Unfortunate Translations

Detail of antependium from Strasbourg, c. 1410

As last week’s news of the Supreme Court leak unfolded, I was somehow reminded once again of a translation discrepancy in one of the most well-known of Lutheran chorales. The beginning portion of the first stanza of Nun danket alle Gott (Now Thank We All Our God) is, more or less, a direct quotation from Luther’s translation of Ecclesiasticus 50:

Nun danket alle Gott
mit Herzen, Mund, und Händen
der große Dinge tut
an uns und allen Enden,
der uns von Mutterleib…

And the English translation:

Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms…

Note, if you will, the last line in each quotation. The English translation reads “mother’s arms,” while the German text is “Mutterleib” - “mother’s womb”. Perhaps the translation in question is due to a certain Victorian squeamishness on the part of Catherine Winkworth or her editors—I’m sure I couldn’t say. It certainly isn’t a poetic consideration - rendering it as “mother’s womb” would disrupt neither the rhyme nor the meter. Regardless of the reason, I would hope that the next hymnal might revisit the standard translation and revise it in light of the original text.

It reminds me also of the translation of the Te Deum in the American Book of Common Prayer tradition, which later became the textual basis for American Lutheran hymnals.

The Latin text:

Tu ad liberaudum suscepturus hominem,
non horruisti virginis uterum.

The Book of Common Prayer tradition from 1549 onward renders it faithfully:

When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man:
Thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb.

But the American Book of Common Prayer from 1786 onward, along with the Common Service tradition, provides:

When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man,
Thou didst humble Thyself to be born of a Virgin.

Neither of these translation issues is exactly earth-shaking, but they do show us the subtle ways in which we have, in some ways, deprived ourselves of what might otherwise be familiar and helpful language that we would be able to call to mind in these moments.