** My reason for posting on the "Torah and Jewish idea" board will be apparent to all Jews, noachides and sympathetic christians.
WHO'S GOT IT RIGHT?
It appears I've been mistaken about something since I was 5 Years old!!
Every Australian knows the famous A.B. Patterson poem "Waltzing Matilda". It's part of our culture and identity. It defines the the very character of Australians. It is our 'defacto' national anthem. In fact, more Australians know the words to this poem than the words to our official national anthem (can't remember the name of it!).
It has come to my attention recently that I (and my whole nation) have been 'had' and we Aussies don't understand our own literature. I'll explain shortly but first, here's the poem:
Waltzing Matilda:
OH! there once was a swagman(1)* camped in the Billabong,(2)*
Under the shade of a Coolabah tree;
And he sang as he looked at his old billy boiling,(3)*
“Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.” (4)*
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, my darling,
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
Waltzing Matilda and leading a water-bag—
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
Down came a jumbuck(5)* to drink at the water-hole,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him in glee;
And he sang as he put him away in his tucker-bag,(6)*
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me!”
Down came the Squatter(7)* a-riding his thorough-bred;
Down came Policemen—one, two, and three.
“Whose is the jumbuck you’ve got in the tucker-bag?
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.”
But the swagman, he up and he jumped in the water-hole,
Drowning himself by the Coolabah tree;
And his ghost may be heard as it sings in the Billabong,
“Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?”
*(1) Itinerant worker who carries his bedroll or swag. (2) Deep waterhole. (3) Small tin can or panniken for boiling tea. (4) Carrying a swag. (5) Sheep. (6) Cloth or canvass bag to carry tucker or food. (7) Privaledged class. Son of a wealthy Englishman who squatted on large tracts of Crown land for a miniscule lease payment.
I've provided the glossary above because many will not understand those words. They won't understand them because they're NOT Australians. Though the poem is in English, one must be an Australian to understand the Australian context.
This poem was written by an Australian. It was written in MY native tongue. It is an EXACT reproduction of A.B. Patterson's words. You may find this poem put to music or written with some small gramatical changes, but the above is an exact copy of what was written over a century ago.
Recently whilst leaving a bookshop, I was approached by a group of Chinese. They seemed most friendly. I asked how I could help them and they informed me they were here to give me the 'good news' and 'the eternal truth' about the 'real A.B. Patterson' and the 'real Waltzing Matilda'.I invited them to explain, and this is what I discovered:
The chinese had in their posession the 'New Waltzing Matilda, Emperor Hoo Flung Dung Edition'. It was apparently the result of a tranlation into Chinese of a translation into Italian of a translation into Greek of the (supposed) original. None of the Chinamen were exactly sure of who the original or subsequent traslators were but they assured me they were good schollars and righteous men and had it 'dead right'.
They continued:
The swagman was really a hardware salesman from Moonee Ponds, Victoria and he was not camping in rural Australia but staying at the Grand Hotel in Sydney.The billabong was the hotel pool and he was ordering a cappucino, not boiling his billy. He did not stuff a stolen sheep into his tucker bag but put a complimentary bag of pretzels into his leather brief case.The squatter and policemen were really the local mafia crew working for capo de capi (boss of bosses) who owned the hotel. The hardware man did not drown himself to avoid capture, but was drowned by the mafiosi after he got drunk and called them 'dagoes', 'wops' and 'greasballs'.
I was taken aback at how outrageously ridiculous this tall tale was. I thought they were joking. They were (as it turned out) deadly serious. I explained that it was so utterly fanciful that NO Australian would ever believe such a thing. They said that if we DIDN'T accept this 'new' version as the true original, we would all find ourselves in boiling sulpher with nasty little men sticking pitchforks in our butts. It was at that point I lost my already short temper and told them to 'leg it' lest I stick my size 10 Blundstone boot so far up their little yellow butts they'd be using saddle soap for toothpaste!
I close this tale with this question:
Who is right?
Those with no Australian cultural understanding with a bastardised mistranslation of a mistranslation of a mistanslation of MY people's revered work?
Or us.....with our original untampered-with work that we've revered for years, learned at our parents' knee in our own language with OUR cultural understanding of it's meaning?
You decide.
Topic: So who's right about this? (Read 2820 times)