Translation Challenge "IF"

A forum for translations, translation challenges etc. Good place to increase your conlang's vocabulary.
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kingdemon
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Translation Challenge "IF"

Post by kingdemon »

I don't know why this idea won't go away (and I know I'm not on here much), but I thought I'd throw the challenge out there, even though I haven't tried it either. Maybe it will give me the push to try it out as well.

Anyways, my favorite poem is "If" by Rudyard Kipling and this is the challenge:

Translate "If" into your conlang, but there's more too it. Take the values expressed in the poem and replace them with values which match to the values of the society which speaks your conlang. For example, if I was translating this into Tiyen Gresgol, which is spoken in Reteniyasn̆, then the "Triumph and Disaster being treated the same" would have to be scratched as Triumph/Victory is essential to Reteniyasn̆. Also, you can't use the same idioms, but rather idioms from your conlang or ditch the idioms for a literal phrase.

Bonus: translate it as poetry, matching poetic style within the society which speaks your conlang.

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Anyways that's the challenge, which is sort of a cross of the conlang and the conculture sections.

(This is moved over from the Conlangs Forum. I didn't know this one existed.)
The above title is DECEPTIVE: I am a girl...and a succubus.
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