During this year’s Easter season

All the bakers have a reason

For making rolls and sweets and bread-

For joy around the town to spread!

Max and Moritz love to eat

And they search for something sweet.

But the baker, smart is he!

Shut his door with lock and key.

The boys know what they have to do-

Climb up the roof and down the flue.

Clang! The boys are quite a sight

Through the chimney, black as night.

Down and down and down they go

And land in flour, white as snow.

They creep along the corridor

Black with soot they are no more.

They see pretzels on the shelf

And decide to help themself.

Snap! The chair breaks, they fall off,

And land inside a baking trough.

From top to bottom, wet with dough

The prime epitome of woe.

Just then comes the baker back,

And sees before him quite the snack.

And then! Before the boys can run,

They are made into a bun.

The oven embers still aglow

Into the hearth they have to go.

The baker pulls them from the heat.

They’re good and done and fit to eat.

You may think that they are dead!

Don’t worry! They’re alive instead.

They gnaw and gnaw and then at last

They’re freed from in their breaded cast.

Then the baker starts to yell,

“They’re on the run! Oh bloody hell!

Max und Moritz

Max and Moritz

Eine Bubengeschichte in sieben Streichen

A Boys’ Story in seven Tricks

Von

from

Wilhelm Busch.

Wilhelm Busch

Sechster Streich

Sixth Trick

In der schönen Osterzeit,

In the pretty Easter time,

Wenn die frommen Bäckersleut'

When the devoted Bakery people

Viele süße Zuckersachen

Many sweet sugar things

Backen und zurechte machen,

To bake and prepared to make,

Wünschten Max und Moritz auch

Wished Max and Moritz also

Sich so etwas zum Gebrauch.

For themselves such a thing for use.

Doch der Bäcker, mit Bedacht,

But the baker, with intent,

Hat das Backhaus zugemacht.

Had the bakery door closed.

Also will hier einer stehlen,

Thus wants here someone to steal

Muß er durch den Schlot sich quälen.

Must me through the chimney toil

Ratsch! Da kommen die zwei Knaben

Clang! Here come the two boys

Durch den Schornstein, schwarz wie Raben.

Through the chimney, black like crows

Puff! Sie fallen in die Kist',

Puff! They fall in the box

Wo das Mehl darinnen ist.

Where the flour inside is

Da! Nun sind sie alle beide,

There! Now are they all both

Rund herum so weiß wie Kreide.

Round around as white as chalk

Aber schon mit viel Vergnügen

But already with much delight

Sehen sie die Brezeln liegen.

See the they pretzels lying

Knacks! — Da bricht der Stuhl entzwei;

Crack! There breaks the stool in two

Schwapp! — Da liegen sie im Brei.

Splash! There lie they in mush

Ganz von Kuchenteig umhüllt,

Complete from cake dough covered

Steh'n sie da als Jammerbild. —

Stand they there as a picture of woe

Gleich erscheint der Meister Bäcker

Suddenly appears the master baker

Und bemerkt die Zuckerlecker.

And notices the sugar deliciousness

Eins, zwei, drei! — eh' man's gedacht,

One, two, three! Before one had thought

Sind zwei Brote d'raus gemacht.

Are two rolls from it made

In dem Ofen glüht es noch —

In the oven glows it still

Ruff! — damit ins Ofenloch!

Clang! With it into the oven hole!

Ruff! man zieht sie aus der Glut;

Clang! One pulls them from the embers

Denn nun sind sie braun und gut. —

Because now are they brown and good.

Jeder denkt, die sind perdü!

Everyone thinks, they are lost!

Aber nein — noch leben sie.

But no – still live they.

Knusper, Knasper! — wie zwei Mäuse

Crickle, Crackle! Like two mice

Fressen sie durch das Gehäuse;

Eat they through the enclosure

Und der Meister Bäcker schrie:

And the master baker screamed:

»Ach herrjeh! da laufen sie!«

Oh crikey! There run they!

Sixth caper

In the beautiful Osterzeit,

if the pious Baeckersleut

makes ' many sweet sugar things

cheeks and to-genuine,

Max and Moritz wished themselves also

such a thing to the use.

But the baker, with consideration,

closed the baking house.

Thus one wants to steal here,

must it by the chimney to torment itself.

Ratsch! There the two boys come

by the chimney, black like raben.

Puff! They fall into the Kist ',

where the flour inside is.

There! Now they are as white all two,

round around as chalk.

But with much pleasure

seeing it the brezeln to lie.

Crack! -- there breaks the chair divide;

Slosh! -- there they lie in the mash.

Completely of cake paste,

Steh'n coats it there as misery picture.

The master baker appears alike

and notices the sugar zuckerlecker.

One, two, three! -- eh ' man's meant,

two bread are made d'raus.

In the furnace it glows still

Ruff! -- with it in the furnace hole!

Ruff! one pulls it from the glow;

Because now they are brown and good.

Everyone thinks, those is perdue!

But no -- still they live.

Knusper, Knasper! -- like two mice

food it by the housing;

And the master baker cried:

"Oh herrjeh! There they run!".

Commentary:

In most cases I am comparing my translation to the literal gloss I made rather than to the internet translation, most because a lot of the German words were shortened and don’t have a babelfish translation. Since the internet translation is a literal gloss at best, the two are also quite similar. Explicit mention is made when the internet translation is being used in the commentary.

Similes

Durch den Schornstein, schwarz wie Raben.

Through the chimney, black like crows

Through the chimney, black as night

Rund herum so weiß wie Kreide.

Round around as white as chalk

And land in flour, white as snow

If I would have translated these similes literally, as shown in the bolded literal glass, there would have been no breakdown in communication. The point of similarity that Larson talks about is there. Crows are black, chalk is white, and everyone sees the explicit similarities between the topic and the image, in the German as well as the English. However, since these are not common similes in English, I decided to change them so as to not mark them. These might break the flow of the story and thus the rhythm, as the reader might stop to contemplate those similes before moving on. I followed Larson’s advice that, “a simile of the receptor language which has the same meaning [as the source language] may be substituted” (279). Black as night and white as snow are almost idioms, and don’t require the reader to stop and analyze the comparison being created. Since ‘schwarz wie Raben’ and ‘weiß wie Kreide’ are ‘dead’ figures (idioms), it is possible to translate the meaning directly and lose the literal images (Larson 277).

I had difficulty coming up with fluid similes that fit with the German imagery but also preserved the rhythm and the rhyme that I was using. In these two cases, I thought of the simile first and tried to get the rest of the couplet to fit with it. The night couplet came quickly to me, but I had to brainstorm over the course of a few days to get the second one to work for me. I first had “Plop! They fall into a crate/Full of flour, white as slate” which worked perfectly. Only I realized later that slate is not white. Whoops! I’m glad I caught that before I handed it in… I then was playing around with different words for box and crate to match with the German ‘Kist’’ and kept drawing a blank. The closest I got was “Plop! The fell into a box/Full of flour, white like socks.” This was unacceptable for me because I was creating a new simile that would require analysis by the reader. I also thought it was the wrong register-socks seemed to modern for a children’s story from the early 20^th century. I finally came up with my final version “Down and down and down they go/And land in flour, white as snow.” It doesn’t flow as well as the slate couplet would have (had slate been white), but I thought the mention of the flour container isn’t necessary because it can be seen in the picture, and the creation of a fluid simile was more important than sticking closely to the German literal gloss.

Woe

Ganz von Kuchenteig umhüllt,

Complete from cake dough covered

From top to bottom, wet with dough

Steh'n sie da als Jammerbild. —

Stand they there as a picture of woe

The prime epitome of woe.

I had a trouble with these lines. Once I got dough and woe to rhyme, I was so proud of myself that I couldn’t bear to change them. They matched so perfectly with the German and fit with the rhythm and rhyme scheme. However, I could not get the stress patterns to work out on the second line of t couplet. Words like picture, image, photo, all have the emphasis on the wrong syllable, and as I mention later on, I really wanted to stick with the rhythm of the original text. I am still not fully content with what I have chosen, but I do feel that epitome does express a similar idea as the original, which is the main focus of translation. The rhyme and the rhythm work out. If I had unlimited time to ponder, I’m sure a better line would come to me when I least expected it. However, it works just fine the way I’ve written it. I guess not everything can be exactly as we want it to be, when there are always deadlines looming.

Title

Escapade vs. Trick

While the literal translation and the one attached at the end (another idiomatic English translation) used the word ‘trick’ to head up the chapters with, I chose ‘escapade.’ Trick out of context doesn’t make a lot of sense, and I don’t view Max and Moritz’s misfortune a ‘trick’ that is being played. I thought that using this word would change what the intent of the author meant. The functionalist view of translation states that the function of the original is the most important, and so I am honoring that function of the chapter headings. The boys bring it their misfortune themselves, but in an accidental sort of way. They didn’t mean to fall into the dough and get themselves baked into buns. To me, the word ‘escapade’ conveys this idea better than ‘trick,’ and it works well with the book title A Boyish Tale, since little boys seem to always have interesting escapades that they get themselves into.

Exclamations

»Ach herrjeh! da laufen sie!«

Oh crikey! There run they!

“They’re on the run! Oh bloody hell!”

According to www.etymonline.com, the word ‘bloody’ has been in common use as a British swear word since 1676. ‘Hell’ has been used figuratively to mean ‘as a bad experience’ since 1374. Max and Moritz was written in 1865, so these words are not anachronisms for the time frame of the text. I had personal dilemma deciding if ‘bloody hell’ was too different from the original. However, I decided that ‘crikey’ (from a direct online translation at dict.leo.org) is not a word that would be common in English for this situation (if it would be common at all). Not only did bloody hell fit perfectly with the rhyme scheme and the rhythm, I thought it fit the context perfectly. If I were a baker and my buns started running, I would be more emotional and surprised than, “Crikey!”

In German, “Herrjeh” sounds more like “Oh my God!” to me which expresses more intensity than ‘crikey.’ Nord says that the frame of reference for the translator is the function that the target text is supposed to achieve in the target culture (39). The text is supposed to express that the baker is extremely shocked when children burst from his oven-baked buns. I think “bloody hell” conveys this emotion much better than my online dictionary translation.

Another important thing to consider here is the audience. Although the German text can be viewed as a children’s book, as it is written about and marketed to little boys, I believe more that it is for adults. The dark humor of this chapter and previous chapters is perhaps too subtle for children to fully understand. It is like Looney Tunes and Disney movies in a way, because while children can enjoy them, there is a lot of subtle humor not noticed by children. Larson advises to keep the audience in mind when translating, and I had them in mind when I was making the decision about this text-final exclamation. Children may giggle when they read “bloody hell’ because it sounds like a mildly bad word, and it’s not too juvenile for adults to be able to relate to the emotion expressed by the baker. It seems to work fine for both audiences.

Shortenings

As seen in the left column, the German text has a few examples of line-ending shortening of words to make the rhyme scheme work. I also used shortenings. I’m against this cheating way of making rhyme, but since the German text did it, I felt justified that I could give myself a little leeway. Taken a bit out of context, I do agree with Weston in the sense that “the function of the translator is to reproduce in the TL as accurate as possible an equivalent of the content and form of the SL text…” (148). Had the German not had any shortenings, I would have taken that to mean that the rhymes were created in a more strict manner, and would have made an attempt to get non-shortened rhymes to work. Busch seems to have a playful view of the rhymes, and even has less-than-perfect rhymes in the text: ‘Zeit’ and “Leut’’ do not exactly rhyme, depending on the accent of the reader. I happen to have all exact rhymes in my translation, mostly because I am too of a perfectionist to accept almost-rhymes.

Weston’s quote can be used also to support my choice not only to stick to the same rhyme pattern as the original, but also the same rhythm. The German has a strict 7/8 syllable count, and I use the same number in my translation. Having a certain number to aim for actually made the translation easier, because I was constrained to make things fit into that number. Had it been free verse, I would have agonized more over exactly how many syllables should be used to translate a certain German line or stanza. Here, with the form already laid out before me, all I had to do was find words to fit in, just like a puzzle. It proved to be quite a fun challenge.

Word Choice more generally

I won’t list specific examples here because there are more than ample cases of it visible when comparing my translation to the original: There are many cases where I used the message as the most important thing to focus on and no the words. Almost all the theorists we’ve read this semester were supporters of the Skopos theory. Gentzler, discussing Nida’s theories, says, “the particular form in which [the] message appears is superficial as long as the meaning of that message is clear” (46). Nida, Nord and Larson are all supporters of a functionalist view of translation, in that the function is the thing that needs to be translated from SL to TL, and not the words. I didn’t think it would be necessary to translate the text, focusing mainly on direct word-for-word translations. The idea is to keep the idea the same, as the pictures do tell a major part of the story (and thus main ideas couldn’t be changed) but the exact phrases used are irrelevant for the English reader. I compare Busch to a darker version of Dr. Seuss, and if Green Eggs and Ham was translated as Green Eggs and Bacon because that word worked better in a rhyme scheme of a certain language, I would find that much more important than sticking to the exact words of the text. Hatim and Mason also are supporters of this way of translating. They believe that translation is “an act of communication which attempts to relay, across cultural and linguistic boundaries, another act of communication” (1). They also refer specifically to poetry, which I found very helpful for my translation. While poetry is a special case, because it can be argued that it is an act of self-expression and not communication (although I would argue that this is more a communicative story set to rhyme rather than a poem in the traditional sense), there are still a text producer and a text receiver, just as in other genres of translation.

I went about my translation in a nonchalant way. I knew I wasn’t going to go for literal meaning or word-for-word translation. I wanted to convey the general idea and humor of the original, but I was not putting myself into a box where I had to use the same imagery or structures. Once I had an idea of the idea of each couplet, I tried to create a sentence that fit with the main idea of the original, matched with the picture that accompanied the story, fit well into the rhythm pattern I chose to follow, and also worked with the rhyme scheme. And I have to say that I am quite pleased with the outcome. Max und Moritz has already, I’m sure, been translated into English numerous times. I found one example online to compare my translation to, and, as was expected, decided that I like mine much much more. It is interesting to note that there were a few similarities in word choice that differ from the German original words.

Sixth Trick

Easter days have come again,

When the pious baker men

Bake all sorts of sugar things,

Plum-cakes, ginger-cakes, and rings.

Max and Moritz feel an ache

In their sweet-tooth for some cake.

But the Baker thoughtfully

Locks his shop, and takes the key.

Who would steal, then, this must do:

Wriggle down the chimney-flue.

Ratsch! There come the boys, my Jiminy!

Black as ravens, down the chimney.

Puff! Into a chest they drop

Full of flour up to the top.

Out they crawl from under cover

Just as white as chalk all over.

But the cracknels, precious treasure,

On a shelf they spy with pleasure.

Knacks! The chair breaks! Down they go-

Schwapp!-into a trough of dough!

All enveloped now in dough,

See them, monuments of woe.

In the baker comes, and snickers

When he sees the sugar-lickers.

One, two, three! The brats, behold!

Into two good brots are rolled.

There’s the oven, all red-hot,-

Shove ‘em in as quick as thought.

Ruff! Out with ‘em from the heat,

They are brown and good to eat.

Now you think they’ve paid the debt!

No, my friend, they’re living yet.

Knusper! Knasper! Like two mice

Through their roofs they gnaw in a trice;

And the Baker cries, “You bet!

There’s the rascals living yet!”

(from the Rosetta Project, The Children’s Book Online)