Chizhik, chizhik, gde ty byl?

[Tom Priestly]

V. Sirin = V. Nabokov, in his  1923 translation *Anja v strane chudes* of
Lewis Carroll's *Alice in Wonderland*, chose an interesting solution for
one translator's problem, namely how to render a piece of verse in the
target language (Russian) which is a parody of a well-known verse in the
source-language (English).
The poem, sung by the Mad Hatter at the 'Mad Tea Party', in English is
"Twinkle twinkle little bat" and parodies "Twinkle twinkle little star."

Sirin/Nabokov adapts this as

Ryzhik, ryzhik, gde ty byl?
Na poljanke dozhdik pil?
Vypil kaplju, vypil dve,
Stalo syro v golove!

According to Warren Weaver, *Alice in Many Tongues*, this is a parody of a
rhyme "known to children at the time" which apparently began:

Chizik, chizhik, gde ty byl?

Can anyone finish this for me? I can back-translate Weaver's English
version, but may  not get it right . . .
This is to provide one example of "the untranslatable" for a translation class.
Off-list, please.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
*  Tom Priestly, Professor
*  Slavic & East European Studies
*  Modern Languages and Cultural Studies
*  University of Alberta
*  Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E6
---------------------------------------------------------------

*  day-time telephone:  780 - 492 - 5688
*  fax:               780 - 492 - 9106

*  email:           tom.priestly at ualberta.ca
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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