'ela i ka nahele
E uhai ana paha i ka liko
Pua *#257;hihi lehua o uka

Hui
Aloha 'oe, aloha 'oe,
E ke onaona noho i ka lipo
One fond embrace, a ho'i a'e au
A hui hou aku.

'O ka hali'a aloha ka i hiki mai
Ke hone a'e nei i ku'u manawa.
'O 'oe nŋ ka'u ipo aloha
A loko e hana nei.

Maopopo ku'u 'ike i ka nani
Nā pua rose o Mauna-wili.
I laila ho'ohie nā manu,
Miki'ala i ka nani o ia pua.

In the queen's notebook, with more than 100 songs, the next to last line of "Aloha 'oe is "I laila hia'ai nā, which means the same.

On a copy in the State Archives in her own handwriting, are the place and date, Maunawili, 1877. Comments about lovers or parting are only speculation.
In comments on orthography, Samuel Elbert notes that macrons are marked except in positions in which the vowels are commonly sung short- "this is a singer's privilege if the line is too long for the music."
"Aloha 'oe means 'farewell,' or 'farewell to you' (also used in the Elbert-Mahoe songbook). There is nothing wrong with the more poetic 'thee;' but which one(s) were used by the queen? "Huapala" is not always correct in some of its statements.

In the songbook mentioned here, words are spelled as they are in Mary Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert (the latter co-authored the songbook), the "Hawaiian-English Dictionary," University of Hawai'i Press, which is the authority.
One 'rule' seldom followed is that words making up a person's name are separated by hyphens, e. g. Lili'u-o-ka-lani. Words often used by non-Hawaiian-speaking Hawaiians, such as pali, are commonly printed without macron vowels.

Some songs in the queen's notebook have translations, which I understand tend to be literal. Published versions of "Aloha 'oe" have singable translations by Arthur Lange and others; all came late and I would accept none purported to be by the queen without verification.
A translation should have the emotional 'feel' of the original- The ingeb last verse is too bald; "I understand the beauty..." is pretty bad; the meaning of the lines is better expressed in the Huapala translation even though it may be unsingable.