During our sessions, my language partner and I worked on this poem; “The Image of the Icon”. This is one of the paragraphs we translated and analyzed. This is my language partner’s finished edit.
The Image of the Icon (Malkəʾā Śəʿəl)
ኦርኅርኅተ፡ ሕሊና፡ አፍቅሮተ፡ ሰብእ፡ ልማዳ።
ሰአሊተ፡ ምሕረት፡ ይእቲ፡ ማርያም፡ ሐፁረ፡
መስቀል፡ ዘየዓውዳ።
ንትቀበላ፡ ንዑ፡ ለወለተ፡ ዳዊት፡ ዘይሁዳ።
መጽአት፡ ነያ፡ ኅቡረ፡ ምስለ፡ ወልዳ።
ናንፈርዕፅ፡ ቅድመ፡ ሥዕላ፡ እንዘ፡ ንሁብ፡ ጋዳ።
ለለጌሠሙ፡ ትመስል፡ እንግዳ።
Orəḫrəḫta ḥəllinā afqərota sabəʾ ləmādā.
Saʾālita məḥrat yəʾəti māryām ḥāṣura masqal
zayaʿāwdā.
Nətqabalā nəʿu lawallata dāwit zayəhudā.
Maṣʾāt nayā ḫəbura məsla waldā.
Nānfarʿəṣ qədma śəʿəlā ənza nəhub gādā.
Lalageśamu təmasl əngədā.
O compassionate of mind, whose custom is to love mankind, / Thou intercessor for mercy, Mary, who
art encompassed by the rampart of the Cross. / Come, let us welcome the daughter of David of
Judah! / Behold! She has come, joined by her son. / Let us leap with joy before her icon, giving
offerings! / Every morning she resembles a guest.
O compassionate one, whose habit is to love mankind?, Mary is the beseecher of mercy, who is surrounded by fortification/palisade/rampart of the Cross; come let’s receive her, the daughter of David of Judah/the Jews?; Behold, she has come here together with her Son. Let’s jump with joy in front of her icon/image as we give her gifts; (for regulars?) everyday she looks like a guest
I would like to highlight some words that we discussed in length.
“Lalageśamu” which quite literally means morning by morning to indicate repetitive context. Also in Ethiopian/Eritrean culture, guests are very honored. Receiving guests is an event and is observed by all members of the household. Thus, St Mary is likened to a guest who is received into the home.
The concept of being compassionate in mind is hard to pinpoint in English. In Ge’ez rəḫrəḫta ḥəllinā can also be translated as compassionate one, compassionate conscience; loving, kind, can also be used.
In this stanza, we can also note the rhyming of each line, ending with the “ā” sound. In this stanza the lines don’t have a syllabic consistency, with some lines holding 12 and others 20, but it fits very well with the melody of the song.
As I described earlier, the way we went about the translation is by doing independent research on the context and meanings and coming together to orate the translation. There we would discuss alternate meanings and how the translation can best fit the audience I am translating for. Namely, young, native English speakers with a simple background in Church services. This informed the formatting and definitely has an impact on how I choose to do transliterations as opposed to my language partner. His work is more for the academic setting and his audience are scholars of Ge’ez. Thus his work consists also of comparing manuscripts and their small differences as well as providing a more comprehensive contextual explanation.
Comments
Hey Mehreen, it hasn't been too bad since I was familiar with it before. While it can be difficult to put the letters together sometimes, the constant reading has been great practice!
Annie, my language partner was a huge help because he did a lot of the research beforehand and aided me to guessing it and then revealing what he had found. Also, since this poem is commonly recited I had some background in it when doing it independently. When my language partner and I came together it was much smoother because of that.
Hi Lidia, thank you for sharing this poem! I think it is a beautiful poem and I think sometimes it's hard to translate things from a language directly into English. I was wondering whether you had any struggles when translating this poem with your language partner and independently doing research on the context and meanings.