Sleeplessness. Homer.

I bought Robert Tracy's translation of Stone by Mandelstam after reading Seamus Heaney's review of it, and it's really quite lovely. For instance, Tracy's translation of "Бессоница. Гомер." one of the most famous poems from Stone and one I particularly enjoy is without a doubt the best published translation of it I have read (which isn't actually saying a lot, given the dearth of good translations of Mandelstam). Below I give the Russian: 

Бессоница. Гомер. Тугие паруса. 
Я список корвблей прочел до середины:
Сей длинный выводок, сей поезд журавлиный,
Что над Элладою когда-то поднялся.

Как журавлиный клин в чужие рубежи--
На головах царей божественная пена--
Куда плывете вы? Когда бы не Елена,
Что Троя вам одна, ахейские мужи?

И море, и Гомер--все движется любовью.
Кого же слушать мне? И вот Гомер молчит,
И море черное, витийствуя, шумит
И с тяжким грохотом подходит к изголовью.

My own rough, literal translation (I just wanted to give non-Russian speakers a line-by-line translation of the poem. This is not intended to be a poetic translation. To the extent possible, I maintained the Russian grammar):

Sleeplessness. Homer. Stretched sails. 
I read the catalogue of ships through the middle:
That long flock, that train of cranes,
that once took flight over Greece. 

Like a wedge of cranes towards strange borders--
On princes' heads the godlike spume--
Where are you sailing? Were there no Helen, 
What would be a single Troy to you, Achaean husbands? 

And the sea, and Homer--everything moves by love. 
To whom should I listen? And lo, Homer is silent,
And the black sea, rhapsodizing, thunders 
And with a heavy growl draws near to my pillow. 

There are a couple places that require attention. I translated мужи (muzhi) as husbands, because, while muzh at the most fundamental level does mean simply "man". In modern Russian, muzh is much more closely associated with the idea of "husband" than "man" in the abstract. I think, however, that Mandelstam wants us to have both meanings in mind (which is very Greek of him). The line, "everything moves by love" in Russian has what is essentially the equivalent of the Greek middle. Thus everything is moved by love and moves itself through love (the Russian uses the instrumental case, thus not specifying exactly what the connection of movement and love is). I love that in a poem about Homer, Mandelstam uses eccentricities of the Russian language that parallel Greek. 

Robert Tracy's translation:

Sleeplessness. Homer. The sails tight.
I have the catalogue of ships half read:
That file of cranes, long fledgling line that spread
And lifted once over Hellas, into flight.

Like a wedge of cranes into an alien place--
The god's spume foaming in the princes' hair--
Where do you sail? If Helen were no there
What would Troy matter, men of Achaean race?

The sea, and Homer--it's love that moves all things.
To whom should I listen? Homer falls silent now
And the black sea surges toward my pillow
Like a loud declaimer, heavily thundering.

As you can see, Tracy's translation takes a lot of liberties, but in general, the liberties serve the purpose of mirroring (imperfectly, of course) the meter and rhyme of the Russian. Tracy's translation, however, starts to unravel (unravel and get caught by its suitors in the act of doing so) in the last two lines. I don't exactly know what it means to thunder heavily like a loud declaimer. The image is unclear and sloppy and ignores the fact that the Russian verb "витийствовать" in addition to declaiming or speechifying has the sense of rhapsodizing. In a poem about Homer, surely Mandelstam wants us to make this connection and realize that, even as Homer falls silent, the black sea takes his place as rhapsode and poet. 

Dmitri Smirnov's translation (from wikisource: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Insomnia._Homer._The_rows_of_stretched_sails)

Insomnia. Homer. The rows of stretched sails.
I've read the catalogue of ships just to the middle:
That endless caravan, that lengthy stream of cranes,
Which long ago rose up above the land oh [sic? should be, of, I think] Hellas.

It's like a wedge of cranes towards the distant shores - 
The foreheads of the kings crowned with the foam of Gods.
Where are you sailing to? If Helen were not there,
What Troy would be to you, oh warriors of Achaea[?]

The sea and Homer - everything is moved by love.
Whom shall I listen to? There is no sound from Homer,
And full of eloquence the black sea roars and roars,
And draws with thunderous crashing nearer to my pillow.

Smirnov's translation is just sloppy, not really worth mentioning (but it's one of the few available online!). He adds words that don't need to be added. In line one, for instance, "rows". M. says nothing about rows. In the second line, the addition of "crowned" is a bit of an interpretation on Smirnov's part. Mandelstam simply tells us the foam is there. We can imagine that it is tossed up by the swift passing of ships, that it even seems crownlike upon the foreheads of kings, but that is not explicitly stated. Again in the final stanza, Smirnov assumes that if one can declaim or rhapsodize, one is full of eloquence. But, again, this is Smirnov's interpretation of Mandelstam's words. And, this interpretive tendency strips Mandelstam's imagery of its force. Mandelstam uses a verbal adverb (I translated it as "rhapsodizing"), thus connecting the activity closer to the main verb (thunders) than to the sea. But, Smirnov replaces the action with a noun and adjective combination (full of eloquence). He tries to reinsert the restless activity of Mandelstam's line by repeating "roars", but the result is a bloated line. 

Ophélie

Ophelia by John William Waterhouse

I once had a disagreement with my professor over the character of Ophelia. He, rather callously, maintained that she was a weak, even immoral, character, because she betrayed Hamlet's confidence for her father. This, to me, seemed a foolishly modern view of her. What's a young lady to do, caught between an eccentric and insane lover, her bonds of filial piety, and her duty to the court? Perhaps, she didn't deal with her situation as successfully as she could have, but that is a part of her character, and, were she any different, she would not be the lovely Ophelia. 

One of the most enchanting descriptions of Ophelia is Arthur Rimbaud's delightful poem "Ophélie". The poet has such tenderness for the young woman, her situation, and her child's heart. It illumines the result of throwing a barely adolescent into a world of politics, of duty, in short, of men. What could she do when her pale knight laid his head on her knee and spurned her even while courting her? 

Below I provide the original French and a fairly literal translation of my own. 

I

Sur l'onde calme et noire où dorment les étoiles
La blanche Ophélia flotte comme un grand lys,
Flotte très lentement, couchée en ses longs voiles...
- On entend dans les bois lointains des hallalis.

Voici plus de mille ans que la triste Ophélie
Passe, fantôme blanc, sur le long fleuve noir
Voici plus de mille ans que sa douce folie
Murmure sa romance à la brise du soir

Le vent baise ses seins et déploie en corolle
Ses grands voiles bercés mollement par les eaux ;
Les saules frissonnants pleurent sur son épaule,
Sur son grand front rêveur s'inclinent les roseaux.

Les nénuphars froissés soupirent autour d'elle ;
Elle éveille parfois, dans un aune qui dort,
Quelque nid, d'où s'échappe un petit frisson d'aile :
- Un chant mystérieux tombe des astres d'or

II

O pâle Ophélia ! belle comme la neige !
Oui tu mourus, enfant, par un fleuve emporté !
C'est que les vents tombant des grand monts de Norwège
T'avaient parlé tout bas de l'âpre liberté ;

C'est qu'un souffle, tordant ta grande chevelure,
À ton esprit rêveur portait d'étranges bruits,
Que ton coeur écoutait le chant de la Nature
Dans les plaintes de l'arbre et les soupirs des nuits ;

C'est que la voix des mers folles, immense râle,
Brisait ton sein d'enfant, trop humain et trop doux ;
C'est qu'un matin d'avril, un beau cavalier pâle,
Un pauvre fou, s'assit muet à tes genoux !

Ciel ! Amour ! Liberté ! Quel rêve, ô pauvre Folle !
Tu te fondais à lui comme une neige au feu :
Tes grandes visions étranglaient ta parole
- Et l'Infini terrible éffara ton oeil bleu !

III

- Et le Poète dit qu'aux rayons des étoiles
Tu viens chercher, la nuit, les fleurs que tu cueillis ;
Et qu'il a vu sur l'eau, couchée en ses longs voiles,
La blanche Ophélia flotter, comme un grand lys.

I

On the wave calm and black, where sleep the stars

The White Ophelia floats like a great lily

floats so slow, couched in her long veils

- You hear in the distant woods halloes.

Here more than a thousand years sad Ophelia

passes, white fantom, on the long black flood.

Here more than a thousand years her sweet folly

murmurs her romance to the evening breeze.

The wind kisses her breasts and arranges her

veils great as a crown, rocked gently by the waters;

the trembling willows weep on her shoulder,

the roses bow to her dreamer’s forehead.

The crumpled waterlillies sigh around her;

She awakens awhile, caught in a sleeping alder,

some nymph, from whom escapes the tiny shiver of a wing:

- A mysterious song falls from the golden stars.

II

O pale Ophelia! Lovely as the snow!

Yes, you died, child, carried off by the flood!

It was just the winds falling from the mountains of Norway

that spoke so softly of bitter freedom;

It was just a breeze, twisting your hair,

that brought strange sounds to your dreamer’s soul,

just that your heart listened to Nature’s song

in the groans of a tree and the sighs of night;

It was just that the voice of crazed seas, an immense rale,

Broke your child’s breast, too human, too sweet;

It was just that on an April morning, a pale, handsome knight,

a poor fool, sat silent at your knees!

Oh Heaven! Love! Liberty! What a dream, poor fool!

You melted to him as snow to fire:

your great visions strangled your speech

- And the terrible Infinite stunned your blue eyes!

III

- And the Poet says that in the regions of the stars

You come searching, at night, the flowers that you gathered;

And that he saw on the water, couched in her long veils,

White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.

Nabokov "In My Youth" or "We So Firmly Believed"

While looking Nabokov's Russian poetry and translations on the web, I came across this lovely blogpost, which is certainly worth sharing. Apart from how delightful Nabokov's voice is, this post is wonderful because it provides us with two versions of Nabokov's translation, the first as a very young man and the second as a more mature artist. 

To My Youth

We used to believe so firmly, you and I, in the unity

of existence; but now I glance back–and it is

astounding–how impersonal in color, how unreal in

pattern you have become, my youth.

When one examines the matter, it is like the haze of

a wave between me and you, between the shallows and the

drowning–or else I see a receding highway, and you

from behind as you pedal right into the sunset on your semi-racer.

You are no more myself, you’re a mere outline, the subject

of any first chapter–but how long we believed

in the oneness of the way from the damp gorge

to the mountain heather.

We So Firmly Believed

We so firmly believed in the linkage of life,

but now I’ve looked back–and it is astonishing

to what a degree you, my youth,

seem in tints not mine, in traits not real.

If one probes it, it’s rather like a wave’s haze

between me and you, between shallow and sinking,

or else I see telegraph poles and you from the back

as right into the sunset you ride your half-racer.

You’ve long ceased to be I. You’re an outline–the hero

of any first chapter; yet how long we believed

that there was no break in the way from the damp dell

to the alpine heath.

The first version is a bit clumsy, but the second is delightful. The refinement in style crystalizes the refinement in thought. Although I myself am in no position to look back upon my youth and meditate upon the caprices of time, I can certainly find Nabokov's words an immense encouragement. As we wrestle the angels of our disappointments, we cannot even imagine returning to a cheerier world, where the sun shines upon the heather. And yet, with this poem, Nabokov reminds the young and the heartbroken that such a place exists and that our current experiences are just the starting points of the path to that place.

A friend and teacher of mine commented that by 'alpine heath,' Nabokov means the Olympian Heights and is thus making a claim not dissimilar from Horace in Ode 1.1. And although Nabokov may be hubristic (and talented) enough to make such a claim, I am inclined to believe that he is speaking more as a human being and less as an artist. Nabokov wrote this poem as an exile from Russia. One can only imagine the immense weight of despair he must have felt at the prospect of a life of exile. And yet, in his exile, perhaps even on account of his exile, Nabokov was able to emerge as one of the most gifted writers of the twentieth century. 

My mother has told me now and again of the distance she feels when reflecting upon her youth. How like another life it is to her. How, when she emerged from the courthouse after her divorce, she could not even imagine the family and love she has now. In this poem, Nabokov is not simply boasting of his artistic and literary achievements, he is commenting upon human nature. As Pascal reiterates again and again in his Pensees, our perspective is so limited; we lack the means of fully understanding anything. Whether or not you find this a convincing point of view, you must certainly find it convincing a propos of our future. How unknowable it is! And yet, how much we long to know it! 

The firmament sheweth his handywork

There are just a little more than two weeks left to the semester, and I'm having a little trouble with the whole "keep calm and carry on" maxim. Perhaps it's not a fantastic idea to listen to Mozart's Requiem mass while reading my advisor's comments on my project... But, it's too late for that. What's done is done. The "Dies Irae" has never felt more a propos (at least, this draft isn't graded).

The project in question is a translation and commentary upon one of Jakob Balde's elegies. Now, you may ask, who is Jakob Balde and why am I wading through the trackless wilderness of his poetry? Well, the first question is simple enough: Balde was a 17th century German poet, who wrote in Latin. Actually, he was Alsatian. Should I make a distinction? Probably. Anyways, he lived and wrote for the most part in Germany, serving as chaplain to the elector Maximilian I.

The second question is a little more difficult. In the first place, it's a bit harsh of me to refer to his poetry as a trackless wilderness. It's really quite lovely, sublime even, when you're not completely perplexed by his eccentric word order and obscure references (thanks to Jakob, I'm developing a knowledge of 17th century botany). What's also exciting is that the poem I'm working with is hitherto untranslated and uncommented upon. I'm actually doing something that matters (at least, that's what I tell myself). I'm not just following in a chain of commentators and translators, all more intelligent than myself. Furthermore, I love the poem. It's beautiful and touching. The title, in English, is "The Garden of Gethsemane, representing the weapons of Christ’s Passion flowering in mid Spring, and allegorically described." Typical of his era, Balde's title is verbose and bland, compared with the content of the poem. But, the poem! Not bland at all. Rather, it is lithe and understated. Balde continually switches between three narratives: a description of the Garden of Gethsemane blooming in mid Spring, a description of Christ's Passion, and an exhortation to the Christian soul. He switches so effortlessly between his three topics that one forgets they are separate. In fact, so natural is his presentation that one begins to realize that they are not separate. Balde links Christ's Passion, and thus, the salvation of mankind, with the beauty of nature. He unites the God we discern in nature with the God we read about in scripture. And, in so doing, he reminds us that, not only scripture, but nature also, is an exhortation to virtue, a reminder of God's love and majesty. As the psalmist writes, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day untoday uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge" (Psalm 19:1-2).

Horace 1.24

Last Fall, I foolhardily undertook to translate Horace's Ode 1.24 (Quis Desiderio) into perfectly crafted, metrical stanzas. It was impossible. Not only is English imperfect for imitating the sound of Latin verse, but Latin words frequently bear a wealth of independent but interrelated meanings that can be conveyed by no one English word.
But, the poem, written to Vergil upon the death of a friend, is simply so beautiful that English speakers, who don't have time to learn Latin, should enjoy some slender shade of its beauty. Below, I quote the Latin and various translations of it.

Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus

tam cari capitis? Praecipe lububris

cantus, Melpomene, cui liquidam pater

uocem cum cithara dedit.

Ergo Quintilium perpetuus sopor

urget? Cui Pudor et Iustitiae soror,

incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas

quando ullum inueniet parem?

Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit,

nulli flebilior quam tibi, Vergili.

Tu frustra pius, heu, non ita creditum

poscis Quintilium deos.

Quid si Threicio blandius Orpheo

auditam moderere arboribus fidem?

Num uanae redeat sanguis imagini,

quam uirga semel horrida,

non lenis precibus fata recludere,

nigro compulerit Mercurius gregi?

durum: sed leuius fit patientia

quicquid corrigere est nefas.

The following is a translation by William Gladstone (pictured to the left), the 19th century British liberal statesman, who served as prime minister four times between 1868 and 1894 (Ah, I weep for our world leaders now! I doubt that any of them could even read Horace, much less translate him!).

What bounds can Shame, can Moderation, set,

For one so dear, to yearning and regret?

Lead thou the dirge, for Jove, Melpomene,

Gave lyre and song to thee.

[Fairly solid first lines, though the last two are a bit errant; translating "vocem [voice]" as "song" takes so much charm from the stanza.]

Shall then unending sleep Quintilius bind?

O bashful Shame, O Truth's transparent mind,

Pure Faith and Justice, twinborn sisters dear.

Where shall ye find his peer?

[It's not bad, but I'm wondering where he gets "transparent mind" and "twinborn sisters" and some other meter-completing adjectives that creep in.]

What cause he left the good for sorrowing pain !

What cause to thee, my Virgil! who, in vain

Devout, hast sought him from the gods of heaven,

But he was lent, not given.

[This stanza is awkward and inaccurate. Eheu!]

If sweetlier than Threician Orpheus thou

Could'st touch the chord that made the forests bow.

The blood returns not to the senseless clod,

, For Mercury's stern rod,

[This I find rather pretty and well-crafted, if not entirely accurate.]

Inexorable guard of Fate's command.

Hath fast conjoined him to the spectral band.

Alack! But what the iron laws impose

By patience lighter grows.

[Not accurate and anti-climactic. The final two lines pack none of the punch that they have in Latin.]

The following is a translation by John Conington, an English Classical scholar in the mid 1800s.

Why blush to let our tears unmeasured fall

For one so dear? Begin the mournful stave,

Melpomene, to whom the Sire of all

Sweet voice with music gave.

[Not accurate at all, but it's charming.]

And sleeps he then the heavy sleep of death,

Quintilius? Piety, twin sister dear

Of Justice! naked Truth! unsullied Faith!

When will ye find his peer?

[Piety is an awful translation of "pudor" and Horace merely writes "sister" not "twin sister."]

By many a good man wept. Quintilius dies;

By none than you, my Virgil, trulier wept:

Devout in vain, you chide the faithless skies,

Asking your loan ill-kept.

[Good, a little overly flowery... faithless skies, really?]

No, though more suasive than the bard of Thrace

You swept the lyre that trees were fain to hear,

Ne'er should the blood revisit his pale face

Whom once with wand severe

Mercury has folded with the sons of night,

Untaught to prayer Fate's prison to unseal.

Ah, heavy grief! but patience makes more light

What sorrow may not heal.

[Really quite good; the last two stanzas are devilishly hard to translate well. But Conington's last line reads a bit too much into Horace's delightfully simple line, "quidquid corrigere est nefas."]