Till the billing period ends
An imaginary WRYCUT scene. Every line is original contemporary editorial writing, not a quotation or translation of these authors’ works.
Dorothy Parker, Ogden Nash, Marian Hemar and Jan Sztaudynger share a table. Parker produces a bill from a relationship that has ended.
Dorothy Parker
He promised he would never leave me. I was touched. He was reading the subscription terms.
Ogden Nash
Love’s gone; instalments still accrue.
The bank insists we’re stuck like glue.
Marian Hemar
Have you tried cancelling?
Dorothy Parker
Yes. The system asks what it could do to make me stay. It offers a cheaper tier of disappointment.
Marian Hemar
I withdrew consent to process my feelings. They demanded a scan of my broken heart.
Jan Sztaudynger
No love, no letters, not a word.
The monthly charge is undeterred.
Translation under the lens
Dorothy Parker · Comment
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.
These are the final two lines of Comment, not the complete poem. The royal claim makes the preceding promise sound equally believable. Our Polish adaptation trades the literal name for a claim to rule Romania, and gives the ending a rhyme. The crucial task is to preserve the reversal, rather than make the reassurance sincere.
Academy of American Poets · Enough Rope (1926) ↗Ogden Nash · More About People
When people aren’t asking questions
They’re making suggestions
The opening two lines of the longer More About People turn social interference into a light rhyme. The Polish version repeats a verb meaning “pester” and pairs questions with advice. It makes the irritation explicit while keeping the quick two-line movement. This is an excerpt, not a complete Nash epigram.
The New Yorker · 27 December 1930 issue ↗