Translation of Marshak Translation of Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 116

 

William Shakespeare, Sonnet No. 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

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William Shakespeare, Sonnet No. 116

Translated by Samuil Marshak

 

Перевод: С.Я. Маршак

Мешать соединенью двух сердец
Я не намерен. Может ли измена
Любви безмерной положить конец?
Любовь не знает убыли и тлена.

Любовь – над бурей поднятый маяк,
Не меркнущий во мраке и тумане.
Любовь – звезда, которою моряк
Определяет место в океане.

Любовь – не кукла жалкая в руках
У времени, стирающего розы
На пламенных устах и на щеках,
И не страшны ей времени угрозы.

А если я не прав и лжет мой стих,
То нет любви – и нет стихов моих!

Literal Translation of Marshak Translation

To hinder the merging of two hearts

I do not intend; can betrayal of

A limitless love put an end to it?

Love knows no diminution nor decay.

 

Love is a lighthouse raised above a storm,

Which fades not in darkness nor in fog.

Love is the lodestar, by which a seaman

Determines his location in the ocean.

 

Love is not a pitiful doll in the hands

Of time, which wipes away the rose

On the fiery lips and on the cheeks,

And she [love] fears not the threats of time.

 

And if I am wrong and my verse lies,

Then there is no love—and my verses don’t exist!

 

 

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation of Marshak Translation by U.R. Bowie

To part the meld of two hearts intermingled

I do not wish; if boundless love one chances to betray,

Are hearts that once were blended once more singled?

No. Love knows not diminution nor decay.

 

Love is like a lighthouse standing tall above a storm;

Love’s beam fades not in darkness, nor in fog.

Love is polar star by which a seaman sails past harm,

Succor’s benefactor and bright hope’s fond analog.

 

Love is not a wretched fool that time torments and tweaks,

While wiping sheen of rose from aging lips,

And dimming fervent fire on a lover’s ardent cheeks.

Love feels no threat, knows time won’t love eclipse. 

And if my words are false and my verse lies,

There’s no such thing as love, and this poem dies!

 

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From the Website “No Sweat Shakespeare”

Sonnet 116: Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True Minds

Shakespeare’s sonnet 116 can be seen as the definitive response to the ‘what is love’ question. The language of the sonnet is as deep and profound as any philosopher’s could be, expressed in the most beautiful language. Love is given an identity as an immortal force, which overcomes age, death, and time itself. Love, unlike the physical being, is not subject to decay.

Shakespeare employs an amazing array of poetic devices throughout the sonnet to convey the eternal nature of love, and ends by staking everything on his observations by asserting that if he is wrong, then no-one ever wrote anything, and no-one ever loved. And in sonnet 116 – as with all of his sonnets – Shakespeare manages to squeeze all of these thoughts and words into just fourteen lines.

Sonnet 116 Explanation In Modern English

I would not admit that anything could interfere with the union of two people who love each other. Love that alters with changing circumstances is not love, nor if it bends from its firm state when someone tries to destroy it. Oh no, it’s an eternally fixed point that watches storms but is never itself shaken by them. It is the star by which every lost ship can be guided: one can calculate its distance but not gauge its quality. Love doesn’t depend on Time, although the rosy lips and cheeks of youth eventually come within the compass of Time’s sickle. Love doesn’t alter as the days and weeks go by but endures until death. If I’m wrong about this then I’ve never written anything and no man has ever loved.

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From shakespeareonline.com

SONNET 116 PARAPHRASE

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Let me not declare any reasons why two True-minded people should not be married. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Which changes when it finds a change in circumstances, Or bends with the remover to remove: Or bends from its firm stand even when a lover is unfaithful: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark! it is a lighthouse That looks on tempests and is never shaken; That sees storms but it never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Love is the guiding north star to every lost ship, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Whose value cannot be calculated, although its altitude can be measured. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Love is not at the mercy of Time, though physical beauty Within his bending sickle's compass come: Comes within the compass of his sickle. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, Love does not alter with hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. But, rather, it endures until the last day of life. If this be error and upon me proved, If I am proved wrong about these thoughts on love I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Then I recant all that I have written, and no man has ever [truly] loved.

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Translator’s Comments

(U.R. Bowie)

You wonder to what extent a writer whose native language was not English understood some of the sixteen-century words, which often present huge problems even for native speakers. Marshak does, nonetheless, capture the gist of the original. For me the use of the word doll (kukla) in the next-to-last stanza strikes a false note: “love is not a pitiful doll in the hands of time.” Shakespeare is saying, quite clearly here, “love is not Time’s fool,” so I see no need to bring in the image of a doll. Only Marshak could tell us where and why he came up with that. To fix the problem he would have to change only one word in one line: kukla (doll) to dura (fool): Любовь – не кукла (дура) жалкая в руках/ У времени . . . I made that change for him in my translation.

Samuil Marshak

Quotations from Anton Chekhov

 

QUOTATIONS FROM ANTON CHEKHOV

- Говорят: в конце концов правда восторжествует, но это неправда.

They say that in the end of all ends the truth will reign supreme; but that’s not true.

 

- Всё знают и всё понимают только дураки да шарлатаны.

Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand everything.

 

- Никто не хочет любить в нас обыкновенного человека.

Nobody wants to love in us the ordinary, everyday guy.

 

- Если тебе изменила жена, радуйся, что она изменила тебе, а не отечеству.

If your wife has betrayed you, rejoice: that she betrayed you, and not the fatherland.

 

- Если бы все люди сговорились и стали вдруг искренни, то всё бы у них пошло к чёрту прахом.

If all people came to an agreement to become suddenly sincere, then everything about them would fly off to the devil in fluff and flinders.

 

- Университет развивает все способности, в том числе - глупость.

The university fosters all sorts of capabilities, including stupidity.

 

- Кто не может взять лаской, тот не возьмёт и строгостью.

If you cannot succeed by being gentle, then you’ll never succeed by being stern.

 

- Дело не в пессимизме и не в оптимизме, а в том, что у девяноста девяти из ста нет ума.

It has nothing to do with pessimism or optimism; it’s just that ninety-nine out of a hundred persons have no brains.

 

- Замечательный день сегодня. То ли чай пойти выпить, то ли повеситься.

Today is a wonderful day. Either go drink tea, or go hang yourself.

 

- «Циник» — слово греческое, в переводе на твой язык значащее: свинья, желающая, чтобы весь свет знал, что она свинья.

“Cynic” is a Greek word; translated into your language it means a pig, who wants the whole world to know that he’s a pig.

 

- На боль я отвечаю криком и слезами, на подлость — негодованием, на мерзость — отвращением. По-моему, это, собственно, и называется жизнью.

 I respond to pain with cries and tears, to meanness with indignation, to nastiness with disgust. In my opinion that response, in fact, is what is called life.

 

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CHEKHOV ON LITERATURE

Critics are like gadflies that prevent horses from ploughing. The horse works, with all its muscles drawn tight like the strings of a double-bass, and a fly settles on its flanks, tickling and buzzing. What does the fly buzz about? It hardly knows itself—simply because it is restless and wants to announce, “See here, I too am living on the earth. Look, I can buzz!” . . . For twenty-five years I’ve read what critics write about my works, and I don’t recall a single remark of value, not one word of valuable advice.”

On Gogol

His ‘Carriage’ alone is worth two hundred thousand rubles. Nothing but sheer delight. He is the greatest of writers.

On Tolstoy and Turgenev

When you think of Anna Karenina, all of Turgenev’s heroines with their seductive shoulders fly away to the devil.

Why write that a person gets into a submarine and goes to the North Pole to seek some reconciliation with humanity, while at the same time the woman he loves hurls herself from a belfry with a theatrical shriek? All this is untrue and does not happen in real life. You must write simply—about how Pyotr Semyonovich was married to Maria Ivanovna, that’s all.

Deprecation of Emotional Self-Indulgence

If you want to describe unhappy people in such as way as to move your readers’ compassion, you are only likely to succeed if you remain cold and dispassionate yourself, thus providing a background against which the sorrows of your characters can stand out in greater relief. Weep and suffer with your characters as much as you like, so long as you conceal this from the reader, for fiction can strike home only if it is objective.

You remember how huntsmen wound an elk. The elk looks at them with human eyes, and no one can bring himself to kill her. Not a bad subject but dangerous because it is difficult to avoid sentimentality—you must write it like a report, without pathetic phrases, and begin like this: “On such and such a date huntsmen in the Daraganov Forest wounded a young elk . . .” If you shed a tear you will rob the subject of its austerity and of everything in it worthy of attention.

Advice to Gorky

When you read your proofs strike out wherever you can the qualifications of nouns and verbs. You have so many qualifications that it is hard for the reader to make things out, and he grows tired. It’s easy to understand when I write, “The man sat on the grass,” because it’s clear and does not hinder attention. Conversely, it’s hard to understand and wearisome for the brain if I write, “A tall, narrow-chested man of medium stature, with a ginger-colored beard, sat down on the green grass, which was already trampled by passers-by, sat down noiselessly, timidly, glancing about him fearfully.” That does not settle down straightaway in the brain; fiction must settle down immediately, in a split second.

Frequent comparison of nature with human beings—when the sea breathes, the sky peers, the steppe snuggles up, when nature whispers, speaks, grieves and so on—such comparisons make description a bit monotonous, at times cloying, and at times obscure. Color and expressiveness in descriptions of nature are achieved only by simplicity, by simple phrases, such as, “The sun set, it grew dark, it rained.”