Moving to WordPress

I’ve moved the site to WordPress–same content (maybe more weirdly formatted in the move), but same domain name (fantasypieces.net). I’m hoping it works. Most of all, I’m hoping it will get me blogging again (ahem).

Sorin Gherguț: “drops & departs”

Sorin Gherguț is a quiet individual, so quiet it's hard to find ANYTHING about him on the net–in passing you see that his debut volume won the national poetry prize, or that he's been invited to attend various international events, or that he's randomly admired by various poetry lovers here and there, but not much more (here's a little blurb). I get a sense that that's exactly how he wants it. I've known him since high school–we were both part of a (relatively) well-known writing club for teenagers, "Săgetatorul" (Sagittarius); we were also colleagues at the University of Bucharest. It was hard sometimes to figure out whether he was shy, reserved, or standoffish; while I never figured that out (we were not really that close), I never doubted two things about him: 1) he was wicked smart; 2) he was a true poet.

(With regards to no. 2: I think there are a lot of people who write poetry, even decent poetry, and/or get published and become known as "poets"; but only a small fraction of those are true poets. True poets  see and "transliterate" the world in a way that jolts your mind and alters your sense of reality, even if for just a few seconds. The rest are either merely nice or obnoxious.)

It's perhaps ironic, then, that the poem I chose starts by stating that he is not–alas!–a poet. I got this poem here, so I make no representation as to its accuracy. The site I linked to mentions that the poem was initially published in an anthology edited by Mircea Cărtărescu – Şase pre-texte pentru un volum colectiv; Tablou de familie ("Six pre-texts for a collective volume; Family Portrait"), Leka-Brîncuş Publishing House, 1995; and that the poem was read in Berlin at the "Long night of Romanian Poetry" and was published in the brochure for the event.

Sorin Gherguț pică & pleacă semăn cu toţi poeţii acestei lumi dar eu nu sînt – vai, nu sînt – poet. scriu ca să am ce-i arăta unui fiu scriu de frică scriu ca să am ce arăta la o fiică şi mai tîrziu cînd lampa se strică şi locul se face sălciu şi inima mică şi vai, cum mă fac eu că ştiu. şi nu ştiu nimică! doresc să scriu poemul în care la sfîrşit să vină cineva cu un cuţit visez să scriu poemele din care să iasă cineva şi să omoare într-o lume-n care greu mi-e să rezist să rămîn ce-am fost: intertextualist greu, cum este sa fii geniu la sfîrşit de mileniu şi mai tîrziu cînd lampa se face mai mică şi corpul zglobiu şi gîndul mai viu scriu numai un poem din care pică sălbatică, dar dulce, o gagică scriu numai un poem din care vine păşind uşor, dar sigur, către mine mai scriu apoi un vers. Din care pleacă mai tristă, mai urîtă, mai săracă

Sorin Gherguț drops & departs I resemble all the poets of this world except I’m not—alas I’m not—a poet. I write so I have something to show to a son I write from fear I write so I can show to a daughter dear. and later on when the lamp stalls and the place grows wan and the heart small and alas, how I pretend that I know. and I know nothing at all! I wish to write the poem in which, at the end, somebody’s knife would descend I dream of writing poems that spill somebody who comes out to kill. In a world in which it’s tough for me to resist to stay what I was: intertextualist hard, as it is, to be a genius at the end of the millenius and later on when the lamp grows small and the body sprightly and the mind more lively I write just a poem from which there drops, savagely, but sweetly, a broad, I write just a poem from which she steps lightly but surely towards me. then I write just one verse. From which she’d depart, poorer and uglier, with a heavy heart.

Let me get one linguistic treason off my chest right now, since it's pretty bad: I rhymed "genius" with "millenius" – and the latter is obviously not a word. BUT, since the tone of the poem is jocular and he sometimes takes liberties with word forms (for example, using the antiquated form "nimică" instead of "nimic" partly because it rhymes/it's ironic) – I committed a linguistic license for the sake of the rhyme. Now, I claim to know English very well, but I haven't reached the ultimate level of confidence when I think this kind of wordplay is ok. I'll let you know when I do.

Here are the other linguistic crimes I've committed:

- "pică şi pleacă" is, literally, "drops/falls and leaves" — BUT "leaves" was hard to rhyme here, and it didn't preserve the alliteration of the original–so "drops and departs" preserves some of the play on consonants, not to mention the number of syllables and rhythm of the original;

- I've added "dear" after "daughter" for the sake of the rhyme; it does not appear in the original;

- "lampa se strică" literally means "the lamp breaks"–I'm hoping "stalls" (which almost rhymes with "small" and "at all" – both required rhymes) – carries some of the original meaning

- "locul se face sălciu" – literally means "the place becomes brackish." "Wan" rhymes; and yes, a place cannot really be "wan," but it can't be "brackish" either, so there.

- I've added "spill" and "descend" in the following stanza for–you guessed it!–the rhyme.

- at the end: "pleacă" (leaves/departs) rhymes with "săracă" (poor[er]); I've changed the order of words in the last stanza to fit the rhyme, and I've interpreted "tristă" (sad) as "heavy-hearted."

Now, where can I find his first volume? I tried to get it when I was in Romania, but I think it's out of print. Any suggestions are welcome!

George Bacovia, “Rar” (Slowly)

In Romania, you say "rain," you say "Bacovia" (and sometimes, but less so, Minulescu).

George Bacovia Rar Singur, singur, singur, Într-un han, departe - Doarme și hangiul, Străzile-s deșarte, Singur, singur, singur… Plouă, plouă, plouă, Vreme de beție - Și s-asculți pustiul, Ce melancolie! Plouă, plouă, plouă… Nimeni, nimeni, nimeni, Cu atât mai bine - Și de-atâta vreme Nu știe de mine Nimeni, nimeni, nimeni… Tremur, tremur, tremur… Orice ironie Vă ramâne vouă - Noaptea e târzie, Tremur, tremur, tremur… Veșnic, veșnic, veșnic, Rătăciri de-acuma N-or să mă mai cheme - Peste vise bruma, Veșnic, veșnic, veșnic… Singur, singur, singur, Vreme de beție - I-auzi cum mai plouă, Ce melancolie! Singur, singur, singur…

Geoge Bacovia Slowly Lonely, lonely, lonely, In a distant suite— Innkeeper’s asleep, Empty are the streets, Lonely, lonely, lonely… Raining, raining, raining, Time to get real drunk— And listen to the void, –Melancholy funk, Raining, raining, raining… No one, no one, no one, And I don’t give a damn— For a long time, no one Has known where I am No one, no one, no one… I tremble, tremble, tremble… Irony—my fate I leave up to you— And the night is late, I tremble, tremble, tremble… Always, always, always, Wandering, it seems Won’t do anymore— Frost over my dreams, Always, always, always… Lonely, lonely, lonely, Time to get real drunk— Hark the falling rain, Melancholy funk! Lonely, lonely, lonely…

The video below–another Nicu Alifantis adaptation of a classic–perfectly captures the mood.

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. 

Vasile Voiculescu, The Last Imagined Sonnets of Shakespeare, Sonnet CLV

I’s been a while since I’ve translated any Vasile Voiculescu, and that’s because I don’t own any books by him here in the States, and because it’s, let’s admit it, extra hard! I did the following translation when I was in Romania, but only partially; there were a few rhymes and stubborn extra syllables that I simply couldn’t make fit. Last night, in a bout of insomnia, I started straightening out those kinks, and this morning I think I have found some solutions–so here it is:

Vasile Voiculescu Ultimele Sonete Închipuite ale lui Shakespeare În traducere imaginară de V. Voiculescu CLV Nu-mi cerceta obârșia, ci ține-n seamă soiul, Guști fructul, nu tulpina, chiar aur de-ar părea… Strămoșii-mi, după nume, au învârtit țepoiul, Eu mânuiesc azi pana de mii de ori mai grea. Dovada cea mai pură a-nnobilării mele Ești tu și-ngăduința de-a te lăsa iubit Mai mult ca un prieten, cu patimile-acele Cu care-adori amantul de veci nedespărțit. Îmi cânt astfel norocul, înalț epitalamuri Și, pentru închinarea la care mă supun, Culeg azur și raze și roze de pe ramuri, Stăpânul meu, alesul, cu slavă să-ncunun: Poporul meu de gânduri, simțire, vis, trup, dor Te pun azi peste ele de-a pururi domnitor.

Vasile Voiculescu FROM: The Last Imagined Sonnets of Shakespeare, In the imaginary translation of V. Voiculescu ~in the hyper-imaginary translation of Cristina Hanganu-Bresch~ CLV Forget my humble ilk, retain my type, One tastes the fruit, and not the gilded stem The pitchfork did my forefathers supply, But I the quill, much heavier, I claim. The purest proof of my ennoblement Is your allowing me to love you more Than mere friends, with passionate excitement Reserved for the beloved you adore. I celebrate my luck with hymns and chants, And for the coronation I avow Azure and rays and roses from the branch, To braid with glory and adorn your brow: My country’o’thoughts, dreams, senses, body, soul, I now proclaim you king above them all.

Ok, so now for what the sonnet actually said (“straight-up” translation):

Don’t search for my origins, but consider my kind,

You taste the fruit, and not the stalk, even though it were gilded…

My forefathers in name wielded the pitchfork,

But today I handle the quill, a thousand times heavier.

The purest proof of my nobility/ennoblement

Is you and your permission to let me love you

More than [one loves] a friend, with the same passion[s]

One adores the lover eternally together.

And so I sing my luck, and raise epithalamia,

And for the dedication that I bow my head to

I pick up azure and rays and roses from the branches

So that my master, that I chose, I can adorn with glory:

My nation of thoughts, senses, dream, body, yearning

I now proclaim you king above them all.

So! Last time I translated one of these imaginary sonnets (what Voiculescu imagined Shakespeare could have continued writing, except, you know, in Romanian!) I faced the same problem of the syllable count–the Romanian sonnet is made of a wavy 13/14 syllable variation, whereas the English sonnet is based on a strict 10 syllable verse. Unlike the last time, the rhyme is now more traditional (abab, as opposed to abba). 

Certain obvious “glitches”–the non-existence of perfect rhymes for “ennoblement”–and the futility of the rhymes for “nobility,” which I considered using. “Ennoblement” could not come anywhere else in the verse except in the last stress position–it feels right, plus it’s a more accurate translation of “innobilarii” because it invokes the process of becoming noble (as opposed to the quality of being noble, nobility)–which is exactly what the amorous voice of the sonnet wants to say. Sadly, no perfect rhymes for that; the stress position that rhymed with “ennoblement” should have been “passions” or something like that, which became “passionate excitement.” I’ve revised that particular verse 20 times maybe, to get the syllables right, although the emphasis is not quite right (it’s a little off-rhythm, and you need to consider “mere” one syllable, otherwise it really won’t work).

I definitely couldn’t fit “epithalamia” in there–it would have taken up half the verse (5 syllables) and I needed to economize in English, although the lovely wedding connotations are thus lost.

I was initially worried but then relieved that the z-r alliteration in Romanian (“Culeg
azur și raze și roze de pe ramuri”) translated pretty well into English (“Azure
and rays and roses from the branch”) without much of a transgression (except the singular of “branch”). Well, there is a transgression, I couldn’t get in the verb (“culeg”=”I collect/gather/pick up”)–so instead I said that I “braid” said things for the coronation, etc. Those verses needed a lot of tinkering as well, and yes, more could be done, but I’ll leave those revisions for another day. For now, I’m fairly happy with how it sounds (sonnet-y!).

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

Light

I've noticed a while ago that my "Categories" sidebar stopped working, for some mysterious reason, probably while TypePad was being upgraded. Since I wasn't posting and had no time to spare to figure it out (as usual, I assumed it was MY fault), I just let it go, but it bothered me: I couldn't find anything anymore.

So this a.m. I opened a help ticket with the nice folks at TypePad and lo! Sidebar restored. 

This has got to be the most boring customer service story EVER, I realize that, I do. But it's the most excitement my life can take right now. Sad, no?

In other news, I've become some sort of a sleeper hit, and by hit I mean, of course, that, apart from myself, two or more people seem to visit this blog, some even from time to time, even though I haven't really posted in over a year… and some others (gasp!) even leave comments, which, while deeply appreciated when I eventually discovered them, have been left to linger due to my aforementioned lack of activity on this blog. Guys, I'm sorry: I'll get there, I promise!

In the meantime, I've been translating alright, just not anything I actually enjoy or that's worth posting about (unless you're into complex clinical trial protocols and nauseatingly patriotic exemplary stories. Um…more on that later.)

But since it's Easter here, I'm going to post a short translation I did a while ago, by Tudor Arghezi, who, just in case you forgot, used to be an Orthodox monk for four years before settling on a career as a poet. I'm smiling right not because hey, those two career choices, one after the other? It would be really nice to have those kind of options today, you know?

What follows is the Romanian original, a quick and dirty literal translation, and a more polished and rhyming one:

Lumină by Tudor Arghezi Azi e sărbătoare mare, Îmbracă-te frumos, Pune-n păr felii de soare Şi nu privi în jos… Şterge orice supărare Din inima ta: Azi primeşte fiecare Lumină de stea. Nici o zi din calendare, Oricît ai căuta, N-are-aşa putere mare: Ne vom înălţa, Ne vom înălţa ! Ne vom înălţa, Ne vom înălţa, Ne vom înălţa, Ne vom înălţa, Ne vom înălţa, Ne vom înălţa !

Light Today is a big holiday Put on your Sunday best, Put slices of sun in your hair And don’t look down…   Erase any sorrow From your heart: Today everybody receives Light of a star.   No day in calendars, No matter how hard you look, Has such big power: We will rise, We will rise! etc.

Light A big holiday’s in the air Put on your best gown, Put slices of sun in your hair And don’t look down…   Your heart shouldn’t grieve Erase every scar: Today we all receive Light from a star.   In the calendars, no day No matter how long you seek Has such mighty sway: We shall rise! We shall rise! We shall rise! We shall rise! We shall rise! We shall rise! We shall rise! We shall rise!

Now, I've stopped celebrating Easter when my current religious views became incompatible with it, and by my "current" religious views I of course mean my non-existent religious views. Still, this poem made me smile, in a wise-but-candid sort of way, and so I'm going to share.

No perilous linguistic waters to cross with this one, just some tinkering here and there; this was pleasant to translate, almost (dare I say?) a breeze! Unlike Morgestimmung, Arghezi's mini-masterpiece, which has been causing me headaches for about two years (that's when I first decided to pursue its translation). This should answer a comment somebody left a while ago: yes, I have though about translating Morgenstimmung, and no, I have not been able to, not yet anyway. I have a pathetic attempt, an ersatz translation, if you will… it's fiendishly difficult and I'm starting to belive it's close to impossible (cue action music: Translation Impossible, as I hang by a thread over the alarm-tripping laser beams, but all my high-tech arsenal just can't unlock the secrets of that safe! bah!). Apparently, a competent translation exists in German, go figure! If any of you know of an English version, enlighten me, for I'm just about to give up!

Hail…

The hail we've got last night in Philly provides the appropriate dots to the multitude of ?!?!?!?!?!? (quesclamation marks?) that my life has turned into lately. It was no ordinary hail either–not like one I'd ever seen, with deafening raps reminiscent of an army of monkey typing furiously at once–a mock celestial experiment to see if they could produce…what, Shakespeare? As I watched my tenderly cared-for roses taking a brutal beating under the chickpea-sized ice bits (complemented by a brief but violent thunderstorm for good measure), I concluded that the work I'm translating now might have been produced in a similar (failed) experiment. Something semi-coherent and with intelligible words came out, miraculously, but the question remains: is it good? Was it worth it?

In a word: NO. I've undertaken a translation project which I should have never undertaken, but when I tried to get out of it, it was quasi-impossible for reasons I am loath to explain. Now I'm late with the project (at least there's no emergency…) as I'm trying to unscramble my mind from prolonged exposure to tortured language and logic, to say nothing of the underlying political philosophy of this lengthy piece, a philosophy I abhor. Between the cliches, the involuntary humor (the worst kind if you ever want to be taken seriously, as this author does), the lengthy expository passages devoid of any credibility whatsoever, the prolonged oh-my-God-get-on-with-it-already-for-real-wtf plot points, and the archaic vocabulary which requires extensive researched, I am DOOMED.

And of course, the deadline (past due already) comes in the middle of the busiest period of my life, bar none, seriously, honest to God. Which means, logically, that I MUST update this page for the first time in four (FOUR) frigging months.

Ok, just thought I'd kvetch. In the meantime, I've got to go grade the approximately forty gazillion student papers I still have to grade, plus teach, plus committee work, plus own research (Ha. Ha-ha-ha. I'm so funny) and *gurgle* help *gurrrllllllgggrrrrr* I'm drowning here @!#$%^^&&$…………..

10 months of uneven days

It's been 10 months since the last entry, which can only mean that:
1) I am in no way, shape, or form a proper Blogger;

2) I've really missed this place! Really!

I had this ambition to pursue a different, "life" blog on the side, but that went the way of "Saturday's water," to quote the brilliant yet now seemingly defunct Mintrubbing.org. Life sorta….kinda…got in the way. I finished and defended my dissertation and got my Ph.D. (no, not in poetry nor in translation, but in – are you ready for this?- rhetoric); and later on I got a job and spent the past 3+ months teaching freshman comp, in a 4/4 load non-TT job at a university whose chief virtue is that it is located 20 minutes away from my house (10' by bus, 10' on foot). I'm writing this with a 3-ft high stack of papers still needing to be graded next to me, so it seems like just about the right time, no?
So…that kept me relatively busy.

But enough of that: this is not a personal blog in THAT way, although of course it's highly personal in every other way, if you consider that each selection posted here speaks to me and reflects me, at least at this particular juncture in time.

I've decided to make my comeback with a song I've often hummed under my breath, by my beloved Andries, "Zile egale," which can be translated by "Equal" or "Even Days." I'm still torn which to choose. "Equal" is the literal and quite correct translation of "egal," "even" has that implication of flatness, levelness, and steadiness, of routine, if you will, which is also the meaning here; however, I'm not sure that this would be clear in English from the sole instance that the phrase appears in the song…

What I love in most of Andries's work is that feeling of "huh" that he leaves you with at the end, and he doesn't disappoint here, either; it's that mundane and mischievous side that keeps him from sliding into sentimental crap and keeps his lyrics a notch or 10 above other writers'.

The syntax is quite simple and I've sought to preserve it as much as I could (I can't help it, I am sort of a purist), even when it sounded a little forced in English, as in "Why, I don't know, I'm lonely so/I go…"–but when read, or better, sung with the right intonation, it makes sense, and it capitalizes on that inner rhyme he's so fond of here.
I absolutely adore the final metaphor, the "equal/even" days whose burden creeps into his room, populating it with shadows and turning it into a little curiosity shop for his absent lover. It's as beautiful as it's unassuming and ending with the invitation to shop for "soul" souvenirs, I imagine.

Which brings me to my linguistic conundrum of the day: the Romanian for window display or shop window display is "vitrina," applicable also to any piece of furniture fitted with a glass display case in order to show off bibelots and various decorative objects. Much to my surprise, the word exists almost in the same form in English; I found this in the Merriam-Webster:

vi·trine [Pronunciation:\və-ˈtrēn\], noun. Etymology: French, from vitre pane of glass, from Old French, from Latin vitrum. Date: 1880. A glass showcase or cabinet especially for displaying fine wares or specimens

…which renders the meaning of "vitrina" quite beautifully, except perhaps for the commercial meaning extension it has acquired in Romanian (shop window). Also, "vitrina" is a fairly well-used word in Romanian, as one can imagine, whereas I dare you find handy contexts for the use of "vitrine" in English. (I've never heard it used at all, in fact). This led to my more mundane choice of "shop window" with the addition of "sign" for the rhyme, and whose insertion here I will defend on two accounts: 1) it rhymes better, duh (there's virtually no good rhyme for "window," did you know that?); 2) the shadowy play of the "traces" of the "equal days" points, indeed, to the making of an intricate sign of sorts (right?); 3) it doesn't change much of the meaning–right? right? (Ok, a little, but we can live with it!).

As all of Andries, this sounds better on music…I'll try to put the mp3 up one of these days!

Zile egale de Alexandru Andrieş Telefonul pentru mine e un duşman, Îl ţin pe podea, ascuns după divan, Pentru mine niciodată nu sună, Şi cînd sună, nu-i zi bună, Zău, nu, Tu nu eşti la celălalt capăt… De ce nu, nu ştiu, e-n jur pustiu Şi-atunci la plimbare pe stradă ies ! Rareori mă salută cineva Şi-asta doar dac-are nevoie de cîte ceva, Eu cu toată lumea m-am purtat frumos Dar lucrurile mi-au ieşit mereu pe dos, Zău, Azi aş fi avut nevoie de tine, Te-am sunat, te-am căutat, dar în zadar: Încerc mîine iar! Zile egale peste mine apasă, Închid fereastra să nu intre-n casă, Da' ele se strecoară prin geamul crăpat Şi se-aşează peste tot, pe masă, pe pat, Pe scaun… Urma lor fină Transformă camera mea în vitrină… N-ai vrea să intri, să cumperi ceva ?

Equal Days by de Alexandru Andrieş The phone is an enemy to me, I keep it under the bed, so I can’t see it, It never rings for me, and when it rings It’s only to tell me really bad things, Really, it's true, You’re not at the other end… Why, I don’t know, I’m lonely so I go outside to roam the streets… People rarely say hello to me, And only if they need me to do something for free I have always been nice to everyone, But my plans have always come undone, Really, Today I needed you so badly I’ve been calling you and I’ve looked for you, in vain: I’ll try tomorrow again… Equal days are bearing down on me, I’ve closed my window so they can’t get in, But they creep inside through the broken frame And they sit on my bed, on my desk, and they claim My chair… Their traces so fine Turn my room into a shop window sign… Won’t you come in, buy something from me?