~AA

"If only, if only," the woodpecker sighed,

"The bark were as soft as the sky."

While the wolf stays below, greedy and lonely,

And howls to the moon "If only, if only."

...But I can't say any more than that. It has a vague familiarity to it, but I have no idea where it came from.

The meter isn't perfect, as you said, but it does still flow rather nicely. I'd think "essent" would be better than "fuerint," but it wouldn't work as well with the rhythm... And that is a nice last line.

And yes, you've ranted about Valentine's Day before.

Well, I'm not actually sure... they are both subjunctive. Are you allowed to use perfect subjunctive in a case like this? Esset is clearer since perfect subjunctive tends to look exactly like future perfect...

Ah, avidus was something else I should have changed in the more faithful to the English version... though I forget what the better word for "hungry" was.

Original poem/song was

"If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs (did I forget to change the tense? Suspirat is present, isn't it? Suspiro, suspirare?)

"The bark on the trees was as soft as the skies."

While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,

He cries to the moon, "If only, if only."

It's from Holes, by Louis Sachar. Absolutely amazing book, and the verse just somehow popped into my head during Latin class the other day. So I just got up and grabbed a Latin dictionary and started translating . It's what I do in Latin class... after I, uh, finish my work, of course...

Like one day I decided to translate lines from 300.

"Tela nostrum solem obliterabint!"

"Igitur in umbra pugnabimus!"

... which is funny, since it's Greek, of course. Not sure on the nostrum, never been good at personal pronouns...

And yes. Pocky.

Huh, I've never taken a Latin class or heard anyone speak Latin, but I could understand almost half of the poem. Maybe the fact that I speak Italian helps, but...

-Akky ^ ^

I don't think so – it's a present contrary-to-fact conditional (well, half of one), so you'd want the imperfect subjunctive esset...

*looks it up* Aha, esuriens is hungry.

(And oops, I typed those as plural earlier. And you did have it in present; that was me used to the historical present found everywhere but English literature...)

So that's why I felt like I had heard it before! I still don't actually remember the poem/song, but I've read Holes a few times, even though all were years ago.

On the 300 lines... it'd be "nostra" and "oblitterabunt," I believe. Still. That's funny.

LATIN IS FUNNY

Nostra... ah, yeah, I see. So, it's an adjective... right... gotta get that sorted out before the National Latin Exam and then promptly forget it again afterwards.

And where'd the -bint come from? Maybe I was confusing -bunt and -erint. Is -bint used for anything? It sounds familiar for some reason... huh.

Yes, yes esuriens, that was the one.

Conditional... hm. Well, we only went over conditionals with si and nisi, and even then I pretty much forgot sequence of tenses... (I FEEL VERY GUILTY SAYING THIS SINCE I'M GOING INTO AP V NEXT YEAR... UH I'LL DIG UP MY NOTES AND REMEMBER IT...) Then again I guess it was pretty obvious it was conditional. Esset just doesn't sound as nice as fuerit though... alas, utinam...