'twas Brillig

September 30, 2021 6:00 AM

Beware the Jabberwock, my son The Jabberwocky Variations include parodies and translations of the famous poem. This is a particular challenge for translation as many of the words are invented for the poem, based on how they sound.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin (25 comments total)

After dredging up some very rusty Latin, I like Vansittart's translation best of the three. My Yiddish isn't good enough to say whether that translation captured the feeling of the original, but it's fun to read.

Translations of some Dr. Seuss books have similar made-up-words problems, and even in the original, are really tricky for folks learning English. When I worked at a public library, I learned to steer ESL tutors and students to authors like Mo Williams, David McPhail, and Cynthia Rylant.
posted by carrioncomfort at 6:31 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

I regularly recite it to my niece as I change her nappies. It's a great poem.
posted by dazed_one at 6:34 AM on September 30, 2021

Fascinating! Looking at the three Spanish versions - the only language where I have a chance - the differences are really notable. Brea captures the spirit of the original without trying to sound similar. De Alba does the straightfoward thing I would do and more or less translates the real words, which is probably more useful if you speak Spanish and want to pay attention to the details of the English poem, but doesn't create moving poetry. Manent is great fun, but it's also so far from the original it's more properly inspired by the poem than a translation of the poem. I honestly can't say which one is best.

This inspires an idea for a geeky party game: line people up by shared language, start with a short poem in a language most people speak, and play a game of telephone-translation to see where you end up at the end. The idea needs a little more work, but I think it could be fun.
posted by eotvos at 6:37 AM on September 30, 2021 [4 favorites]

I can't prove I discovered this independently but, as someone who has committed JabberWocky to memory, I was reading Hamlet and had an aha! moment. I searched the web because surely someone else had seen this too and yes they did:

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
—Hamlet; Act I, Scene i

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
—Jabberwocky; Stanza I
posted by vacapinta at 6:42 AM on September 30, 2021 [12 favorites]

It's a perfectly cromulent poem.
posted by neuron at 6:59 AM on September 30, 2021 [7 favorites]

This is great, I particularly loved looking at the Variations and rereading Humpty Dumpty's excellent explanation which I had forgotten about entirely.

I can't read the poem without feeling weirdly creeped out. I was a small child when my parents taped the 1985 live-action TV movie and I watched it obsessively over the years because it's just really strange (and wonderful) and one of the scenes that really freaked me out was at the end when Alice meets the Jabberwocky. It was so obvious to a sensitive kid growing up in the 80s that the veneer of beautiful house/adult tea party/shiny mirror was just one step away from/really the same thing as a world full of monsters and that scene was too close for comfort.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 7:33 AM on September 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

Oh man, I remember this website from the Old, Weird Internet! Archive.org's first snapshots go back to 1999, but I feel like it's even older. I couldn't find any dates on the site itself though. Definitely you don't run across a 20+ year old personal website every day. Thank for sharing!
posted by potrzebie at 8:11 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

In the translations, the "Newest" are from November 1998...
posted by miguelcervantes at 8:29 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Great post! And on International Translation Day too!
posted by fregoli at 8:38 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

a perfectly frabjous day!
posted by 20 year lurk at 9:08 AM on September 30, 2021

There’s a plethora more Italian versions than linked there, WP has most of their first stanzas.
posted by progosk at 10:03 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

The second German translation, by Lieselotte & Martin Remane, is interesting, because it really focuses on the "jabber" aspect. They call the Jabberwock "Brabbelback"... which definitely invokes fast and non-sensical talking (Brabbeln means "to jabber," basically.)

And it gets further reinforced later: "Mit Sabbelschnack / und seinem Tratschen ist es aus!"
(Both "sabbeln," "schnacken," and "tratschen" are German words for talking a lot.)

So they're definitely saying that the Jabberwock/Sabbelschnack talks a lot.
It never occurred to me that that might be the case.
Is it? I always though it basically just burbled...
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 11:37 AM on September 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

Just dropping in to say hi.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 12:03 PM on September 30, 2021 [15 favorites]

Jabberwocky, but it's A Clockwork Orange
posted by Sterros at 12:27 PM on September 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

I really like the Chapatiwocky parody, as all the words are from the Indian Takeaway menu, and the explanations are also from the same menu.
posted by indianbadger1 at 12:58 PM on September 30, 2021 [3 favorites]

The Jabberwocky variation that always sticks out in my memory is Pikachewy, from the Brunching Shuttlecocks. Their site ain't dead yet!
posted by JHarris at 1:16 PM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Jabberwocky, but it's Muppets Galumph, galumph, galumph!
posted by jonp72 at 1:42 PM on September 30, 2021 [5 favorites]

Gather round, my children, and I will tell you a tale from the ancient mists of dialup history. Here we go: In my youth, my CompuServe screenname was Beamish.

I've aged into a different poem, and more Snark, but no less appreciation for nonsense.

As I look in the mirror these days, maybe it's time to start moving my accounts over to Father William.
posted by The Bellman at 1:59 PM on September 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

I have a sudden hankering to see a Jodorowski’s Jabberwocky.
posted by meinvt at 3:14 PM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Disappointed that none of the cited French translations render Jabberwocky as a variation on bavarder, carrying connotations of drooling or slobbering.
posted by sjswitzer at 3:26 PM on September 30, 2021

If you comment two more times, The Bellman, we might believe you.
posted by dannyboybell at 3:36 PM on September 30, 2021 [3 favorites]

"brillig" is one of my favorite words, but, as predicted, draws blank stares.
I should hang out more often in the borogroves, with the mimseys.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 5:46 PM on September 30, 2021

My favorite is the Apple Newton attempt to recognize all the words in English.

"Shred the serious Bandwidth!" just sounds like extreme web surfing.
posted by Foosnark at 6:45 PM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

It's a perfectly cromulent poem.

This was actually an Ask last year.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:52 PM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

The Italian poet Fosco Maraini wrote a Jabberwock-inspired metasemantic composition titled "Il Lonfo" - here's Gigi Proietti's performance of it.

Il Lonfo

Il Lonfo non vaterca né gluisce
e molto raramente barigatta,
ma quando soffia il bego a bisce bisce,
sdilenca un poco e gnagio s’archipatta.

È frusco il Lonfo! È pieno di lupigna
arrafferia malversa e sofolenta!
Se cionfi ti sbiduglia e ti arrupigna
se lugri ti botalla e ti criventa.

Eppure il vecchio Lonfo ammargelluto
che bete e zugghia e fonca nei trombazzi
fa legica busia, fa gisbuto;
e quasi quasi in segno di sberdazzi
gli affarferesti un gniffo. Ma lui, zuto
t’ alloppa, ti sbernecchia; e tu l’accazzi.
posted by progosk at 4:48 AM on October 1, 2021 [1 favorite]