Craft Notes
translation mania
I’ve been reading a lot of Aeschylus lately, doing research, or something like that. Well, it started out as research, then, I got caught up in reading, as often happens. Then, I got caught up in how different translations can be.
Check this out. Here, I offer five translations of the same passage, each one equally lovely, each one equally amiss:
1. Trans. Ted Hughes
Chorus: A woman did all this. One woman.
They called her Helen–that was a prophecy.
Helen the Destroyer.
Not a name but a title.
The bride of the spear’s broad blade.
Helen the homicidal
Epidemic fury
That would possess nations.
Not a face or name but a poison
To send whole fleets to perdition
As if their captain were madmen–
Chewing and spitting her name–
Helen. The name Helen
Not so much a name as an earthquake
To bounce a city to burning rubble.
Not a name but a plague
Spreading scream by scream from city to city,
As houses become tombs.
Damn, right?
2. Trans. David Slavitt
Chorus: The name of Helen fouls the mouth,
a curse. How did the fates arrange
that so uncanny cognomen
she bore?
First Chorister: Helen, destroyer: Helenaus, destroyer of ships;
Heleptolis, destroyer of cities; Helandros,
destroyer of brave men.
Chorus: By such slight gestures does destiny
approach. We think there is nothing strange
or alarming, but it saunters up and then…
a war!
3. Trans. David Grene & Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty
Chorus: Who can have named her so,
with such truth, utterly?
Could it be someone we cannot see,
with foreknowledge of destiny,
that used his tongue in harmony with fortune?
She was called Helen,
the bride won by the spear, sought in strife.
Helen means death, and death indeed she was,
death to ships and men and city…
4. Trans. Anne Carson (note: I wanted to love this because it’s Anne Carson, but this ended up being my least favorite translation. This one section is ok and not necessarily indicative of how liberal Carson is with the original!)
Chorus: Who can have named her so perfectly?
What prophetic mind?
Who was it gave to that bride of blood, that
wife of strife, the name Helen? For the
woman is hell to ships, hell to men, hell to
cities.
5. trans. Wolfgang Peterson
You can see the commonalities between these translations. Ok, maybe not with the Troy clip, which is just funny. But seriously, certain words appear in the top four, sure, but these are completely different narratives. They tell different stories.
What do you think?
Tags: translations
Wow! I LOVE the Hughes.
I’m no expert in translation, not even a little, but I remember hearing a “broken vase” theory in a philosophy of literature course (can’t remember who the theory belongs to, or what it’s official name is). The idea there is that every creative work is like a vase that’s been shattered. Each version– in its original language, in all translations– accounts for only a single shard of that vase.
(Imagine a dotted-line-style picture of a vase, with many many dotted-line cracks.)
So with every translation that’s made, shards are added. (Or discovered. And put in place.) Each translation helps to create a more complete (but ultimately incompletable) “picture” of the work-as-a-whole.
If this is true, then translations make a work “larger.” Each one multiplies what the work means/can mean. And although each translation perhaps tells a completely different story (as you’ve shown above with these marvelous examples), they’re at least all…playing on the same team, maybe?
I don’t know. But thinking about translations like this has (for me) made for some rich reading experiences.
Wow! I LOVE the Hughes.
I’m no expert in translation, not even a little, but I remember hearing a “broken vase” theory in a philosophy of literature course (can’t remember who the theory belongs to, or what it’s official name is). The idea there is that every creative work is like a vase that’s been shattered. Each version– in its original language, in all translations– accounts for only a single shard of that vase.
(Imagine a dotted-line-style picture of a vase, with many many dotted-line cracks.)
So with every translation that’s made, shards are added. (Or discovered. And put in place.) Each translation helps to create a more complete (but ultimately incompletable) “picture” of the work-as-a-whole.
If this is true, then translations make a work “larger.” Each one multiplies what the work means/can mean. And although each translation perhaps tells a completely different story (as you’ve shown above with these marvelous examples), they’re at least all…playing on the same team, maybe?
I don’t know. But thinking about translations like this has (for me) made for some rich reading experiences.
The classical canon — and Greek tragedy in particular — is the most productive laboratory for determining where translation moves from craft to art.
It’s like covering the standards. You can slavishly copy someone else’s “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” or “Stormy Weather,” or you can break it down and put it back together and make something new out of it, which is, to translate the metaphor, the most exciting kind of translation.
Hughes worked very freely (I don’t think he knew Greek). Robert Lowell also produced some really good translations, working from the same linguistic deficiency. Their translations are stronger for it, I think.
The classical canon — and Greek tragedy in particular — is the most productive laboratory for determining where translation moves from craft to art.
It’s like covering the standards. You can slavishly copy someone else’s “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” or “Stormy Weather,” or you can break it down and put it back together and make something new out of it, which is, to translate the metaphor, the most exciting kind of translation.
Hughes worked very freely (I don’t think he knew Greek). Robert Lowell also produced some really good translations, working from the same linguistic deficiency. Their translations are stronger for it, I think.
funny. i originally had different “translations” of songs in the post, but it got too long. but yes! i agree, all around.
funny. i originally had different “translations” of songs in the post, but it got too long. but yes! i agree, all around.
Awesome. I was just looking for something like this and had taken a break to read htmlgiant.
Awesome. I was just looking for something like this and had taken a break to read htmlgiant.
via Bobby Alter, an old French proverb:
Translations are like women – if they are beautiful, they are not faithful; if they are faithful, they are not beautiful.
via Bobby Alter, an old French proverb:
Translations are like women – if they are beautiful, they are not faithful; if they are faithful, they are not beautiful.
thank you, ken. perfect!!
thank you, ken. perfect!!
The Hughes stumbles a bit at first, but picks up speed as it goes along. I think it works just fine.
But oh Anne Carson! As with all her work, its the original that’s unfaithful to the translation.
The Hughes stumbles a bit at first, but picks up speed as it goes along. I think it works just fine.
But oh Anne Carson! As with all her work, its the original that’s unfaithful to the translation.