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spacestationtrustfund's review
2.0
I selected the poems in order of appearance, because I'm lazy. I'll include Peter France's translation, the original poem, and then my corrections/notes on the translation. Italics signify a word that will be further clarified in brackets. First, a short poem from 1908:
A longer poem yet, from 1910 and titled "Silentium":
Next, from 1910:
This next one, from 1910, is one of my absolute favourite of Osip Mandelstam's poems.
Anyway, overall these translations (and the ones in the rest of the book were pretty decent. As I mentioned before, the determination to force these non-English poems into English-language metre and verse and rhyme did not, has never, and is unlikely to ever, improve upon a more relaxed format. Changing "приют" (shelter, refuge) into "home" simply for a more comfortable English rhyme not only changes the meaning of the line but also weakens the poem as a whole. This, coupled with the fact that the original text of the poems, despite being freely in the public domain in just about every country where it would be relevant, was not included alongside the translated versions, dramatically decreased my enjoyment of these translations.
I did have fun picking them apart though. That probably says something about me as, like, a person, or whatever.
The cautious muffled soundOriginal:
of a fruit torn from a tree
amid the midnight song
of deep woodland peace...
Звук осторожный и глухой
Плода, сорвавшегося с древа,
Среди немолчного напева
Глубокой тишины лесной...
The sound is cautious and muffledA slightly longer poem from 1909:
The fruit, that broke away [срываться] from the tree [древо, archaic, literary]
Amongst the unsilent [немолчного] melody
Deep silence of the forest...
No need to speak of anything,Original:
no call to teach a single thing,
and the dark animal soul
feels sad or good as seasons roll:
It does not wish to teach a thing,
it cannot speak of anything,
and, like a young dolphin, it will play
in the grey gulfs of everyday.
Ни о чем не нужно говорить,
Ничему не следует учить,
И печальна так и хороша
Темная звериная душа:
Ничему не хочет научить,
Не умеет вовсе говорить
И плывет дельфином молодым
По седым пучинам мировым.
Nothing needs to be said,This is a fairly good translation, in my opinion. France is hobbled by his commitment to a mostly regular metre and at least a semblance of rhyme; trying to force a translated poem into a recognisable structure will inevitably result in the poem's scanning like a child's verse ("No need to speak of anything, / no call to teach a single thing, / I do not like it, Sam-I-am"), but the words are pretty much all there.
Nothing ought to be taught,
And sorrowful and good
Is the dark animal soul:
Nothing does it want to teach,
Not able of anything to speak
And swims like a young dolphin
Through grey depths of the world.
A longer poem yet, from 1910 and titled "Silentium":
She has not yet been born, and stillOriginal:
she is both music and the word
and therefore the inviolable
union of all that lives on earth.
The ocean's breasts breathe peacefully,
but like a mad thing, day is bright,
and the foam's pale lilac lies
within a clouded bowl of light.
So let my lips now make their own
the dumbness of the dawn of time
like a note that is crystalline
in its original purity!
Aphrodite, still be foam,
let words be music once again,
and heart for heart still suffer shame,
with pristine life again made one!
Она еще не родилась,
Она и музыка и слово,
И потому всего живого
Ненарушаемая связь.
Спокойно дышат моря груди,
Но, как безумный, светел день.
И пены бледная сирень
В черно-лазоревом сосуде.
Да обретут мои уста
Первоначальную немоту,
Как кристаллическую ноту,
Что от рождения чиста!
Останься пеной, Афродита,
И, слово, в музыку вернись,
И, сердце, сердца устыдись,
С первоосновой жизни слито!
She hasn't yet been born,Oh, yeah, if it wasn't already obvious, there will be some rearranging of syntax so as to preserve as much of the original word order as is humanly possible without changing the meaning entirely. Verbs may be in places they don't normally appear in ordinary English. I'd apologise but honestly who cares.
She is both music and words,
And therefore all that's living
Has an unbreakable connection.
Quietly breathe the sea's bosoms,
But, like insanity, bright [светлый] is the day.
And foam that's pale lilac
Is in a black-and-azure [лазоревый, from лазурный] vessel.
May they find, my lips
The primordial muteness,
Like a crystalline note,
What, from birth, is pure!
Remain foam, Aphrodite,
And, word, to music return,
And, heart, be ashamed of the heart,
With the fundamental principle [первооснова] of life, be merged!
Next, from 1910:
Keen hearing stretches out a sail,Original:
emptiness fills the widening eyes,
and through the quietness swims by
the noiseless choir of midnight birds.
I am as poor as nature is,
I am as simple as the sky,
my freedom is as tenuous
as voices of the midnight birds.
I see the moon devoid of life,
the sky more deathly than a sheet;
your eerie and distempered world
is welcome to me, emptiness!
Слух чуткий парус напрягает,The first line of my translation has a gerund, and reads like this: noun (hearing) / adjective-object (sensitive sail) / verb (strains). The hearing (1) strains (3) the sensitive sail (2).
Расширенный пустеет взор,
И тишину переплывает
Полночных птиц незвучный хор.
Я так же беден, как природа,
И так же прост, как небеса,
И призрачна моя свобода,
Как птиц полночных голоса.
Я вижу месяц бездыханный
И небо мертвенней холста;
Твой мир, болезненный и странный,
Я принимаю, пустота!
Hearing a sensitive sail strains,Fun fact, голос (voice) also means vote in Modern Russian; пустота (emptiness) refers to the void, the vacuum of space, etc.
Widened empty gaze,
And silence sails past
Midnight [полночь] birds' not-sonorous [не, not + звучный, sonorous] choir.
I'm just as poor as nature,
And just as simple as heaven,
And illusory is my liberty,
Like midnight birds' voice.
I see the moon, lifeless
And the sky, deader than canvas;
Your [твой, intimate "your"] world, painful and strange,
I accept, emptiness!
This next one, from 1910, is one of my absolute favourite of Osip Mandelstam's poems.
Out of the evil, sticky deepOriginal:
I grew and rustled like a reed,
inhaling a forbidden life
with passion and a languid greed.
And unobserved by all, I sink
into a cold and clammy home,
and here the short-lived autumn hours
whisper their welcome as I come.
Cruel injury makes me glad
and in a dreamlike life, alone,
I secretly envy the whole world,
and secretly love everyone.
Из омута злого и вязкого
Я вырос, тростинкой шурша,—
И страстно, и томно, и ласково
Запретною жизнью дыша.
И никну, никем не замеченный,
В холодный и топкий приют,
Приветственным шелестом встреченный
Коротких осенних минут.
Я счастлив жестокой обидою,
И в жизни, похожей на сон,
Я каждому тайно завидую
И в каждого тайно влюблён.
From a pool evil and viscousI simply could not get the penultimate line to work with Russian syntax which puts the object before the verb instead of after (i.e., "I'm everyone secretly envying" versus "I'm secretly envying everyone"). Skipping one poem chronologically because I don't like it, and jumping right to 1912 for this next and final one.
I arose, like a thin reed rustling,—
And passionately, and languidly, and affectionately
Forbidden life did breathe.
And I will go, by nobody observed,
In a cold and marshy shelter,
A welcoming rustle meeting me
From short autumnal minutes.
I am happy with a cruel offense,
And in life, resembling in sleep, [на сон, i.e., dreaming]
I'm secretly envying everyone
And, with everyone, secretly in love.
No, not the moon, a brightly lit clock faceOriginal:
shines down on me, and how am I to blame
for seeing the milky weakness of the stars?
And I can't stomach Batyushkov's conceit:
"What time is it?" they asked him here on earth,
and his reply was just: "Eternity."
Нет, не луна, а светлый циферблат
Сияет мне, и чем я виноват,
Что слабых звезд я осязаю млечность?
И Батюшкова мне противна спесь;
Который час, его спросили здесь—
А он ответил любопытным: вечность!
No, not the moon, but a bright clock-faceYes, that's actually "milkiness" (млечность or млечност). It also could mean "lactation." I'd rather not dwell on it any further.
Shines on me, and whereby am I guilty,
What feeble stars do I feel the milkiness?
And Batyushkov disgusts me with his pride;
What time, he was asked here—
And he answered inquisitively: eternity!
Anyway, overall these translations (and the ones in the rest of the book were pretty decent. As I mentioned before, the determination to force these non-English poems into English-language metre and verse and rhyme did not, has never, and is unlikely to ever, improve upon a more relaxed format. Changing "приют" (shelter, refuge) into "home" simply for a more comfortable English rhyme not only changes the meaning of the line but also weakens the poem as a whole. This, coupled with the fact that the original text of the poems, despite being freely in the public domain in just about every country where it would be relevant, was not included alongside the translated versions, dramatically decreased my enjoyment of these translations.
I did have fun picking them apart though. That probably says something about me as, like, a person, or whatever.
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