A few days ago
CarpeDiem

Death in Venice Quotation Translation?

On approximately page 28 of Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice and Seven Other Short Stories” there is a German quotation that reads “Oft veranderten Schumuck und warme Bader und Ruhe” with the two dot accent over the a of “veranderten” and the a “Bader”. Can anyone translate that for me coherently or know what its significance is in the story?

FYI I tried to plug it into an online translator and the result that comes out makes no sense.

Top 2 Answers
A few days ago
Perceval

Favorite Answer

“Oft veränderten Schmuck und warme Bäder und Ruhe” – this translates as follows: “Jewellery changed often and wam baths and quiet” – quiet as in peace and quiet.

Having translated this, I wondered how little sense that line makes at that point in in the story. After a bit of research, I found an answer at: http://www.lesekost.de/deutsch/nobel/HHLDN02N.htm

According to that source, the quotation is a line of Homer’s “Odysseus”. The line is about carefree people in ancient Greece.

So, in the story, the quotation means Aschenbach thinks that Tadzio – who whe was thinking about earlier – is a bit too carefree.

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4 years ago
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Schumuck
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