Repository path: workshop/translations/kohlhaas-lisbeth/R08-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

T-kohlhaas-lisbeth-R08-v1 — the same span under Venuti's foreignizing rules

Source, span, and contamination: identical to T-kohlhaas-lisbeth-R06-v1, which see. Rendered second of the three lead arms, after R06 was frozen at commit 41e017f and before R07 was begun. Cost $0.

Regime. R08 v1.0 (frozen) — the ten-rule resistancy set, consulted at every choice. Coverage codes in the log: R where a numbered rule decided; P where it did not and the choice was the translator's; INT where an interpretation of the source's meaning decided (R08 §5a).

The translation

S1

But this journey was, of all the unsuccessful steps that he in his cause had taken, the unhappiest of all. For already after few days Sternbald drove into the yard again, step by step the wagon leading, in which the woman, with a dangerous bruise upon the breast, outstretched lay prostrate. Kohlhaas, who pale to the vehicle stepped, could learn nothing connected concerning that which this calamity had caused. The Kastellan had, as the knave said, not been at home; one had therefore been constrained, at a Wirtshaus which near the Schloß lay, to alight; this Wirtshaus had Lisbeth on the following morning quitted, and the knave commanded to remain behind with the horses; and not sooner than at evening was she, in this condition, come back.

S2

It seemed she had herself too boldly upon the person of the Landesherr pressed forward, and, without fault of his, from the mere raw zeal of a Wache which him surrounded, a thrust, with the shaft of a lance, before the breast received. At least so reported the people who her, in unconscious condition, toward evening into the inn brought; for she herself could, hindered by blood welling forth from the mouth, speak little. The petition had been taken from her afterwards by a Ritter. Sternbald said that it had been his will to set himself at once upon a horse, and to give him news of this unhappy occurrence; but she had, despite the representations of the summoned wound-surgeon, insisted upon it, without any prior notifications, to her husband to Kohlhaasenbrück to be conveyed.

S3

Kohlhaas brought her, who by the journey had been utterly ruined, into a bed, where she, under painful exertions to fetch breath, some days yet lived. One attempted in vain to give her the consciousness again, in order over that which had occurred some disclosures to obtain; she lay, with fixed, already broken eye, there, and answered not. Only shortly before her death returned to her once again the collectedness.

S4

For as a clergyman of the Lutheran religion (to which faith, then just budding, she had, after the example of her husband, professed herself) beside her bed stood, and read to her, with loud and sensibly-solemn voice, a chapter out of the Bible: so looked she at him suddenly, with a dark expression, took from him, as though there were nothing therein to be read to her, the Bible out of his hand, turned the leaves and turned them, and seemed something therein to seek; and showed to Kohlhaas, who at her bed sat, with the forefinger, the verse: "Forgive thine enemies; do good also unto them that hate thee."—She pressed him thereby, with a look exceedingly full of soul, the hand, and died.—Kohlhaas thought: "so may God never forgive me, as I forgive the Junker!" kissed her, while the tears flowed from him abundantly, pressed her the eyes shut, and left the chamber.

S5

He took the hundred Goldgülden which the Amtmann had already made over to him for the stables in Dresden, and ordered a corpse-burial which less for her than for a Fürstin seemed appointed: an oaken coffin, strongly mounted with metal, cushions of silk with golden and silvern tassels, and a grave of eight ells' depth, lined with fieldstones and lime. He stood himself, his youngest upon the arm, by the vault, and looked on at the work. When the burial-day came, the corpse was, white as snow, set up in a hall which he with black cloth had caused to be hung.

S6

The clergyman had just a moving oration at her bier completed, when to him the sovereign's Resolution upon the petition was delivered which the departed had handed over, of this content: he should fetch the horses from the Tronkenburg, and, on penalty of being cast into prison, no further in this matter come forward. Kohlhaas put the letter away, and had the coffin brought upon the wagon. As soon as the mound was thrown up, the cross planted upon it, and the guests who had interred the corpse dismissed, he threw himself down once again before her now desolated bed, and undertook thereupon the business of revenge.

S7

He set himself down and drew up a sentence of law, in which he the Junker Wenzel von Tronka, by virtue of the power offered him, condemned, the blacks which he had taken from him and upon the fields ruined, within three days after sight, to Kohlhaasenbrück to lead, and in person in his stables fat to feed. This sentence he sent off to him by a riding messenger, and instructed the same, straightway after delivery of the paper, to be again with him at Kohlhaasenbrück.

Translator's log — frozen before any evaluation of this translation was designed

Coverage codes as above. Sites, in order, with the rule that decided.

1. S1 clause order throughout — R2. «die er in seiner Sache getan hatte» keeps the German verb-final order (that he in his cause had taken); «Schritt vor Schritt den Wagen führend» keeps the participle in front of its object; «Kohlhaas, der bleich an das Fuhrwerk trat» keeps pale to the vehicle stepped. Each is harder to read than the re-ordering R06 chose, and R2 says that is not a reason.
2. S1 «die Frau» → the woman — R5. R06 supplied his wife. R5 forbids supplying the relation the source withholds.
3. S1 «Kastellan», «Wirtshaus», «Schloß» — R7. All three retained unassimilated and unglossed, where R06 domesticated two of the three.
4. S1 «Knecht» → knave — R3. The dated English word opens the servant sense the current word closes; the source word is itself of the period.
5. S1 «und eher nicht, als am Abend, sei sie … zurückgekommen» — R2 + R1. Kept the German not sooner than and the reported-speech subjunctive's tense, which leaves was she … come back standing as a construction English does not make.
6. S2 «Landesherr», «Wache», «Ritter» — R7. Three more particulars retained. R06 gave sovereign, guard, knight.
7. S2 the whole first period — R2. Verb-final at four points (pressed forward, received, brought, to be conveyed). This is the single most marked sentence in the arm and it is the sentence Kleist actually wrote.
8. S2 «von dem bloßen rohen Eifer» → from the mere raw zeal — R6. Calque; R06 softened roh to brutal.
9. S3 «die Besinnung» → the collectedness — R3 + R4. Besinnung is both consciousness and self-possession, and Kohlhaas's story is about the second; the dated English noun keeps both open where senses closes to the first. INT.
10. S3 «antwortete nicht» → answered not — R3.
11. S4 «da … : so sah sie ihn» — R1 + R2. The correlative kept: so looked she at him. This is the site R06 records itself as flattening (R06 log 11), and it is the clearest single difference between the two arms.
12. S4 the Bible verse → thine enemies … them that hate thee — R3 + R8. Archaism licensed because the quoted register is scriptural, and R8 forbids levelling the mixture toward the narration's register. R06 levelled it. This is fork 13 of the R06 log, decided the other way by rule.
13. S4 «Sie drückte ihm … die Hand» — R2 + R6. The German dative-of-possession construction calqued: She pressed him thereby … the hand. Likewise pressed her the eyes shut. Both are ungrammatical English; R9 was consulted and judged not to bar them, because the sentences remain parsable. A reader may disagree, and that disagreement is what naturalness measures.
14. S4 «Gemach» → chamber — R3.
15. S5 «Leichenbegräbnis» → corpse-burial — R6. Calque of a compound English has a single word for.
16. S5 «Goldgülden», «Amtmann», «Fürstin» — R7. All three unassimilated; R06 translated two.
17. S5 «silbernen» → silvern — R3.
18. S6 «Resolution» capitalised, retained — R7 + R8. The chancery register is a register the source mixes in, and R8 forbids levelling it.
19. S7 «kraft der ihm angebotenen Macht» → by virtue of the power offered him — R4. The German does not say who offered it. R06 closed this (its fork 17); R4 requires it stay open. This is the arm's cleanest instance of a rule producing a different rendering of the same ambiguity.
20. S7 «dick zu füttern» → fat to feed — R2 + R6. Verb-final and calqued.
21. R10 was not invoked anywhere. No site here was rendered as an analogical abuse. Recorded because R08's own limitations section says an unmarked R10 makes the coverage rate an upper bound; here the bound is not being used.

Coverage. 20 sites, of which 19 were decided by a numbered rule and 1 (9) required an interpretation in addition. P: none — the rule set reached every fork the R06 log recorded. That is a fact about this span, not about the rule set: Kleist's span is unusually rich in exactly the syntactic and lexical material R1–R7 name.