S.Ya. Marshak
Note: this is an experiment in
reverse translation. Marshak translates Robert Burns into Russian, and I
translate Marshak’s Russian poem back into English, then compare it with the
original. I try not to look at the original in advance, so as not to be
influenced by it. But the poem, for all that, is probably one that I’ve read at
some time in my life, and it may have left residual rhythms and words somewhere
deep in my brain.
U.R.
Bowie
Samuil Marshak
(1887-1964)
Из Роберта Бернса
From Robert Burns
(Coming Through the Rye)
Пробираясь до калитки
Полем вдоль межи,
Дженни вымокла до нитки
Вечером во ржи.
Очень холодно девчонке,
Бьет девчонку дрожь:
Замочила все юбчонки,
Идя через рожь.
Если кто–то звал кого–то
Сквозь густую рожь
И кого–то обнял кто–то,
Что с него возьмешь!
И какая вам забота,
Если у межи
Целовался с кем–то кто–то
Вечером во ржи!..
Literal Translation
Making her way to the wicket gate,
Through the field alongside the verge,
Jenny got drenched all through,
In the evening in the rye.
The girl was very cold,
The girl was shivering:
She got her skirts all wet,
Coming through the rye.
If someone called out to someone
Through the thick rye,
And someone embraced someone,
What’s to make of that!
And what’s for you to be concerned,
If by the boundary verge
Someone kissed another someone
In the evening in the rye!
Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
Coming Through the Rye
Making for the wicket gate,
Through fields whose verge was nigh,
Dripping wet, went Jenny Thwaight,
That evening in the rye.
Sodden, chilled, the girl did fret,
She shivered, moaned a sigh,
She got her skirt all sopping wet,
While coming through the rye.
If some someone called to someone,
Through the thick, soaked rye,
And someone embraced a someone,
So? What care you and I!
And why should you go glower-glum,
If there where verge is nigh,
Kissed someone some other someone,
Some evening in the rye!
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Original Words and Commentary from Wikipedia
Origin and meaning
G. W. Napier, in an 1876 Notes and
Queries, wrote that,
The original words of
"Comin' thro' the rye" cannot be satisfactorily traced. There are
many different versions of the song. The version which is now to be found in
the Works of Burns is the one given in Johnson's Museum, which
passed through the hands of Burns; but the song itself, in some form or other,
was known long before Burns.[1]
The protagonist, "Jenny", is not further identified,
but there has been reference to a "Jenny from Dalry" and a
longstanding legend in the Drakemyre suburb
of the town of Dalry, North Ayrshire,
holds that "comin thro' the rye" describes crossing a ford through
the Rye Water at Drakemyre to the north
of the town, downstream from Ryefield House and not far from the confluence of
the Rye with the River Garnock.[2][3] When
this story appeared in the Glasgow Herald in 1867, it was soon
disputed with the assertion that everyone understood the rye to be a field
of rye, wet
with dew, which
also fits better with other stanzas that substitute "wheat" and
"grain" for "rye".[4] An
alternative suggestion is that "the rye" was a long narrow cobblestone paved
lane, prone to puddles of water.[2]
While the original poem is already full of sexual imagery, an
alternative version makes this more explicit. It has a different chorus,
referring to a phallic "staun o' staunin' graith" (roughly "an
erection of astonishing size"), "kiss" is replaced by "fuck",
and Jenny's "thing" in stanza four is identified as her "cunt".[5][6][7]
Burns'
Lyrics
O, Jenny's a' weet,[A] poor
body,
Jenny's seldom dry:
She draigl't[B] a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!
Chorus:
Comin thro' the rye, poor body,
Comin thro' the rye,
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!
Gin[C] a
body meet a body
Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?[D]
(chorus)
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the glen
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warl'[E] ken?[F]
(chorus)
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the grain;
Gin a body kiss a body,
The thing's a body's ain.[G]
(chorus)
·
A weet
– wet
·
B draigl't
– draggled
·
C gin
– given, in the sense of "if"
·
D cry
– call out [for help]
·
E warl
– world
·
F ken
– know
·
G ain
– own
Lyrics
usually sung ("Ilka lassie")
Even the "cleaner" version of the Burns lyrics is
quite bawdy, and it is this one, or an "Anglicized" version of it,
that is most commonly "covered".
Gin a body meet a body
Comin' thro' the rye
Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body cry?
Chorus:
Ilka lassie has her laddie
Nane, they say, hae I
Yet a' the lads they smile at me
When comin' thro' the rye.
Gin a body meet a body
Comin' frae the town
Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body frown?
(Chorus)
Gin a body meet a body,
Comin' frae the well,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body tell?
(Chorus)
'Mang the train there is a swain
I dearly lo'e myself
But what his name or whaur his hame
I dinna care to tell
(Chorus)
Translator’s Note
Don’t know where Marshak got his English verses for the Burns
poem that he “translated.” I’m not one to advocate for literal translation—far
from it. My free method of literary poetic translation—down, Nabokov, down
big fella, easy there, easy—allows a lot of leeway to the translator, as
long as the gist of the original poem is maintained, and the translator
produces a genuine poem to translate a poem, not a simple pony.
But while retaining something of the Burns gist, Marshak seems
to take huge liberties with the text. To be sure we would have to see the
original text that he was working from. Did he have the lines we are provided
in the article from Wikipedia? Or some other lines?
One thing he shied away from at the start: he made no attempt to
come up with Russian dialect words to translate the Scottish dialect of Burns.
That appears to be the most common approach when Russians translate dialect or
archaic language.
The Russian translators of Shakespeare do not attempt to find
sixteenth century Russian words to translate sixteenth century Shakespearian
words. If anyone attempted such a Herculean task it’s doubtful he would have
any chance of success. Then again, if you read Pasternak’s translations of Shakespeare’s
plays into modern Russian you are certainly losing something very important to
Shakespeare’s art: the archaic language.
Robert Burns
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