being down / on the ground

In Gbaya, the notion of being down or being on the ground is emphasized with mbɔlɔlɔ, an ideophone used to describe the expresses the fact of being down.

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)

Translation commentary on Wisdom 11:19

Not only could their damage exterminate men: Damage refers to the wounds a savage animal could inflict on a person.

But the mere sight of them could kill by fright: People could just look at such fearsome creatures and die of fright. So we could say “but could scare them [these people] to death just by looking at them” (Good News Translation) or “but when people just look at those animals, the people will be so afraid [or, terrified] that they die.”

Good News Translation is a good model for translators and helpfully reminds the reader of the argument by repeating “You could have….” Another approach is:

• You could have made animals like these, that not only could maul [or, scratch] people to death [with their claws], but could cause people to die of fright just looking at them.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Wisdom of Solomon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2004. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.