OT: Poezak

[admin]

Want to learn German thought and language? Here is a little software called Poezak that might help. I made it years ago and just today updated it a little to make it compatible with Win8 and Win10.

It will present you heavy stuff like this...

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... but also poetic ponderings like this:

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Direct Download: http://www.xbeat.net/download/Poezak2015.zip

[Papoulka]

OK, I have a test for Poezak. If it can sort this out, your programmer ranking will advance from "incredible" to "godlike". Or if it's still in beta, maybe one of our native German speakers can chime in. To their great credit, it is often impossible to know exactly who that is...(!)

Here's the first stanza of Strauss's immortal art song "Beim Schlafengehen", based on Hesse:

• Nun der Tag mich müd gemacht,
  Soll mein sehnliches Verlangen
  Freundlich die gestirnte Nacht
  Wie ein müdes Kind empfangen.

Here is the best literal translation I have been able to piece together - no attempt or desire to be poetic in the English:

• Now that day has tired me
  shall my eager desires
  readily, like a tired child,
  the starry night welcome.

Surprisingly, there is a basic ambiguity, which I've never been able to resolve: Is this saying that the desires/longing will embrace the night (as a tired child would welcome it), or that the night will embrace the desires/longing (as it would enfold a tired child)? Probably the former, I'm told. What does Poezak, or anyone else, think?

[admin]

Surprisingly, there is a basic ambiguity, which I've never been able to resolve: Is this saying that the desires/longing will embrace the night (as a tired child would welcome it), or that the
night will embrace the desires/longing (as it would enfold a tired child)? Probably the former, I'm told. What does Poezak, or anyone else, think?

The same ambiguity is also there in the German original. IMO syntactically it's rather "as it would enfold a tired child", but semantically it should be rather "as a tired child would welcome it", so I assume the latter was intended. Or maybe the ambiguity was intended...