h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The wonderful Babelfish website (http://world.altavista.com) can offer endless fun. Its poetic capacities are unique. Enter a few lines of poetry, or a some well-known quotes, let Babelfish translate it back and forth through some languages, and the results will be breathtaking. Take Blake's famous stanza from "Jerusalem", for example:

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

Translate them along this path:
English -> German -> French -> Greek -> English

And you'll get this:

"And have it in goes these legs to the old years later the prasj'njsma the Gebirgs of England? And has the holy lamb of God in the pleasant pasture lands of England appearred? And does the support have ypobjastej' more still the Shine our their later hills bewoelkten? And here was Jerusalem builded under them satanic dark mills?"

Pure gold!

So here is the idea:
Give us a Babelfished version of something you think other people might recognize, tell us what language path you used, and let us start reconfiguring the poetry. Using the indicated path, everyone can check whether their guess is right. (English should be the starting and ending point.) If the riddle is solved, the solver may then post her or his Babelfish poetry.

Here is an easy one for starters.

"A God to store the queen."
English -> German -> French -> Portuguese -> English

Happy Babelfishing.

Y.

Apologies for almost immediate topic drift - but this is slightly relevant and is too good to miss. If you go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/wordofmouth.shtml and use the listen again facility, you can hear 'accidental' poetry - including some by Donald Rumsfeld.

Now - if you took one of these accidental poems and babelfished it as per Yelbakk's instructions in the previous post.................

God save the queen!

unfortunately I'm rubbish at poetry so I cant really play the game

oh well, here goes, its not poetry but hopefully someone will recognise it: Mrs Est Adam

path: English-Italian-French-German-English

good luck!

"Mrs Est Adam"??

I don't have the slightest idea...

Y.

::
three times brinded the cat which maulló the hath, three times and once that will gimoteara the pig to encircle, tis more harpier time, of staples of the
time of the tis of the cries of a snake fenny in couldren boiling and cook the furnace, the eye of the newt and the finger of the foot of wools of frog
of the wood and the hair of the dog

its Madam I'm Adam, the original palindrome

Ah, brilliant! Didn't know that pallindrome (I know a few in German, but *that* would put you at a distadvantage )

Have another go, then.

Y.

English-German-French-Spanish-English

another palindrome, easy if you know it, very hard if you dont:
"If I had to a hifi"

Too hard!

Try an easy one:-

the boy was on the hot bridge

English-Dutch-French-German-English

I just tried to translate tamaire's back (cheating) and it came out with 'If I had that high loyalty'?????

I think I could be quite hopless at this....

I don't think you're hopeless

I think it's much harder than it looks.......

I put "The only unnatural sex act is that which cannot be performed." through English, Italian, French, Greek and back to English. This is the result.
"I distinguish artificial action sex it is that it cannot be realised."

Poetry of a kind:

"so that it is or, in order to it is no - that it is the interpellation"

That was danish-french-greek-english

I think the original was more pithy.

Cheers all
G

Hey - I know that one!!

To be or not to be - that is the question.

Well I thought I'd start simple and work up from there....


Your turn Feisor

G

Ooh. Good game.

English -> Portuguese -> French -> Dutch -> English

"For deêtre, or so that is not: those are the queries: As a tis more noblely the spirit the supports and the arrows of the capacity sufferings outrageous, or for defaire study into the poor of samenkomst to a sea of the problems, and if by resisting itself they conclude them?"

A nice easy one, methinks.

B

That's one I could have got, am not enough of a scholar to figure out Mr. B's....

Mind if I have a go?



English > Japanese > English

You saw in the world to be, it must be modification


*CLUE: It's on my PS*

'You must be the change you wish to see in the world'



I think?




I will come up with another one soon...........

G