Replies to archived posts are not allowed.
From: Walt Vogdes
Remote Name: 71.197.212.86
Date: 02/02/2008
Time: 10:24:38 PM
Not quite right, Stewart, the clock was striking "half four", which in German means half an hour before four. In English we refer to this as half *past* three, so the rhyme is lost in the interest of keeping the accuracy of the time as written. Of course, we can imagine that von Scheffel chose "four" primarily in order to make the rhyme, so we might feel justified in changing it to "half past four" for the same reason.