Linguistic Treason

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.

Nichita Stanescu--The Tomcat's Ballad

Before I delve into more serious Nichita territory, let me start with this tragicomic poem about a rebellious cat. Not part of his "serious" poetic opus, "The Tomcat's Ballad" is a fun, tongue-in-cheek kind of poem, brilliantly written--and of course, only pallidly translated by yours truly.

BALADA MOTANULUI de Nichita Stãnescu Motan m-as fi dorit sã fiu cu coada-n sus, cu blana-n dungi, cu gheare si mustete lungi, c-un ochi verzui si-un ochi capriu. La ora când tiris-grapis zapada noptii se aduna eu, cocotat pe-acoperis, sã urlu a pustiu la luna. Si-atuncea, sapte gospodine sã dea cu bolovani în mine si sã mã-njure surd, de Domnul, ca le-am stricat, urlind, tot somnul. De sus, din virful saptaminii, sã le rinjesc urlat, scirbos: iubesc doar locul nu stapinii, precum fac ciinii pentr-un os. Si iarasi sapte gospodine sã dea cu bolovani în mine, iar eu sã urlu, urlu-ntruna atât cât n-o apune luna. Motan m-as fi dorit sã fiu cu coada-n sus, cu blana-n dungi, cu gheare si mustete lungi c-un ochi verzui si-un ochi caprui. Când zorii ziua o deznoada sã mã tot duc, sã mã tot duc si tinicheaua prinsa-n coada s-o zdranganesc pe strazi, nauc. Jegos si obosit, apoi, cu matele în liturghie, sã mã adun, sã mã-ncovoi prin albiturile-n fringhie. Ca-n fata unui sobolan spinarea sã mi-o fac colan sã scuip, sã scuip si-n urma iar hai-hui sã plec pe strazi, hoinar. Pisicile de prin vecini sã le gonesc pe la pricini, sã-mi fete fiecare-un pui c-un ochi verzui si-un ochi caprui. Iar când o fi uitat sã mor la circiuma din mahala sorbita-n calea pumnilor posirca acra viu sã stea. "Hei... viata, viata... iesi din cort hai, pune-mi-te iar pe dant... te uita... zace colo-n sant motanul mort, motanul mort..."

THE TOMCAT'S BALLAD by Nichita Stãnescu Sometimes I wish I were a cat My tail stuck up, my fur all sheen Claws at the ready for combat One eye is hazel, and one green. When in the middle of the night The crawling snow is gently strewn, Perched on the roof, I think I might Howl loudly at the quiet moon. And then would seven housewives throw Stones aiming at their slumber’s foe, And they would curse, and they would weep-- The howling had disturbed their sleep. Atop my fiefdom, I would groan, And grin obscenely to their face: A mongrel begging for a bone, I’m not; instead, I need my space. Again would seven housewives throw Stones aiming at their slumber’s foe, And I would howl and bay as long The moon is up, where it belong. Sometimes I wish I were a cat My tail stuck up, my fur all sheen Claws at the ready for combat One eye is hazel, and one green. When dawn unfurls the day so pale I’d leave, and travel in a daze, A tin can fastened to my tail I’d rattle down the old streets’ ways. And filthy as I am, and beat, With my gut growling for a meal Among the clotheslines and their sheets, I would coil up without a squeal. As if I saw a gnarly rat My back would arch and I would spit And spit behind, for I’m a cat, And I would roam the streets half-lit. The cats who’re in my neighborhood I’d chase with gusto, so my gene Would travel quickly to their brood: With one eye hazel, and one green. And when it’s time I died, forgotten, Down in a slum bar full of waste, Their sour hooch that tasted rotten Would suddenly acquire taste. “Hey, life, oh life, come out,” they’d stutter, “Come out and dance, get out of bed, “Look over there, down in the gutter, “The tomcat’s dead…the tomcat’s dead…”