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Riders, Where Are Thee?
I see no trust among people; friends, where are thee?
When did companionship end? Lovers, where are thee?
That's actually as far as I got before the urge to throw the book across the room became so great that I had to put it down and go make myself a sandwich to ease my rage. And by sandwich, I mean a pile of chicken slathered in mustard, because we're out of bread. But I can see from skimming the rest of the poem that "where are thee?" is used as a refrain at the end of every couplet, regardless of whether the subject is singular or plural.
THE SECOND PERSON PLURAL IN ARCHAIC ENGLISH IS "YOU." Maybe the translators were trying to make a point that Hafez was using familiar pronouns, but PLURAL SUBJECTS STILL REQUIRE PLURAL PRONOUNS. DO I HAVE TO CUT A BITCH. BECAUSE I WILL CUT A BITCH IF I HAVE TO. Also, "thee" is the objective second person singular, and I am preeeetty sure "to be" takes the nominative, not the objective. Could be wrong. But if you were saying "Friend, where are you?" in archaic English, it'd be "Friend, where art thou?" Which makes this poem TWICE AS WRONG. *cuts a bitch* *and by bitch, I mean chicken breast*
And it goes a step further in proving that the translators were just trying for an archaic, ~mystical~ tone for their translations. Grammatical mistakes for the sake of mystical woo are unacceptable. Un. Acceptable. Which isn't to say there aren't certain authors that can get away with playing with English grammar- but poets who break the rules do so with a purpose, and "mystical woo" is not a good enough reason here.
"But, V," you say, "why should it matter if a niggly little detail like archaic English pronoun usage is a bit off? Shouldn't you cut these people some slack?"
No, dissenting voice. No, I should not cut these people some slack. Unless you are a time traveler from sixteenth century England, there is no excuse for not doing a tiny bit of research to discover the correct way to decline archaic English pronouns. And if you can't be bothered to make that much effort, then you should STICK TO MODERN ENGLISH. This goes for aspiring poets, translators working in other languages, and every teenager who ever tried writing Arthurian fanfiction (not that I'd know this from experience or anything).
When I am empress of the universe, throwing "thee"s and "thou"s about willy-nilly will be a beating offense. *grumbly noises*
I know I've committed some grammatical atrocities in my day- and I still use semi-colons more than any person has a right to. (Sentences that end with prepositions, like split infinitives, are completely acceptable, and anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to be an ass.) But I've somehow become one of those people who gets pedantic and fundamentalist about grammar- in short, I have become my first year English seminar professor, who assigned us readings from Strunk and White every week and made us buy a copy of the Heath Handbook. I think this may be a pleasing thing. I'm not sure yet.
I see no trust among people; friends, where are thee?
When did companionship end? Lovers, where are thee?
That's actually as far as I got before the urge to throw the book across the room became so great that I had to put it down and go make myself a sandwich to ease my rage. And by sandwich, I mean a pile of chicken slathered in mustard, because we're out of bread. But I can see from skimming the rest of the poem that "where are thee?" is used as a refrain at the end of every couplet, regardless of whether the subject is singular or plural.
THE SECOND PERSON PLURAL IN ARCHAIC ENGLISH IS "YOU." Maybe the translators were trying to make a point that Hafez was using familiar pronouns, but PLURAL SUBJECTS STILL REQUIRE PLURAL PRONOUNS. DO I HAVE TO CUT A BITCH. BECAUSE I WILL CUT A BITCH IF I HAVE TO. Also, "thee" is the objective second person singular, and I am preeeetty sure "to be" takes the nominative, not the objective. Could be wrong. But if you were saying "Friend, where are you?" in archaic English, it'd be "Friend, where art thou?" Which makes this poem TWICE AS WRONG. *cuts a bitch* *and by bitch, I mean chicken breast*
And it goes a step further in proving that the translators were just trying for an archaic, ~mystical~ tone for their translations. Grammatical mistakes for the sake of mystical woo are unacceptable. Un. Acceptable. Which isn't to say there aren't certain authors that can get away with playing with English grammar- but poets who break the rules do so with a purpose, and "mystical woo" is not a good enough reason here.
"But, V," you say, "why should it matter if a niggly little detail like archaic English pronoun usage is a bit off? Shouldn't you cut these people some slack?"
No, dissenting voice. No, I should not cut these people some slack. Unless you are a time traveler from sixteenth century England, there is no excuse for not doing a tiny bit of research to discover the correct way to decline archaic English pronouns. And if you can't be bothered to make that much effort, then you should STICK TO MODERN ENGLISH. This goes for aspiring poets, translators working in other languages, and every teenager who ever tried writing Arthurian fanfiction (not that I'd know this from experience or anything).
When I am empress of the universe, throwing "thee"s and "thou"s about willy-nilly will be a beating offense. *grumbly noises*
I know I've committed some grammatical atrocities in my day- and I still use semi-colons more than any person has a right to. (Sentences that end with prepositions, like split infinitives, are completely acceptable, and anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to be an ass.) But I've somehow become one of those people who gets pedantic and fundamentalist about grammar- in short, I have become my first year English seminar professor, who assigned us readings from Strunk and White every week and made us buy a copy of the Heath Handbook. I think this may be a pleasing thing. I'm not sure yet.
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