Lyr Req: 'Da trunken sie die liebe lange nacht'

Subject: German drinking song, check translation
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 09:42 AM

Inhabitants of the Isles are kindly requested to check my translation of an old German drinking song into English. Main problem: May I use morrow, because it rhymes so fine to sorrow?

Da tranken sie die liebe, lange Nacht,
And so they drank the dear long night

bis daß der helle Morgen anbrach,
into the mornings dawning light,

der helle, lichte Morgen.
the clear and shining morrow.

Sie sungen und sprungen und waren froh
They sang and sprang so merrily

und lebten ohn' alle Sorgen.
and lived without a sorrow

Does it sound at least a little bit English?
Suggestions welcome.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: MMario
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 09:43 AM

A wee bit contrived - a bit archaic in feel - but I like it...

tune?

you knew I would ask...

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Noreen
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:02 AM

"And so they drank the dear long night"
would sound better as:
And so they drank the live long night.
This is not something you would say, but it's a phrase much used in song, sung without questioning its meaning!

The rest sounds good to me, apart from sang and sprang; I know the rhyme is nice, but the word doesn't fit.
Sang and danced is a bit predictable, but works...

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Amos
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:03 AM

I would change "sprang" to "danced"; in English, "spring" implies jumping, usually long jumps in a direction, or standing up suddenly. "Liebe lange nicht" might translate better as "the long, sweet night" -- one doesn't usually think of nights as 'dear' which is usually applied to friends, spouses, etc.

Just my 2 cents' worth!


A

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:07 AM

Hi Mario - that was a really fast response! Do you sometimes do something else than waiting before your monitor for the next mudcatter's problems?
A bit archaic in feel: It is an archaic song.
Tune will come next week.

Thanks
Wilfried

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Noreen
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:08 AM

:0)
I thought of long, sweet night too, Amos...

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:16 AM

Noreen, Amos - My thanks to you, too!
Noreen's proposition of long live night is convincing; it fits the drinking bout well.
At first I thought I should use danced, but I discarded it. Amos' definition of to spring is exactly what I had in mind when remembering my years as a young student, especially as a freshman filled up with beer.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: MMario
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:18 AM

Wilfried - I am actually a sub-routine of the 'JoeOffer' computer program - but now that you have discovered that - we'll have to kill you.

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:21 AM

Shiver my timbers!
Spare me, Mario! Leave it to drink and devil to do for the rest!
(Guess which fine book I just finished reading for the umptieth time)

Wilfried

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Noreen
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:34 AM

Is die liebe, lange Nacht a commonly occurring phrase in German song, Wilfried?
If so, that could be why the live long night is used in English song- a transference rather than a translation.

Never thought of that before... :0)

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 04:05 AM

Caught me cold, Noreen - I don't know. But there is another song, a maiden's lament starting Den lieben langen Tag hab' ich nur Müh' und Plag, and sometimes you may hear den lieben langen Tag as a proverbial expression, maybe slightly ironically.
Your idea of a transference rather than a translation occurred to me also when reading your post.

Thanks
Wilfried

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Cluin
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 04:11 AM

How about the Scottish "lee lang nicht"?

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: MMario
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 11:48 AM

"live-long day" and "live-long night" while not common now were more common during the 1800's

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 01:49 PM

And here is the tune, Mario. Found a sheet in the web at http://atari.mine.nu/programs/fx-602p/renbiab/datrunk.gif.
The tune is not in the soprano, but in the tenore (3rd system, old renaissance practice).

Cluin - Thank you for a new enrichment of my wee Scottish vocabulary; I can't use it here because I just finished reading this thread, but you're free to use it when singing. Better now: Do me the favour and transfer the entire song into Scottish; I would be honoured to see my feeble work in Burns' own language.

Final version:
And so they drank the live long night
into the mornings dawning light,
the clear and shining morrow.
They sang and sprang so merrily
and lived without a sorrow.

Note: People who prefer not to jump over tables and benches when drinking are invited to use danced instead of sprang.

With many thanks to my learned and distinguished contributors:
Drink, sing and spring [or dance]!

Wilfried

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 01:50 PM

oops - must be morning's

W.

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: CraigS
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 08:11 PM

Just to avoid any confusion, Wilfried, when the phrase live long is used, the pronunciation of live is the antonym to die (liv), not the pronunciation that is the antonym to dead.

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 12:01 AM

Wilfred ...please check the CAPITALIZATION of your word...liebe...or...Liebe this "minor" detail can make a huge lot of difference regarding what was going on during the "long night."

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 10:11 AM

Hi, Gargoyle - checked.
"Die Liebe" is noun, feminine, and means "the love".
"liebe" is adjective, singular, feminine, and means "dear".
The song doesn't refer in any way to those aberrations of youth you are suggesting, only to drinking together (alas).
But may it be a consolation to you: There is a lot of other German songs not only about wine and song, but love also. Most famous item: 2nd stanza of our old National Anthem:
Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue, deutscher Wein und deutscher Sang ...
German women, German fidelity, German wine and German song
Proverbial expressions often found in German drinking songs are:
- Wein, Weib, Gesang = wine, woman, singing
- Lied, Liebe, Wein = song, love, wine

Wilfried

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:46 PM

From my favorite stein.

Drei gute Ding

Lieb, Trink und Sing

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Jeanie
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 03:36 PM

Great song and translation, Wilfried !
In your very first post you said: " May I use morrow, because it rhymes so fine to sorrow?" It is a fascinating quirk of the developments of the German and English languages that there are several sound patterns like this:
Sorge - sorrow
Morgen - morrow
borgen - borrow
folgen - follow
Talg - tallow
Felge - fallow (land)
Balgen - bellows
Galgen - gallows

...plenty more where these came from...

- jeanie

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 06:36 PM

I'm not sure about putting "morning" next to "dawning", Wilfred. The trouble is, some English speakers rhyme those words exactly; some pronounce them quite differently(me, for example, I was brought up in the southwest); and a lot pronounce them very close together, but with a slight difference. Which I think makes it an odd phrase to sing(I've been trying). I would suggest getting rid of either morning or dawning.

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: leprechaun
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 06:42 PM

OK now I'm thirsty.

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 21 Apr 03 - 06:06 AM

Greg - no problem, in the first two stanzas the same adjective is used twice for the morning.

The next last version:
And so they drank the live long night
into the mornings shining light,
the clear and shining morrow.
They sang and sprang so merrily
and lived without a sorrow.

Jeanie - thanks for the etymological remarks, more than I had realized before, and for the kind remark about my translation.

leprechaun - at least one friend showing the desired effect.

It's the second day of Easter, the sun is shining bright, and I think instead of eating a painted egg I will drink out of my favourite stein to your very good health.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 02:15 AM

The song with tune can now be found at my info page for mudcatters.
It was first performed in public in Groningen, place of the Eurogathering in 2003.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: MMario
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 08:46 AM

Thanks Wilfried! I missed your first posting re: the tune, and just found out that site is blocked by my content filter anyway - so appreciate your posting on your site.

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: MMario
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 09:57 AM

The tune in Songwright format - modified where the english bridges two notes.

N-Da Trunken Sie
N- And So They Drank
C- German Traditional
A- translation Wilfried Schaum
T-
S-150
K-C
B-2/2
F-
H-
M-4R-3 C-4 C-2 B-2 A-3 D-4 D-5_B-8 C-4_A-4
L-And so they drank the live long
H-
M-4@-2 R-4 @-4 C-2 B-2 A-2 >-2 @-2 ?-2
L-night. In-to the mor-ning's shi-ning
H-
M-4>-2 R-4 >-4 >-2 >-2 @-3 ?-4 >-2_=-2
L-light. The clear and shi-ning mor
H-
M-4<-2 R-4 <-4 @-3 @-2 @-3 @-4 A-3 A-4
L-row. They sang and sprang so mer-ri
H-
M-4A-2 R-4 B-4 C-2 B-2 A-2 >-2 A-1_
L--ly. And lived with-out a sor-row
H-
M-3?-1 >-1_>-3 R-4
L-row.

AND THE ABC - using the original format for the tune with both German and English.

X:1
T:Da tranken sie /And So They Drank
C:german traditional
N:translation - Wilfried Schaum
I:abc2nwc
M:2/2
L:1/8
K:C
z6c2|c4B4|A6d2|d3Bc2A2|G4z2G2|c4B4|A4E4|
w:Da trun-ken sie die lie-be lan-ge Nacht, bis daß der lich-te
w:And so they drank the live_ long_ night in-to the morn-ing's
G2G2F2F2|E4z2E2|E4E4|G6F2|(E4D4)|C4z2C2|G4G2G2|
w:Mor-gen an-ne-brach,der hel-le lich-te Mor_-gen. Sie sun-gen und
w:shin_ -ing_ light,the clear and shin-ing mor_ -row.They sang and_
G4G2G2|A6A2|A4z2B2|c2c2B4|A4E4|(A8|F8)|E8-|E6z2
w:sprun-gen und wa-ren frohund leb-ten ohn' al-le Sor_-gen_
w:sprang so_ mer-ri-ly,and lived_ with-out a sor_-row._

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 10:50 AM

fascinating! I never had thought before about live-long night and liebe lange Nacht as being related though it seems obvious now.
The German expression is old, so old that I now start doubting that 'liebe' in that Expression means 'dear'. It could be a corruption of 'Leben' but Wilfried is in a better position than I am to find that out.

'All through the night' is what is meant in modern English, but live-long night seems to be a wonderful translation.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: GUEST,Gentry
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 11:06 PM

in english how would daß be pronounced?

Subject: RE: drinking song, translation
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 01:49 AM

a like in car, but short. ß a sharp s