Friday, May 25, 2018

TRANSLATION OF POEM BY AFANASY FET: "Чуя внушенный другими ответ" ("Portents")




Afanasy Fet
(1820-1892)
Чуя внушенный другими ответ…

Чуя внушенный другими ответ,
Тихий в глазах прочитал я запрет,
Но мне понятней еще говорит
Этот правдивый румянец ланит,

Этот цветов обмирающих зов,
Этот теней набегающий кров,
Этот предательский шепот ручья,
Этот рассыпчатый клич соловья.
30 января 1890

Translator’s Note
(U.R. Bowie)

Sending this poem to the poet Polonsky, along with a letter on Jan. 31, 1890, Fet wrote as follows: “In one of his letters to me Tolstoy said it so well, ‘You can’t talk a stone into falling upward instead of down, in the direction gravity pulls it.’ But lately, not understanding Schopenhauer well, and primarily in his ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ [Tolstoy’s vehement polemic with human sexuality], Tolstoy tries to talk a stone into flying against the laws of gravity . . . . . . Although I never write on any specific themes, it seems to me that my latest poem, composed yesterday, could actually be on my part an objection to Tolstoy’s protest and hostility toward the mutual attraction of the sexes in his ‘Kreutzer Sonata.’”
In further correspondence with Polonsky, Fet mentions that the setting of the poem is an evening at the end of May. At one point Polonsky seems to be advocating for a happy ending: “You feel like finishing the thing off with an exclamation: ‘Everything is saying to me: I am yours and you are mine.’”




LITERAL TRANSLATION
(by U.R. Bowie)

Sensing an answer prompted by others,
I read in your eyes a silent interdiction,
But still more comprehensibly speaks to me
That truthful blush of the cheeks,

That call of the languishing flowers,
That rushing-in shelter of shadows,
That treacherous whisper of the brook,
That tremolo cry of the nightingale.


RHYMED AND METERED TRANSLATION BY ALEKSANDR POKIDOV

Suspecting not yours, but a prompted reply,
A silent forbiddance I’ve read in your eye,
But still! O how more understandably speaks
This genuine and elegant blush of the cheeks.

This call of the flowers that sweetly pervades,
This languid approach of the vespertine shades,
This treacherous prattle of the brook at our feet,
This song of the warbler in some green retreat.




RHYMED AND METERED TRANSLATION BY U.R. BOWIE

Portents

Sensing that loved ones have told you, “Say no,”
I read in your eyes what your answer bespeaks,
But even more lucid are signals that show
On the telltale opulent blush of your cheeks,

In the plaint of the flowers that languish and wilt,
In the solace of shade that has rushed in to help,
In the treacherous whispers of brooks spilling guilt,  
In the tremolo-trill of the nightingale’s yelp.  


FINAL VARIANT
(Combination of Pokidov and Bowie)

Here I (Bowie) have struggled with the usual problems that a translator has, when trying to maintain meter and rhyme in a translation. The imperative to rhyme, especially, sometimes makes for awkwardness and emendations that are superfluous.
Pokidov’s variant has its strong and weak points. His line, “The languid approach of the vespertine shades” is a near perfect embodiment of the lyricism of Fet, his poetry of the landed estate, with its nineteenth century Romantic effects. In Pokidov’s third line the meter breaks down completely: “But still! O how more understandably speaks.” A very weak line. In the first line of the second stanza, Pokidov stretches the usage of one word, “pervades,” in that he needs a rhyme for the next line’s “shades.” The word “pervades” is a transitive verb; it must be used with an object: pervades what? In his last line he makes Fet’s nightingale into a warbler. In my opinion, you simply cannot sacrifice the nightingale, so evocative in its Romantic overtones, and so frequent a guest in Fet’s lyric poetry set on the Russian manor, the country estate in spring and summer.

As for my own variant. Several of the lines are strong: “On the telltale opulent blush of your cheeks;” “In  the plaint of the flowers that languish and wilt;” “In the solace of shade that has rushed in to help.” Fet is big on pathetic fallacy, the lending of human emotions to inanimate objects and nature. In this poem certain aspects of nature seem to be on the poet’s side, as he awaits the verdict of his lover: the flowers that languish, the shade that rushes in to help. The brook, however, is inimical, “treacherous.” But then, the word “guilt” in the line about the brook is a stretch, an excrescence, stuck in there mostly because we need a rhyme with “wilt.” As for the nightingale, in Fet’s original this token bird of romance seems to be neutral, trilling away with no concern for the plight of the poet. If you stick in the jarring word “yelp,” you imply that the bird is in cahoots with the brook: inimical. Then again, nightingales don’t really yelp.

So here is my attempt to reconcile the best in Pokidov with the best in Bowie:


Portents


Suspecting not yours, but a prompted reply,
A silent rejection I read in your eye,
But even more lucidly, truthfully speaks
That telltale opulent blush of your cheeks,

That plaint of the flowers pervaded with anguish,

That vespertine cool of the shadows that languish,

That treacherous whisper and prattle of brook,

That tremolo-trill from the nightingale’s nook.

                                                                     May, 2018



                                         Isaac Levitan, "Moonlit Night. Village." 1888















Monday, May 21, 2018

Pithy Maxims on the Subject of Merde, Plus Apocryphal Citations (Flaubert, Tolstoy, Nabokov)




PITHY MAXIMS ON THE SUBJECT OF MERDE AND APOCRYPHAL CITATIONS: FLAUBERT, TOLSTOY, NABOKOV

In a recent letter to the London Review of Books (May 10, 2018), Galen Strawson, of the University of Texas, cites what he calls “a deeply characteristic comment from Flaubert’s letters”:
“De quelque côté qu’on pose les pieds on marche sur la merde” (from a letter to Louise Colet, Saturday, midnight, Croisset, 29-30 January 1853).

The editors of LRB translate this as follows: “However carefully you tread, you end up with shit on your shoes.” A variant translation: “Whichever way you direct your feet, you can’t help stepping in shit.”

This recalls a statement attributed to Lev Tolstoy: “Life is a tartine de merde [shit sandwich], which we all are obliged to eat, slowly.”

Checking this out online, I have found loads of citations on the subject of “shit sandwiches.” Take this one, for example: “Life is a shit sandwich, but the more bread you have the less shit you eat” (Anon.). I suspect that the image of the shit sandwich we eat is not of recent provenance.

On a French website I also have found, in a slightly different variant, the maxim attributed to Tolstoy: “La vie, c’est une tartine de merde et il faut que tu manges une bouchée tous les jours.” Translation: “Life is a shit sandwich, and you have to eat a mouthful every day.”

Then I started searching online for the original quote by Tolstoy and could not find it anywhere. Even when doing a search in Russian I was inevitably directed back to where I had heard the citation in the first place: Vladimir Nabokov’s collection of interviews, Strong Opinions.

Question: Tolstoy said, so they say [my emphasis; note that casual “so they say,” URB] that life was a tartine de merde, which one was obliged to eat slowly. Do you agree?
Nabokov’s answer: I’ve never heard that story. The old boy was sometimes rather disgusting, wasn’t he? My own life is fresh bread with country butter and Alpine honey. (Strong Opinions, p. 152).

This comes from an interview with James Mossman, who submitted 58 questions to Nabokov on Sept. 8, 1969, for Review, BBC-2 (Oct. 4). Nabokov answered about 40 of the questions and put together a typescript of questions and answers. On Oct. 23, 1969, The Listener published this, but only in part (see Strong Opinions, p. 141).

Nabokov, who did not like doing live interviews—because of his tendency to hem and haw when speaking “off the Nabocuff”—had a policy of asking interviewers to submit written questions. Some he would choose not to answer, others he would revise before answering. At times he even made up his own questions and then answered them.

Note the clear attribution of Flaubert’s quote above. Galen Strawson tells us precisely when and where Gustave Flaubert wrote his maxim on merde. There can be no doubt that the great writer said this. On the other hand, it is much in doubt that Tolstoy actually made his statement on the shit sandwich that is life. Even if you search through the complete works of Tolstoy, published in Soviet times, you are highly unlikely to find that quote. Soviet publishers could be prudish, so even if he said it, you probably won’t find it there.

Did Tolstoy actually make the statement? I may be wrong, but probably not. Despite his assertion, “I’ve never heard that story,” it could well be that Nabokov himself made it up. Since I’ve retired from teaching Russian literature I have not kept up with Nabokov scholarship. Maybe serious Nabokovian scholars have already lucubrated over this business and have found the answer. Tolstoyan scholars could also be of help.
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On another issue that I’ve wondered about. Among others, Nabokov has insisted that the main male protagonist of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is Lyovin (Лёвин), not Levin (Левин). You cannot tell by the way the name is spelled in Russian, as it is common practice to use the Cyrillic letter ‘e’ without the diacritical mark even when it is pronounced ‘yo.’

 I have run across a citation from Tolstoy himself, something with slightly anti-Semitic overtones: “Да не Левин, а Лёвин. Левин, это зубной врач в Бердичеве (It’s not Levin, it’s Lyovin; Levin is a dentist in Berdichev).” The implication here is that Levin (or Levine) is clearly a Jewish name, and Tolstoy’s man of the landed gentry is of the Russian noble class. But then, I have my doubts that Tolstoy ever really made that statement. 

At any rate, most Russians you meet will tell you that the character is Levin, not Lyovin. Of all the translations of Anna Karenina into English, I’ve never seen a translator who opted for Lyovin.




Friday, May 11, 2018

Afanasy Fet, "БАБОЧКА" ("BUTTERFLY") Translation of the Poem into English




Afanasy Fet
(1820-1892)
Бабочка

Ты прав. Одним воздушным очертаньем
            Я так мила.
Весь бархат мой с его живым миганьем -
            Лишь два крыла.

Не спрашивай: откуда появилась?
            Куда спешу?
Здесь на цветок я легкий опустилась
            И вот - дышу.

Надолго ли, без цели, без усилья,
            Дышать хочу?
Вот-вот сейчас, сверкнув, раскину крылья
            И улечу.
(written no later than Oct. 25, 1884)


LITERAL TRANSLATION

You’re right [butterfly narrator speaks to the poet]. It’s just that one outline I trace in the air
That makes me so dear (precious).
All of my velvet with its live (vivacious) twinkling (blinking)
Is just two wings.

Don’t ask from where I have appeared,
Where I’m rushing off to.
Here on this soft (light) bloom I have alighted
And now I breathe.

Is it for long that I aimlessly, effortlessly
Wish to breathe?
Any second now, with a flash, I’ll spread wide my wings
And fly away.

TRANSLATION BY ALEKSANDR POKIDOV

Butterfly
Yes, right you are! Alone for outlines airy
I am so fine.
All velvet mine with all its twinkle merry—
Two wings of mine.

O, never ask me, wherefrom I appear
Or whither flit!
Upon a flow’r I have alighted here
To breathe and sit.

How long, without an effort, aim or worry
Am I to stay?
Just see, now I will flash my spread wings glory
And fly away.
                

                                                TRANSLATION BY U.R. BOWIE



Babochka
(Butterfly)

Look now: one bright flit in the air
And I flaunt my precious bling.
All of this velvet with its flicker-flair
Is only a wing, plus a wing.

Don’t ask from whence I’ve come,
Or whither I’m bound when I leave.
Here on this flower in blithe slumberdom
I perch, and breathe.

Is it for long, in aimless bliss, astride
My bloom I wish to suspirate?
Just watch: in no time now I’ll flash-flip wide
My wings, fly off,
And dissipate.
                


In translating only four lines of this poem, Vladimir Nabokov, the lepidopterist, does a nice job of capturing the nineteenth-century feel of the style, what he calls "Fet's 'Butterfly' soliloquizing":

Whence have I come and whither am I hasting
Do not inquire;
Now on a graceful flower I have settled
And now respire.

(in Speak, Memory, p. 129)





Russian schoolgirl, Elizaveta Chudinova, age 10, from Evpatorija, Crimea, declaims Fet's "Babochka"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUyCuuuhrVU