Heritage German Roadmap

Webmaster's Bio
Meet Traute Klein,
AKA biogardener.

Heritage German Guestbook

More on Hiebert and his Sarah Binks

Paul Hiebert, a Manitoba Legend

Sarah Binks, Sweet Songstress of Saskatchewan

About Sarah Binks, AKA Paul Hiebert and how he has been able to fool readers into considering his Sarah real

My article on Heinrich Heine, the author of the Lorelei poem, with beautiful graphics of the Lorelei rock, the maiden, and the Rhine river.

Hiebert lectures on Sarah's lonely visit to Regina.

The Music by Friedrich Silcher as played on the piano

The Lorelei as translated by Mark Twain, and this is the best translation which I have found.

Panoramic Look from the Lorelei Rock into the Rhine Valley with an insert of the Rock.

Sarah Binks Lives on

Hiebert's writings are available in every library in Winnipeg as well as from every book seller on the Internet, including from Amazon.com.

Sarah Binks Translates Heine

by Traute Klein, AKA biogardener

Paul Hiebert's translations of Heine's poetry are classics of poetic parody. If you know and understand the original German poetry, you will be able to fully appreciate Hiebert's genius.

If you have not read the essay which introduces Paul Hiebert's Sarah Binks, you will want to do so before you venture into this treatment of Sarah's translations of Heine's poetry. The article is called Sarah Binks, Sweet Songstress of Saskatchewan. You willfind a link back to this article at the end.

The Heine Translations

Hiebert, AKA Sarah Binks, picks two well-known poems of Heinrich Heine, poems which are knows to every German by memory because they are written in a folkloric style. The comedic quality of the tranlations is therefore instantly effective, because the mind easily makes the comparison to the original.

The short poem, "Du bist wie eine Blume (You are like a flower)," is easily memorized. The longer poem, "Die Lorelei," is even more familiar to Germans because it is sung as a folk-song. I grew up believing that the author's name had been lost in antiquity, as have all the names of folk-song poets. I never heard the name of Heinrich Heine until I studied German at the University of Manitoba.

Even though his poetry was always popular in Germany, his name was intentionally forgotten, because various German governments considered Heine a disgrace to German patriotism. He had supported the French Revolution and Napoleon and was banned from his homeland. He spent the rest of his life in France, and his poetry was not allowed to be published in Germany. Having Jewish ancestry did not help to endear him to Hitler's government. His Lorelei poem with the popular melody by Friedrich Silcher, however, was sung by everyone, so its existence could not be denied. It was therefore published as a folksong.

The first of these masterful translations is Heinrich Heine's poem, "Du bist wie eine Blume," and Hiebert calls Sarah's "You are like one flower"

"an almost perfect translation, but in the case of the Lorelei, Sarah makes the easily understandable mistake of translating "Lorelei" as "laurel's egg" instead of "Laura's Eye."

He does, however, consider the merit of translating the river "Rhein" as "Clean." (The word "rein" means "clean" in English, and the pronunciation of "Rhein" and "rein" is identical.) Having taught German most of my life, I must admit that the following translation does not appear as an exaggeration to me. Some of my former students handed in German essays which had a similar ring to them. And they were not meant to be funny.

If you know the German text you will appreciate Hiebert's interchange of English and German words which sound similar to the ear but have entirely different meanings. Those of us who speak several languages at home are in a habit of making bilingual jokes of this type daily.

Here now is Sarah's translation of Heine's Die Lorelei

The Laurel's Egg
I know not what shall it betoken
that I so sorrowful seem.
A marklet from out of old, spoken,
that comes me not out of the bean.

The loft is cool and it darkles,
and ruefully floweth the Clean.
The top of the mountain top sparkles
with evening sunshine sheen.

The fairest young woman sitteth
there wonderful up on top.
Her golden-like outfit glitteth,
she combeth her golden mop.

She combs it with golden comb-ful
and sings a song thereto,
that has one wonderful, wonderful,
and powerful toodle-didoo.

The shipper in very small shiplet
begrabs it with very wild cry.
He looks not the rock and the riplet,
he looks but up top on the high.

I believe that the whales will devour
the end of the shipper and ship.
And that in her singing bower
the Laurel's egg done it.