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Der Werwolf
Ein Werwolf eines Nachts entwich
von Weib und Kind und sich begab
an eines Dorfschullehrers Grab
und bat ihn: »Bitte, beuge mich!«
Der Dorfschulmeister stieg hinauf
auf seines Blechschilds Messingknauf
und sprach zum Wolf, der seine Pfoten
geduldig kreuzte vor dem Toten:
»Der Werwolf«, sprach der gute Mann,
"des Weswolfs, Genitiv sodann,
dem Wemwolf, Dativ, wie man's nennt,
den Wenwolf, - - damit hat's ein End."
Dem Werwolf schmeichelten die Fälle,
er rollte seine Augenbälle,
»Indessen«, bat er, "füge doch,
zur Einzahl auch die Mehrzahl noch!"
Der Dorfschulmeister aber mußte
gestehn, daß er von ihr nichts wußte.
Zwar Wölfe gäbs in großer Schar,
doch »Wer« gäbs nur im Singular.
Der Wolf erhob sich tränenblind - -
er hatte ja doch Weib und Kind!
Doch da er kein Gelehrter eben,
so schied er dankend und ergeben.
CHRISTIAN MORGENSTERN
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Und gleich nochmal auf englisch:
The Banshee (An Approach)
Translation by Max Knight
One night, a banshee slunk away
from mate and child, and in the gloom
went to a village teacher's tomb,
requesting him: »Inflect me, pray.«
The village teacher climbed up straight
upon his grave stone with its plate
and to the apparition said
who meekly knelt before the dead:
"The banSHEE, in the subject's place;
the banHERS, the possessive case.
The banHER, next, is what they call
objective case - - and that is all."
The banshee marveled at the cases
and writhed with pleasure, making faces,
but said: "You did not add, so far,
the plural to the singular!"
The teacher, though, admitted then
that this was not within his ken.
»While bans are frequent«, he advised,
»A she cannot be plurized.«
The banshee, rising clammily,
wailed: »What about my family?«
Then, being not a learned creature,
said humbly »Thanks« and left the teacher.
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The translation by W.D. Snodgrass and Lore Segal (Michigan Press, 1967) includes a footnote:
»We might get much the same effect by making this «The Hootowl." In that case, the third stanza would run:
»The Hootowl,« said the good schoolmaster;
"Of Whosetowl's, genitive, thereafter;
To Whomtowl, which is in our native
Tongue, accusative AND dative."
While lines 19 and 20 would go:
Although great flocks of owls there be,
»Who« exists only singularly."
Mark Herman on »Humor and Translation« (ATA Chronicle, April '95, p.26)
Can word play be translated from one language into another?... The second poem is 'Der Werwolf', in which the title character asks a ... schoolmaster to grammatically decline him. The result is a sendup of German case endings, in which, to achieve parallelism, the archaic 'wes' is substituted for modern 'wessen': Der Werwolf, des Weswolfs, dem Wemwolf, den Wenwolf [The who-wolf, the whose-wolf's, to the whom-wolf, the whom-wolf]. Alex Gross' translation depends on the fact that, while English nouns do not take case endings as in German (other than possessives and plurals), English verbs are conjugated and »were« is a form of »to be.« His corresponding English forms are: Werewolf, Waswolf, Amwolf, Iswolf, Arewolf...
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