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Night Watch is a pretty spot on translation of "Nachtwacht". Why does it feel terrible?
by efdee 6y ago
Night Watch is a pretty spot on translation of "Nachtwacht". Why does it feel terrible?
- elliekelly 6y agoNot the person you’re replying to (and I don’t speak Dutch) but I hadn’t realized the painting’s name rhymed in Dutch. Since I assume Rembrandt chose the title of the piece deliberately it does feel like a certain je ne sais quoi is lost in the non-rhyming English translation.
- mcv 6y agoNacht Wacht was not the original title. It was originally called _"De compagnie van kapitein Frans Banninck Cocq en luitenant Willem van Ruytenburgh maakt zich gereed om uit te marcheren"_, which means "The company of captain Frans Banninck Cocq en lieutenant Willen van Ruytenburgh prepare themselves to go marching". At the time it was controversial, because normally such militias standing in a nice orderly fashion. Rembrand instead chose to paint this chaos, and apparently the people who commissioned it weren't happy. At some point two sides were cut off to make it fit in a smaller room, and when it was rediscovered, it was very dark due to the many layers of old varnish. There's where it got the name "Nacht Wacht". Restoration of the painting made it a lot brighter again. The name stuck, though. The original title is a bit cumbersome.
- linksnapzz 6y agoAmusingly, that didn't stop Dutch prog-metal pioneer Arjen Lucassen from entitling his musical tribute to this painting "The Shooting Company of Captain Franz B. Cocq". You'd think "Night Watch" would be easier to fit into a rhyme....
- mcv 6y agoI will have to look that up. I only know 'Into The Electric Castle', 'Ambeon' and a handful other things. I clearly have some catching up to do.
- sneeuwpopsneeuw 6y agoAround the time that "nacht wacht" has bean pained nearly nobody in the Netherlands spoke English so that ha probably nothing to do with it.
- sneeuwpopsneeuw 6y agoEnglish is a required second language here in the Netherlands. Like 80% here can speak it. It is so popular that many thing are English on default here now. Nearly all our radio music is English, university classes are English, Public Transport switches from dutch and English when it gets close to the bigger city's like Amsterdam or Rotterdam. So if you ask a random Dutch person what kind of music he likes it is on default English other wise he will tell you specific. For the few words that we still use the dutch words to foreigners we have the opposite. We like to use the dutch word and don't translate it because it is just be a bit strange.