Linguistic Treason

Nichita Stănescu--Paean (from the Unwords)

I once translated Necuvintele (The Unwords) in its entirety. This is the first poem in that volume, appropriately dedicated to the letter A:

PEAN Ce ești tu, A? tu, cea mai omenească și cea mai absurdă literă, o, tu, sunet glorios! Cu tine mă lupt, în tine azvîrl ființa mea ca odinioară aheii calul troian în Troia. Cu tine mă culc, numai pe tine te vreau, tîrfă fermecătoare, disperată zeiță! Tu îmi dansezi pe gură cînd mor și sunt aidoma soldatului ridicat și împins din spate de creșterea ierbii spre cer; și vreau să nu mai exiști ca să fiu liber de vorbire; vagin imaginar, A, literă borțoasă de toate literele Nu să aleg, ci să plutesc, să trec prin fluvii ca prin raze fără materie, ale căror maluri sunt urechi surde. Muzică tu, cu gheara care-mi tîrăști trupul pe deasupra cuvintelor asemenea mielului păscînd iarba și smuls de vultur. A, tu stafie amenintatoare, cine ești și ce vrei?

PAEAN What are you, A? you, the most human and the most absurd of letters, oh, you, glorious sound! With you I fight towards you I hurl my entire being like once the Achaeans the Trojan Horse into Troy. With you I sleep only you I want you charming whore you desperate goddess! You dance on my mouth when I die and I am like the soldier lifted and pushed from behind by the growth of the grass to the sky; and I want you to cease to exist so I will be free of speech; imaginary vagina, A, letter pregnant with all letters Not to choose, but to float, go through rivers as through immaterial rays, whose banks are deaf ears. Music oh you, with the claw who drag my body above the words like the lamb grazing on grass and snatched by the vulture. A, you threatening ghost who are you and what do you want?

This is a fairly literal translation, with no major linguistic sins. The only word with no (near)perfect equivalent is borțoasă, which means, literally, "pregnant" (what I used in my translation), but is really a less-straightforward word. Însărcinată is the most common modern Romanian word for "pregnant," but borțoasă comes from borț, a word I have never heard used in Romanian, but which has a marvelous entry in the etymological dictionary:

borț (bórțuri), s.n. – Burtă, pîntece, mai ales cel al femeilor însărcinate. Creație expresivă, bazată pe de o parte pe consonanța brf, blf, care indică ideea de „masă moale sau flască” (cf. bîrfi, bolfă), și pe de alta pe rădăcina expresivă borh- (ghiorț-), care exprimă zgomotul ghiorțăiturilor. Se știe că „în general, numele dat abdomenului sînt de origine obscură” (Meillet-Ernout, abdomen); în acest caz, pare să fi servit drept punct de plecare ideea de „zgomot al mațelor”, ca în burduf și burdihan (pentru imaginea de „masă moale” = „pîntece”, cf. burfă). În pofida oscilațiilor multor filologi, nu este posibilă să se despartă borț de burtă, s.f. (pîntece), care este un sing. regresiv, format de la pl. borți, burți. Totuși, DAR consideră îndoielnică această relație, și sugerează pentru borț o der. de la alb. bark, la o rădăcină indo-europeană *bher- „a duce” (cf. Meyer 27). După Densusianu, GS, I, 350, rădăcina burd- (de la burduf) s-a contaminat probabil cu bute; Pascu, Arch. Rom., VII, 566, pleacă de la bg. tărbuch, a cărui legătură cu rom. pare îndoielnică. Giuglea, Dacor., IV, 1554, pune în legătură pe burtă cu gr. ßαρύτηζ; în vreme ce Diculescu 177 (urmat de Gamillscheg, Rom. Germ., II, 260), se gîndește la got. sau gepidicul baurthei (› germ. Bürde „greutate, povară”), sau la dan. bür „sînul mamei” (cf. burduf). În sfîrșit, Lahovary 319 consideră cuvîntul ca fiind anterior epocii indo-europene, pe cînd Rohlfs, Differenzierung, 24, continuă să-l considere „obscur”. Este cuvînt general folosit, cu excepția Trans. de Nord (ALR, 42). Der. borțoi, s.m. (Banat, piatră, bolovan); borțos, adj. (burtos); borțoșa, vb. (a lăsa grea; în Arg., a înrăutăți, a ieși prost); îmborțoșa, vb. (a se îngrășa; Arg., a ieși prost); burtă, s.f. (pîntece; convexitate); burtăverde, s.m. (burghez, materialist, epicurian); burtos, adj. (pîntecos). Bg. burta provine din rom. (Candrea, Elemente, 407; Capidan, Raporturile, 226).

Fascinating! Oh, sorry--here's a quick English translation:

borț (bórțuri), neutral noun – Stomach, belly, especially of pregnant women. Expressive creation based on the one hand on the alliteration brf, blf, which indicates the idea of “soft or flaccid mass” (cf. bîrfi, bolfă) and on the other hand on the expressive root borh- (ghiorț-), which expresses the sound of belly growls. It is well known that “in general, the names given to the abdomen are of obscure origin” (Meillet-Ernout, abdomen); in this case, the starting point might have been the idea of “noise of the entrails,” as in burduf [approx. bag, sack—usually stuffed] and burdihan [approx. big belly, or the stomach of ruminants] (for the image of “soft mass” = “pîntece” [belly] cf. burfă). Despite the vacillations of a number of philologists, it is not possible to separate borț from burtă, feminine noun (belly), which is a regressive singular formed from the plural borți, burți. Still, DAR regards this relationship as doubtful and suggests that borț is derived from the Albanian bark, coming from an indo-european root, *bher-, “to carry” (cf. Meyer 27). According to Densusianu, GS, I, 350, the root burd- (from burduf) was probably contaminated with bute; Pascu, Arch. Rom., VII, 566 starts from the Bulgarian tărbuch, whose connection with the Romanian seems doubtful. Giuglea, Dacor., IV, 1554, connects burtă with the Greek ßαρύτηζ; while Diculescu 177 (followed by Gamillscheg, Rom. Germ., II, 260) is thinking of the Gothic or Gepidic baurthei (>German Bürde, “weight, burden”), or the Danish bür „mother’s breast” (cf. burduf). Finally, Lahovary 319 thinks the word pre-dates the indo-european period, while Rohlfs, Differenzierung, 24, continues to consider it as “obscure.” The world is generally used, with the exception of Northern Transilvania (ALR, 42). Derivates are borțoi, masculine noun (Banat, stone, rock); borțos, adjective (with a big belly); borțoșa, verb (to get someone pregnant; in Arges, to make things worse, to worsen); îmborțoșa, verb (to gain weight; Arges, to come out bad); burtă, feminine noun (belly; convexity); burtăverde, masculine noun (bourgeois, materialistic, Epicurean [literally,"green belly"]); burtos, adjective (with belly). The Bulgarian burta comes from the Romanian (Candrea, Elements, 407; Capidan, Connections, 226).

Ok, you'd have to be an etymological geek to enjoy this but if you get nothing else of this, is that there is very possibly a connection between borțoasă (the word used by Nichita for "pregnant") and either the English to bear (Etymology: Middle English beren to carry, bring forth, from Old English beran; akin to Old High German beran to carry) or the English belly (Etymology: Middle English bely bellows, belly, from Old English belg bag, skin; akin to Old High German balg bag, skin). I like the connotation of burden/carrying; it sounds older/more authentic than "pregnant," which the Merriam Webster tells us is a Middle-English word derived from Latin. 

Antimetafizica

Antimetafizica is a weird hybrid of a book, a struțocămilă, as the extraordinary Dimitrie Cantemir would say it, neither struț (ostrich) nor cămilă (camel), neither memoir nor fiction, neither poetry nor interview, neither epistolary novel nor diary, although it certainly dabbles in all of these, and the confessional is funny and heart-rending, the interviewing skills are sharp like a diamond-cutter, the letters are delightful, the stories are worthy of both Zola and Novalis and everything in-between, and the poetry kneads your brains until they're the consistency of fluffy clouds and they float away only to rain back on the world, rendering it more vivid and luminous than ever.

In short, a book worthy of Nichita Stănescu:

 

...accompanied by Aurelian Titu Dumitrescu. True, Nichita signed his authorial rights over to A.T. Dumitrescu, and the book was published two years after Nichita's death (1985), but it's still, fundamentally, his. There is a second edition I didn't have the chance to get--it was published the year I left Romania, and I simply never saw it on the shelves. So when I finally went back to Romania this summer, for first time in four years, with the goal of bringing home some beloved books, this is the first one I grabbed--or rather, very gingery picked up and dusted, wondering if it's going to survive the trip across the Atlantic. The quality of printed matter in the late communist period (the 80s) is dismal, and these books don't age well, as you can see by the picture above. Still, this edition is precious to me because it was a gift from my first Romanian teacher, to whom I owe a significant chunk of my intellectual development. I was 12 when I got this--and she wrote this dedication on the front page:

Împărtășind credința lui Nichita că, pentru a putea exista supraoameni, trebuie mai întâi să existe oameni, îți doresc, Cristina, să știi întotdeauna ceea ce vrei și să vrei întodeauna ceea ce știi, pentru ca, printre toate neliniștile inerente vieții, să poți avea liniștea pe care numai conștiința ta ți-o poate da, că ești, într-adevăr, un om. Profesor Mihaela Cosma Aprilie 1986

Sharing Nichita’s belief that, in order for superhumans to exist, humans should exist first, I wish you, Cristina, to always know what you want and to always want what you know, so that, amid all life’s inherent troubles, you may have the peace only your conscience may give you, that you are, indeed, human.   Professor Mihaela Cosma April 1986

The belief she alludes to is expressed by Nichita in one of the letters published towards the end of the book:

Stimate coleg Aurelian Titu Dumitrescu, ca să existe supraoameni, cu mult înainte de aceasta ar trebui să existe oameni. Acest adevăr m-a lăsat singur cu mine însumi o noapte întreagă. Umanismul sigur că poate apărea ca o sălbăticie împotriva naturii. Supraomul este o sinucidere a omului. De ce să fii pe deasupra când tocmai ai izbutit să fii pe dinlăuntru?      Lasă-i pe alții să-ți recunoască munca! În clipa în care tu ți-o recunoști, este ca și cum n-ai fi înfăptuit-o! În aventura, sau în miracolul, sau în mirarea de a fi în viață, dacă ai în tine cântec, cântă chiar viața!     Cine vrea să se sinucidă îl privește, deși sufletul uman socotește ca pe un viol al sufletului uman sinuciderea. N-ai voie niciodată să superi dorința de a fi prin dorința ta de a nu mai fi. Închei repede această scrisoare ca pe o cămașă, amintindu-ți că sunt fericit că exiști și că, în genere, există existența.   Gândit și scris de către Nichita Stănescu Ave!

Esteemed colleague Aurelian Titu Dumitrescu, in order for superhumans to exist, long before that, humans should exist first. This truth left me alone with myself for an entire night. Humanism may surely appear as an act [of savagery] against nature. The superman is the suicide of man. Why would you want to be above when you have just managed to be within?      Let other people acknowledge your work! The moment you acknowledge it yourself, it’s like you’ve never accomplished it! In the adventure, or the miracle, or the amazement to be alive, if you carry [a] song within, sing life itself!      Whoever wants to commit suicide, it’s their business, though the human soul regards suicide as a rape of the human soul. You are not allowed to anger the will to be through your will to be no more. I shall quickly close this letter like a shirt, by reminding you that I am happy that you are alive and that, generally speaking, existence exists.   Thought and written by Nichita Stănescu Ave!

I debated whether to translate "supraom" by "superman," which is the most "natural" solution, but opted for "superhuman" because it doesn't carry over the gender burden of "man." Furthermore, it would have felt weird to have my professor say that she wanted me to be a "man"--not after the political correctness rendered that word unusable in a generic sense. I did keep "superman" later in Nichita's text because it went better with "man" afterward ("human" would have sounded awkward, I think).

I have faltered a little bit regarding what my professor wished for me. I can't say I have always known what I wanted, and even less that I've always wanted what I knew. Come to think of it, that second half, right there, is a bit of an odd thing to wish people. To want what you know: Does this mean that I should embrace whatever knowledge I have accumulated so far? Or that I should only learn things I want to know? Or maybe it means that my wishes and deeds should be at peace. I still have a long way to go towards that...

I find a very Apollonian Nichita in this book, more solar and open to life than usual. It is as it should be, for how could one create, and how could art exist outside life? Some of the poems at the end of the book deal with the senses, and here's the one for sight:

Implorare   Ce noroc și lumina ce noroc și ea! mi-a născut doi fii, pe ochii mei, fiii ei. Ochii mei,--fiii luminii, Ce noroc al vieții mele lumina asta cu fii!   Și câtă cerere de iertare pentru somnul cu pleoapele strânse. Iartă-ți fiii, lumină, de vina somnului cu vise, ochii mei albaștri, copiii ăștia gemeni sunt fiii tăi, lumină, sunt fiii tăi. Iartă-i pentru trecătorul lor somn                                                    cu vise.

Imploration   What luck the light what luck she got! she bore me two sons, my eyes, her sons. My eyes—the light’s sons, What luck of my life this light with sons!   And how much begging for forgiveness for the sleep with tight eyelids. Forgive your sons, light, for the guilt of the dream-laden sleep, my blue eyes, these twin children are your sons, light, are your sons. Forgive them for their passing sleep                                              with dreams.

...to which I add: but when we sleep, are we not dreaming the sleep of light? Are not our dreams informed by light itself, in its hallucinatory form? Otherwise, all of our sleep would be pitch-black, and that would simply be against nature.

Nichita, it's good to find you again.

Nichita Stănescu: They kiss

A nice man from Croatia found this blog and asked the question. The following is an answer to that question. Ivan, this translation is dedicated to you.

Nichita Stănescu Tinerii Se sarută, ah, se sarută, se sarută tinerii pe străzi, în bistrouri, pe parapete, se sarută intruna ca și cum ei inșiși n-ar fi decât niște terminații ale sărutului. Se săruta, ah, se săruta printre mașinile-n goană, în stațiile de metrou, în cinematografe, în autobuze, se săruta cu disperare, cu violență, ca și cum la capătul sărutului, la sfârșitul sărutului, după sărut n-ar urma decât bătrânețea proscrisă și moartea. Se săruta, ah, se săruta tinerii subțiri și indrăgostiți, Atât de subțiri, ca si cum ar ignora existenta piinii pe lume. Atât de indragostiti, ca si cum, ca și cum ar ignora existența însăși a lumii. Se săruta, ah, se săruta ca și cum ar fi în întuneric, în întunericul cel mai sigur, ca și cum nu i-ar vedea nimeni, ca și cum soarele ar urma să răsară luminos abia după ce gurile rupte de sărut și-nsângerate n-ar mai fi în stare să se sărute decât cu dinții.

Nichita Stănescu The young They kiss, oh, they kiss, they kiss, the young on the streets, in the bistros, on parapets they kiss and kiss as if they were themselves just endings of the kiss they kiss, oh, they kiss in the racing cars, in the metro stations, in theaters, in buses, they kiss with desperation, with violence, as if, at the end of the kiss, at the conclusion of the kiss, after the kiss, the only thing to follow would be prescribed old age, and death. they kiss, oh, they kiss, the thin young people in love. So thin, as if they were ignoring the existence of bread in this world. so in love, as if, as if they were ignoring the existence of world itself. they kiss, oh, they kiss as if they were in the dark, in the safest darkness as if nobody saw them, as if the sun would rise shining only after their mouths, broken by the kiss and bleeding would only be able to kiss with their teeth.

If you want to hear how it sounds in Romanian, see the (quite moving) YouTube clip here: Tinerii // The young.

This was quite straightforward as far as the translation, and fairly "easy" for Nichita, whose poems are typically very difficult to translate. This is a simple, primordial, painfully intense feeling he's writing about - youthful love, as epitomized by the kiss, which holds within both life and death. In fact, here's Nichita's brilliance: reading the kiss as the defiance of death, as the seamy laboratory of life itself, with its violent, morbid, glorious cycles.

As about my dirty translation lab: while I had very few issues here, I do have one bone to pick with the English language, and that is the deeply unsatisfying way of nominalizing adjectives. What I mean by that is constructions like, "the departed," "the young," "the dead," "the living," etc. I'm just not feeling it. In Romanian, a strongly inflected language with oodles of terminations for every number, gender, case, and combination thereof, "the young" is "tinerii" (the title of the poem), and somehow, it sounds more like a collection of real persons that happen to be defined by youth than the English version. "The young" sounds more like a cover-up: let's rush this article in front of the adjective, and call it a day--no one will notice, really. Romanian does basically the same thing (adds the definite article, which happens at the end) BUT it does it for both singular and plural without any compunctions. Also, "tinerii", takes a myriad forms: tânar, tânărul, tânără, tânărului, tânărei, tânara, tineri, tinerii, tinere, tinerele, tinerilor, tinerelor (with or without the definite article, plural or singular, Nominative-Accusative or Genitive-Dative forms). Granted, these are the same forms as the adjective, but as a stand-alone, they represent a substantial, unmistakable noun. "I-am spus tânărului să citească mai mult Nichita," "I told the young man to read more Nichita." There, right there is the cause of my problem: to make it a proper now, English needs an actual noun in the singular--the definite article isn't enough. You need the prop of "man" or "woman" or "boy" or "girl" or what have you to turn the adjective into a noun. That seems...wasteful, or at the very least inelegant. That is why the Romanian "Tinerii' sounds so much more substantial. To achieve the same exact meaning in English I'd have to say "The young people," which ruins it. Or I can just say "the young," which I did, and which seems to dilute the impact. I could also say "the youth," but it becomes both ambiguous and unwieldy.

So, "the young" it is, but just know, when you read it or listen to it, "tinerii" is the more plastic term.

Btw, the other word that is repeated obsessively in this poem, "se saruta" ([they] kiss)--comes from Lat. salutare, which also gave us "salute," or in Romanian "salut"--although that word comes to Romanain at a later date, probably via Italian. I like to think that until we reintegrated "salut" into Romanian, everybody greeted everybody with a kiss, just because that's how it was done :)

Nichita Stanescu--Of course

DESIGUR de Nichita Stănescu Desigur, ea e o brăţară purtată la mână de un zeu ea e mai liniştită spre seară deşi e neliniştită mereu. Ea luceşte toată în luna când zeul îsi ridică braţul zâmbind, o lebădă brună cu plisc de argint Zeul e invizibil. Nu se vede decât ea la glezna mâinii lui, bătând în cerul negru şi verde vederea mea ca un cui.

OF COURSE by Nichita Stănescu She is, of course, a bracelet, that a god wears on his hand, she’s more quiet in the evening, though she’s always without rest. She shimmers in the moon dawn when the god lifts his arm, oblique, a beautiful brown swan with a silver beak. The god is invisible. You can spy only her, on the ankle of his wrist, nailing into the green black sky my eyesight, like a fist.

Nichita Stanescu - Song

Cântec Din Necuvintele de Nichita Stănescu Echilibru, vertical, de suflet, între guri cu colţi rânjiti mai spre-o parte, mai spre-o alta cu peretii răstigniti Se dărâmă casa, o, tu rămâi în echilibru Acheronul pentru noi s-a şi prefăcut în Tibru Numai vârful tău, rotind, taie cercuri, pe tavane, suflet vertical şi trist fără urme de ciolane.

Song from The Unwords by Nichita Stănescu Vertical equilibrium, of the soul between mouths with fangs, grinned to this or other side with walls sprawled The house is falling, o, you keep your balanced fiber The Acheron for us has turned into the Tiber Only your sharp edge, spinning, cuts circles, in the ceilings, sad soul, so vertical no trace of bones concealing.

Nichita Stanescu--Sign 1

SEMN 1 de Nichita Stanescu Plutea o floare de tei înlauntrul unei gîndiri abstracte desertul se umpluse cu lei si de plante. Un tînar metal transparent subtire ca lama taioasa taia orizonturi curbate si lent despartea privirea de ochi cuvîntul, de idee, raza, de stea pe cînd plutea o floare de tei înlauntrul unei gîndiri abstracte.

SIGN 1 by Nichita Stanescu A linden flower was floating inside an abstract thought the desert was filled with lions and plants. A young transparent metal thin and sharp like a razor was cutting through curved horizons and slowly was splitting sight from eye word from idea, ray from star, while a linden flower was floating inside an abstract thought.

Nichita Stanescu--In memoriam

On this day 24 years ago, Nichita Stanescu died. December 13th, 1983. He was just 50 years old.

Nichita taught me what poetry is. I discovered him when I was 12 or so, thanks to an exceptional teacher, to whom I owe much more than I could ever repay her (and than she could ever imagine). Because of her I started reading his poetry, and I can't imagine how much I understood at the time, but I know I understood this much:

This came from another realm. The land of Ur-poetry. If language were a tri-dimensional space for us to move and play within, his poetry was like the fourth dimension of language. It was just as incomprehensibly beautiful, odd, out of this world. And it transformed me forever.

The day before he died, he wrote this poem. I can't find a full version of this anywhere on the net, so I'm just transcribing this from memory--from the memory of my 13-year old self. I am aware that this memory is patchy beyond repair, so before I go back to Romania and retrieve my old Nichita volumes, I'm afraid that's the best I got. So, here goes.

Sa ninga peste noi cu miei doar astazi, Sa ninga inima din noi. Noi niciodata nu am fost noroi O spun si mieii care ning pe noi. O, dulce, mult prea dulce tu, fecioara, Care mi l-ai facut pe Iezus chiar din flori Ce zici ca ninge mieii peste noi Ce zici ca ninge mieii peste seara Si pe zapada ca noi ningem amandoi.

Let lambs snow over us today, and only, Let our hearts inside us snow within We never, ever made of dirt have been The lambs say so, who're snowing without sin. Oh, sweet, oh much too sweet you virgin bright Who did make Jesus out of flowers, you Who say the lambs are snowing over us, Who say the lambs are snowing over twilight And over snow that we are snowing, too.

Nichita Stanescu--Ensitteren

A strange, troubling, haunting poem by Nichita. As far as I can see, I could find absolutely no meaning for "ensitteren." Yes, it does "sound" Nordic and all, but I've looked up in a bunch of dictionaries for Nordic languages (granted, I haven't exhausted them!) and there wasn't even an approximation of it. Anyone has any idea if this word actually means something? Hint: it means nothing in Romanian. It just sounds...sonorously and very vaguely Germanic.

Honestly, I think Nichita probably had one of those dreams poets have, in which they maybe invent if not a new language, new words, or at least dream up whole pieces of poetry--sort of like Coleridge with his Kubla Khan--and then woke up and wrote this poem, with all its atavistic, Ice-age memories, and its evocative chilly solitude.

The rhyming on this one was a bitch--no, really, it was pure hell, and I still haven't gotten it right; you'll see a few odd syllables, or a few extra words thrown in there for the sake of rhyme, such as "flake" in "Nordic frozen flake," which does not appear in the original, but without which I had no chance of getting that rhyme--I tried!--and hey, flake is sort of winterish, right? Despite the sacrifices I made for them, what with inserting whole new words in there, the rhyming Gods deserted me in the third stanza, in which I completely blew it. I simply could not rhyme. Ok, so "ice" and "life" are barely passable as similar end-sounds (barely!), but then the other two would not bend to my will! Confound it!

I also agonized over the "codrul verde" in the last stanza, a phrase that's as common in Romanian as, say, "apple pie" is in English. It's a leitmotif of folk songs, and it always means a place of refuge and freedom, and one in which outlaws ("haiduci"--think Eastern-European Robin Hoods, minus the medieval charm and Lady Marion) used to reside. So--is there such a phrase in English? I would very much like to know. "The deep forest"? Something like that? Something that will pick up on some folkloric motif? I simply don't know!

 

ENSITTEREN de Nichita Stanescu Din nou sunt singur ca o gheata lasîndu-si marginea-n topire, îmbratisat cu o viata a lui " a fi" si a lui "fire" Ensitteren, ensitteren, cuvîntul acesta nordic si-nghetat îmi întareste lacuit, pamîntul cu lacuri în diagonala si brazdat... Ensitteren, sunt singur ca o gheata în care pesti macabri, suspendati la începutul meu de viata, în nemiscare mi-au fost frati sau în tot ceea ce se pierde mai jos, spre Sud, în codrul verde.

ENSITTEREN by Nichita Stanescu Alone I am again like the ice letting its margin go melting, embraced with a life of “to be” and of “being” Ensitteren, ensitteren, this word, this Nordic frozen flake, hardens my earth, all lacquered furrowed with diagonal lakes… Ensitteren,  I am alone like the ice in which macabre fish, suspended at the beginning of my life in their stillness, were my brothers. or in all that will vanish unseen down South, in the woods so green.

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!

Nichita Stanescu--Marina

No comment today...the unending rain is crushing my spirit. I am anxious and restless and wish I were there by the sea, so I could take all my worries and drown them under a foamy, opaque wave, never to be heard of again.

MARINA de Nichita Stanescu Palma cu scoici, o, sun-o tu, in adormirea pietrelor si-a sarii, ca-n inserarea ce ne prefacu stalpi rasuciti sub bolta marii. Deasupra-ne, delfini batand cu coada prora lunii verzi, lemnul tristetii desprinzand, ti se parea ca-l prinzi, ca-l pierzi, si crabii mainilor, in laturi, desfasurau, de alge, vechi, verzoase, fluturate paturi, cu somnul tamplelor perechi. O, suna-mi tu din palmi, sticleste deasupra cer de ape, strabatut cu fulgerarea cozilor de peste la dunga soarelui neinceput.

MARINA by Nichita Stanescu The palm with shells, you peal it, thus, In the deep slumber of the rocks and salt, Like the tall twilight that had changed us To twisted pillars in the sea vault. Above us, crowds of dolphins batting Their tails against the green moon’s prow, Cracking the sad old lumber, letting You catch it… perhaps you’ll lose it now… And our hands, like crabs in motion, Were peeling putrid algae heaps From green old blankets by the ocean Entwined with our temples’ sleep. Oh, sing to me with palms, and glimmer Over the fluid sky, traversed By flashing fish-tails growing dimmer In the thin sun line, unsubmersed.