My Lyrics - Per L'amor di Dio

[vertigoaddict]

Per l'amor di Dio
***
English Version

For the Love of God,

I shall give him my all, my everything,

For without his blessings there is nothing,

I shall be Loving,

I shall be Hopeful,

I shall be Just,

I shall be Faithful,

The body you have bestowed upon me.

The soul that you have christen me by.

I am  eternally grateful, I am grateful.

For I long to see the garden of the Lord

and there shall I find happiness forever more.

***

Italian Version

Per l'amor di Dio,

Io gli darò tutto il mio, il mio tutto,

Per senza le sue benedizioni non vi è nulla,

Sarò Amare,

Sarò Pitfall,

Sarò Just,

Sarò Fedele,

Il corpo avete donato su di me.

L'anima che mi avete da battezza.

Sono infinitamente grata, sono grato.

Per tanto tempo desidero vedere il giardino del Signore

E io vi sono sempre più trovare la felicità .
---

I wanted to make my own (short, about 1 min more or less) opera song for my game. I just wanted to know what you guys think of the lyrics; is it opera quality?

I'd be great if someone offered to do the music for the song (I know, I know; not the thread to ask; just saying...)

PS/  I used Google Translate, so if anyone wants to correct my itallian version, please do. OwO

[vertigoaddict]

Part 2 English

Green fields and blue skies surround me,

But I know nothing will compare to eden,

If ever I was to break our promise,

Punish me my love, let me feel your wrath.

May the fires of hell eat away my flesh and burn my very soul

For if I ever succumb to temptation,

I do not deserve your gift

You are the only, the great, I will do anything

For the love of God


Part 2 italian

Campi verdi e blu cielo mi circondano,

Ma so che non accadrà  nulla a confronto con stupore,

Se mai mi è stato di rompere la nostra promessa,

Punire il mio amore, mi sento la tua ira.

Possa il fuoco dell'inferno mangiare fuori la mia carne e bruciare la mia anima

Infatti, se ho mai cedere alla tentazione,

Io non meritano il tuo dono

Sei l'unico, il grande, lo farò nulla

Per l'amore di Dio

[Kweepa]

Google translated back from the italian:

Code: ags

For the love of God,
I give him all my, my everything,
For without his blessings there is nothing,
I love,
I tend,
I Just,
I Faithful,
The body have donated about me.
The soul that I have to christen.
I am eternally grateful, I am grateful.
For I long to see the garden of the Lord
And I always find more happiness.

You can see that where you've tried to be flowery in English, the translation went astray. A translation won't pick flowery Italian to try to match your flowery English.

My suggestions are to:
keep it simple
get the english right!
use unambiguous words and phrases, even if it doesn't sound as good (in English)
rework sections that didn't translate back properly
use full stops and line breaks to break up parts that can be translated individually (you can remove them later)
And of course once you have something you are happy with give it to a native speaker to polish.

For example:

Code: ags

For the love of God.
I will give all my body, my everything.
Without his blessings there is nothing.
I will be loving.
I will be optimistic.
I will be honorable.
I will be loyal.
The body that you have given me.
The soul that you have christened.
I am eternally grateful, I am grateful.
I want to see the garden of the Lord.
And there, I will find happiness forever.

Translates to:

Code: ags

Per l'amore di Dio.
Darò tutto il mio corpo, il mio tutto.
Come senza le sue benedizioni, non vi è nulla.
Sarò amorevole.
Sarò ottimisto.
Sarò onesto.
Sarò leale.
Il corpo che mi hai dato.
L'anima che hai battezzato.
Sono infinitamente grato, sono grato.
Voglio vedere il giardino del Signore.
E lì, mi trovare la felicità  per sempre.

(From the google translation I touched up the adjectives to be masculine.)

This reads more like Italian to me... The bits I'm worried about are that loving, hopeful etc translated into something comical. You would need a native speaker to correct those and make them flow better. With a bit of playing with a thesaurus you could probably get them to be similar length and to rhyme.

----------------------

Part 2 translated back:

Code: ags

Green fields and blue sky around me,
But I know that nothing will compare with amazement,
If ever I was to break our promise,
Punishing my love, I feel your anger.
May the fire of hell eat off my flesh and burn my soul
In fact, if I ever succumb to the temptation,
I do not deserve your gift
You are the only one, the great, I will do anything
For the love of God

The things I would work on are:
- getting Eden back in. perhaps capitalizing it?
- put a full stop between "Punish me" and "my love"
- simplify line 3 - I suspect it just translated word for word (and back again) so it's nonsense in Italian
- "May" translated to "Posso" - it's possible
- eat away - try dissolve or just eat, otherwise it's translated like eating off a plate
- "infatti" sounds very colloquial - just remove the "for"

Let's see:

Code: ags

Green fields and light blue skies surround me.
But I know nothing will compare to Eden.
If I ever break our promise.
Punish me.
My darling.
Let me feel your wrath.
The fires of hell will eat my body and burn my soul.
If I ever succumb to temptation,
I do not deserve your gift.
You are the only, the great.
I will do anything
For the love of God.

Code: ags

Campi verdi e cieli azzurri mi circondano.
Ma so che non accadrà  nulla di confrontare Eden.
Se ho mai rompere la nostra promessa.
Punirmi, la mia cara. Vorrei sentire la vostra collera.
Il fuoco dell'inferno mangerà  il mio corpo e brucerà  la mia anima.
Se ho mai cedere alla tentazione,
Io non meritano il tuo dono.
Sei l'unico, il grande. Vorrei fare nulla
Per l'amore di Dio.

(For some reason the only way I could get "Punish me" to translate correctly was to translate it on its own...) Line 2 still looks wrong, but I don't know what to do with it.

[vertigoaddict]

After translating Itallian to English and vice versa, I came up with this:

English Version


Part 1


For the love of God,

I give him all my, my everything,

For without his blessings there is nothing,

I am sweet,

I hope

I am proud,

I have faith,

The body you have given me.

The soul that you baptized.

I am eternally grateful, I am grateful.

For I long to see the garden of the Lord

And there is happiness.


Part 2


Green fields and blue sky around me,

But I know that nothing will compare to paradise,

If ever I was to break our promise,

The penalty so terrible, I feel your anger.

The hell fire eats my flesh and burn my soul

If I ever give in to temptation,

I do not deserve your gift

You are the only one, the great, I will do anything

For the love of God


***

Italian Version


Part 1


Per l'amor di Dio,

Io gli darò tutto il mio, il mio tutto,

Per senza le sue benedizioni non vi è nulla,

Io sono dolce,

Ho speranza,

Io sono orgoglioso,

Ho fede,

Il corpo mi hai dato.

L'anima che hai battezzato.

Sono infinitamente grata, sono grato.

Per tanto tempo desidero vedere il giardino del Signore

E vi è la felicità .


Part 2


Campi verdi e blu cielo intorno a me,

Ma so che non accadrà  nulla di confrontare paradiso,

Se mai mi è stato di rompere la nostra promessa,

La pena così terribili, mi sento la tua rabbia.

L'inferno di fuoco mangia la mia carne e di bruciare la mia anima

Se ho mai cedere alla tentazione,

Io non meritano il tuo dono

Sei l'unico, il grande, lo farò nulla

Per l'amore di Dio


---

Now if anyone out there is a native Itallian, please help.

Thanks a lot SteveMcCrea, couldn't have done it without you!

[khnum]

I'm italian, i can translate it for you
Anyway, it's 1.30 A.M., so i'll do it tomorrow

[paolo]

Bravo khnum. I would have offered, but Italian is not my mother tongue and so I could not guarantee accuracy, let alone the appropriate lyrical quality.

The Google translation contains lots of errors, by the way, but that's to be expected. Furthermore, it can't give you the slightly archaic style of language found in operatic Italian, such as omitting the final "e" in words ending in "re".

My comments on the English...

1. Careful with the punctuation at the ends of the lines. Commas should only go in where they would appear if this were prose (that is, if it were written all on one line). For the most part, this is what you have done, but I would recommend writing the lyrics out as a single line and checking whether the punctuation is appropriate.

2. I suggest using semicolons or full stops/periods instead of commas in the lines "I am eternally grateful, I am grateful", "The penalty so terrible, I feel your anger" and "You are the only one, the great, I will do anything" (second comma only) as these are run-on sentences otherwise. Full stops may give too strong a break; if so, use semicolons instead.

3. "If ever I was" should be "If ever I were" (subjunctive) - "If ever I was" is OK in colloquial English, but here it clashes with the poetic style used. Furthermore, it would make no sense if translated into Italian as the indicative rather than the subjunctive.

4. The capitalisation of random words has gone - that's good.

5. I think, although I'm not sure, Italian does not capitalise words in titles other than the first word and proper nouns; hence "Per l'amor di Dio" rather than "Per L'amor di Dio" (which would be "Per l'Amor di Dio" in any case, I believe).

6. "I give him all my, my everything" - is this correct? Should it be "...my all, my everything"?

7. You might want to capitalise "paradise" to show it means the hereafter rather than a place on earth or an emotional state.

8. "Hell fire" is either hyphenated or one word ("hell-fire" or "hellfire").

9. "burn my soul" should be "burns my soul".

10. "If I ever give in to temptation / I do not deserve your gift" - should this be "... I will not deserve your gift"? Alternatively, use the subjunctive and the conditional: "If I ever gave in ... / I would not ... ". Additionally, "If ever I ..." might sound more poetic.

11. "For the love of God" - End with a full stop.

[vertigoaddict]

Ugh, I knew I should've taken up Italian! ...And Deutch and continued French, maybe even take Japanese, I heard mandarin is hard though (my sister tried to say cow, instead she said nipple or bust).

Ahh...language is facinating!

[paolo]

The Italian, she is a bellissima language

Did khnum do a translation for you after all, vertigoaddict?

[vertigoaddict]

I saw that he is a composer, so I asked him, if it was okay for him to compose the music.

He hasn't shown me the fluent translation yet, no. Everyone is busy, so I just have to be a little more patient.

[José Luiz]

vertigoaddict,

The theme is very good! Although Italian isn't my native language either, I sing opera and research about operatic libretto - so I think I can help a bit.

If you're trying to imitate operas until early 20th century, you have to be aware of the poetic syllables, which are a bit different from normal ones. They make the work easier ("less difficult", I'd say) even for the composer.

You have also to think about rhymes. In arias (cabalettas, duets, trios etc.) there were some rhyme patterns, such as ABAB-CDCD and so on. An example (from Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore, written by Salvatore Cammarano):

Tu vedrai che amore in terra     A
Mai del mio non fu più forte:     B
Vinse il fato in aspra guerra,     A
Vincerà  la stessa morte.           B
O col prezzo di mia vita             C
La tua vita salverò,                   D
O con te per sempre unita        C
Nella tomba scenderò!              D

[You will see that on earth
There wasn't a stronger love than mine:
It defeated the destiny in awful war,
It will defeat even the death.
Or I will save your life
With the price of mine,
Or always together with you
I will enter a tomb!]

(Sorry for the quick translation!)

I love opera and languages, so I'll be glad if I can be of any help!

[paolo]

Oh yeah, I forgot that opera often uses the "passato remoto" (past historic), a literary tense not used in spoken Italian.

Translating poetry or lyrics and maintaining the rhyme scheme, metre and meaning is very, very difficult. Fortunately, the English version is in free verse, so only the sense would need to be translated, unless you want the Italian to rhyme and scan as well.

Let me see what I can do (although I'm sure José Luiz will be able to do better, with his knowledge of opera).

[paolo]

OK, here's my translation...

=========

Prima parte

Per l'amor di Dio,
Gli do tutto, tutto ciò che ho,
Poiché senza le sue benedizioni, non c'è niente,
Sono dolce,
Spero che
Sono fiero,
Ho fede,
Il corpo che mi hai dato.
L'anima che battezzasti.
Sono grato per sempre, sono grato.
Poiché desidero vedere il giardino del Signore
e c'è la felicità .

Seconda parte

Campi verdi e cielo azzurro intorno a me,
Ma so che niente sarà  paragonabile al paradiso,
Semmai io rompessi la nostra promessa,
La pena così terribile; mi sento la tua rabbia.
Il fuoco dell'inferno mangia la mia carne e brucia la mia anima.
Semmai io cedessi alla tentazione,
Non meriterei il tuo dono.
Sei il solo, il grande, farei di tutto
Per l'amor di Dio.

=========

Note that if the person reading these lines is female, then these words will change:

fiero -> fiera
grato -> grata

It's a bit literal, and not very operatic-sounding. Opera would probably invert some subjects and verbs, like this: "Semmai la nostra promessa io rompessi".

The good news is that if you want rhymes, these are fairly easy to do in Italian, because the language is regular and most words are stressed on the second-to-last syllable. This will however require some rewording that will change the sense, but a good translator will give you something that conveys the the same meaning even if it doesn't use the same form of words.

Here's a rhyme for free, taking advantage of the ending used for the imperfect subjunctive and using the subject-verb inversion I suggested:

Semmai la nostra promessa io rompessi,
[...]
Semmai alla tentazione io cedessi,

It doesn't scan, but the number of syllables in the two lines is the same.

[vertigoaddict]

Thank you guys!

I know, I should get the words to rhyme (but like I said, don't know how to and make sense of it).

Jose' Luiz - I love listening to opera too (though, I don't really pay attention to the names of the song, which probably means that any 'true' opera lovers out there would kill me) I'll accept help from anyone; as I'm hoping to finish the game this year (although, there's no real deadline; I would like things/ the progress to flow well). So you sing baratone? I sing tenor.

Paolo

Thank you! thank you! (btw, it would be a female singing in-game, and me trying it out just for fun: adding it on 'extras' or something). If you want to do the honours of rhyming the words for me, by all means do! That goes for anyone in the forum; this is, after all, the crittics lounge.

And if any one in the forum has an idea of how this song should go, don't hesitate to post a link to a sample piece or post images of the music notes.

[José Luiz]

Vertigoaddict,

Yes, I'm a baritone - or a baritone-wannabe...
That's really nice to find another lyric singer here.

After Paolo's translation (which, by the way, is very good!), I tried to write something. From the second part I got the two first verses ("Campi verdi e cielo azzurro intorno a me, / Ma so che niente sarà  paragonabile al paradiso") and reduced to a four-verse stanza, trying to keep the same idea:

Campi verdi e azzurro ciel
Sono sempre a me d'intorno,
So però che niente è bel
Come in paradiso un giorno.

["Green fields and blue sky
Are always around me,
But I know that nothing is beautiful
As a day in paradise."]

(As a matter of fact, I didn't like very much the last verse, "Come in paradiso un giorno", but it was the only solution I got since yesterday.)

I also made a very simple song for these verses, imitating the Bel Canto style. I know the harmony I used isn't very good (I hope the forum composers don't kill me!...), but it's just a suggestion of how it could sound.

The score:

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/6094/campiverdize8.png

The MIDI file:

http://www.freewebs.com/lanesville/MIDIs/campiverdi.MID

[vertigoaddict]

I think it's good, I'll practise it a bit (just to see how it sounds when sung). Thanks.