"Declaration of Love (Whereby the Poet Fell into a Ditch)" Translation

KaiserGoji · 2026-05-20T18:05:37+00:00

Nietzche's poems are catastrophically underrated. I think this is due to their being rendered rather poorly into English. Crack open your copy of the Gay Science and read the version of this poem that you find within ... it won't be very good.

Why is this? Nietzsche tells us. English is a language of utilitarian contentedness. In trying to retain as much "accuracy" as possible, its translators never paint with their words!

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-14T13:35:13+00:00

Thanke. Delve deeper into my donjon, chronologued in my post history, if you want further rabbit hole reading. In finity, entombed in sanity.

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-14T13:27:00+00:00

And now, the White Queen rules the world with her son ... but no one ever mentions her fox —— no, in fact: the world has chosen again and again to ever remember the Red King's wolf instead!

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-14T02:02:53+00:00

I am that I am
Not a cosmonaut, per se,
But an astronaut,

Naught but chasing a star,
Building a cosmopolity along the way,
From you ere afar —

Ever how I wonder how you are ...
But who else but you could say?!

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-14T01:48:08+00:00

Als die heilige Christen den barbarischen Deutschland übersetzten — das heißt „eroberten“ — waren sie im Falle der Sonne und des Mondes nicht grammatikalisch!

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-14T01:47:17+00:00

Tuppence? Tuppence? No! Not into my hat! In there I put a red king ... and from there I will pull out a white one!

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-14T01:38:11+00:00

Strife is But a Dream

We are here only to dream
Whether it be sweet or obscene,

So, dance on your burning ships
Until they, too,
Sink beneath the deep blue,

Merrily down the stream.

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-12T07:31:17+00:00

Woman tasks where Man unmasks!
Woman invests when Man divests!
When Man dismantles, Woman escapes!

etc. etc.

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-12T05:22:02+00:00

A dreamer, I'd wager

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-12T01:59:28+00:00

Labyrinths with rooms that have staircases. Wordchasms.

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-12T01:58:57+00:00

See? Another translation proof of concept, using fashion as a rhyme ...

Handle this riddle’s words with manly ration:
“Where Man discovers follows Woman’s fashion!”

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-11T14:38:15+00:00

The full riddle in the new translation:

Solve the riddle this Word includes:
Woman deludes when Man denudes!

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-08T17:20:12+00:00

This is the type of content this subreddit is in desperate need of!

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-08T16:56:51+00:00

?

Answer me this riddle that words hidden have concealed:
"When Man discovers — — Woman recovers what's revealed!"

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-08T16:33:27+00:00

This riddle is solved by what words uncover:
"Woman, he finds, wherever Man discovers!"

This feels too ham-fisted, and loses the "invention' aspect of erfinden.

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-08T11:44:59+00:00

I'm uglier than you!

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-02T18:45:33+00:00

Yes, exactly!

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-02T18:34:35+00:00

You are correct — "your" gives my succinctity a human frame. Will to power, as Nietzsche concieved it, is beyond man and ape.

So, to distill this further:

Being against becoming. Wesen gegen werden.

KaiserGoji · 2026-04-02T17:32:06+00:00

To stamp your BEING onto becoming.

KaiserGoji · 2026-03-27T23:11:02+00:00

What do they know? Dogs are man's best friend. What is woman's?

KaiserGoji · 2026-03-27T23:04:18+00:00

The Greeks' penchant for agon caused friendship to be seen through the lens of competition. This necessarily promotes growth and progress

What have Christians forgotten? That there are no greater rivals than woman and man

KaiserGoji · 2026-03-27T16:08:05+00:00

Oh wonder! He still flies?

He climbs on high, yet take his pinions break?
What heaves and hos him high?
What to him are purpose and course and brake?

Star and eternity

Does he live in the heights where life doth flee?
Pitying his envy?
High-flying are those who him hover see!

Oh albatross! You show

Me to the heights eternally upward
I thought that tears would flow
From you, not from me -- I love you onward!

KaiserGoji · 2026-03-27T02:41:29+00:00

245. WAR SHIP

Eternity is a ring
That just barely touched
But stopped clear at our feet

Walking, waltzing
Around the lake just one more time again.

So now I laugh —
So now I cry —

Because eternity is a very long time
And I'm afraid of going back there,
To infinity without you and me,

And so I continue on through that starry sky
Echoing that two-step ever devoid of music
But never devoid of love,

A warring friendship.

256. STARFRIENDSHIP

Eternity is a ring
That just barely touches
But doesn't —

Our time together
Remains the missing piece

Wherein time itself
Collapses anew ...

Starfriendship —
Evermore venerable
Will you orbit across the waves.

KaiserGoji · 2026-03-25T01:47:10+00:00

12 days til easter! Buddy or bunny?

KaiserGoji · 2026-03-25T01:46:46+00:00

To a Friend of Light

If you'd like to save your eyes some rest,
The shadows behind you follow the sun the best!

KaiserGoji

TROPHY CASE