Variant II
On that day the skies were breezing merrily,
But the hearts were squeezed by terror's hand:
“Citizens, our homeland is in peril!
Citizens, our homeland is in peril!
Foreign tanks are on our native land.”
Now, as thunder amid idle merriment,
By a larynx' shot, a barrel's blurt:
“Citizens, our homeland is in peril!
Citizens, our homeland is in peril!
Our own tanks are plowing foreign dirt.”
Some immediate remarks reflecting the critique:
“Sky breezing airily” was indeed a double tautology, but why can't the sky breeze?
It can breathe: Pushkin, Eugene Onegin, Canto IV, sonnet 40
Уж небо осенью дышало [Literally: The sky was already breathing autumn]
In James Falen's rhymed metric translation: The sky breathed autumn, turned and darkled
“idle” is added to close up the gap between “merriment” and “indolence”,
“our own [soil]” → “our native [land]”,
“recoiled soul” → “squeezed heart”,
S2L2 is now more parallel in 'imagery' to the original, featuring “larynx” and “barrel”,
the rhymes “hand – land” and “blurt – dirt” are cleaner than in the previous draft.
As I've mentioned, though, if anyone is interested to take part in this discussion: I'd like to address some general aspects of poetry translation and its criticism.
Nabokov famously asked “What is translation?” and answered: “On a platter / A poet's pale and glaring head” and two lines later concluded that it is “profanation of the dead”. Apparently there are two ways to profane.
The one usually accepted by professional translators into English is to accurately translate words. I was once present at a seminar, workshopping translations (from one cult-like figure in the 20th century Italian poetry) of 2-liners, which had no rhythmical or rhyming structure, and were grammatically correct but purposefully senseless. Yet, the seminar meticulously discussed how precisely each English word agreed in connotation with its Italian counterpart. When I asked, “How does it matter?” all agreed that it doesn't – and continued.
Translations of classical English poetry into Russian often result in good Russian poems closely reflecting the rhythmical and rhyming features of the original. Formally speaking, professional translations in the opposite direction also result in good modern English poems; the problem is: modern English poetry is
vers libre, and captures none of the values of the original – just the words. Frankly, this approach feels as an insult to Russian poetry lovers. That the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, is not one of them is the translators' good luck; otherwise their pale heads would be quite literally delivered to him on a platter.
Many amateur translators of Russian poetry resort to another way of profaning the dead: by attempting to fully reconstruct their beloved originals in (what they hope is) English language – resulting in something which is unlikely to be recognized by connoisseurs of English literature as a good (classical or modern) English poem. I am trying to follow this approach.
Someone said that a translator of prose is a slave, while a translator of poetry is a competitor (or something to this effect). A poetry translation can be judged as a good vs. not-so-good poem in the target language, and it can be judged as a translation vs. not-so-much a translation. But in my view these two aspects are completely disjoint. A poetry translation can be 'incorrect' no more than the original can.
Furthermore, in judging to what degree a poem is a translation, it is often pointless to focus on individual words or the notorious 'imagery'. Instead, imagining what the author would have written should (s)he be writing in English, i.e. reconstructing the author's 'laboratory', the 'method', would be, I think, much more faithful to the original.
For example, the critiques of my initial submission pointing at the missing dove, or the name of the town, or the lump in the throat, as well as the 'held-back tears' not present in the original, seem to me rather misplaced.
It should be understood that perhaps a half of the specific word choices and images of the original were prompted by rhyme and rhythm constraints, and in this sense are accidental, not quintessential to the poem. Consequently there is no reason why they should necessarily be present in the translation, and why other words and images (especially parallel ones) cannot be added - that is, unless the translator is primarily concerned with individual words.
This brings up the question of what is indeed quintessential to the original. I believe, this is something subjective, i.e. depending on what this translator finds in the original and wants to preserve. (In particular, there is no such a thing as the ultimate translation.)
However, at least speaking of Russian poetry, a universally quintessential aspect of it is the sound. As a striking example, I can recall an episode recorded in the book
Conversations with Joseph Brodsky by Solomon Volkov. They discuss Tsvetaeva's poem written on the German occupation of Czechia: Tsvetaeva 'returns to the Maker her ticket for life' ending with: На твой безумный мир / Ответ один - отказ
[To your insane world / There is only one response – rejection].
Volkov asks to what extent the emotional tension of a poem comes from genuine inner torments of the poet, to what Brodsky replies (rather cynically, and I hope only in part truthfully) that of course it is reflective of the author's real life experiences, but in the end of the day it is all about the three 'o':
Ответ
один -
отказ.
In any case, it is not about the meaning of individual words.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
[The initial post starts here]
This is not what I originally planned for my first thread, but events in Ukraine brought to mind the lines written by poet, bard, and dissident Alexander Galich
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Galich_(writer)
during the Soviet occupation of Prague in 1968:
On that day the sky was breezing airily,
But from freezing cold our souls recoiled:
"Citizens, our homeland is in peril!
Citizens, our homeland is in peril!
Foreign tanks are plowing our own soil!" (if it is unclear:
German tanks...)
. . .
And again, as thunder amid merriment,
Through the tears held back and thoughts' turmoil:
"Citizens, our homeland is in peril!
Citizens, our homeland is in peril!
Our own tanks are on a foreign soil!"
Literally:
The sky was in dove-like clarity,
But the hearts were cramped from cold:
- Citizens, the Fatherland is in danger!
Citizens, the Fatherland is in danger!
Tanks are entering
Tsarskoe Selo! (a town near St. Petersburg)
Again, again - by thunder amid idleness,
By a lump in the throat, by a bullet in the
barrel: (not "trunk", thanks to Julie for this correction)
- Citizens, the Fatherland is in danger!
Citizens, the Fatherland is in danger!
Our tanks are in a foreign land.
..Было небо в голубиной ясности,
Но сердца от холода свело:
- Граждане, Отечество в опасности!
Граждане, Отечество в опасности!
Танки входят в Царское Село!
. . .
Снова, снова - громом среди праздности,
Комом в горле, пулею в стволе:
- Граждане, Отечество в опасности!
Граждане, Отечество в опасности!
Наши танки на чужой земле!
Variant II (an excerpt from Alexandre Galich, 1918-1977)
Linear Mode
