Losing one glove
is certainly painful,
but nothing
compared to the pain,
of losing one,
throwing away the other,
and finding
the first one again.
*****
Piet Hein’s original Danish version, ‘Trøstegruk’ reads:
Den, som taber sin ene handske,
er heldig i forhold til dén,
der taber den ene,
kasserer den anden
. . . og finder den første igen.
Hein did his own translation into English (as he did with hundreds of his Grooks), and sacrificed word-for-word translation for the sake of keeping the rolling rhythm and the rhyme: the original’s word “lucky” has gone, the word “pain” is introduced to rhyme with “again”. I am glad to see a poet translating his own work, and keeping the versifying more important than the literal words. This is what poetry translation is all about, surely.
The poem has an interesting origin story: it was written right after Germany occupied Denmark in April 1940, and was published in the newspaper Politiken’s daily short poem spot. While it passed German censorship as a light comment on the vicissitude of things, the Danish resistance movement (which Hein was active in) spread it as graffiti across the country, a coded message with losing one glove representing losing freedom, and throwing away the second glove representing giving up your patriotism, collaborating, which you will eventually come to regret.
‘Consolation Grook’ was the first Grook published by Piet Hein. He had a rich and varied life, with an academic background in science, art and philosophy; he was a script writer, an inventor, a furniture designer, a game creator; someone Niels Bohr would bounce ideas off, a friend of Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, and the puzzle creator Martin Gardner. Piet Hein was married four times, and before you think that his personal life would have been like his very civilised grooks, I suggest reading about his tendency to violence and the questions it raises about the death of his fourth wife, the Swedish actress Gerd Ericsson: https://pershmail.substack.com/p/piet-heins-problems
Illustration: by Piet Hein
Thanks so much for sharing this poem and its backstory — I loved the backstory in particular, and the wonderful cartoon. And what a great title: Consolation Grook! I learn that a ‘gruk’ in Danish is a type of poem, a wittily formal, aphoristic piece. This certainly fits that description. And it’s possible to read it in Danish too, and get the feel and the sound of it really well.
Had Hein been a native English speaker, I can’t help feeling he might have gone for:
Losing one glove
is certainly painful,
but nothing
compared to the pain,
of losing one,
ditching the other,
and finding
the first one again.
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