208 BUKEAU OF AMEKICAN ETH2SIOLOGY [bull. 38 



ITransIaliou] 



tivny 



Precious the gift of heart's-enst'. 

 A wreath for the cheerful (huue ; 

 So dear to uiy heart is the breeze 

 That murmurs, strip for the oceau. 

 5 Lo^•e slaves for wreaths from Kaaua. 

 I'u) blest iu your love that reigus here; 

 It spealvS iu the fall of a tear — 

 The choicest thing iu one's life. 

 This love for a mau by his wife — 

 10 It has power to shake the whole frame. 

 All, where am I uowV 

 Here, face to your face. 



The platitudes of mere sentimentalism, when put into cold print, 

 are not stimulating- to the imagination ; moods and states of feeling 

 often approaching the morbid, their oral expression needs the reen- 

 forcement of voice, tone, countenance, the whole attitude. They are 

 for this reason most difficult of translation and Avhen rendered liter- 

 ally into a foreign speech often become meaningless. The figures 

 employed also, like the Avatergourds and wine-skins of past genera- 

 tions and of other peoples, no longer appeal to us as familiar objects, 

 but require an effort of the imagination to make them intelligible and 

 vivid to our mental vision. If the translator carries these figures of 

 speech over into his new rendering, the}^ will often demand an expla- 

 nation on their own account, and will thus fail of their original 

 intent ; while if he clothes the thought in some new figure he takes 

 the risk of failing to do justice to the intimate meaning of the origi- 

 nal. The force of these remarks will become apparent from an 

 analysis of the prominent figures of speech that occur in the mele. 



Melc 



He iuoa no ka T.aui, 

 No Nahi-eua-eua ; 

 A ka luna o wahine. 

 Ho'i ka ena a ka makani; 

 5 Noho ka la"i i ka maliuo — 

 Makaui ua ha-ao ; 

 Ko ke au i hala, ea. 

 I'uuawai o Maua," 

 Wai ola na l^e kupa 

 30 A ka ilio nana, 



Hae, nanaliu i ke kai ; 

 lOhu kai nana ka pua, 

 Ka pua o ka iliau, 



" Punairai n Mand. A spring of water at Ilonuapo, Hawaii, wliich bubbled up at 

 sucli a level that the ocean covered it at high tide. 



