| Here's a non-poetical translation in more straightforward English using standard word ordering in a sentence. Needless to say, Kandel's "translation" is not so much a translation, but really a completely new poem. Hope that will make it easier for you to appreciate the original: A shy cyberneticists got to know[1] some powerful extremes, when he integrated[2] cyberiads[3] on a steamy afternoon, not knowing whether there is love, or there isn't yet. Get out of my face[4], get out, Laplacians from evening to morning, and versors of the vectors from morning to evening. Come closer, preimages! Closer, because it's time to reduce the lover into the embrace of the lover[5]. He will change half-metric trembles, united by moans, into rotation groups and feedbacks[6], so cascading, and so stunning, that they risk a short-circuit, going from eye to eye! You, transfinal class! You, strong enormity! Irreducible continuum! White pre-structure! I'll give up Christoffel and Stokes for an entire century in exchange for the first and the last derivative of love. Show the multipronged[7] depths of your scalar spaces to the one who's entangled[8] in the Theorem of the Body[9], you, cyberiad of cypresses, entirely bimodal in gradients, multiplied into pidgeon flights! Lo, he did not live to experience pleasure, who so without grey hair, neither in Weyl nor Brouwer spaces, topological study opens with an embrace, studying curvatures not known to Moebius! Lo, multilayered comittant[10] of feelings, how much you need to be treasured will only be learned by the one[11] who, experiencing phantom of such parameters, dies in nanoseconds, burning every moment! Like a point, entering into holonomy configuration, losing coordinates of zero on an asymptote, in a last projection, with a last caress, dies from love the cyberneticist, when he's bid farewell. [1] - "poznawał" in original, past form of "poznawać", the most important meanings are "to be meeting a new person", "to be recognizing something/someone", or "to be learning something", hard to figure out which meaning is intended. [2] - "całkował", a mathematical term meaning "to integrate" [3] - a word made up by Lem [4] - "precz" [5] - first "lover" is female, second is male [6] - "sprzężenia zwrotne" [7] - "wielolistne", literally "multileaved", from "leaf", "liść" [8] - "uwikłanemu", probably a reference to "twierdzenie o funkcji uwikłanej", "implicit function theorem" [9] - "Teoremat Ciała", a more mathematical translation would have "Theorem of the Field", as the mathematical concept of the "field" translates to "ciało" (body) in Polish, similar to e.g. "Körper" in German, which also stands for "mathematical field". [10] - "komitanto", I don't even know what this word is supposed to mean in Polish. [11] - a verse from very famous Polish epic poem "Pan Tadeusz" by Adam Mickiewicz |
- "poznawać" is also used in "Biblical language" to mean "to have sexual intercourse with X"
- "całkował" is very similar (and rhymes with) "całował" = "he kissed"
- cyberiad suggests a cybernetic driad - I think that's the target of the cybernetic's love
- "so cascading and so stunning" "zawrotne" can mean "stunning" but I think "dizzying" is a better translation. It comes from the feeling you get when you turn around too much and can't keep balance - in this case following the feedbacks between the lovers' eyes
- if the first and the last derivative of love is the same, then love is constant :) [or exponential I guess]