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22Translation - French-English - L'abeille tient dans la bouche le miel le plus sucré, et dans...

Current statusTranslation
This text is available in the following languages: RomanianFrenchEnglish

Category Free writing

Title
L'abeille tient dans la bouche le miel le plus sucré, et dans...
Text
Submitted by irini
Source language: French Translated by valkiri

L'abeille tient dans la bouche le miel le plus sucré, et dans la queue, l'aiguille la plus venimeuse.
L'eau éloignée n'éteint pas le feu.
L'eau tire vers la ruche et l'homme vers le pal.
Aujourd'hui il a tout ce qu'il lui faut, il rassasie dix personnes, et demain il fait la fête en étant affamé.
Aujourd'hui sur la terre, demain dans la tombe.
La petite souche renverse le grand char.
Le tonneau vide résonne plus fort.
Les tonneaux vides font surtout du bruit.
Il n'y a rien plus dangeureux que l'eau tranquille.

Title
The bee holds in its mouth the sweetest honey...
Translation
English

Translated by CocoT
Target language: English

The bee holds in its mouth the sweetest honey and in its tail the deadliest sting.
Distant water does not put out fire.
Water pulls toward the beehive, man pulls toward the stake.
Today he has everything he needs and feeds ten people, tomorrow he'll celebrate on an empty stomach.
Walking on earth today, lying in the grave tomorrow.
The little stump knocks over the big tank.
An empty barrel resonates the most.
Empty barrels make the most noise.
Nothing is more dangerous than still water.
Remarks about the translation
- From the French translation
- I didn't try to find equivalents in English, as I think the point was to give a taste of the Romanian phrases.
- I don't think bees really have "tails"... but that's what the French version said and I think it probably does not really matter, people get the point (and I might be wrong, anyway).
- I translated the third phrase as I could, but then "tirer" in French can mean different things. "fires at" instead of "pulls toward" is thus a possibility. But then, I'm guessing the romanian "trage" has this idea of "pulling".
- "on an empty stomach" sounded nicely colloquial for this type of translation :)
- I added the idea of "walking" and "lying" (rather than simply "being")
Validated by kafetzou - 15 February 2007 05:18