Game finished. The winner is walen with a proposal of just 195 characters and asonante rhyme. User blonfu came up with a proposal of the same length but failed to rhyme the first two verses.
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.
Following are the first verses of one of the most popular songs by the power metal band Blind Guardian, The Bard's Song - In the Forest:
Now you all know
The bards and their songs
When hours have gone by
I'll close my eyes
In a world far away
We may meet again
But now hear my song
About the dawn of the night
Let's sing the bards' songTomorrow will take us away
Far from home
No one will ever know our names
But the bards' songs will remain
Tomorrow will take it away
The fear of today
It will be gone
Due to our magic songs(304 characters)
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:
Ahora conocéis
A los bardos y sus canciones
Cuando hayan pasado las horas
Cerraré mis ojos
En un mundo distante
Podríamos volver a vernos
Por ahora, oíd mi canción
Sobre el amanecer de la noche
Cantemos la canción del bardo
El mañana nos llevará
Lejos de casa
Nadie conocerá nunca nuestros nombres
Pero las canciones de los bardos perdurarán
El mañana se llevará
Los miedos de hoy
Se irán
Gracias a la magia de nuestras canciones
(313 characters)
Remember that every word and concept that appear in the original text must also appear in the translation. I'll check with special care the following:
- The references to the bards and their songs.
- The chance of meeting again in the future.
- Let's sing the bard's song.
- The bard's songs being the only thing that remains when all the other things are gone.
- The healing ability of the bard's songs.
General rules for this game are as follows:
- Rules: Translation-golf rules
- Rhyme bonus: if you are up for a challenge, make your translation rhyme to get a 10% discount bonus in your total char count!
- The rhyming in this song seems to be a bit loose, so this time you can create your own rhyming as long as there are 16 verses rhyming of a total of 17 verses in the original song. Just state in your answer which verses are the ones rhyming.
- You can still get a 5% discount if your rhyming is asonante.
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!