Linguistic Treason

Mihai Eminescu--My faith is not in Jehova

Mihai Eminescu does not need any introduction for Romanians, and by rights, it shouldn't need any introduction for non-Romanians, either. I've hesitated to translate anything by him because, well, Corneliu M. Popescu has done a pretty good job of it before. Also, Eminescu is a cultural icon not to be taken lightly.

Also, he's very difficult to translate.

This poem below is one of my (many) favorites; not to mention, it's a fairly accurate reflection of my state of spirit of late. Here's my crack at it (no comments this time):

EU NU CRED NICI ÎN IEHOVA de Mihai Eminescu Eu nu cred nici în Iehova, Nici în Buddha-Sakya-Muni, Nici în viaţă, nici în moarte, Nici în stingere ca unii. Visuri sunt şi unul ş'altul, Si tot una mi-este mie De-oiu trăi în veci pe lume, De-oiu muri în vecinicie. Toate - aceste taine sfinte Pentru om frânturi de limbã — În zădar gândeşti, căci gândul, Zãu, nimic în lume schimbã. Si fiindcă în nimica Eu nu cred—o, daţi-mi pace! Fac astfel cum mie-mi pare Si faceţi precum vã place. Nu mã 'ncântaţi nici cu clasici, Nici cu stil curat şi antic — Toate-mi sunt de o potrivã, Eu rămân ce-am fost:—romantic.

MY FAITH IS NOT IN JEHOVAH by Mihai Eminescu My faith is not in Jehovah, Nor in Buddha-Sakya-Muni, Nor in life or death, not even In extinction, like some loony. All of them are but a dream, And it’s all the same to me Whether I will live forever, Or I’ll die for all eternity. All these many hallowed secrets Language crumbs and broken thought— Think about it all you want, for Thinking, sadly, changes naught. And because there’s really nothing I believe in, let me be! I will do as I will feel like, And you’ll do as you agree. You can’t try to sell me ‘classics’ Or a style that’s scrubbed pedantic, I don’t care for any of it— I will always stay romantic.

Translation or Re-writing: where do you draw the line?

I've recently joined ProZ, a wonderful translators' web community, where I started to participate in some discussions and answer various translation questions (there is a forum where you can accumulate points for answering such questions, in hopes that a potential employer may use that to gauge your "real" expertise in a field). I continue to be amazed at how much I still have to learn, and the extent to which some of the questions asked stump me is almost comical ("remittance leveraging," anyone?). All in all, I'm learning a lot and I'm enjoying myself.

Some questions are in fields so specialized that there is no way even a normal native speaker would know the term in question. I am still amazed at how tough the translator's job must be when he/she is translating concepts that have basically no equivalent in his/her native language, not to mention that in some fields the terminology is still fluid. All in all, juggling these terms is extremely complicated--hats off to those who do so on a regular basis.

Yesterday, I participated in answering a question that raised some interesting issues for me. The question was, how do you translate "Sorcova vesela" into English? (The whole thread is here.)

"Sorcova" is one of those ancient folk customs in which, on New Year's Day, kids go around with a little stick adorned with flowers and tap someone's shoulder to wish them all the best in the New Year. They also sing a cute little song. Sorcova means only that, the little flower-wrapped stick, so it's a highly idiosyncratic word with no equivalent in English. Thus, the first answer that comes to mind is: you don't translate it. No more than you'd translate "Greensleeves" through "mâneci verzi." Or "Auld Lang Syne" through...gee, I don't know, really.

But then one of the respondents wrote hey, the whole thing has been translated already (the song and all), and copied the whole translation in there. Everybody agreed that that's a very good translation, very sweet, very well done; it helped, I guess, that the translation apparently belongs to Ion Minulescu, one of our best-known poets. As an aside, I did not know he did this, I could find no reference to the fact that he translated anything into English, plus he died in the 1940s, so really, I'm not sold on that reference, plus I'm deeply mistrustful of Romanian web references, for reasons I won't go into here. But let's roll with it and say he did translate the "Sorcova" song. What I respectfully would like to say here is, it's not really a translation. To illustrate, I will provide the original, a literal translation, then my (deeply flawed) attempt at translating it with the original rhyme pattenr; and then I'll provide the alleged Minulescu translation. Ready? Here goes:

Sorcova, vesela, Să trăiţi, să-mbătrâniţi, Peste vară, primăvară, Ca un păr, ca un măr, Ca un fir de trandafir Tare ca piatra, Iute ca săgeata, Tare ca fierul, Iute ca oţelul. La anul şi la mulţi ani!

Sorcova, merry one, May you live long, may you grow old, Over summer, over spring, Like a pear tree, like an apple tree, Like a rose stem Tough like a rock Fast like an arrow Tough like iron, Fast like steel. Happy New Year!

Dogwood twig, merry sprig, May you live long, may you grow strong, And the spring will summer bring, Like a cherry tree so merry, Like a rose tuberose, Tough as a stone, Sharp as a bone, Tough like iron grip, Sharp as a steel tip. Happy New Year!

Now here's the alleged Minulescu translation:

The Wishing Carol   May you look with merry eyes   at that little bunch I rise,   tiny flowers may they bring   you an everlasting spring !     All the fragrance, all the bloom,   shall a fairy on her loom   weave for you, and smile, and wait   to open the golden gate !     May your steps be quick and strong,   always right and never wrong !   May you always find the 'clue',   see your dearest dreams come true,   have it always as you like,   and each time a lucky strike !     Healthy,   wealthy,   spick-and-span,   and as merry as you can !

Pretty, isn't it It gets the spirit of the song beautifully, no doubt; it expresses the same warm sentiments; it loosely follows and "translates" the ideas in the original folk songs. But a translation of the original? Hardly. The original is a simple folk song that accompanies an ancient tradition. I have researched this a little bit and "sorcova" comes from the bulgarian сурва̀кам, another super-idiosyncratic word which means, literally, "to wish a Happy New Year by tapping someone's back with a decorated cornel twig"--which is exactly what the Romanian verb, "sorcovi," means. Cornel is a kind of dogwood, hence my translation. And the ancient tradition did require that "sorcova" be made of such dogwood twigs, artificially forced into bloom for that occasion (nowadays, the flowers are made of colored paper tied to a stick).

The folk song is formulaic, with internal rhymes and impenetrable similes ("tare ca piatra" etc.), hardened by usage into self-contained lexical units that don't easily crack open to be translated or interpreted. While the "Minulescu" translation does a beautiful job of interpreting and unpacking some of those meanings, the quasi-hypnotic rhythm of the original is lost. Really, there is little left of it in that version. The version is very literate--which is to say, not folk-ish at all--in its choice of vocabulary, the use of a title, of stanzas, of complex syntactic units (just look at that second stanza) that do not echo the simplicity and cadence of the original. Plus, there are about extra 8 lines in there.

Of course, I am aware that any good translation is just a good interpretation or approximation of the original--just take a peek at my site's title. But I think that, in order to qualify as a translation, a text has to strive to reproduce the intentions, format, meaning, and (very importantly!) sound of the original--not just its general direction. The "Minulescu" translation does not qualify as a translation--it does qualify as a poem in its own right, a pretty one at that, one that reinterprets in a modern manner the spirit of the original. But, in my opinion, it's a re-writing at best, and hardly a translation.

What do you think? Where do you draw the line between a translation and a "new" work of art only loosely based in the original? Are there "degrees" of translation? Is there any way to define them? What are the points on the continuum that we're looking at?

 

And don't tell me that you prefer a beautiful reinterpretation to a flawed but more faithful translation. I get that already!

Mircea Cartarescu--Levantul (3)

A third installment of The Levant (first here, second here). To recap: so far, the young Manoli, traveling on a fast boat in the Levantine archipelago to go meet with his sister and 30 soldiers, is deeply distressed about the fate of his dear country, Wallachia, suffering until a cruel foreign tyrant.The year is somewhere in the first half of the 19th century--anything up to 1848, really; the vocabulary and mood reflect that. The story takes a digressive turn to discuss the charms of the women of different ethnicities (mostly from the Levant, but not only); this makes up for the bulk of today's installment. Of course, none of those charms can be topped by those of the Romanian women, as exemplified by Zenaida, Manoli's sister.

Until now the whole thing can be regarded as a gentle parody bordering on pastiche of the mannerisms, style, etc. of 19th century poets animated by Romantic revolutionary and nationalistic ideas. But something happens at the end of this fragment that, when I first read it 14+ years ago, made my heart flutter--and in a way, it still does. Can you spot it?

Before you get at it, though, you'll see a link, corresponding to the Romanian line: "Multe flori sînt, dar puţine rod in lume o să poarte." If you're Romanian, you probably already know what I'm talking about. If you're not, let me explain: that line is actually taken in its entirety from a famous Eminescu poem, Criticilor mei (To my critics), and in fact, it represents the first two lines of that Eminescu poem. They are pretty famous and will sound familiar to anybody who got a basic education in Romanian (say, at least high school level?). I included the link to the Romanian original; here's a well-accepted translation, which I couldn't use for reasons of rhyme and rhythm. Cartarescy borrows that line, and it works seamlessly here, but definitely not in the sense that it was initially used by Eminescu (which was more aphoristic, and referring to poets and their work's endurance, rather then to women). (If you want to know more about Eminescu, just do a basic Google search--there are too many sites and at the moment I don't feel I can recommend one over the other.)

No time for a long tedious account of my treasons....too numerous....just enjoy!

Greaca are drăgănele, şi perfum, şi-nţelepciune Ce primit-a de la graţii, musulmana ca de prune Are ochii ce prin deasa feregea abia-i prevezi; Frînca are dinţi de boabe de sidef şi ochii verzi; O chirghiză face-n piaţă mahmudele zece mii, Vai, nebun ar fi acela ce pe ea ar tîrgui, Că i-ar soarbe sărutarea peste perne de şiraz De-ar rămîne fără suflu, făr’ bujorii din obraz! Machedoana, nu am coarde l-a mea arfă îndestule Să îi cînt zulufii negri, sînurile nesătule Şi sprîncenele-mbinate, parcă-i arcul lui Amor; E trufaşă dar e dulce şi-are ciucuri la botfor; Neagră este egipţianca, ca o noapte de iubire, Se topeşte in desmierduri, gungureşte în delire, Arde şi se-ncolăceşte ca o viţă pe arac Pe un boi de june mîndru; talianca e un drac Ce te-nşeala şi te vinde şi se uită numa-n punge Şi ibovnicul îşi pune la răscruci de te împunge; Sîrba cea cu salbe multe peste peptul ca de crin E sfioasă ca şi ciuta, după ea cu toţi suspin. Nimărui ea nu-i dă floarea junii sale feciorii Şi se face maică blînda într-un schit de pe pustii; Multe flori sînt, dar puţine rod in lume o să poarte Multe mărgaritarele sus pe ceriu ard departe; Multe sînt femei cu ochii neguratici şi codaţi Dar nici una nu-i mai dulce ca rumânca din Carpaţi. Pletele prea lunge-i curge ca o apă volutoasă Pîn’la la gleznele ivite sub şalvarii de mătasă, Pîn’la imineii d’aur şi cu vîrfuri răsucite, Faţa-i este alabastru, pleoapele-i sînt înnegrite Cu kohl scump de Kios, pleoape ca ghiocii zuvelcaţi; Gene grele şi-ncurcate, paşi mărunţi şi cletinaţi Inima-i se duce-n taină dup-al ţării beizade, Calimachi, suflet putred, dar frumos ca viaţa e, Fiul cînelui ce ţara o mînca şi-o bea la masa Şi curvarul mahalalei ce din răutăţi nu iasă. El e ghimpele ce-n sînul Zenaidei, rotunzior, Işi făcu sălaş ca furii.                               Dar, effendi narator, Cam grăbişi cu diegesis şi te luă gura-nainte Să purcedem dar din locul ce-l lăsarăm fără minte, Să ne înturnăm la junul Manoil, ce lîngă cîrmă Valul verde, orizonul cu privirea el le scîrmă..

The Greek woman has gold trinkets, perfumes, wisdom and insight— Gifts from Graces; the' Arab woman is so dear to the sight And her eyes are plums you barely see through the veil’s screen; The French woman’s teeth are made of pearls, her eyes are green; A Kyrgyz woman’s worth ten thousand gold piastres in the market, Why, a fool would be the one to bargain for that charming packet, For she’d sip his kiss for hours on the satin bed sheet hollow Till he’s left utterly breathless, till his cheeks are pale and sallow. For the girl that’s Macedonian, my harp’s chords may fail the test, When it sings of her black curls, or of her hungry heaving breasts, And her interlocking eyebrows like Cupid’s bow between her tresses She is proud but sweet as honey and her shoes are hemmed with tassels. The Egyptian’s dark and fragrant like a night of sinful love, She will melt under caresses, moan and coo just like a dove, Burn and coil around a handsome youth like vines on posts, In her ecstasy; but the Italian is a devil at her most, Who’ll betray you and will only have her eyes set on your gold, And will have her lover stab you in the heart, you poor cuckold! And the Serbian, her bosom hidden under rows of charms, Is fair and shy just like a deer, and all want her in their arms. But to no one does she yield the flower of her virgin youth, In a hermitage she’ll hide then, as a nun seeking the truth. This world has so many flowers, but so few will sweet fruit bear, Many tiny stars are burning up above in the tall air; Many women of the world have dark and pretty almond eyes, But none sweeter than the girl who’s born under Romanian skies. Her too long and shiny tresses flow like a voluptuous stream Down and round her tiny ankles which in silky shalwars gleam, Down to her embroidered golden shoes with curled-up toes. Cheeks are sculpted alabaster, eyelids darkened with Kios, Costly black kohl—so her eyelids are like furtive cowrie shells. Eyelashes are long and heavy, her steps small and hip-propelled. Secretly her heart belongs to Calimach, the heir to throne, Rotten soul, but fairer than the Alexander Macedon. Son of the infernal bastard who this country drinks and eats, And the neighborhood’s philanderer who will terrorize the streets. He’s the thorn who’n Zenaida’s round and cozy breast Nested like a thief.                           Effendi story-teller, you should rest, Methinks that your diegesis is a little rushed and scurried; Let’s proceed from the same place we left before you hurried, Let’s go back to our young Manoli, at the prow, Who the green wave, the horizon, scopes under his eager brow.

Miron Radu Paraschivescu--Zapezi

It's been snowing all day here in Philly, and as is the case with urban snow, the results are, at least during the day, less than spectacular. Trucks of iron and exhaust turn the snow instantaneously into unattractive mush. The last breath of fall is still lingering above the leaves in the trees, enough to melt the first layer of hesitant snow into a dripping blanket of sleet. The transparency of the snow, even when it accumulates, makes it look gray under the downcast sky.

And so it is that I long for clear, blue skies over canopies of pure white snow in wide-open spaces. Like in this sweet little poem by Miron Radu Paraschivescu:

Zăpezi de Miron Radu Paraschivescu Acum, pe-ntregul câmp n-ai să citeşti Decât cuneiforme păsăreşti. Dar spre-a fi scrise, trebuia să vină Din cer, transport de linişti şi lumină. Atâta alb, atâta dăruire, Ca un ecou din nemărginire. Atâta alb, tot alb jur împrejur, Dând celor vii şi mai exact contur.

Snow by Miron Radu Paraschivescu Th’entire field has turned, from tree to tree,  Into a bird cuneiform marquee. One needs, however, to properly write, A heavenly cargo of quiet and light. Such selfless white, such generosity, --A boundless echo from infinity. So white, so white is all around, so pure, Giving the living a finer contour.

Dorothy Parker--One Perfect Rose

Dorothy Parker is not nearly as famous in Romania as she is in the US, and that's, frankly, a shame. Here's one of her most famous poems in my inaccurate rendition. I wanted to preserve the abab rhyme all over (notice there are only two rhymes in the whole poem)--which gave way to quite a bunch of linguistic treasons:

- "deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet"--basically, "pure" and "scented" have no equivalent in the translation--but the meaning is roughly preserved;

- I added three "extra" epithets: "cocheta" for "flower" (first stanza); "suav" (suave) for the "language of the floret" (2nd stanza), and "desueta" (old-fashioned) for her "fate" in the last stanza. Yes, to preserve rhythm/rhyme. Leave me alone.

Dorothy Parker One Perfect Rose A single flower he sent me, since we met.      All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet--     One perfect rose. I knew the language of the floweret;    "My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose." Love long has taken for his amulet    One perfect rose. Why is it no one ever sent me yet    One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it's always just my luck to get    One perfect rose.

Dorothy Parker Un trandafir perfect Ne-am întâlnit, şi-o floare el mi-a trimis, cochetă.    Cu grijă mesagerul şi l-a ales, direct Din inimă, cu roua încă sclipind, discretă—,    Un trandafir perfect. Ştiam suavul grai vorbit de-acea floretă    “Gingaşele-mi petale ţin inima-i din piept.” Căci dragostea de mult şi-a luat drept amuletă    Un trandafir perfect. De ce nu îmi trimite nimeni o perfectă,    Frumoasă limuzină, oare-i drept? Ah, nu, aceasta-i soarta mea, mai desuetă:    Un trandafir perfect.

Alexandru Andries--The Fog

Here's the video for Ceaţa (The Fog), this bitter-sweet song, with a Citizen-Kane vibe to it. Simply beautiful. I would comment more on my translation but I'm so tired today...

Ceaţa de Alexandru Andrieş De departe bărbat, de aproape copil, Strîngînd tare la piept un secret inutil, Un cuvînt nerostit nici cînd scria poezii... De departe bărbaţi, de aproape copii! Oameni vin şi se duc şi de el se ciocnesc, Trenuri zboară pieziş, telefoane-i vorbesc, Noaptea n-are opt ore, ziua n-are sfîrşit De departe cărunt, de-aproape-obosit... Trei femei îi zîmbesc, toate trei ca de vată, Tipărite cu grijă pe hîrtie cretată, De departe-s frumoase, de aproape la fel: O revistă şi-o carte-ntr-un pat de hotel. Şi nevasta-l aşteaptă şi copiii lui cresc, Avioane îl iau şi îl duc şi-l opresc, Cifre-n loc de cuvinte, peste răni care dor Şi nimic nu rimează într-un astfel de zbor... Poţi să nu-l laşi să doarmă, poţi să nu-i dai mîncare, Poţi să-i tai bucăţele fiecare ţigară, Poţi să-i faci praf maşina, banii... banii poţi să-i arunci, Ochii lui încă vor jucăria de-atunci... De departe bărbat, de aproape copil, Strîngînd tare la piept un secret inutil, Un cuvînt nerostit nici cînd scria poezii... De departe bărbaţi, de-aproape copii ! De departe bărbaţi, de aproape copii...

The Fog by Alexandru Andrieş From a distance a man, from close-up just a kid, Holding fast to his chest all the secrets he hid, Words unspoken and lost even back when he rhymed From afar look like men, but they’re children inside… People come, people go, people bump into him, Telephones blare and shout, trains take flight on a whim, Nights have never eight hours, days are endless and wired From afar he has grays, from close-up he’s too tired… Women smile straight at him, made of cotton and vapor, Printed with proper care on high-end glossy paper, From afar they are pretty, in close-up they still are: Shiny magazine covers on the room’s mini bar. And his wife keeps on waiting, and his children grow up, Planes take him far away, and they fly and they stop, Words replaced by dry numbers, over wounds that cause pain, And there’s nothing that rhymes while he’s riding this train. You can deprive him of sleep, give him nothing to eat, You can throw all his smokes, in the trash, on the street, You can spend all his money, his car—you can destroy, His eyes still long to see his beloved old toy. From a distance a man, from close-up just a kid, Holding fast to his chest all the secrets he hid, Words unspoken and lost even back when he rhymed, From afar look like men, but they’re children inside… From afar look like men, but they’re children inside…

George Toparceanu--Parody after Homer

I've worked for quite a while on this one and it's just as imperfect as when I started it, it seems. No matter: I had to put it up here or I would have never gotten out of my blogging rut! So, here he is, the delightful (and regrettably forgotten) Topârceanu, with his impeccable linguistic genius, gently poking fun at Ulysses' torments at sea. (Hint: it ain't as noble a suffering as you thought it was). (Oh, ok: Ulysses is horny. Like, Austin Powers-horny.)

And he does it all in perfect dactylic hexameters--down to preserving caesurae and other such stuff that ancient poets cared about.

At first you might think that it's a bit easier to translate a large chunk of poetry that doesn't need rhyming, only some sort of rhythm adjustment. If you didn't think that, congratulate yourself. And if you did think it, let me quote Mr. T: I pity the fool.

(Speaking of fools: Have I introduced myself yet? Hi. I'm Cristina.)

So! A Romanian parody after the "Odyssey" and its randy hero, translated into English? What could go wrong, indeed...

Just keep in mind that you need to "read" this aloud conforming to the rhythm: six dactyls (/ _ _, or heavy-light-light), the last one a trochee (/ _) or a spondee (/ /) As in: Arma vi/rumque ca/no,// Troiae qui/ primus ab/ oris. Ok, this is Latin (the Aeneid, of course--Virgil)--which uses the caesura (the pause right there, after "cano"). This is closer to home: a transliteration of the first line of the Odyssey (found here):
ândra  moi / ênnepe, / Moûsa,  po/lûtropon, / hôs  mala / pôlla
Read that with the right emphasis and you'll get the idea.

Topârceanu preserves this rhythm to a T in Romanian (although he sometimes introduces the caesura) , plus has a few Homeric comparisons and stereotyped epithets for good measure (Ulysses is "prudent," Athena is "wise," etc.). He even has notes (in hexameters!) to his own parody! To explain these notes: 1) Murnu was a famous Romanian translator (ancient Greek and Latin); 2) "Ananghi" is an invented "goddess" (of fate) derived from the Romanian "ananghie" (=dire straits), which comes from the Greek "ananki"=need. I invented my own goddess in the translation--"Plightiké" (stress on the final syllable)--a composite of "plight" and a vaguely Greek-sounding ending. (Ahem.) I'm quite certain Topârceanu knew very well that this was a Greek word, and used it intentionally (as in, this is a word as good as any to generate a deity, and by Golly, that's what I'm going to do).

The Romanian text is brimming with irony--in a really subtle, literate way. I've tried to convey that playfulness here and there, but my efforts are still patchy. However, I'm willing to accept criticism, or even better, suggestions!

Here it is:

George Topârceanu Homer: Chinurile lui Ulise Fragment apocrif din Odiseea, în hexametri şi pentametri ... Astfel corabia-n fugă plutea cu uşoarele-i pânze Doldora pline de vânt, peste noianul de ape. Singur pe navă prudentul Ulise privea cu-ntristare, Cât ţi-i oceanul de larg, zările fără catarguri. Căci părăsind pe frumoasa Calipso cea aprigă-n şolduri (Pentru că nu-i mai plăcea) şi navigând la-ntâmplare Trei săptămâni împlinite departe de ţărmuri, eroul Nu mai zărise de-atunci dulce obraz de femeie... Cum, la sfârşit de ospăţ, muritorul aruncă la mâţe Restul juncanului fript, fără să-i treacă prin minte Că mai apoi flămânzind cerceta-va-n zadar să găsească O bucăţică de zgârci ca să-şi astâmpere foamea; Astfel eroul simţise de-amor că lehamite-i este Cât l-a avut din belşug lângă Calipso, iar astăzi Jalnic striga peste valuri de dorul histericei nimfe Care-l ţinuse captiv, ca să-l iubească cu sila: ,,Cine m-a pus să te las şi să plec pe pustiile ape Fără să ştiu încotro, nici până când rătăci-voi? Valul uşor clipotind îmi aduce zadarnic aminte Sunetul glasului tău, blondă şi dulce Calipso! O, ce neghiob am putut într-o clipă să fiu de-a lăsare, După himere-alergând, nimfa cea grasă din mână! Geaba umblat-am atâtea pământuri şi mări depărtate, Asta să-mi fie de-acum pentru-nvăţare de minte..." Deci cam în chipul acesta plângând cu bărbată strigare Bietul Ulise gemea, gata să sară în valuri. Cel ce cu agera-i minte sub zidul troian născocise Gloaba cea mare de lemn care-a pătruns în cetate [Nota 1] Nu era-n stare acum, la strâmtoare fiind, să găsească Vai! nici un mijloc onest pentru-a scăpa de ispită. Nobilu-i trup se zbătea, legănat de mişcările navei, Pradă destinului orb şi nemiloasei Ananghi... [Nota 2] Dar din lăcaşu-i divin de pe vârful Olimpului falnic, Fiica măreţului Zeus, Pallas-Atena-nţeleaptă, Cea care-i poartă de grijă la orice nevoie, îl vede Cum rătăceşte pe mări, singur — cu mâna pe cârmă... Iată-aşadar că din valul adânc răsărind fără veste, Ca un agil cufundar, fiica lui Cadmus cea mică, Ino, cu trupul gingaş s-a ivit scuturându-şi în soare Părul ei galben şi ud leoarcă de apă amară. — O, nestatornice fiu al bătrânului rege Laerte! Ce curioase idei vin să-ţi întunece mintea? Oare puţine răbdări păn-acum pribegind îndurat-ai, Ca să te-arunci în adânc pentru o treabă ca asta?... Când mă gândesc ce de nopţi a tânjit Penelopa cea castă După doritul ei soţ, care stă gata să piară, Nu pot răbda să te ştiu la-ndemână, prin apele mele, Fără să-ţi dau ajutor, mare fiind filantroapă! Iat-am venit să-ţi aduc aşadar un colac de salvare, Numai atâta mă-ntreb — dacă ţi-a fi pe măsură... Zise şi-n chip de pretext îi aruncă o mică eşarfă. Iar încercatul erou, făr-a-i întoarce cuvântul, Grabnic s-apleacă spre nimfă şi cât ai clipi o ridică De subţiori din ocean — sus pe covertă, trăgând-o... * Unde zglobii împrejur clipotind se-nălţau curioase, Nava plutea uşurel, fără pilot în lumină. Valuri fugeau după valuri spre ţărm depărtat călătoare, Cerul era liniştit — marea pustie şi verde. ________________________________________ Note de subsol [1] Lucruri expuse pe larg în traducerea dlui Murnu, Harnicul nostru tălmaci care-a tradus Iliada, Carte ce fu mintenaş premiată cu premiul cel mare, Pentru că suntem un stat eminanente agricol... (n. a.). [2] Zeiţa sorţii.

George Topârceanu Homer: Ulysses’ Woes Apocryphal Odyssey fragment In hexameters and pentameters …Thus was the fast-faring sailboat afloat with her feathery light sails Chockfull of wind, over seas, and traversing vast stretches of water. Lone on the vessel the prudent Ulysses looked back with dejection, Sorrowful sight he beheld, with the skies without masts over oceans, For, after leaving the pretty Calypso with fiery hips (As he had ceased to enjoy her), and having thus sailed quite at random Three bitter weeks far away from the shore, our hero had not yet Touched, or just seen a sweet woman’s visage to perhaps tide him over, Just like the mortal who full from the feast will casually toss to the cats Leftovers of roasted calf,  without even thinking a second Later when famished, that vainly he’ll try to discover Cartilage bits for himself to sate his formidable hunger, Thus our hero had felt at one time much too sick of love’s rut Back when with fair-haired Calypso plenty of it he had had For his hysterical nymph he extends his too pitiful cries She as a slave had him kept, to love him against his dear wishes: “Who made me leave you to roam like a ghost over desolate waters Knowing not when, nor how long I will wander in silence, so lonely? Waves softly lapping remind me in vain of the sound of your singing, Beauty incarnate, oh blonde nymph Calypso, sweet mistress of mine! Oh what a lout have I been to have left, in a moment of blindness, Out of my hand, the fat nymph, while pursuing chimeras at sea! Oh but in vain have I roamed foreign lands and cold oceans so many Let this sad fate be a cruel and unfortunate lesson to me…” Wailing some more in this manner, with many a too manly bellows, Ulysses moaned for a while, ready to jump in the water. He who with cunning maneuvers in Troy by himself had concocted The huge wooden jade that could finally break through the castle [Note 1] For the sake of his life, or of Pete’s, couldn’t find in this hour of need An honest way out of these frightening straits to get rid of temptation. Nobly his body was twisting and turning while rocked by the ship, Prey to blind fate and to cruel Plightiké without pity…[Note 2] But from her heavenly home, from the top of majestic Olympus, Great Zeus’s daughter, that Pallas Athena, formidably wise, She who takes care of Ulysses when needed, sees him in distress Wandering all by himself on the seas with his hand on the helm… Thus from the depths of the ocean, who suddenly rose without notice, Limber and slim like a loon? It was Cadmus’s youngest of daughters, Ino, with delicate body, emerging from waves all aflutter, Shaking her fair-colored tresses that drip with the bitter salt water. "Oh, you capricious and fickle offspring of the old king Laertes! What weird ideas are coming and clouding your mind at this hour? Haven’t you suffered enough in your long and peculiar travels To now throw yourself overboard, and for such a ridiculous matter? Oh, when I think of the nights chaste Penelope longed for Soul of her soul, her beloved Ulysses, now ready to perish, I cannot stand knowing you're floating around in my waters, Helpless without me, so now I will prove my philanthropist chops! Thus have I come to present you my special and own life preserver, Only one question remains to be answered, which is, does it fit you?" Said she, and promptly as pretext, a scarf (multicolored!) she gave him. Hardened Ulysses, without even trying to answer her back, Quickly bends over and lightly he pulls her on board in an instant, Up from the ocean, and gently he lays her right there on the deck. * Playfully, curious waves lapped around as they craned foamy crests, Gently the ship was afloat, with no pilot or lights, in the ocean, Waves after waves chased each other to far-away shores, all too quiet, Cloudless, the sky was asleep, the ocean was green and deserted. Notes: 1. Things all too clearly explained in Mr. Murnu’s translation, Our interpreter, brave and so tireless Iliad-wrestler, Book that was pronto rewarded with first class accolades,  Because evidently we are an agrarian state first of all… 2. The goddess of fate.

Mircea Cartarescu--Levantul (2)

Ok, second installment from my Levantul saga (first one here). Some of it is so, so funny, and I'm not sure the irony comes through. Especially the switch from a very serious, sorrowful registry to a lewd, soft, romantic one (towards the end).

Tînărule, a ta faţă îmi apare străvezie, Gemetul ce scoţi e oare de amor sau de mînie, Mîna cu inele grele şi cu petre răsucite Pe jungher sau pe şold fraged va voi să se invite? Ah, pe junghiu! Si degrabă, căci tiranii înca rîde Conjurati de arvaniţii cu a lor turbane hîde, Incă mai jupoi ţeranii, înca junele le smulge Din a mumelor lor braţe, inca ţara o mai mulge! Tu de duci la Zante, unde în barcaz, la felinari Te aşteaptă a ta soră cu treizeci de palicari A ta soră! Zenaida! Cine-o vede se uimeşte Cine buzele de rujă, cine ochii i-i zăreşte I se pare cum că Hero vie s-au împeliţat Să-l aştepte iar pe Leandros lîng-al mărilor palat.

Young man, your visage appears all translucent to my eyes, The deep moan you heave, it’s rage, or is it amour in disguise? Your hand, covered with old heavy golden rings, will perhaps grip The quick knife, or will it want to touch a tender, curvy hip? Ah, the knife! And quickly, for the tyrants laugh and roar Guarded by the fierce Albanians in their turbans laced with gore They still rob the peasants and they cruelly rape their young, who cry, In their mothers’ arms, and they will suck this country dry! You—you leave for Zante, to the sailboat by whose light, Your dear sister with her thirty palikars await to fight. Oh, your sister! Zenaida! He who sees her is amazed— Who her rouge lips or her bright eyes glimpses, will be dazed, And believe that he can once again sweet Hero see, As she waits for her Leander in the palace by the sea.

NOTES:
1. On arvaniţi=Albanians. Arvanit/pl. arvaniţi is an archaic word no longer used in Romanian, which comes from the Modern Greek arvanitis, for Albanian. To this day there is a small ethnic Albanian community in Greece called Arvanits (more here).There are many other names in Romanian for ethnic Albanians -- skiptari, schipetari (from the official name of Albania, Shqiperia), arbinasi, or the more common arnauti. I think this word is a wonderful example of Balkan syncretism, where an Albanian word becomes Romanian via Greek. Well, I'm not sure how Albanian the word "Albanian" is (I know, very confusing), but Wikipedia provides some clues.

Regrettably, while Romanian seems to have at least 5-6 words for "Albanians" floating around, due to a long history of intermingling and what not, I can only seem to find one such word in English. Unfortunately, "Albanian" doesn't carry within the rich connotations of "arvaniţi<," only one of which is linguistic, and others having to do with the social and political role Albanian soldiers played in the Ottoman Empire.

2. Palicari=palikar//brave men. Another wonderful archaism employed by Cartarescu for maximum linguistic authenticity and color. Again, it's derived from a Greek word, pallikári, which used to mean a Greek volunteer during the 1821-1828 Greek independence war; it came to mean, by extension, a "brave man." I initially translated "palicari" with "brave men," which is quite accurate, but lacks local color, then I discovered that "palikar" is a legitimate (though esoteric) word in English, so...I went ahead and used it! I'm still waffling a little on this one--mainly, because the English meaning of "palikar" is very restrictive ("Greek soldier in the war of independence against Turkey, 1821-1828") and does not include the general meaning that it has acquired in Romanian (and possibly throughout the Balkans, who knows?) of brave, strong man.

3. If you need your memory refreshed re: Hero and Leander, here's a nice summary.

Alexandru Andries--Like the sand all women are

Another one of my favorites--Andries's Like the sand all women are. My linguistic treasons--oh, boy. Let's see:

- "Si viata e un hotel"="And life is a hotel"--translated through "and life is so surreal." I needed a rhyme for "steel"--which I couldn't really give up.

- I went a little overboard with the next to last stanza: "Au camere mari, cu multe oglinzi,/ Ca-ntr-o plasa în ele te prinzi... / Cînd sub patura moale te-ntinzi /Nici nu stii cît de adînc te prinzi." Literally, this is "They have big rooms with lots of mirrors/ You get caught in them like in a net/ When you lie down under the soft blanket/ You have no idea how deep you're getting in." This a monorhyme, so I needed to use the same rhyme for all the four lines, which was tough. And so the "catch you in their net" became "weave you inside their silvery room"; "under the blanket" became "blanket's womb", and so on and so forth.

I love this little song, a little playful, a little sad, a little  bittersweet, Andries at his best, in my opinion.  Enjoy.

CA NISIPUL FEMEILE SUNT de Alexandru Andries Barbatii-s facuti din carne, Femeile - din otel, Ar fi trebuit sa fie invers, Dar Dumnezeu mai greseste si el... Femeile zic ca-s din carne, Barbatii ca-s din otel, Si de-aia e noaptea-ntuneric Si viata e un hotel... Ca nisipul femeile sînt, Le ia pe sus orice boare de vînt Si-napoi nu mai vin nicicînd... Ca nisipul femeile sînt ! Au camere mari, cu multe oglinzi, Ca-ntr-o plasa în ele te prinzi... Cînd sub patura moale te-ntinzi Nici nu stii cît de adînc te prinzi ! Au ochi sa te-opreasca, Si-aceiasi ochi sa te goneasca Curînd... Ca nisipul femeile sînt...

LIKE THE SAND ALL WOMEN ARE by Alexandru Andries All men are made of flesh, All women are made of steel, It should have really been the other way, But even God can err, and He will. Women claim they’re made of flesh, And men, that they’re made of steel, And that’s why the nights are so dark And life is so surreal. Like the sand all women are Winds take them away up to a star And they never return from afar Just like the sand all women are. They have lots of mirrors up in their room Which weave you inside their silvery loom And when you lie in the blanket’s womb You will get lost in their perfume. Their eyes will seduce you And the same eyes will chase you Away… Just like the sand all women are.

Alexandru Paleologu--Why do I write? What do I believe in?

I just found this book by Alexandru Paleologu, Despre lucrurile cu adevarat importante (On the really important things) and the preface is the author's answer to a questionnaire which asks--well, you see for yourself. I did a quick and dirty translation (don't shoot me!) and didn't include the original because it was already getting way too long. I found myself nodding vigorously through some passages (like, the intrinsic value of art and writing), and saying "Huh" and "Hm" through others, like the last paragraph about the intrinsic evil of stupidity, or perhaps viceversa, which raised more problems than it solved, and it's in my opinion absolutely untenable.

But! I'm too tired to talk about it now! Tomorrow perhaps, gentle readers (yes, you two in the back, playing Scrabble. I can see you!)--tomorrow, perhaps, I'll have more stamina to disagree with this intellectual giant. Until then, enjoy!

_________________________________________________________________

Why do I write? What do I believe in?
Alexandru Paleologu

Why do I write? I’ve asked myself that question many times. I can quote this sentence by Eugene Ionesco: Pourquoi j’écris ? Je suis encore à me le demander. Yes. Besides the fact that I cannot do otherwise, what can I answer? Although that’s not completely true. I’ve spent whole years without writing anything. Every year, weeks and sometimes months pass without my writing a single word. That doesn’t mean I don’t work, that I don’t create. There are some who plan their writing, a certain (fixed) number of hours per day and a certain number of pages, more or less, irrespective of the quality of the text and irrespective of whether the text will be preserved/kept or not; genie ou non, as Stendhal would say. I think these people are graphomaniacs. Graphomania doesn’t exclude genius, only pretentiousness does. Baudelaire or maybe someone else, I can’t remember, said: qui ne TRAVAILLE pas tous les jours, ne travaille jamais, and not qui n’ECRIT pas tous les jours (underlining mine). Sadoveanu, who, as everybody knows, wrote a lot, confessed in an interview to Ion Biberi in 1945 that he only really writes, in fact, for about three months a year.

It’s rather rude to talk about me now, after all the names I just mentioned, but the question compels me to. I start writing when what has been accumulating for a long time calls me implacably to express it. I cannot write anything without a long gestation, which is largely subconscious. Very often, most of the time in fact, while I’m busy with something else, or with nothing (busy with nothing), or engaged in conversation, lapidary formulations cross mind, expressions of thoughts that seem to me to be worthy of remembering, but, as I’m counting on my memory, I’m not writing them down (it’s usually not even possible at the moment) and I forget them. I don’t regret them. I find it highly presumptuous, this avarice, this drive to not lose any of one’s own thoughts, to hoard them. It’s normal to lose about 80 percent of them. Spiritual life consists largely of such losses, and the achievements are just the rest. Most of the times, a page can be just the residue, the remainder of entire years of reverie, reflections, accumulations. The moment things become unbearable and demand the material action of putting them on paper, or when an accident, usually one that seems minor, but is decisive in this complicated process, triggers this act, only and only then the true transmutation takes place, or, to use an improper but accredited term, “creation.” Thoughts only matter when they are expressed, which is, when they become text. This transmutation is the gift I-don’t-know-who gives you, but only then labor starts, which for me is usually a painful process, when I lose track of meals or of normal sleeping time, I sleep when I can, for one or two hours on the couch in my study, I eat when I can, whether writing flows seamlessly, or, as it’s most often the case, whether I have to rewrite the same page God knows how many times. Sometimes I start to despair; it’s pure hell. But in the end some kind of exaltation takes place, an exultation comparable with erotic triumphs, repaying with hefty interest all the pangs, exasperations, and losses of self esteem. Who made me, who cursed me to write? What’s the point? All these vituperations are then forgotten, or linger in memory like ridiculous yammers, like the whims of an old coquette.

The eventual success of the written piece pleases me, of course, it’s only human, after all, but it ranks much lower compared to the delight of the act itself and the feeling, perhaps illusory, that you get out of your accomplishment in your craft. I cannot know for sure whether what I write deserves to be remembered (to be honest, I think so), nor can I know whether, deserving or not, it has any chance to. There is authorial vanity. I said it on another occasion why in my case, for deeply personal reasons, this vanity is reduced to a minimum. But it does exist, there’s nothing I can do about it, and I’m not even too ashamed to admit it.

But there, I’ve covered how I write, but not why. I don’t know how to answer that question. Some may write with a purpose in mind, for example, to reform mores, society, educate the nation, a.s.o. Among these, some are actually writers, despite that goal. For others, many, even, writing means money or glory, but still, they’re a secondary incentive. The essential finality of literature, of art in general, which includes, willy-nilly, literary criticism, essays, philosophy, even great oratory, whose objective is usually persuasion with a view to accomplishing an immediate practical goal, is ultimately a purposeless finality, that is, one that implies knowledge, contemplation, and apprehending the truth. Which is to say, beauty (which will save the world). This is even more evident in the case of oratory, for its practical interest is the fastest to expire, but its aesthetic interest survives centuries or even millennia.

Fate, over which I have no control, made it so that the genre I write is the essay, a term which I’ve come to abhor, because for a while now it’s been subjected to a totally devaluing inflation process. Before you can count to three, there it is—essay, essayistic. It’s come to mean (and excuse/absolve) incompetence and pseudo-elegance. As a matter of fact, the essay claims total competence in the most ignored of fields, of being human (a field in which anthropology is rarely competent, and even then, very little). The word “essay,” popularized, of course, by Montaigne, expresses an (ironic!) prudent modesty, understood, as I said on other occasions, as technical rather than moral virtue, and it also means the need to test realities, to try them, to subject experience and thought to a process of check and balances, to testify about the human trials and tribulations.

What do I believe in?

I could simply answer, in God, a term you can interpret as you like (energy, matter, spirit, force, natura naturans…) But I prefer to affirm the traditional Credo, without circumlocutions. I therefore believe also in the reality of the Cunning one, which is to say, I notice the cunningness of stupidity and the stupidity of cunningness. For that’s what the Devil is: Stupidity. He is not, as people tend to believe, smart, subtle, ironic, Mephistophelean, etc. No. He’s stupid. “Diabolical intelligence”: this phrase is stupid, it’s nonsensical. Only stupidity is diabolic (meanness and Evil are its side effects). Stupidity and Evil are transcendental realities, of numinous character, are something ungeheuer, as Rudolf Otto would say. Look (there are countless opportunities to do so) how cunning the imbeciles can be, what kind of tricks they have up their sleeves, that intelligence can’t really construe, not because it’s incapable of it, but because it doesn’t waste its time with the stupid purposes of tricks (tricks only have stupid purposes, and of course, evil, and destructive). Stupidity is eternal and invincible; it’s a hydra with countless heads which sprout back every time you cut them, which is why they need to be cut again and again with the acids of intelligence, to keep it in check; it’s all one can do against it. Have you noticed that every time one talks about stupidity, in the most general sense of the word, a lot of people get upset? It’s wrong to believe that the stupid don’t realize they are stupid. They know very well they are and they have an infallible instinct to detect intelligence and mobilize against it, spontaneously and organically, systematically and savagely. That’s why we have, manifested either directly or dissimulated, but always tenacious, so much hostility towards Caragiale, the abyssal Caragiale, the genius of radical intelligence, the most efficient of the great Romanians at unmasking Stupidity. There are too many stupid people in the world, but luckily there are also lots of Romanians who’d rather take a smart man in loss than a stupid man in gain! The stupid, in the moonlight or under the lamps of meeting rooms, are horrified of laughter. They must know why.