[Translation]

_Song_

Precious the gift of heart's-ease,
A wreath for the cheerful dame;
So dear to my heart is the breeze
That murmurs, strip for the ocean.
5 Love slaves for wreaths from Kaana.
I'm blest in your love that reigns here;
It speaks in the fall of a tear--
The choicest thing in one's life,
This love for a man by his wife--
10 It has power to shake the whole frame.
Ah, where am I now?
Here, face to your face.

The platitudes of mere sentimentalism, when put into cold
print, are not stimulating to the imagination; moods and
states of feeling often approaching the morbid, their oral
expression needs the reenforcement of voice, tone,
countenance, the whole attitude. They are for this reason
most difficult of translation and when rendered literally
into a foreign speech often become meaningless. The figures
employed also, like the watergourds and wine-skins of past
generations and of other peoples, no longer appeal to us as
familiar objects, but require an effort of the imagination to
make them intelligible and vivid to our mental vision. If the
translator carries these figures of speech over into his new
rendering, they will often demand an explanation on their own
account, and will thus fail of their original intent; while
if he clothes the thought in some new figure he takes the
risk of failing to do justice to the intimate meaning of the
original. The force of these remarks will become apparent
from an analysis of the prominent figures of speech that
occur in the mele.

_Mele_

He inoa no ka Lani,
No Nahi-ena-ena;
A ka luna o wahine.
Ho'i ka ena a ka makani;
5 Noho ka la'i i ka malino--
Makani ua ha-ao;
Ko ke au i hala, ea.
Punawai o Mana,[392]
Wai ola na ke kupa
10 A ka ilio nana,
Hae, nanahu i ke kai;