It’s a delayed, sticky Indian summer here–otherwise known as global warming–and everything feels unnatural (Halloween is in a few days, and it’s still flip-flop and T-shirt weather–tell me that’s not messed up!). Naturally, my thoughts turned to my favorite morbid poet, George Bacovia, who could expertly blend death and love in one rotten, hypnotic cocktail, like in this poem entitled "July." Well, there’s my first linguistic treason right there: he used the old Romanian name for the month of July, which is "Cuptor," which means, appropriately, "Oven." I’ve had this problem before with Blaga’s "Risipei se deda Florarul"; then and now, I cannot find an appropriately antiquated translation that will convey the same connotation as in Romanian. In this case, "cuptor" makes me think of hellish heat and sweat and death. So, we’re stuck with July. Oh well.
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Cuptor Sunt cîţiva morţi în oraş, iubito, Ce vii se mişcă şi ei descompuşi, Toarnă pe covoare parfume tari, |
July There are a few dead bodies downtown, my love, They seem to be alive while decomposed, Please pour strong perfumes on your rugs, |
To me, the key of the poem, the line that gives it its whole meaning, is "(Si)-ncet, cadavrele se descompun" ("And the corpses are slowly decomposing"), repeated twice. That’s where the meaning lies; that’s also where the rhyme lies. Do you have any idea how hard it is to rhyme "decomposing" in English? Trust me: it’s hard. And I really needed to preserve "decomposing" in the last position, for emphasis and rhythm. Thus, I’ve committed two relatively major betrayals, rhyming it with "closing" and "proposing," neither of which are mentioned in the original. If "closing" is relatively minor and meh, "proposing" can easily be interpreted as, well, a proposal to his flat-chested beloved, a turn of events which Bacovia probably didn’t intend, but adds an ironic and surprisingly morbid twist to the final stanza, in my opinion. However, be warned: it’s a twist totally invented by me, and I apologize for it!
