Translation of the lyrics of “Der Lindenbaum”

Question

I saw a translation of Der Lindenbaum by Wilhelm Müller here:

Der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe
Ich wendete mich nicht

My hat flew into darkness,
I did not turn to see.

Is this translation correct? I would translate as follows:

The hat (der Hut) flied (flog) to me (mir) from head (vom Kopfe)
→ My hat fluttered from my head
(→ not flown away, like a flag flies or flutters)

I didn’t turn myself.
(Even though that hat flapped across my face, I didn’t turn and went my way.)

I would appreciate if a native speaker explained this to me.

ADD : What is 'mir' in the first line doing? If it tries to mean my hat had flown away from my head, it would be Der Hut flog von meinem Kopf weg. or Der Hut flog von mich vom Kopfe. I'm curious if the had had really flown away from me or just fluttered, or flapped on my face.

Answer 1

This question touches on a fundamental point of German syntax. When referring to inalienable body parts (head, hand, foot etc.) German tends not to use possessive pronouns, but prefers the dative of personal pronouns. Thus, where English says “I am scratching my head”, German says “Ich kratze mir den Kopf”, in the same way that English says “I am washing my hands” where German says “Ich wasche mir die Hände”. And in this case: “flog mir vom Kopfe” for “flew from my head”.

Answer 2

Der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe

You are curious about mir. Actually, the full sentence has to be:

Der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe weg.

weg is left out for poetical reasons. Native speakers will understand it as missing and put it back in while reading.

So the verb is not fliegen but wegfliegen. That verb can take an object in dative, which is the person left abadoned.

Warum weint Lisa? — Der ist ihr Wellensittich weggeflogen.

Mir ist der Schirm weggeflogen.

Other common verbs with the person in dative who previously owned the subject/accusative object are weglaufen, wegnehmen, wegkommen.

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Oh, and of course in another poem, wegfliegen may be as appropriate as fliegen is in the one above:

Der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe weg,

im Sturm verfolgt er seinen Zweck.

Answer 3

My hat flew into darkness,

Obviously this translation has been made to sing the song with an English text and not to translate the text 100% correctly.

The German text does not mention darkness at all.

I did not turn to see.

Although the German text only says: "I didn't turn" it is clear from the context that "I didn't turn to see it" is meant.

Answer 4

Der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe

I understand, that you have problems to understand the meaning and grammatical function of "mir" in this sentence, and you are not sure about the exact meaning of "flog".

Before that, I just want to point out, that "Kopfe" is just an old dative form of "Kopf". The modern dative is "Kopf". Another thing: "vom" = short for "von dem" (you have such short forms in English too: "don't" = "do not"). Now you can read this sentence as:

Der Hut flog mir von dem Kopf.

flog

This is a form of "fliegen". This word does not only mean "to fly". I can mean almost all other forms of "move through the air". In combination with "davon" (away) one of this meanings is: to be blown away by the wind:

Das war ein Sturm gestern! Sogar das Dach unseres Hauses flog davon.
_Literally:
This was a storm yesterday! Even the roof of our house flew away.
_{Better English:}
What a storm yesterday! Even the roof of our house was blown away.

^{Sorry, English is a foreign language to me, so there might be an even better English version}

In some regions you can also hear in colloquial speech in combination with "herunter/hinunter" (down) or similar constructions:

Halte deinen Teller gerade, sonst fliegt dir noch das Essen auf den Boden.
Hold your plate strait, otherwise your food will fly to the ground.
Keep your plate strait, otherwise you will drop your food.

mir

Compare:

Mir fliegt der Hut davon.
Dir fliegt der Hut davon.
Herrn Müller fliegt der Hut davon.

• der Hut
  the hat
  The subject of this sentences is always "der Hut", because it is the only part of speech in nominative case. It is the thing that performs the action. (Who/what is moving through the air?)
• fliegt
  flies
  The verb. It tells us, what the action is (something, i.e. the subject, is moving through the air)
• davon
  away
  This is a direction. (Where-to is the subject moving?)
• mir, dir, Herrn Müller
  me, you, Mr. Müller
  This part if speech is in dative case and tells us from who the hat is flying away. It is both: the starting point of the movement and the owner of the subject.
  You tried to translate this "mir" as "to me", but this is wrong. "from me" would fit better here.

your tries

Der Hut flog von meinem Kopf weg.

This is grammatically correct and means: "The hat flew away from my head". But this sentence does not tell who's hat it was. It tells us only the starting point of the movement, but doesn't tell anything about the ownership. It might be anybody else's hat, that flew trough the air, passed my head, and then kept flying, but now away from my head.

Der Hut flog von mich vom Kopfe.

No, this is wrong. The preposition "von" always needs dative case, but "mich" is accusative case. So you might try:

Der Hut flog von mir vom Kopfe.

Better, but still wrong. You can say:

Der Hut flog von mir (weg).
The hat flew (away) from me.

(To have a complete sentence, you need the adverb, that I wrote in brackets, in both languages)
Here "von mir weg" is a prepositional object, and it is a direction (where-to is the head flying?). But "vom Kopfe" (or "von dem Kopf") also is a prepositional object that is a direction. Two direction is one direction too much.

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Ich wendete mich nicht

This is simple. It is:

_Literally:
I didn't turn myself.
_{Better English:}
I didn't turn around.

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My hat flew into darkness,
I did not turn to see.

In poems the rhyme is very important, and in lyrics you also must find the same rhythm. In most cases it is impossible to find a translation, that rhymes, has the same rhythm and transports line-by-line the exact same meaning.

The best you can do, is to find a translation, that rhymes and has in most lines the same rhythm. The meaning must only be close to the original, but not on a line-by-line level, but within the whole poem.

In the German Version of this line there is no darkness (Dunkelheit) and nobody is seeing something. But the darkness is in verse 2 (this line is in verse 3), so it's ok to use darkness here. "To see" (in the meaning of watching the flying hat) is an invention of the translator that doesn't exist in the German text. But here, in this poem, it is ok too, because what else might be the reason to turn around? This "to see" is already implicit contained in this line.