It's all over now: Charlie won with a 157-char answer.
And now his watch has ended.
Welcome to a new edition of the game! If this is your first time, there's some info for beginners at the end of this post.
Quoting A Wiki of Ice and Fire:
House Reyne was obliterated after they rebelled against their liege lord, Tytos Lannister, who was perceived as weak by his own vassals. To restore Lannister dominance, Tytos's eldest son and heir, Ser Tywin Lannister, marched against the upstart Lord of Castamere, Roger Reyne, known as the "Red Lion of Castamere". By the end of the rebellion, Castamere had been put to the torch and all members of House Reyne executed. The title is thus a play on words, as the "rains" fall over the empty halls of the "Reynes" who have been killed to the last man, and "not a soul to hear".
The lyrics heavily reference the fact that the sigil of House Reyne was also a lion, but a red one instead of the golden lion used as the sigil of House Lannister. The rebellion of the Reynes against the Lannisters was thus seen as a civil war of lions.
"And who are you," the proud lord said,
"that I must bow so low?
Only a cat of a different coat,
that’s all the truth I know.
In a coat of gold or a coat of red,
a lion still has claws,
And mine are long and sharp, my lord,
as long and sharp as yours."
And so he spoke, and so he spoke,
that lord of Castamere,
But now the rains weep o’er his hall,
with no one there to hear.
Yes now the rains weep o’er his hall,
and not a soul to hear.
(318 characters)
For the TV show Game of Thrones, a tune was composed for the lyrics, and the indie rock band The National made the first rendition of it. You can listen to it here.
The goal is to translate the given text to Spanish, using as few letters as possible, while keeping all the original text's meaning and concepts more or less intact.
My own, non-golfed translation:
"¿Y quién eres tú", dijo el orgulloso señor,
"para que yo deba hacer tanta reverencia?"
Solo un gato de diferente pelaje[note 1],
esa es toda la verdad que sé.
Con pelaje rojo o pelaje dorado,
un león sigue teniendo garras,
y las mías son largas y afiladas, mi señor,
tan largas y afiladas como las vuestras".
Y así habló, y así habló,
el señor de Castamere,
pero ahora las lluvias lloran sobre su estancia,
sin nadie ahí que escuche.
Sí, ahora las lluvias lloran sobre su estancia,
y ni una alma se escucha[note 2].
(389 characters)
Note 1: 'coat' in English can mean "animal fur" as well as "coat of arms". It's a double entendre referring to houses Rayne and Lannister having similar coats of arms, both featuring a rampant lion but with different coat color.
Note 2: I think in 'not a soul to hear', the verb 'to hear' can be interpreted either as transitive: not a soul was left to hear the rains weeping, just like when it says before 'no one's there to hear'; or intransitive: everybody was dead, the place was silent, there was not a soul to hear -- as in there was nothing to hear, nobody alive to be heard.
Concepts that must appear in the translation:
- The name 'Castamere' or a reasonably argued translation or transliteration.
- The similarity in the coats and, specifically, the animal and colors. Lion, red, gold (or suitable synonyms) must be included.
- The Rayne lord saw his House as equally powerful as House Lannister.
- Literally everybody was killed.
- The Rayne lord spoke: you can golf his words as much as your ability allows, but they must still be shown as his words. I.e. if the song said "Jolly," said the lord, "what a bright sun we have today!" you could golf it to "Sunny day!" he said, but not to It was sunny.
As long as those concepts are kept and the gist of the story is still understood, you can make the text as short as you want.
General rules for this game are as follows:
- Rules: Translation-golf rules
- Rhyme bonus: if you are up for a challenge, keep the number and rhyme of lines to get a 10% discount bonus in your total char count!
- The rhyming lines are those ending in low/know, claws/yours and Castamere/hear. To get the full bonus you must manage to get a consonante rhyme for those lines in Spanish; however, an asonante rhyme will still get you a good 5%. Info about rhyme types in Spanish.
- Please note that you don't need to keep the metric too: if you weren't allowed to make the lines shorter, there wouldn't be much golfing left to do ;-)
Also, remember that not every character counts for the total: only letters and numbers do. You can paste your translation in the letter counter linked below to obtain your char count.
- Letter counter: jsfiddle
You may want to check past translation-golf questions to get a feel of the game dynamics and the kind of answers expected.
Want to share translation ideas, ask for clarifications or just tease other contestants? Join us in La Tertulia, Spanish.SE's official chat room!
Have fun!