translating poetry, on a lighter note

[George Hawrysch]

"это было  
возможно" ("eto bylo  
vozmozhno")

Quoting "Jules Levin" <ameliede at EARTHLINK.NET>:

> In contemplating some recent issues of literary translation, a  
> couplet of my long-ago youth popped into my head:
> John Greenleaf Whittier's "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the  
> saddest are these--it might have been."  In my youth poetry was  
> still a popular art form in America; newspapers published verse  
> every day, and workingmen like my father memorized long "manly"  
> poems--Robert Service, etc.   This was not great poetry of course.   
> Anyway, I wondered how one would translate "it might have been" into  
> Russian poetic language.  If I wanted to produce the thought in a  
> normal conversation, I would just say  Eto, mozhet byt', bylo by  
> tak..., or some such.  But has Whittier ever been translated?  Is  
> there a more poetic construction?  (The couplet in English does rise  
> above a conventional spoken speech style, in my opinion.)
> Jules Levin
> Los Angeles
>
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