Toki Pona Forums

toki! mi sin kin. taso tenpo ni la mi ante e lipu "The Prophet/El Profeta" (by Kahlil Gibran/por Kahlil Gibran) tawa toki pona. sina sona e lipu ni li wile la sina ken pana e sona pona tawa mi. tenpo pini lili la mi pini ante e lipu lili pi nanpa wan (chapter one/capítulo uno). sina wile la sina ken lukin e ona. sina jo e ante pona la o toki tawa mi. pona!

ni li lipu pi ante mi:
jan pi sona sewi

ni li lipu pi nanpa wan (toki Inli):
The Prophet on Gutenberg.org

ni li lipu pi nanpa wan (toki Epanja):
El Profeta en Biblioteco.org.ar

I confess I cannot stand to read very many sntences of Gibran at a sitting, so this mya be badly split up, dependon on how well it goes as tp.
‘wawa ona li kama tan poki suli pi ali kon.
wawa ni li ali mute li wawa mute tan ni.
taso ona li selo e wawa ni kepeken toki pona ona.’
(No KG,so bearable for three line)
“His power comes from a big sack of the windy all (spiritual universe?).
this power is very total (?!) and very powerful because of this(reference muddled)
But it (what? power seems out because of what follows) heats this ower using its good speech.”
Well, that settles that!

What can KG do to muddle it more?

ali li pona! toki musi pi jan Kalil Sipan li pona tawa mi. ona li ike tawa sina. ni li pona! mi pilin pona tan ni: sina lukin kin e lipu mi. mi pana e pona mute tawa sina . ante sina li wile!
tenpo ni la mi toki pi nimi mute mi:

'poki suli pi ali kon' is, as you said, a big sack of the windy all (literally at least). I guess I was going for the more figurative translations here: 'poki' as in 'container', 'kon' as in 'of the spirit, ethereal.' Of course with tp there's a lot of wiggle room, so that's just an inherent problem I have to deal with.

The second line could be less ambiguous, I agree. 'ali' in this case would make sense as universal or total so that's fine, but I should probably change the 'tan ni,' I want to say 'because of its origin,' but 'tan tan ona' sounds a bit strange. I guess it could work though, it's a bit better than what I have.

The ambiguity of 'ona' keeps messing with me, the last line should read 'but he covers/clothes this power with his own good speech.' Maybe 'wawa ni' in the last line should be 'wawa ona' but honestly I think I might change the 'ona' that refers to 'he' to 'jan.' And finally the lack of an simple word for 'pretty' or 'beautiful' is sort of a pet peeve of mine, so 'good speech' had to do. But really, beautiful speech is good speech, so I think it checks out.

tenpo pi nanpa tu la mi toki e ni: sona sina li pona tawa mi li pona tawa lipu mi. pona!

btw “Kalili’ is not a legitimate tp word, either ‘Kali’ or ‘Kalilii’ (or some other vowel).