On Translating [structured] Poetry

Václav Z J Pinkavahttp://vzjp.cz

Motto

“Poetry is what gets lost in translation”

- Robert Frost

Poetry is what gets lost and found in translation

Exploring the issues

I keep six honest serving-men(They taught me all I knew);Their names are What and Why and WhenAnd How and Where and Who.…- Rudyard Kipling Whatever happened to

How much?

So: What?

• Since poetry is some more or less meticulously composed text ostensibly crafted by its author “with intent” to deliver reflective meaning to the reader (and listener !), and translation is both a verb and a noun for transfer across, this means that poetry translation is the process and the result of an attempt to deliver a comparable but necessarily different message to the author’s, as understood by the translator, to a never-intended target audience. Pigs might fly

CAVEAT

“I know you believe you understand

what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize,

that what you heard was not what I meant.”

- AnonI see what you didn’t mean.

Why?• For the challenge: “Because it’s there” as Sir Edmund Hillary

put it regarding Mt Everest.• As a gift: To share a treasured experience with a “linguistically

disabled” audience.• As an ego trip: To share and show off the translator’s

impression, interpretation, prowess.• As a séance: To get closer to the author, to understand the

original thoroughly. “imitation is the sincerest [form of] flattery” as Charles Caleb Colton put it.

• To learn and be inspired, like in choreographed dancing.• To create within constraints, and meditate• To solve tricky problems and get a sense of achievement• For all of the above reasons, and more…

Perhaps as a Séance in memoriam(e.g. my translator’s invocation here self-translated)

www.kresadlo.cz/verse.htm

Rondel o znovuzrození• Seance vnitřního zajetí;

Fénix Tvůj našeptal mi rýmy ~Jsem dobrovolnou obětívzpomínky, která domluví mi.

• Škoda, žes nedočkal se zimy;Na znamení Tvé pečeti,skrz závěje Tvé závěti,Fénix Tvůj našeptal mi rýmy.

• Snad naučím se zapětijak slovy zpívals mi kdys svými;Nejdřív však prokousám se jimi,dám šablony do paměti.

• Ukrytý v genech početí,Fénix Tvůj našeptal mi rýmy.

• [vzjp 1995]

Rondel on rebirth• A séance of entrapment, still;

Your Phoenix whispered me the rhyme.I am your prey for good or ill, from sublimated bring sublime.

• Pity you missed your wintertime;In recognition of your seal,Over the snowdrifts of your will,Your Phoenix whispered me the rhyme.

• Maybe I can yet learn to trillAs your word-song to me did chime;Yet first I have to bide my time,Commit to memory, templates fill.

• Hid, as conceived, through genes untilYour Phoenix whispered me the rhyme.

• [vzjp2013]

When?

• When forced/prompted by circumstances.• When ready, willing, and able.• When it has not been done yet.• When it has already been done.• Whenever

The question is By When, more like

Translating when “provoked”e.g. poem by Ivan Blatný – „Jaro“

SpringA cauliflower settles on the roof of a bungalow,a swallow returns, you watch it in the sky,and early buds are tight as bronze, they glow,the dung-cart’s waiting, as in times gone by.The heavens purr and snore, they are sleeping still,but it will clear up, but it will be a fine day.A train whistles in the distance, distance whistlesin the distance, silver drops tap planes in play.In the playground, boys at goalposts in their tracksuits,a cauliflower settles on a spruce new basket,good French sun, come and bless us with your light.I would love to be off: I am opening the door;I would love to be off: on the Riviera shoreI’d see the sky and the whole world grow bright.[Edwin Morgan 1986]

SpringAtop the bungalow, stopped dead, a cauliflowerthe swallow has returned, your gaze follows its dartthe first buds pop with metal-beating powerthere'll be manure to wheel, I know it off by heartAbove, the purring sky, still tucked up, snuffled, dozingIt's due to brighten up, a glorious day will pass like the far whistling train, whose distance blows imposingas silver droplets come tapping the window glass.Pitched tight around the goal the little lads are busy, in its new wicker nest the cauliflower rests easy, come, sun of France,with your light lend a hand.Aching to leave , I'm flinging wide the door I'd fly, were this the Riviera shorethen all my toil would turn to silver sand.[vzjp 2000]

For reference: the original and Google translate

JaroKarfiol zůstal stát na střeše bungalovu,vrací se vlašťovka, sleduješ její let,a první pupeny jsou vytepány z kovu,budeme vozit hnůj, znám to už nazpaměť.Obloha vrní zas, je ještě na hambalkách,ač se má vyjasnit, ač má být krásný den.Zdaleka hvízdá vlak, zdaleka hvízdá dálka,stříbrné krůpěje ťukají do oken.U branky na hřišti trénují malí hoši,karfiol zůstal stát na čerstvém novém koši,přijď, slunce z Francie, a podej nám svůj svit.Už bych chtěl jíti pryč a otevírám dveře,už bych chtěl jít pryč, kdybych na Riviéře,muselo by se zcela vystříbřit.

SpringCauliflower stood on the roof of the bungalow,returning swallows, watching her flight,and buds are first hammered metal,we carry dung, I know it by heart.Sky purring again, is still on hambalkách,although it is clear though is to be a beautiful day.By far the train whistles, whistles far distance,silver beads banging on the windows.At the gate at the playground train little boyscauliflower stood in the fresh new basketcome, the sun of France, and pass us your shine.I'd like to go out and open the door,I would like to go away, if on the Riviera,would have to be completely vystříbřit

How?

• Keeping close to Form and Content: Alliteration, Assonance, Cliché, Double-entendre, Enjambment, Imagery, Idiom, Metaphor, Metre, Meaning, Onomatopoeia, Oxymoron, Personification, Pleonasm, Pronunciation, Puns, Rhyme, Rhythm, Repetition, Simile, Spelling, Structure (form type), Wordplay …

• As directly as possible, ideally not from intermediary translations, (i.e. stay original and faithful to the original.)

How? Seldom easily: Consider this analogy

• Original • Your options available

How? Creatively, for “wiggle room”• KEY ISSUE: Does form matter? At what level? What is the smallest

unit of meaning and form to keep? Word? Line? Strophe? Stanza? Rhyme? Cadence?

• Can we lose structure and translate meaning only? • Can we paraphrase in different words, different phrases, in a

different order of ideas? • Something must give way:

– More syllables per line – More lines per stanza – More stanzas

• Suggestion: Make more attempts at the whole piece, encourage other translators to do their own versions.

(Wiggle room options)Deeper = Multiple versions Wider = more syllables

Longer = more lines / verses

Rearrange = reprioritise

Where?

• Wherever the Muse finds you• Publish with an eye on copyright of original– On the web?– (takes us back to Why?, and the missing question

for HOW MUCH?)

Who?

• Ideally? The author of the original, who knows both languages, and is of course a poet!

• If compromise is needed, the target language matters most for best expression and the source context for best understanding, even if it has to be through an intermediary.

• Try more than once, try more points of view.like taking many photos of a statue.

• But remember, also, FOR WHOM you translate.

Astronautilia – Hvězdoplavbaby Jan Křesadlo

Author’s commentary on the finished translation

As goes the proverb well known, (Czechs-among).Man has more lives, with one for every tongue, This seems quite true judging by my own fate:For it was just as tricky to translatethis text as if a stranger had first placemaybe a skunk, which disappeared in space,or Mr Divíšek, though fictionalbut still - whoever wrote th'original,is distinct from the translator in guiseeven if the same shell he occupies,which makes said task no easier to doas per the saying, this I thus construe.Though I may have senilified, I hope,I can do more than Alexander Popewhose Illiad in rhyme brings in much fiction,as does that classic master of traductionwith spin on meaning, one Herr J.H.VossI hope that has not happened here, of course,for I have tried to render in translationtrue to the text, which took some application.Such is my claim, a blush upon my cheek,and rest my case with Czechs who know Old Greek.[transl from the Czech by vzjp]

Unique Homeric Greek scifi epic poem, over 6500 verses, with parallel Czech translation in hexameter, Latin foreword.(Features a universal translator and interpreter made almost entirely of braincells but resembling a skunk.)

Is being translated into German…So, will English follow, if so will it be translated from the Greek?

Graecum est, non legitur?

It’s never too late to translate

Take liberties with your freedom to translate

REMEMBER

• Any reader who needs a translation is not qualified to judge how well the translation represents the original.

• The translator owes the original author not to misrepresent and knowingly do a bad job.

• Not meaning to do a bad job of translation does not stop a bad job being done.

• The translator is (presumably) not able to do it any better, but there are always other attempts.

• We should always welcome another translation.