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« September 2007 | Main | November 2007 »

October 2007

October 30, 2007

Mircea Cartarescu--Let's make love, kera-mu

I haven't posted in a while, a pernicious side-effect of having relatives from overseas addicted to computer access and holding on to your laptop for all the twelve days they are here, an evil act they justify with their wet doe-eyes and overall cuteness. Ahem. Unfortunately, I am susceptible to such charms, hence my inability to say no. And my lack of posting.

But! Here's something I translated a while ago--again, by my beloved Cartarescu. This time, the betrayals resided in semantics. "Kera mu" (which in the Romanian spelling is "chera-mu"), and a few words and proper nouns with local color, and which I explain, for a change, in the notes. It's the usual hypersexual global vortex in which Cartarescu's lyrical universe finds itself engaged in, ever so often. Enjoy!

Mircea Cartarescu

SA NE IUBIM, CHERA MU

sa ne iubim, chera mu, sa ne iubim tujur
ca mâine vom fi prada inundatiilor, surparilor de teren, betiilor crâncene,
ca mâine un ieri cu labe de paianjen de fân îti va umbla în cârliontii de flori ai coiffurii
zapacindu-te, ambetandu-te . . .
sa fim tandri, bâigui poligonul catelu lipindu-si irisii
de soldurile voluptoase ale autobazei filaret
sa fim tandri, singuratatea mea, ciripi indicatorul de sens giratoriu
sa fim tandri, mai zise o musca.
primavara ne lingea ca un pechinez pe fata, pe mâini
ne facea sa ne întrebam ce gust om avea pe limba infinita a noptii plina de autocare si stele,
primavara ne mângâia depasind uneori limitele maternitatii sau prieteniei nevinovate
aratându-si provocatori sânii reci sub jacka ei de turcoaz jerpelit
oh, mai ramâi, sopti lustra catre o scama de pe covor,
nu vrei sa te urci la mine? bem ceva, ascultam muzica, îti arat biblioteca . . .
nu vrei sa ramâi în noaptea asta la mine?
sa ne tinem de mâna, îi spuse un medic primar de la spitalul emilia irza
iepurelui de tabla din vitrina cu jucarii.
sa ne iubim, sa ne amam, sa crestem si sa ne înmultim
cântau tergarulile si velurul, drilul si chembrica pe gabroveni
le raspundeau pâna la raguseala plutonierii si norisorii
sa facem chestia aia, gâfâiau frizeriile.
ca niste becuri electrice legate în serie
nervii plezneau pe antebrat, venele se umflau pe torace,
în nari analizatorii mirosului îsi încuiau paltoanele în dulapuri
si indicele de refractie îsi halea sandviciul cu carne de pui
în holbarea perversa a ochiului.
ce de ocheade, câte accidente din neatentie,
conturi încheiate, polite platite,
îngerasule, stranuta plamânul când se privi în oglinda
si vazând în urma lui o uzina.
primavara ne întindea pe pâine felia groasa de televizor
mintea noastra era îmbâcsita de proiecte de agrasiune, deja vedeam microcosmosul împânzit de transee,
deja visam la putere, la krakatit, la mirosul de blana de vulpe al omului invizibil
la ochii catifelati ai omului care trece prin zid...
creierul nostru îsi amintea de când statea ghemuit
de când pulsa, de când palpita, fojgaia, colcaia, misuna, serpuia
antebratul îsi defula în aerul slabanog sentimentul de a avea pene,
urechea - sentimentul de a fi auzit boncaluitul triceratopsului
si bulele de hidrogen pleznind malaria peste fata.
ai încredere în mine, gânguri flora întestinala
întinzându-se voluptos în bratele groazei
care purta în acea seara un costum simplu, cambrat, tineresc,
da-mi un pupic, se ruga anabolismul de catabolism,
crudelo, nu ma chinui, rânjea maxilarul spre maxilar.

venea seara, orasul se anima,
venea noaptea, strazile sfârâiau ca sifonul,
sa fim tandri, loz necâstigator, sa fim tandri, batator de covoare,
sa ne iubim, robinete, sa facem excursii, mapa de plicuri!
în rochii de moloz si nuiele verzi, de mezeluri si de brânzeturi,
spoite cu vodca si motorina emotiile iesisera la agatat.
prin ganguri si pasaje acoperite cu geam colorat
câte un pisoi zgâria în ladita vreunui dafin
si în berarii ospatarele se lasau desurubate de vii contra cost.
sa ne iubim, unamuno, nebuno, sa ne iubim, chera mu,
si apoi sa ne-nselam cu chibritele, cu patentul, cu pasta de dinti,
sa ignoram influenta exercitata în psihicul nostru
de complexul lui grozavesti.
primavara priveste galbena prin stratosfera, gâdilata de ozon si de ioni,
sa ne cunoastem mai bine, melcule, zice,
sa ne îmbratisam, depoule, hârtiuto, tomberonule …
iar noi la tâsnitoarea din capatul aleii alexandru ne stropeam unul pe altul cu apa
chiar lânga policlinica, si pâna si copacii
miroseau a dentist.

Mircea Cartarescu

LET'S MAKE LOVE, KERA MU*

let’s make love, kera mu, let’s make love tujour**
come tomorrow we’ll be prey to floods, landslides, wasted drunkenness,
come tomorrow a yesterday with the legs of a hay spider will crawl through the flowery curls of your coiffure
messing you up, making you drunk….
let’s be tender, mumbled the catelu field***, his irises peeled
on the voluptuous hips of the filaret bus terminal
let’s be tender, my loneliness, chirped the traffic circle sign,
let’s be tender, said also a fly.
the spring was licking our faces, like a pekingese, and our hands,
made us wonder what sort of taste we leave on the infinite tongue of the night full of coach buses and stars,
the spring was caressing us going sometimes beyond the boundaries of motherliness or innocent friendship
showing her provoking cold breasts under her scruffy turquoise jacket
oh, stay, whispered the lampshade to a loose thread on the carpet,
don’t you want to come upstairs? we’ll have a drink, we’ll listen to music,
i’ll show you the bookcase…
don’t you want to spend the night at my place?
let’s hold hands, said to an internist at the emiliza irza hospital
the little tin rabbit in the toy window.
let’s make love, let’s make amour, let’s grow and multiply,
were singing the velours, the moleskins, the tweeds and toiles on gabroveni street
the street sergeants and the little clouds would answer till they got hoarse
let’s do that thing, the barber shops were panting.
like electric bulbs serially linked,
the nerves were snapping on the forearm, the veins were swelling on the thorax,
inside nostrils, the smell sensors were locking their winter coats in wardrobes
and the refraction index was gulping its chicken sandwich
in the perverted stare of the eye.
how many glances, how many careless accidents,
closed accounts, paid policies,
my angel, sneezed the lung when he looked at himself in the mirror
and saw a factory behind him.
the spring was spreading us on the thick tv slice
our mind was muddled by aggressive projects
we were already picturing the microcosm canvassed with trenches,
we were already dreaming of power, of krakatit, of the smell of fox fur of the invisible man,
of the velvety eyes of the man who passes through walls…
our brain remembered when it was coiled,
when it pulsed, when it throbbed, when it crawled, writhed, squirmed, wiggled, snaked,
the forearm exuded in the skinny air the feeling of being feathered,
the ear—the feeling of having heard the call of the triceratops,
and the hydrogen bubbles slapping malaria in its face.
trust me, cooed the intestinal flora
stretching voluptuously into the arms of horror
which was wearing that night a simple, stretch suit, quite youthful,
give me a little kiss, the anabolism begged the catabolism,
cruelita, don’t torment me, grinned the mandible to the mandible.

the evening was coming, the city came to life,
the night was coming, the streets were sizzling like syphons,
let’s be tender, non-winning lottery ticket, you, let’s be tender, you, rug beater,
let’s make love, water taps, let’s take a trip, envelope box!
in dresses of rubble and green wickers, of cold cuts and cheeses,
dabbed in vodka and diesel, the emotions went out to pick someone up,
through blind alleys and passages covered in colored glass
some kitten would scratch the wooden trestle of a bay tree
and in the pubs the waitresses would let themselves unscrewed alive for pay
let’s make love, unamuno, you lunatic, let’s make love, chera mu,
and then let’s cheat on each other with the match box, with the pliers, with the toothpaste,
let’s ignore the influence the grozavesti dorms**** had on our psyche
the yellow spring stares, through the stratosphere, tickled by ozones and ions,
let’s get to know each other, it says to the snail,
let’s hug, you depot, you piece of paper, you dumpster…
and we, at the sprinkler at the end of alexander alley would squirt water on each other
right next to the clinic, and even the trees
smelled like the dentist’s.

* Archaic term of endearment in Romanian (derived from Greek)--approx., "my beloved."
** purposeful distortion of the French "toujours" (always), in the Romanian original
*** poligonul catelu = driving test range in Bucharest
**** complexul Grozavesti = well known student dorms in Bucharest (notorious for its unsanitary conditions)

October 23, 2007

George Bacovia--July

It's a delayed, sticky Indian summer here--otherwise known as global warming--and everything feels unnatural (Halloween is in a few days, and it's still flip-flop and T-shirt weather--tell me that's not messed up!). Naturally, my thoughts turned to my favorite morbid poet, George Bacovia, who could expertly blend death and love in one rotten, hypnotic cocktail, like in this poem entitled "July." Well, there's my first linguistic treason right there: he used the old Romanian name for the month of July, which is "Cuptor," which means, appropriately, "Oven." I've had this problem before with Blaga's "Risipei se deda Florarul"; then and now, I cannot find an appropriately antiquated translation that will convey the same connotation as in Romanian. In this case, "cuptor" makes me think of hellish heat and sweat and death. So, we're stuck with July. Oh well.

Cuptor
de George Bacovia

Sunt cîţiva morţi în oraş, iubito,
Chiar pentru asta am venit să-ţi spun;
Pe catafalc, de căldură-n oraş,
Încet, cadavrele se descompun.

Ce vii se mişcă şi ei descompuşi,
Cu lutul de căldură asudat;
E miros de cadavre, iubito,
Şi azi, chiar sînul tău e mai lăsat.

Toarnă pe covoare parfume tari,
Adu roze pe tine să le pun;
Sunt cîţiva morţi în oraş, iubito,
Şi-ncet, cadavrele se descompun...

July
by George Bacovia

There are a few dead bodies downtown, my love,
I came right away to tell you, before closing—
On the catafalque, in the heat, downtown,
The corpses are slowly decomposing.

They seem to be alive while decomposed,
The heat has turned them into sweaty matter,
The air around us smells like corpses, love,
And today, even your breast seems flatter.

Please pour strong perfumes on your rugs,
Let me cover you in roses—I’m proposing;
There are a few dead bodies downtown, my love,
And the corpses are slowly decomposing…

To me, the key of the poem, the line that gives it its whole meaning, is "(Si)-ncet, cadavrele se descompun" ("And the corpses are slowly decomposing"), repeated twice. That's where the meaning lies; that's also where the rhyme lies. Do you have any idea how hard it is to rhyme "decomposing" in English? Trust me: it's hard. And I really needed to preserve "decomposing" in the last position, for emphasis and rhythm. Thus, I've committed two relatively major betrayals, rhyming it with "closing" and "proposing," neither of which are mentioned in the original. If "closing" is relatively minor and meh, "proposing" can easily be interpreted as, well, a proposal to his flat-chested beloved, a turn of events which Bacovia probably didn't intend, but adds an ironic and surprisingly morbid twist to the final stanza, in my opinion. However, be warned: it's a twist totally invented by me, and I apologize for it!

October 21, 2007

Mircea Cartarescu--The Wound

I read this, and thought, hey, everything I could ever want to say, Cartarescu has said before, 1000 times better. Honestly, sometimes I think he's my twin metaphysical soul (we're both tortured Geminis, after all). God, I love him.

RANA
de Mircea Cartarescu

vai mie, rana s-a inchis
vai, singele s-a uscat
si a facut coaja.
oh, doamne, m-am vindecat!

de-acum o sa ma mestece fericirea
o sa ma sfirtece seninatatea
si nebunia care a fost n-o sa mai fie de-acum niciodata,
nu, n-o sa-i mai sarut umarul.

viata o sa-mi treaca in pace si armonie
cu lecturi bogate, cu mese regulate.
sanatatea o sa-mi manince plaminii.
ratiunea o sa-mi sfisie creierul.

vai, rana, rana mea draga
rana placuta vietii mele
rana pentru care am trait, pe care mi-am zgindarit-o cu unghiile
s-a inchis. oh, doamne, sint vindecat!

si niciodata febra n-o sa-mi mai aprinda
veioza vietii pina la ars.

II
sa accept evidenta: nu mai pot sa scriu poezie.
nu mai sint in stare, ceva in mine nu mai colaboreaza.
am scris ani de zile cu ura, cu dragoste, iar acum
creierul meu e mort.
am pornit la maraton ca pe suta de metri
am vrut totul deodata, am vrut sa-mi innebunesc cititorul.
am uitat ca viata e lunga.

nu-mi imaginam ca o data ma voi opri, voi plati
ca tot ce am facut vreodata se va intoarce impotriva mea
si nu voi putea sa ma ajung din urma
si orice incercare de a mai face ceva
va fi o noua dezamagire.
ce voi mai scrie inca patruzeci de ani?
o sa string din masele, o sa scriu articolase de critica
sau cine stie ce amintiri
o sa suport condescendenta tinerilor, o sa las nasul in jos
cind o sa vina vorba despre poezie, o sa fac traduceri
ca sa nu ma uite lumea, ca sa para ca mai traiesc.
sau o sa-mi public cindva un volum de versuri din tinerete
atit de proaste, ca nu le bagasem in nici o carte
si o sa am un succes "de prestigiu", mi se va spune "autorul
poemelor de amor",
precursorul a dumnezeu stie ce poezie va mai fi pe atunci...
nu stiu, nu stiu...

prieteni mai tineri, sa nu faceti ca mine.
calculati-va poezia pentru saizeci de ani.
eu? nu stiu ce drum sa mai apuc, ce s-ar mai putea face
si nu stiu ce trebuie sa mai simt si ce mai pot sa imaginez.
de data asta chiar cred ca mi s-a infundat.

voi fi un poet batrin, care n-a mai scris de decenii
un supravietuitor al propriei morti
si care mai bine n-ar fi facut nimic niciodata.

III
oare s-a terminat viata? oare sint terminat?
sint un esec? voi fi pulbere?
va veni moartea iar tu ma vei dispretui.
va fi groaznic, groaznic.

voi fi singur, mai singur decit toti oamenii, singur.
fara nimeni, fara odihna.
voi intelege totul, ah, intelege-ma, si toti ma vor iubi,
toti isi vor aduce aminte.

sint pierdut, pierdut.
musca-mi tu gura.
o sa ploua nasol pe drumuri, o sa fim uzi pin-la piele.
o sa invatam sa urim.

va veni toamna, toamna mintii, inecul.
vom avea gura moale si calda, va veni luna
vor veni norii sa ne cunoasca
si vom muri, vom face dragoste.

da, da, stai acum linga mine, priveste-ma. sint terminat, terminat.
va fi numai moarte in jur.
stelele vor fi moarte, bot linga bot ca niste ciini de pe strazi.
vor muri unghiile.

gata. stai linga mine. a avut rost?
ne-am trezit traind.
a fost groaznic: am trait.
a fost groaznic, groaznic.

THE WOUND
by Mircea Cartarescu

woe is me, my wound closed,
why, my blood has dried
and clotted.
oh, god, I am healed!

from now on happiness will chew me
serenity will rip me apart
and the madness that was will never be again,
no, I won’t kiss its shoulder anymore.

my life will pass in peace and harmony
with copious readings, with regular meals,
health will eat away my lungs
reason will slash my brain.

oh, wound, dear wound
the pleasant wound of my life
the wound I lived for, the wound I tore at with my nails
is closed. oh, god, I am healed!

and never again shall fever light
my life’s lamp, till exhaustion.

II
let me face the facts: I can’t write poetry anymore.
I’m not capable anymore, something in me stopped cooperating.
I wrote for years, with hatred, with love, and now
my brain is dead.
I started the marathon like it was a 100 meter race
I wanted everything at once, I wanted to drive my reader crazy.
I forgot life is long.

I didn’t imagine I’ll stop some day, that I’ll pay,
that everything I ever did will turn against me
and I won’t be able to catch up with myself
and any attempt to do anything
will be a new disappointment.
what will I do forty years from now?
I’ll clench my teeth, I’ll write little literary chronicles
or some memoirs
I’ll put up with the young people’s condescendence, I’ll bow my head
when it comes to poetry, I’ll do some translations
so people won’t forget me, so it looks like I’m alive
or maybe I’ll publish a volume with poems from my youth
so bad I hadn’t dared include them in any other book
and I’ll be a “resounding success,” they’ll call me, “the author of the love poems,”
the forerunner of god knows what sort of poetry they’ll write those days,
I don’t know, don’t know…

young friends, don’t do what I did
calculate your poetry to last for sixty years.
me? I don’t know which road to take, what else could be done
I don’t know what I must feel or what I can imagine
this time I really think I’m at the end of my rope.

I’ll be an old poet, who hasn’t written in decades
a survivor of his own death
who’d be better off if he’d never done anything.

III
has life ended? Am I finished?
am I a failure? Will I be dust?
death will come, and you will despise me,
it will be horrible, horrible.

I’ll be alone, more alone than all people, alone.
without anyone, without rest.
I’ll understand everything, ah, understand me, and everybody will love me.
everybody will remember.

I’m lost, lost.
bite my mouth.
it will rain like hell on these roads, we’ll get utterly soaked
we’ll learn how to hate.

fall will come, the fall of the mind, the drowning.
our mouth will be soft and warm, the moon will come
the clouds will come to meet us,
and we’ll die, we’ll make love.

yes, stay close to me now, look at me. I’m finished, finished.
there will only be death around.
the stars will be dead, muzzle to muzzle, like dogs in the street
and our nails will be dead.

that’s it. stay close to me. was it worth it?
we just woke up living.
it was horrible: we lived.
it was horrible, horrible.

October 19, 2007

Me, in translation

From what I hear, writers are not very fond of translating their own work. I can understand that with large novels (who wants to write in excess of 200 pages all over again? The impulse to re-write rather than translate would be overwhelming.) Poetry, however, seems to be more amenable to being translated by the author. Or so I think, after I played a little with this little nothing poem I wrote...mmm...a while ago. Not grand poetry by any and all measure, but on the plus side--it was kinda translatable. Well, it wasn't very complicated or particularly deep, either, so that helped. I wrote it in English in the original--and just wanted to see how it feels to translate your own work.

Not half as bad as I thought! There are some linguistic treasons, which this time I felt fully entitled to undertake. It's my damn poem, after all!

Just one small observation: I used a Romanian rhyme dictionary and was taken aback at the multitude of rhymes I could find for one word. I never realized, I guess, that Romanian was so full of rhymes! By comparison, English seems to be much tougher, rhyme-wise. My preliminary hypothesis is that's due to the multitude of inflections, which creates ample opportunities for similar endings (think gender, declension, number, conjugation, you name it). I'll have to look into it.

I want to love your every nook and cranny
And softly reaching for you, I want to taste your lips,
I want to be your lover, your friend, your wife, your nanny,
I want to kiss your belly, and dive into your hips.

I want to giggle with you when I caress your arms
Through every pleasure bud I’ll filter all your fingers,
I want to feel your skin under my hungry palms
I want to twist your body as over me it lingers.

I want to feel again the taste of dew and bread
Your neck imparts so gently, until I’m satisfied,
I want to feel your mouth, I want you in my bed,
I want to be your ocean, and you, to swim inside.

Vreau să-ţi iubesc oricare şi orişice crevasă,
Să-ţi gust sărutul fraged cu limbi nesăţioase,
Vreau să îţi fiu iubită, prietenă, mireasă,
Să te sărut pe şolduri, să îţi plonjez în coapse.

Vreau să îţi gâdil braţul cu dulci atingeri blânde
Şi degetele toate să-ţi cern prin noi plăceri,
Vreau să-ţi simt pielea caldă sub palmele flămânde,
Şi trupu-ţi să-ţi frământ în crunte mângâieri.

Şi vreau să simt iar gustul de pâine şi de rouă
Ce gâtul tău împarte, cu tandre ghilotine,
Te vreau în pat alături şi când afară plouă,
Vreau să îţi fiu ocean, şi tu---să înoţi în mine.

October 18, 2007

Mircea Cartarescu--When you need love

I like this one because... who hasn't felt like this every once in a while? There are no linguistic treasons there, the text is deliberately simple, almost primal in its raw emotion, barred of any artifice.

CAND AI NEVOIE DE DRAGOSTE
de Mircea Cartarescu

când ai nevoie de dragoste nu ti se da dragoste.
când trebuie sa iubesti nu esti iubit.
când esti singur nu poti sa scapi de singuratate.
când esti nefericit nu are sens sa o spui.

când vrei sa strangi în brate nu ai pe cine.
când vrei sa dai un telefon sunt toti plecati.
când esti la pamânt cine se intereseaza de tine?
cui îi pasa? cui o sa-i pese vreodata?

fii tu lânga mine, gândeste-te la mine.
poarta-te tandru cu mine, nu ma chinui, nu ma face gelos,
nu ma parasi, caci n-as mai suporta înca o ruptura.
fii lânga mine, tine cu mine.

întelege-ma iubeste-ma, nu-mi trebuie partuze, nici conversatie,
fii iubita mea permanenta.
hai sa uitam regula jocului, sa nu mai stim ca sexul e o jungla.
sa ne atasam, sa ajungem la echilibru.

dar nu sper nimic. nu primesti dragoste
când ai nevoie de dragoste.
când trebuie sa iubesti nu esti iubit.
când esti la pamânt nici o femeie nu te cunoaste.

WHEN YOU NEED LOVE
By Mircea Cartarescu

when you need love nobody gives you love
when you need to love you are not loved in return.
when you are alone you can’t escape loneliness.
when you are unhappy there’s no reason to say it.

when you want to hold someone, there’s no one to hold.
when you want to make a phone call, everybody’s out.
when you are down on your knees, who asks about you?
who cares? who will ever care?

please stand by me, think of me
treat me gently, don’t torture me, don’t make me jealous,
don’t leave me, for I wouldn’t stand another break-up
stand by my side, root for me.

understand me, love me, I don’t need orgies, I don’t need conversation, either,
be my constant lover.
let’s forget the rule of the game, forget that sex is a jungle.
let’s get attached to one another, let’s reach equilibrium.

but I hope for nothing. you don’t get love
when you need love.
when you need to love, you are not loved in return.
when you are down on your knees, no woman knows you.

October 16, 2007

Alexandru Andries--The most beautiful day

This is the video for this beautiful, heartbreaking song by Alexandru Andries. My translation does not enhance it one bit, and in fact it might be hard to sing it seamlessly in the English version (one would have to try really hard). Still, somebody made me think of it, though (you know who you are!) so here it is...

Cea mai frumoasă zi

Un fel de a mai lungi
Cea mai frumoasa zi
Ar fi daca m-ai putea minti
Ai da ceasul inapoi
Ai fierbe doua oua moi
Mi-ai spune ca-n casa suntem doar noi
Tacerea te-ar ajuta
Sa scapi de intrebarea mea
Din toate intrebarile
Cea mai grea
Cand seara s-ar face gri
Nu te-ai mai putea stapani
Din baie la telefon,ai vorbi
Cu glasul intunecat
Cu aerul imbufnat
Orice numai sa ma vezi plecat
si atunci te-ntreb
Mai stii?
Cea mai frumoasa zi
A fost la inceput
Cand nu ma puteai minti...

The most beautiful day

A way to make it stay--
The most beautiful day--,
Would be if you could lie to me anyway.
You’d turn back the clock
You’d fire up the crock,
You’d tell me we’re home alone—what a shock.
The silence would sweep afar
My question, so here we are—
The hardest of questions, an open scar.
When the evening turns to gray
You would be forced to stray—
You’ll talk on the phone
from the bathroom, and say
With your voice completely dark 
With your face completely stark
Anything as long as I’ll go away.
And then I’ll ask you,
Hey,
The most beautiful day
Was in the beginning when
You couldn’t lie to me anyway…

October 15, 2007

In the style of Robert Burns--Winter days with pants

And now, for something completely different: a change of pace today, as I'm trying my hand at an English>Romanian translation, and as is my wont, I pick a largely untranslatable text. Via the most excellent blog Whoopee, I found this hilarious parody after Robert Burns (not by him, Antonia cleared that up!) and all of a sudden, I simply itched to translate it. The result is pretty funny if I dare say so myself (if you're Romanian, that is); I tried to use a lot of archaisms AND regionalisms plus odd and antiquated spellings to capture the quaint and all-too-funny Scottishness of the poem. It was hard, very hard, and I may have invented one or two novel meanings, but I'm relatively pleased with the result.

Winter Days With Pants
Robert Burns Antonia Cornwell

By candlelight I cast ma mind awa'
Tae long dark nights noo buried in the past,
For autumn's come again, and brought the dark
O' winter: I fear this will be ma last.
Och, that I cuid once more a young man be!
No fear had I of January's chill;
When I wis young I had ma woolly pants
Tae wear around ma bum and keep me well.

Ma bonny pants of Highland lambswool spun!
Wi' drawstrings pulled up tight around ma chuff;
They kept me warm from sun tae rising sun,
And kept ma wizened balls from falling off.
But, reckless fool! I frolick'd in the spring
Through prickly fields o' bonnie purple heather,
Ma undercrackies snagged upon a sprig,
And made a hole tae let in all the weather.

Young men take heed, don't underestimate
How much can hang on such a slender thread;
Ma woolly kecks unravelled in the wind
And noo I hae a chilly bum instead.
Ma shrivelled nuts in winter's icy hand
Have lost all girth, and dinnae stand a chance
O' basking in the Summer sun again;
I can but dream o' winter days with pants.

Zile de iarnă cu nădragi
Robert Burns

La lumin’ de lumânare io cuget pe-ndelete
La nopţi prealungi şi negre demult ce-s îngropate
Căci uite-i toamn-acilea şi-aduse bezna iernii:
Mă tem că-i cea din urmă de cari avea-voi parte!
Of, cum aş mai pohti să fiu din nou flăcău!
De frigul lui ianuar io nu m-aş mai feri;
Când fui dănac, aveam nădragi de lână
Să-mi ţină cald la cur în nopţi târzii.

Ghizdavi nădragi de Highland, din ţigaie lână!
Cu şnurul straşnic strâns pe şodolan,
Ei mi-au ţinut de cald în orşce săptămână,
Şi coaiele-mi-nălbite păstrat-au pe ciolan.
Dar, dobitoc ce sunt! Zburdai în primăvară
Prin câmpuri prea ţepoase cu mândre buruieni,
Şi turul acăţat-a-mi cât să făcea de sară,
Şi-o gaură făcut-ai, să între şapte ierni!

Aşa că juni, luaţi de samă al mieu acest cuvânt,
Şi preţuiţi ce-atârnă de-aşa şubredă aţă;
Izmenele-mi de lâna se destrămară-n vânt
Iară acuma iacă, mi-s bucile de ghiaţă.
Iar ouăle-ovilite în mâna iernii rece
Se micşurară groaznic, o ce amară strişte!
Şi vara-n soare nu s-or mai petrece;
Visez zile de iarnă cu nădragi pe chişte.

Nichita Stanescu, or the impossibility of translation

Every once in a while, I attempt to translate something that just won't translate. It will stubbornly cling to its Romanianness, or whatever it is, like a leech to the skin; peeling it off inexpertly will possibly infect the skin beneath and it certainly won't stop the bleeding. Detaching the lyrical essence of the poem and depositing safely into another language often proves costly, as it comes at the expense at the original: what was once gloriously tender and juicy becomes battered, bruised, and bitter. And nobody wants a piece of that.

So is the case with Nichita's beautiful poem "Emotie de toamna" (also an Alifantis song, which keeps ringing in my head, to remind me that I can't satisfactorily provide a translation that will fit its melodic line). It's one of my favorite fall poems, always gives me the shivers, always pregnant with meaning, although I've heard it or read it hundreds of times by now.

Here goes--but hey, I couldn't do a proper translation, so yeah, this is a proper and thorough failure, and I'll discuss some of the reasons why.

Emotie de toamna
de Nichita Stanescu

A venit toamna, acopera-mi inima cu ceva,
cu umbra unui copac sau mai bine cu umbra ta.

Mă tem că n-am să te mai văd, uneori,
că or să-mi crească aripi ascuţite până la nori,
că ai să te ascunzi într-un ochi străin,
şi el o să se-nchidă cu o frunză de pelin.

Şi-atunci mă apropii de pietre şi tac,
iau cuvintele şi le-nec în mare.
Şuier luna şi o răsar şi o prefac
într-o dragoste mare.

Autumn emotion
by Nichita Stanescu

Autumn came so please cover my heart with the
Tree shade—or yours so it won’t wither.

I fear that perhaps I won’t see you sometimes
That I’ll grow sharp wings up to the skies
That you’ll hide within a foreign eye
Which will close with a bitter good-bye.

And then I go near the rocks and shut up.
Take the words and drown them in the sea.
I whistle the moon and rise it and turn it
Into a big love.

1) The first stanza--the two lines--are so perfectly simple and pure and have this beautiful open rhyme in "-a"; literally, they mean:

Autumn came, cover my heart with something,
The shadow of a tree, or better yet, your shadow.

There's something very melodic in the Romanian "A venit toamna" (Autumn arrived/came/has come/is here); it's an anapest and a trochee (_ _ / / _ ), in succession, sounding a little bit like a rise and fall of waves. That effect cannot be achieved in English. First of all, I probably should translate "toamna" by "autumn" rather than "fall"--they are Latinate words, whereas "fall" is Germanic, I think. Either way, though, the stress is on the first syllable, so the anapest is impossible to replicate--so is the entire rhythm of the first stanza. I cannot easily reverse the order of words, like I could in Romanian, either. And because Alifantis's song plays on that rising sound in its opening notes, I could never translate it in a way that would preserve that melody. Damn!

It all goes downhill from there. I'll just tackle a few particularly frustrating instances:

2) "frunza de pelin" = "wormwood leaf." Now, that's a perfectly acceptable translation (well, apart from the fact that I can't find a rhyme suitable for the context). HOWEVER, any reasonably literate Romanian you ask will tell you, if you ask them what "pelin" evokes, that it's "bitter." (It is.) That would NOT happen with any reasonable literate English-speaker you interview Wormwood has stopped being culturally relevant (plus, I don't think it's a plant native to the US), and so, when I asked several cultivated, intelligent Americans what the word "wormwood" evokes for them, none of them thought of "bitter" (the general consensus, actually, was that it was "wood riddled by worms").

Still, in Nichita's text, it is essential that you understand the connotation of "pelin" as "bitter"--which is why I skipped the "wormwood" in the translation. But then, I fundamentally altered the meaning, I believe, plus I omitted "leaf" in order to get my goddamn rhyme. Gah!

3) "tac" = "(I) shut up/keep silent". The translation of "tac" (from the Latin "tacere") is obviously deficient since it needs a phrasal verb, and one that rather denies or negates an action, by opposition with the almost active  meaning of "tac," in which the action of keeping silent is almost as meaningful and positive as speaking. There is no proper verb in English for this, one that would have the same powerful impact--as it is meant to have here.

4) Then there's the business of "Suier luna si-o rasar si-o prefac..." - "I whistle the moon and I rise it and I turn it into..." It's as weird in Romanian, believe me. The only ambiguous term is "rasar" which can be either "rise" (as in moonrise), or it may have to do with "spring" or "appear"--as in anything plant-related. Both "whistle" and "rise" don't really take a direct object of this nature (you whistle a tune, not a celestial object; and it's certainly not you that "rises" the sun or the moon--they do it themselves), and this is true of their Romanian counterparts. But that's a Nichita specialty, playing with the syntax and bending it to conform to his own cosmology.

5) Finally, the last verse is "Intr-o dragoste mare"--8 syllables, trochee, dactyl, trochee. "Into a big love" is a literal translation, only 5 syllables, no discernable rhythm; but there's only so many ways to translate "dragoste"--and only "love" is the best translation for it. "Big" could probably be tweaked with, but it would alter the simplicity of the verse. You see my dilemma? To say nothing that "mare" meaning "big" is rhymed with "mare" meaning "sea" (yep, perfect homonyms in Romanian)--and there is no way that I could render the same pattern in English.

So there  you have it...spectacular failure; Nichita is just too...dare I say, good? living inside these words like a ghost and refusing to be moved into a different language? Dunno. Or rather, I should just accept the fact that I'm just not that good a translator.  But hey, practice makes perfect!

October 14, 2007

George Toparceanu--Autumn in the park

This is a sweet, funny poem, typical of Toparceanu's lyrical sensibility. It's also perfectly seasonal, seeing as to how, finally, fall has come around here, after a prolonged, humid, smelly, insufferable summer. I learned this poem from my father (who loved it!) when I was very very young. I didn't understand the irony one bit (what, I was 6? 7, maybe?), so the poem might have been lost on me then. However, I never forgot it, and to this day I could still recite it at will!

I've included the raw, literal translation in the middle, then my version, which preserves, mostly, the trochaic, 8-syllable rhythm--at some linguistic expense, though, as it is patently clear.

Toamna în parc
de George Toparceanu

Cad grăbite pe aleea
Parcului cu flori albastre
Frunze moarte, vorba ceea,
Ca iluziile noastre.

Prin lumina estompată
De mătasa unui nor,
Visătoare trece-o fată
C-un plutonier-major.

Rumen de timiditate
El se uită-n jos posac.
Ea striveşte foi uscate
Sub pantofii mici de lac.

Şi-ntr-o fină discordanţă
Cu priveliştea sonoră,
Merg aşa, cam la distanţă,
El major şi ea minoră...
Autumn in the Park
(raw version)

Hurriedly [they] fall on the alley
Of the park with blue flowers
Dead leaves, as the saying goes,
Like our illusions.

Through the light blurred
By the silk of a cloud,
A girl is walking, dreaming,
With a sergeant-major.

Ruddy with shyness,
He looks down, sullenly.
She squashes dry leaves
Under her small patent shoes.

And in a fine discordance
With the sonorous view
They walk sort of at a distance,
He a major, she a minor…
Fall in the park
by George Toparceanu

Falling swiftly on the alley
Of the park with flowers blue
In a long autumnal rally,
Dead leaves—as our dreams are, too.

In the light that’s softly sifting
Through the silken cloud below,
Dreamily a girl is drifting,
Sergeant major in her tow.

Timid, flushed, and all aflutter,
He looks down, very confused,
She is squashing leafy clutter.
Under her small patent shoes.

And in a refined discordance
With the view that’s ever finer,
They keep walking, at a distance,
He a major—she a minor.

October 11, 2007

Mircea Cartarescu--Levantul (1)

Oh boy, here goes
I've been working on this for quite a while, and it's still so maddeningly frustrating.
What is it?
Oh, just something that, I think, is of the most brilliant Romanian pieces of writing of the past century. Scratch that: EVER. Concocted in the terrifyingly deep mines of genius harbored by Cartarescu's brain. Mind-blowingly erudite fun, engaging in its vortex the whole history of Romanian literature--and of the Romanian history for that matter. I still remember when I first read it (back in...oh...1992, probably, two or three years after its initial publication)--it was like somebody lifted the top of my skull, like a detachable lid, and had exposed the inside of my brain to the most potent, delectable literary drug that ever existed, and I had the chance to absorb directly into my nervous system. I read the whole book in one sitting, and then reread it again several times. And my brain's been cracked open ever since.

Unfortunately, it's a totally untranslatable book. And I don't mean that in the sense that nothing can be completely and fully translated, that there will always be meanings in the original that will be inevitably lost in translation, that hey, all you can do is just approximate at best, and try to get the readers to have a good idea of the original.

No, this is bad. Levantul (The Levant) holds, I believe, the distinction of being the most untranslatable book I've ever seen (or heard of). No matter how hard I, or anyone I know, will try, this book will remain impenetrable to a foreign audience. And it's not even the fault of the translator, really.

It's just that the kind of literary pastiche and irony and literary colportage that Cartarescu does in this epic, cannot be understood without 1) an intimate understanding of Romanian history and its literary beginnings; 2) an intimate knowledge of all Romanian poets, past and present. Cartarescu recalls practically all the major literary influences, all the "landmarks" in our short and troubled history, and plays with them, quotes them, borrows them, twists them, copies and imitates them in a maddening dance, with such juicy linguistic skill that--well, see above re: mind being blown. It's a sort of Romanian Finnegan's Wake--only more readable. And it also rhymes. Yeah.

But I am nothing if not the Don Quijote of translation! The defender of imaginary, long-lost causes! But only because I'm so truly, madly, deeply in love with Cartarescu's text (oh, my Dulcinea!), that I cannot, simply cannot bear the thought of it being lost forever to other languages--trapped in its own culture, unrecognized globally for its uberbrilliance. Many of Cartarescu's other books, both of poetry and fiction, have been translated in all major languages (and some minor ones); this one, people knew better than to touch it.

Did I mention I'm a fool, though? A double fool, at that, not only because the text is untranslatable, but also because I'm running the real, considerable risk of ruining it forever for English speakers with my shoddy translation attempts. I don't wanna do that, though. So consider the following translation a game of mine, that only reflects the beauty of Cartarescu's original in the same way...say, the moon reflects the sun's light. I'm guessing the comparison in the shine factor between the sun and the moon is almost right in this instance. Except if you maybe replace the moon with a tiny candle? Yep, that's probably more like it.

Here's the beginning, in which the hero thinks of his beloved Levant. I'll discuss  some of the "untranslatable" factors after:

THE LEVANT
by Mircea Cartarescu

Cintul Intii

Floare-a lumilor, val verde cu lucori de petre rare,
Mari pe care vase d-aur port piper si scortisoare,
Ca si piepteni trecuti molcom printr-un par imparfumat,
Strop de roua-n care ceriul e cu nouri mestecat,
O, Levant, in cari zefirul umfle-ai sei obraji de zeu,
Cu simtiri aprinse umpli neguros sufletul meu!
O, Levant, Levant ferice, cum nu simti a mea turbare,
Cum nu vede al tau ochiu cu vapai de chihlimbare
Noaptea turbure din peptu-mi, zbuciumul ce am in sin,
De cind sunt destept pe lume, de cind stiu ca sunt roman!
Cum n-am ochii mii, ca Argus, ca cu mii de lacrimioare,
Sa jelesc ticalosita a poporului meu stare,
Preste care lupi si pardosi s-au facut stapini deplin
Zgiriind cu gheare lunge al Valahiei drag sin!" Astfel cugeta un june pe-un caic ce zbura iute
De la Corfu pin-la Zante peste apele hirsute
Ce spargeau in valurele soarele ce sta sa caza
Prin vapai de foc si miniu, prin lucire de turcoaza.

THE LEVANT
by Mircea Cartarescu

Book One

“Flower of the worlds, green wave with shimmers of rare precious stones,
Seas traversed by golden ships all fraught with pepper, cinnamons,
Just like sparkling combs crossed gently through rich, wavy, fragrant hair,
Bright dew drop in which the sky and clouds are blended in the air,
O, Levant, in which the zephyr blows his godly cheeks with zeal,
In my melancholy, bleak soul, burning passions you instill!
Oh, Levant of joy and wonder, how do you not feel my ire,
How does your eye fail to fathom, with its glowing amber fire,
The tormented night inside me, the dark agony within,
Since I’ve come into this world, and since Romanian I’ve been.
How do I not have a thousand eyes, like Argus, so with tears
Thousands, I can mourn the declination of my land for years,
Over which the wolves and leopards made themselves a ruling nest,
Scratching with their long and sharp claws at Wallachia’s dear breast!”
Thus a young man ruminated on the deck of a fast sloop,
Which over the foamy waters closed the Corfu - Zante loop,
Breaking into sparkly waves the sunset’s multicolor sheen,
In soft glows of cinnabar, and heaps of deep aquamarine.

Where to begin? First of all, let me confess: I'm not a very good connoisseur of Old English (just got a book, I'm working on it!), and I'm not a very good connoisseur of 18th and 19th century spelling conventions, either.Cartarescu lets loose and uses archaisms or archaicizing (ok, not a word, but here's what it should mean: word forms that sound "old" although they may have never been used as such) forms--to give his epic that old, brassy, Homeric feeling. Every word that can be archaically spelled, basically is; archaisms and neologisms coexist happily, for this is just a game. So, let's make a short, incomplete inventory:

- lucori (pl.) archaic form for "luciri" or "straluciri"--shimmer(s)

- petre (pl.) archaic plural form for "piatra" (stone/rock)--instead of "pietre"

- scortisoare (pl.) (cinnamon)--the plural does not exist in modern Romanian--it doesn't exist in modern English, either, which why I used it!

- d-aur: archaic contraction for "de-aur" (of gold)

- piepteni (pl.) archaic plural form for "comb"

- imparfumat --archaic (or archaic sounding) participle for "perfumed" (modern Romanian: parfumat, without the prefix im-)

- ceriu (sky), nouri (clouds), sei (his), umfle -- archaic plural and verb forms, off by a vowel (modern Romanian: cer(ul), nori, sai, umfla

Etc. This is just a morpho-syntactic level, but many words carry pragmatic and semantic meanings that are pretty much idiosyncratic. For example, the whole tenor of this rant (especially the part about "the melancholy bleak soul") is an ironic nod to the exaggerated Romantic response to --well, just about everything. If one digs deep enough, one could probably find almost the exact same phrase used in some obscure "little Romantic" Romanian poet. And to understand that, is to know that Romanian Romanticism was really delayed, and came into bloom with the 1848 Revolution. You do know about the importance of the 1848 Revolution in Romanian history, don't you? I thought so. So then you can understand (or not) the righteous indignation of this young man, so bitter that his homeland is going to the dogs (well, wolves, in his formulation), as well as the thick layers of irony that Cartarescu piles on, given that the state of Romania at the time he was writing this, in the late 80s, was not much better--Ceausescu's communist rule was in many respects just as stifling and woe-provoking.

But let me not get ahead of myself. The beginning is actually EASY in comparison with what there is to come. I mean, how do you translate Cartarescu imitating Blaga in the middle of a mock-epic written in perfectly executed trochaic octameters with an aa-bb-etc. rhyme pattern--how, sweet Gods of Rhyming, HOW? The better question, yet, is: how do you do it in a way that readers will actually UNDERSTAND? Get? Relate to? And possibly--maybe--ENJOY???

I'm telling you, it's not possible. And yet here I am, battling the windmills of a linguistic labyrinth and getting all tangled up in my complex metaphors. I'm guessing I would need a translation partner who's as erudite in matters of literature as Cartarescu is, and who would helpfully offer me suggestions. "Sure, Shakespeare used to spell "trail" "trayle." Go ahead, be thy quill speedy henceforth!" Oh, I'm rubbish at Medieval talk, and I know it. But this hypothetical partner would set me straight. Will offer me alternate spellings and words that only Byron had used to describe the cause of Eleutheria (oddly relevant in this context), and will hold my hand and apply cold compresses when it all becomes just too unbearable.

At any rate--consider this my first, enormously flawed, installment of Levantul. Which is to say, expect a few more similarly flawed installments on a regular basis.

Copyright

  • All the translations on this website, unless otherwise noted, are my own. Please mention the source if you intend to reproduce them. A link would be nice. I try to use for my translations only texts that are already in public domain. If you know otherwise, or you are the author and object to your work being replicated here, please let me know at changanu at hotmail. (Yes, dot com, of course.) I will do my best to rectify the situation. Copyright: Cristina Hanganu-Bresch, 2007.
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