THE WEREWOLF
This is my translation or re-creation
of a poem by Christian Morgenstern. Morgenstern, sometimes called the
German Lewis Carroll, wrote whimsical "nonsense" verse,
often with a philosophical bent. In this poem a werewolf runs into a
problem with grammar (in German Werwolf - wer means who - turns into
whom, whose etc.). For English the "joke' has to be re-created.
THE WEREWOLF
A werewolf fled one night, just lately,
from wife and child and prowled alone
to a country teacher's old grave stone
and begged him:"Please sir, conjugate me!"
And that school teacher climbed out straight
upon his stone with its brass plate,
spoke to the wolf, whose paws were pressed
in patient cross before his guest:
"The werewolf, yes," the good man said,
"the waswolf, single past is read,
amwolf and arewolf still make sense
with iswolf for the present tense."
The wolf felt flattered hearing this,
and rolled his eyes with happiness.
"And now, please sir," he begged, "could
you
put me into the future too?"
The teacher, though, had to admit
he couldn't make the verb form fit.
"True, future wolves are possible,
but 'be' must take a 'shall' or 'will'."
The werewolf rose upset, tear-blind,
no future for his wife or kind!!
But being not of learned bent,
he bowed and thanked the man and went.
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