Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/163

 ing-Glass and what Alice saw there" was his original idea for its title; it was Dr. Liddon who suggested the name finally adopted.

During this year German and French translations of "Alice in Wonderland" were published by Macmillan; the Italian edition appeared in 1872. Henri Bué, who was responsible for the French version, had no easy task to perform. In many cases the puns proved quite untranslatable; while the poems, being parodies on well-known English pieces, would have been pointless on the other side of the Channel. For instance, the lines beginning, "How doth the little crocodile" are a parody on "How doth the little busy bee," a song which a French child has, of course, never heard of. In this case Bué gave up the idea of translation altogether, and, instead, parodied La Fontaine's "Maitre Corbeau" as follows:

Maître Corbeau sur un arbre perché Faisait son nid entre des branches; Il avait relevé ses manches, Car il était très affairé. Maître Renard par là passant, Lui dit: "Descendez donc, compère: Venez embrasser votre frère!" Le Corbeau, le reconnaissant, Lui répondit en son ramage!—
 * "Fromage."