The Ring verse in German

28 May 2024

I finally got the Lord of the Rings in English. I never read it in its native English, only in a German translation, about thirty years ago.

And already on the first page I am stumped: the ring verse seems to me sooo much better in German than in English. Now, it is absolutely possible that this is due to me having read it as an impressionable teenager and having carried the translation with me for three decades and thus developed fondness and familiarity with it, but I think it's more than that.

Here are the verses in English, German, and a literal back-translation of the German to English:

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all,

One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all,

and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

German translation by von Freymann:

Drei Ringe den Elbenkönigen hoch im Licht,'

Sieben den Zwergenherrschern in ihren Hallen aus Stein,

Den Sterblichen, ewig dem Tode verfallen, neun,

Einer dem dunklen Herrn auf dunklem Thron

Im Lande Mordor, wo die Schatten drohn.

Einen Ring, sie zu knechten, sie all zu finden,

ins Dunkle zu treiben und ewig zu binden

Im Lande Mordor, wo die Schatten drohn.

Back-translation of her translation by me:

Three Rings for the Elven kings high in the light,

Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

For the mortals, eternally doomed to death, nine,

One for the Dark Lord on dark throne

In the Land of Mordor, where the Shadows loom.

One Ring, to enslave them, to find them,

to drive to Darkness, and forever bind them

In the Land of Mordor, where the Shadows loom.

The differences are small, but I find the selection of words by the translator to be stronger and more evocative than Tolkien's original. Which is amazing. Thanks to the great Ebba-Margareta von Freymann for her wonderful translation of the poems!

Originally, the publisher Klett hat trouble with translating Tolkien's poems, but Ebba-Margareta had been, for many years working on the translation of poems by Tolkien, and by using her translations, Klett did a great service to the book for the German-speaking world.

Simia

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