The document summarizes different approaches to translating texts from one language to another. It discusses Friedrich Schleiermacher's view that a translator should either move the reader toward the original writer or move the original writer toward the reader. It notes that Schleiermacher favored moving the reader toward the writer by providing the same experience as reading the original text. The document also provides an example of a poem by Miguel Hernández translated into English.

1. Texts and Translations 5

2. 1. A fishy song

3. Fisches Nachtgesang Fishes' Nightsong
Christian Morgenstern W.D.
Snodgrass,
Walter Arndt, translators
Morgenstern's "Nightsong (or Night Hymn) of the Fish" (or per
a as

4. Jeremy Adler and Ulrich Ernst list the interpretations that have been suggested:
‘The symbols signify the metre of silent song; the alternation of symbols
indicates a fish mouth opening and closing; together, they resemble the frontal
view of a choir of fish; they represent water; they resemble the shape of a fish
without head or tail. These as well as other interpretations of the poem are quite
permissible. Thus we have, in the framework of ‘nonsense literature,’ a new type
of visual poetry: a poem of figures that does not imitate any particular form, the
abstract figure poem.’
“Or, expressed differently,” writes Heinrich Plett in Literary Rhetoric, “the
referentiality of this isographemic configuration is polysemous.”

5. sches Nachtgesang Fishes' Nightsong
ristian Morgenstern W.D.
Snodgrass,
Walter Arndt, translators
Morgenstern's "Nightsong (or Night Hymn) of the Fish" (or per

6. Fisches Nachtgesang Fish's Night Song
Christian Morgenstern Max Knight, translator
tiousness, a neutral, aniconic reading of its signs as sheer graphic
signs against the undifferentiated white of the page takes us into
deeper theoretical waters: The "literal" meaning of writing, according
to Jacques Derrida is "metaphoricity itself." (Of Grammatology, p. 15)
Metaphoricity (or the use of figurative language) is, of course, a fair
ly common way of defining the literary.25 IsMorgenstern's fish, then,

7. 2. Recap: Classical Chinese to English

8. ‘. . . classical Chinese poetry was only successfully translated into
English when the translators were willing to set aside the rhymes and
meters of traditional English verse, as well as Western concepts of what
constitutes poetic diction and subject matter, and create a freer form
that would permit the power and expressiveness of the originals to shine
through.’
Burton Watson, Introduction to Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry,
pp12/13

9. Reaction to Pound
Wi-lim Yip, in Ezra Pound's Cathay, admitted
‘One can easily excommunicate Pound from the Forbidden City of
Chinese studies’
yet Pound conveyed ‘the central concerns of the original author" and
that no other translation “has assumed so interesting and unique a
position as Cathay in the history of English translations of Chinese
poetry.”
In The Pound Era, Hugh Kenner pointed out that Cathay was an
interpretation as much as a translation; the "poems paraphrase an
elegiac war poetry.... among the most durable of all poetic responses to
World War I."
Perhaps the clearest assessment of Pound's achievement was made at
the time by T. S. Eliot in his introduction to Pound’s Selected Poems; he
called Pound ‘the inventor of Chinese poetry for our time’ and predicted
that Cathay would be called a ‘magnificent specimen of twentieth-
century poetry’ rather than a translation.

10. consider Wai-lim Yip
Disturbed by translations of Chinese poetry
'Most English translations of Chinese poetry simply let the target horizon
mask and master the source horizon.'
Translators seemed unaware classical Chinese poetry has 'whole set of
cultural-aesthetic assumptions, that its syntax is in many ways
inseparable from perception, and that by imposing Indo-European
linguistic habits upon the classical Chinese without any adjustment they
were significantly changing the source horizon'
(Diffusion of Distance:dialogues between Chinese and Western poetics')
see also Ezra Pound's Cathay, Princeton University Press, 1969.
Chinese Poetry: Major Modes and Genres, U. C. Press/Duke University
Press, 1976; 2nd ed. Duke University Press, 1997.

11. from Travelling on the Southern Valley
Path to a Deserted Village on an Autumn
Morning
Wai-lim Yip’s version
Liu Zongyuan
Autumn’s end: frost and dew become
heavy.
The end of autumn- there’s heavy frost
Get up early. Walk in secluded ravine.
and dew;
At dawn, I rise and go to the hidden
valley.

12. Li Po/Li Bai
A Letter
To Send Far Away
My love,
So much beauty home–flowers filled the
When you were here there was
house.
a hall of flowers.
So much beauty gone–nothing but the
When you are gone there is
empty bed,
an empty bed.
Under the embroidered coverlet
your embroidered quilt rolled up, never
I toss and turn.
used.
After three years I
It’s been three years. Your scent still
smell your fragrance.
lingers,
Your fragrance never leaves,
But you never return.
your scent gone and yet never ending.
I think of you, the yellow leaves are
But now you’re gone, never to return,
ended
And the white dew dampens the green
thoughts of you yellow leaves falling,
moss.
white dew glistening on green moss.
Translated by William Carlos Williams
Translated by David Hinton

13. 3. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) : ‘On the Different Methods of
Translating’ (1813)

14. Friedrich Schleiermacher: ‘On the Different Methods of Translating’
‘Should [the translator] try to bring two people together who are so totally
separated from each other – as his fellow man, who is completely ignorant
of the author’s language, and the author himself are – into such an
immediate relationship as that of author and reader?’

15. ‘Either the translator leaves the writer alone as much as possible and
moves the reader toward the writer, or he leaves the reader alone as much
as possible and moves the writer toward the reader.’
Schleiermacher favours moving the reader toward the writer
‘..the translator’s goal must be to provide the reader with the same image
and the same pleasure as reading the work in the original language offers
to the man educated in this way...’

16. ‘Either the translator leaves the writer alone as much as possible and
moves the reader toward the writer, or he leaves the reader alone as much
as possible and moves the writer toward the reader.’
Schleiermacher favours moving the reader toward the writer
‘..the translator’s goal must be to provide the reader with the same image
and the same pleasure as reading the work in the original language offers
to the man educated in this way...’

17. Miguel Hernández
El cementerio está cerca
de donde tú y yo dormimos,
entre nopales azules,
pitas azules y niños
que gritan vívidamente
si un muerto nubla el camino.
De aquí al cementerio, todo
es azul, dorado, límpido.
Cuatro pasos, y los muertos.
Cuatro pasos, y los vivos.
Límpido, azul y dorado,
se hace allí remoto el hijo.

18. The graveyard is near
Miguel Hernández
Miguel Hernández
El cementerio está cerca
The graveyard is near
de donde tú y yo dormimos,
to where you and I are sleeping
entre nopales azules,
among blue nopales,
pitas azules y niños
blue pitas and children
que gritan vívidamente
who shout loudly
si un muerto nubla el camino.
if a phantom fogs the road.
De aquí al cementerio, todo
From here to the graveyard, everything
es azul, dorado, límpido.
is blue, golden, clear.
Cuatro pasos, y los muertos.
Four steps, and the dead.
Cuatro pasos, y los vivos.
Four steps, and the living.
Límpido, azul y dorado,
Clear, blue and golden,
se hace allí remoto el hijo.
there the son becomes remote.
(Translated by Claudia Benítez)

19. The graveyard is near
Miguel Hernández
Miguel Hernández
El cementerio está cerca
The graveyard is near
de donde tú y yo dormimos,
to where you and I are sleeping
entre nopales azules,
among blue nopales,
pitas azules y niños
blue pitas and children
que gritan vívidamente
who shout loudly
si un muerto nubla el camino.
if a phantom fogs the road.
De aquí al cementerio, todo
From here to the graveyard, everything
es azul, dorado, límpido.
is blue, golden, clear.
Cuatro pasos, y los muertos.
Four steps, and the dead.
Cuatro pasos, y los vivos.
Four steps, and the living.
Límpido, azul y dorado,
Clear, blue and golden,
se hace allí remoto el hijo.
there the son becomes remote.
(Translated by Claudia Benítez)

20. I could have used the word “cemetery”, which would be closest to the
Spanish “cementerio”. But I decided to use instead “graveyard” as I The graveyard is near
think it sounds better in the English version, and also because here in Miguel Hernández
Ireland it is more common to use this word.
The nopal is an edible cactus native from Mexico. The word comes
from the náhuatl “nopalli”. It is usually translated into English as The graveyard is near
“prickly pear”, but it seems like this refers more to the “tuna”, which to where you and I are sleeping
is the sweet fruit that grows on top of the nopal. I also found it
translated as “nopal cactus”. For this poem, I decided to keep it as the
among blue nopales,
original Mexican word “nopal” (its plural is “nopales”) as there doesn’t blue pitas and children
seem to be an accurate translation into English. Can the name of a who shout loudly
cactus be translated accurately? if a phantom fogs the road.
The word “pita” can refer to many different things: a plant of the
genus agave, native from Mexico; a round flat bread typical of the
Eastern Mediterranean region; the fiber of this plant used in making From here to the graveyard,
string (known as fiber thread); or a children’s game in which the everything
children chase each other (they say “to play the pita” in Spain,
especially in Galicia). In the case of this poem, “blue pitas” is referring
is blue, golden, clear.
to the plant. Four steps, and the dead.
I could have translated “muerto” as “corpse” but this word makes me Four steps, and the living.
think of a walking dead body, which, in my opinion, wouldn’t work
well with the image in the poem: the road gets covered in fog when a
dead person passes by. This sounds more like a spirit leaving a veil of Clear, blue and golden,
fog behind, rather than a walking dead body leaving behind a scent of there the son becomes remote.
putrefied flesh. In this case I could have used “ghost” or “spirit”, but
in the end I chose “phantom” in order to keep the alliteration with “if”
and “fogs”.
(Translated by Claudia Benítez)
Here I decided to use the verb “fogs” from the noun “fog” as I
thought it was the best way to transfer this image into English. The
literal translation of the verb “nublar” would be “to cloud”. However,
“to cloud” makes me think of covering the road with the clouds from
the sky, when in this case it is the image of the road getting covered
in fog. This is why I thought the verb “fog” would work much better.
Hernández is clearly talking about his own son in this poem, who
died in infancy. Nevertheless, he doesn’t say “mi hijo” (“my son”) but

21. Miguel Hernández The cemetery lies near
El cementerio está cerca The cemetery lies near
de donde tú y yo dormimos, where you and I are sleeping,
entre nopales azules, among blue nopals,
pitas azules y niños blue pitas, and children
que gritan vívidamente who shout at the top of their lungs
si un muerto nubla el camino. If a corpse darkens the street.
De aquí al cementerio, todo From here to the cemetery everything
es azul, dorado, límpido. is blue, golden, clear.
Cuatro pasos, y los muertos. Four steps away, the dead.
Cuatro pasos, y los vivos. Four steps away, the living.
Límpido, azul y dorado, Clear, blue, and golden.
se hace allí remoto el hijo. My son grows remote there.
Translated by Don Share

22. ‘It is the plainest, most limpid, poem that may defy translation,
because it leaves the least latitude for paraphrase and
interpretation, and the plainness that may be a happy reduction in
one language and literary convention can sound like an intolerable
banality in another’

23. 4. Gottfried Benn: A Casebook

24. Was schlimm ist (Gottfried Benn)
Wenn man kein Englisch kann,
von einem guten englischen Kriminalroman zu hören,
der nicht ins Deutsche übersetzt ist.
Bei Hitze ein Bier sehn,
das man nicht bezahlen kann.
Einen neuen Gedanken haben,
den man nicht in einem Hölderlinvers einwickeln kann,
wie es die Professoren tun.
Nachts auf Reisen Wellen schlagen hören
und sich sagen, dass sie das immer tun.
Sehr schlimm: eingeladen sein,
wenn zu Hause die Räume stiller,
der Café besser
und keine Unterhaltung nötig ist.
Am schlimmsten:
nicht im Sommer sterben,
wenn alles hell ist
und die Erde für Spaten leicht.

25. What’s Bad/Gottfried Benn
Not reading English,
and hearing about a new English thriller
that hasn’t been translated.
Seeing a cold beer when it’s hot out,
and not being able to afford it.
Having an idea
that you can’t encapsulate in a line of Hölderlin,
the way the professors do.
Hearing the waves beat against the shore on holiday at night,
and telling yourself it’s what they always do.
Very bad: being invited out,
when your own room at home is quieter,
the coffee is better,
and you don’t have to make small talk.
And worst of all:
not to die in summer,
when the days are long
and the earth yields easily to the spade.
Source: Poetry (November 2009).

26. Dear Editor. . .
Hofmann translates Benn’s phrase “guten englischen Kriminalroman” as
“new English thriller.” Benn’s word gut means “good.” As opposed to
Hofmann’s “new” (neu), it speaks directly to schlimm (bad) in the
poem’s title. Since Benn uses neu later in the poem—not included in
Hofmann’s translation, which renders Benn’s “neuen Gedanken” (new
idea/thought) simply as “idea”—Hofmann’s using it where Benn doesn’t
strikes me as odd.
Hofmann’s decision to translate Benn’s “nicht in einen Hölderlinvers
einwickeln kann” as “can’t encapsulate in a line of Hölderlin” strikes me
as a misleading choice of register. The Latinate “encapsulate” does not
suggest the tactile immediacy, even colloquialism (not unimportant,
perhaps, in a poem that praises beer), of einwickeln, captured better
perhaps by “wrap up.”

27. In several cases, Hofmann’s word choices subtly change a
line’s range of meanings. For example, Hofmann translates
Benn’s Reisen as “holiday,” adding a layer of meaning that
may well be there along with the more mundane meanings
(trip, journey, tour), but I don’t think that layer deserves to be
foregrounded. Similarly, Benn’s “zu Hause die Räume”
becomes “your own room at home.” Benn’s plural “Räume”
turns into singular “room” in Hofmann’s version. Benn’s point
may be that any room at home, not just your room, i.e., a
room with specific meaning to you, is still better than having
to spend time in somebody else’s home. One more example:
Benn’s description of summer as a time “wenn alles hell
ist” (when everything is bright/light) turns into “when the days
are long,” substituting the length of summer days for a
particular quality of their light, of their atmosphere. It seems
to me that Sommer, leicht, and hell are crucial words in
establishing the oddly comforting atmosphere of a verse
paragraph that, after all, deals with death.

28. I am not an expert on Benn or twentieth-century German poetry, so I
may well be unaware of arguments justifying every single one of
Hofmann’s choices. I only mean to draw attention to the possibility that
in a few places Hofmann’s fine translations may not be quite as precise
as they perhaps could be.
Alfred Lutz
MURFREESBORO, TENNESSEE

29. There is no more dismal—or, frankly, stupid—way of reading a
translation than to pick on single words (as though the first duty of a
translation were that it should be reversible—it’s not—and as though
words were tokens of unchanging value, the way money used to be, in
its dreams—they’re not either). Alfred Lutz writes as though I were a
siffleur, there to help a drying German actor with English prompts: good
—gut, new—neu, wrap up—einwickeln. This is then equated with
accuracy, with being “precise.” I think I have been remarkably precise. I
don’t see how I could have served Benn any better in English, both in
large and in little. My “choices” (detestable word) are absolutely “the
best available” (certainly to me), and if they can be improved, then at
least it won’t be by any obvious so-called “literal” so-called “dictionary
equivalents.” (I’m curious: does Lutz think I don’t know these words; or
that I’m just avoiding them for fun?)

30. What’s Bad
Not speaking English,
then hearing of a good detective story
you can’t get in German.
Seeing a cold beer on a hot day,
and not being able to afford it.
Having a new idea
you can't gift-wrap in a verse from Keats,
the way professors do.
Travelling, to hear the waves beat at night,
and say to yourself that's what they always do.
Very bad: being invited out,
when it’s quieter at home,
the coffee’s better,
and there’s no need for small talk.
Worst of all:
not to die in Summer,
when days are long
and the soil on the spade is light. Adapted: Donal Lyons

31. What’s Bad (Christopher Middleton)
When you do not know English
and hear of a good English detective novel
that has not been translated into German.
To see when you’re hot
a beer that you can’t afford.
To have a new thought without being able
to make it sound like a line by Hölderlin
as the professors do.
On a journey by night to hear waves beating
and to think: they do that all the time.
Very bad: to be invited out
when at home it is quieter,
the coffee is better,
and you’ve no need to be amused.
Worst of all:
not to die in summer,
when everything is bright,
and the earth is easier on the spade.

32. 5. Instant Italian

33. Ed è subito sera
[da Acque e terre (1930)]
Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed è subito sera.
Salvatore Quasimodo

34. [1] And Suddenly It’s Evening
Each of us is alone on the heart of the earth
pierced by a ray of sun:
and suddenly it’s evening.
- Jack Bevan
[2] And Suddenly It Is Evening
Everyone stands alone at the heart of this earth
Stunned by a ray of sunlight
And suddenly it is evening.
- J Ruth Gendler

35. [3] And suddenly it is evening
Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world
pierced by a ray of sunlight,
and suddenly it is evening.
[4] And it’s suddenly evening
Everyone stays alone, on the heart of the Earth,
Wounded by a ray of sun
And it’s suddenly evening

36. [5] And then suddenly it’s evening
Alone at the earth’s core stands each man,
Pierced by a ray of light; and then
Suddenly it’s evening.
[6]
Each one stands on the heart of the earth,
impaled by a ray of sunlight.
And suddenly, it’s evening

37. [7] A’s siúd go tobann an tráthnóna.
Seasann gach n-aon ina aonar ar chroí an talaimh
gath gréine ina shaighid tríd:
a’s siúd go tobann an tráthnóna.
Máirín agus Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh

38. Jack Bevan’s “each of us” may perhaps be a little
too comfortable for Quasimodo’s less personal
“ognuno”, and Patrick Creagh mysteriously changes
Ungaretti’s “mare cenerino” into “ashen sky”,
making nonsense of the subsequent lines.
Times Literary Supplement

39. Letters to the editor, 24 December 2004
Brief and beautiful
Sir – In his review of Jamie McKendrick’s Faber Book of Twentieth-Century
Italian Poems (December 10), Jonathan Keates says that Jack Bevan’s “each
of us” seems “too comfortable for Salvatore Quasimodo’s less personal
‘ognuno’” in the poem “And Suddenly It’s Evening”. In fact, Bevan
translated “ognuno” as “everyone”— “Everyone is alone on the heart of the
earth” — in his first version, made for the Penguin Modern European Poets
series in 1965.
I have a letter from him dated April 1984 in which he regrets the change.
He says he “havered over it a good deal” and thought “each of us” “more
specific, more multitudinous” than “everyone”, but came to think the
change “hard on the tongue” and to “[lose] more than it gained”. It’s not a
trivial point, really, since the poem is so brief and so beautiful, and since
Bevan’s translations of Quasimodo usually work so well in English.
Neil Corcoran

40. more examples of ‘extreme variance’ /versions of
Vallejo
from Margaret Sayers Peden, Translator’s Preface to
César Vallejo
One of the fascinations about translating a poem –
translating anything, really --- is that there is seldom a
‘correct’ solution. Students in translation courses are
often upset by that truth until it becomes clear to them
that there are simply better and worse ways to move a
text into a second language, not one that is definitive –
unless, of course, in regard to factual material. Read
several translations of the same poem and you will be
amused, perhaps confounded, by the differences among
them. Translators of Vallejo carry those differences into
amazing ranges of interpretation. One example will
suffice. In Trilce X, relating the death of Vallejo’s lover,
the last stanza reads (italics mine):
No hay ni una violencia
El paciente incorpórase,
y sentado empavona tranquilas misturas.

41. 6. ‘Extreme variation’

42. more examples of ‘extreme variance’ /versions of
Vallejo
from Margaret Sayers Peden, Translator’s Preface to
César Vallejo
One of the fascinations about translating a poem –
translating anything, really --- is that there is seldom a
‘correct’ solution. Students in translation courses are
often upset by that truth until it becomes clear to them
that there are simply better and worse ways to move a
text into a second language, not one that is definitive –
unless, of course, in regard to factual material. Read
several translations of the same poem and you will be
amused, perhaps confounded, by the differences among
them. Translators of Vallejo carry those differences into
amazing ranges of interpretation. One example will
suffice. In Trilce X, relating the death of Vallejo’s lover,
the last stanza reads (italics mine):
No hay ni una violencia
El paciente incorpórase,
y sentado empavona tranquilas misturas.

43. Here are four translations of those final lines. First,
Michael Smith:
There is not the slightest violence
The patient sits up,
and, seated, dips quiet breadcrumbs.
Clayton Eshelman:
There’s not even any violence.
The patient rises up,
and seated empeacocks tranquil nosegays.
Rebecca Seiferle:
There is not even one constraint.
The patient sits up
and, seated, daubs tranquil mixtures.
And myself:
There is not even one violent act.
The patient stands up,
and, seated, paints out tranquil petal showers.

45. 7. Right or wrong?

46. Here is another poem translated by Czerniawski:
Wieslawa Szymborska (b.1923)
SOME LIKE POETRY
Some -
therefore not all.
Not even a majority just a minority.
Not counting schools where they have to,
and the poets themselves,
that’s probably two per thousand.
Like -
but one also likes noodle soup,
one likes compliments and the colour blue,
one likes an old scarf,
one likes to have one’s way,
one likes to pat a dog.
Poetry -
but what is poetry.
There have already been
several shaky answers
to this question.
But I don't know and I don't know and I hold on to this
like a saving hand-rail.

47. a) Joanna Trzeciak and b) Stanislaw Baranczak:
a)
Poetry?
What sort of thing is poetry?
More than one shaky answer
has been given to this question.
But I do not know and do not know and clutch on to it,
as to a saving banister.
b)
Poetry?
but what is poetry anyway?
More than one rickety answer
has tumbled since that question first was raised.
But I just keep on not knowing, and I cling to that
like a redemptive handrail.

48. Poezję –
a) Joanna Trzeciak and b) Stanislaw Baranczak:
Tylko co to takiego poezja.
Niejedna chwiejna odpowiedź
a)
Na to pytanie już padła.
Poetry?
A ja nie wiem i nie wiem i trzymam się
What sort of thing is poetry?
tego
More than one shaky answer
Jak zbawiennej poręczy.
has been given to this question.
But I do not know and do not know and clutch
on to it,
as to a saving banister.
b)
Poetry?
but what is poetry anyway?
More than one rickety answer
has tumbled since that question first was
raised.
But I just keep on not knowing, and I cling to

49. Poezję –
Tylko co to takiego poezja.
Niejedna chwiejna odpowiedź
Na to pytanie już padła.
A ja nie wiem i nie wiem i trzymam się tego
Jak zbawiennej poręczy.
Poetry –
But what is poetry
More than one shaky answer
Has been given to this question.
But I don’t know and don’t know, and I cling
to it
Like a redemptive handrail.

50. The simplicity and economy of Szymborska’s poetry
is a challenge to her translators. Though writing in a
conversational tone, Szymborska never falls back on
idiom; rather, she greatly subverts it. Where her
language reflects an internal dialogue or dissonance, I
have tried to capture that grappling quality rather
than smooth it over. In choosing how to render the
seemingly untranslatable, I have sought to draw out
the possibilities lurking in language rather than
compensate through embellishment or augmentation.
Szymborska has a penchant for coining new words,
and I hope I have preserved the seamlessness with
which her coinages and consonantal creatures arise

51. As for formal considerations, I have tried to remain as
faithful to the forms of the original poems as
possible, bearing in mind the differences in grammar
and poetics between Polish and English. Rhyme
schemes were maintained, though slant rhymes were
sometimes substituted for straight rhymes.
Because Szymborska draws freely from a wide variety
of linguistic registers, choices between alternative
translations of individual words were sensitive to
frequency of usage. For example, an effort was made
to avoid rendering common Polish words by obscure
English words. Balanced against this was the desire
that connotations be preserved. This prompts some
rather difficult translation choices.
-- Joanna Trzeciak, Translator’s Note, Selected Poems
of Wisława Szymborska, Norton and Company,
2001.

52. 8. ‘A pattern of decisions’

53. ‘Translation is above all a pattern of decisions, and
every local decision will commit you to decisions
elsewhere. The mark of a bad translation is the
completely erratic nature of the decisions ….The
thing about translation is that it involves
commitment. And another sign of a bad translation is
when people are not willing to commit’.
Richard Sieburth

54. “Someone once asked Richard Howard, ‘How would
you translate this word?’ And he came back saying, ‘I
do not translate words.’ What you translate is a
system of relationships.”

55. Eliot Weinberger: ‘The success of a translation is
nearly always dependent on on the smallest words:
prepositions, articles. Anyone can translate nouns .’

56. Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam fato profugus Laviniaque venit
Litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
Vi superum, saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram,

57. Arma virumque cano
Arms and the man I sing [Dryden]
I sing of arms and of a man [Allen Mandelbaum]
I sing of warfare and a man at war [Robert Fitzgerald]
Arms I sing, and the man
Wars and a man I sing (Robert Fagles)

58. L'île sur le lac, à Innisfree

59. William Butler Yeats - The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes
dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the
cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavement grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

60. William Butler Yeats - The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes
dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the
cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavement grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

61. L'île sur le lac, à Innisfree
Que je me lève et je parte, que je parte pour Innisfree,
Que je me bâtisse là une hutte, faite d'argile et de joncs.
J'aurai neuf rangs de haricots, j'aurai une ruche
Et dans ma clairière je vivrai seul, devenu la bruit des
abeilles.
Et là j'aurai quelque paix car goutte à goutte la paix
retombe
Des brumes du matin sur l'herbe où le grillon chante,
Et là minuit n'est qu'une lueur et midi est un rayon rouge
Et d'ailes de passereaux déborde le ciel du soir.
Que je me lève et je parte, car nuit et jour
J'entends clapoter l'eau paisible contre la rive.
Vais-je sur la grand route ou le pavé incolore,
Je l'entends dans l'âme du coeur.
W.B. YEATS (Yves BONNEFOY) (*)

62. L'île sur le lac, à Innisfree
William Butler Yeats - The Lake Isle of Innisfree Que je me lève et je parte, que je parte pour
Innisfree,
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, Que je me bâtisse là une hutte, faite d'argile et de
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: joncs.
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the J'aurai neuf rangs de haricots, j'aurai une ruche
honeybee, Et dans ma clairière je vivrai seul, devenu la bruit
And live alone in the bee-loud glade. des abeilles.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes Et là j'aurai quelque paix car goutte à goutte la
dropping slow, paix retombe
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the Des brumes du matin sur l'herbe où le grillon
cricket sings; chante,
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, Et là minuit n'est qu'une lueur et midi est un rayon
And evening full of the linnet’s wings. rouge
Et d'ailes de passereaux déborde le ciel du soir.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; Que je me lève et je parte, car nuit et jour
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavement grey, J'entends clapoter l'eau paisible contre la rive.
I hear it in the deep heart’s core. Vais-je sur la grand route ou le pavé incolore,
Je l'entends dans l'âme du coeur.
W.B. YEATS (Yves BONNEFOY) (*)

63. L'île sur le lac, à Innisfree
Que je me lève et je parte, que je parte pour Innisfree,
Que je me bâtisse là une hutte, faite d'argile et de joncs.
J'aurai neuf rangs de haricots, j'aurai une ruche
Et dans ma clairière je vivrai seul, devenu la bruit des
abeilles.
Et là j'aurai quelque paix car goutte à goutte la paix
retombe
Des brumes du matin sur l'herbe où le grillon chante,
Et là minuit n'est qu'une lueur et midi est un rayon rouge
Et d'ailes de passereaux déborde le ciel du soir.
Que je me lève et je parte, car nuit et jour
J'entends clapoter l'eau paisible contre la rive.
Vais-je sur la grand route ou le pavé incolore,
Je l'entends dans l'âme du coeur.
W.B. YEATS (Yves BONNEFOY) (*)

64. Commitment, being bold, taking risks
I didn’t realize till two days later
An Scáthán it was the mirror took his breath away.
Níorbh eol dom go ceann dhá lá The monstrous old Victorian mirror
gurbh é an scáthán a mharaigh é…
with the ornate gilt frame
we had found in the three-storey house
An seanscáthán ollmhór Victeoiriach when we moved in from the country.
leis an bhfráma ornáideach bréagórga
a bhí romhainn sa tigh trí stór I was afraid it would sneak
down from the wall and swallow me up
nuair a bhogamar isteach ón tuath. in one gulp in the middle of the night.
Bhínn scanraithe roimhe: go sciorrfadh
anuas den bhfalla is go slogfadh mé While he was decorating the bedroom
d’aon trom anáil i lár na hoíche… he had taken down the mirror
without asking for help;
Ag maisiú an tseomra chodlata dó soon he turned the colour of terracotta
d’ardaigh sé an scáthán anuas and his heart broke that night.
gan lámh chúnta a iarraidh;
ar ball d’iompaigh dath na cré air,
Translated by Paul Muldoon
an oíche sin phléasc a chroí.
Michael Davitt
The Mirror

65. Translate into your mother
tongue
In the rooms the women come
and go
Talking of Michaelangelo

66. Nella stanza le donne vanno e
vengono
Parlando di Michelangelo.
En la pieza las mujeres vienen y van
Hablando de Miguel Ángel
Dans le salon les femmes vont et
viennent
en parlant des maîtres de Sienne

67. ‘Translation fails where it does not compensate, where there is no
restoration of radical equity’
George Steiner, After Babel (Oxford University Press, 1975) p. 396.

68. Who can say to the birds
shut the fuck up
or tell the sheep in the yow trummle
not to struggle and leap?
(Tom Paulin)
Wer kann gebieten den Vögeln
Still zu sein auf der Flur?
Und wer verbieten zu zappeln
Den Schafen unter der Schur?
Goethe, 'Unvermeidlich’

69. The House of the Customs Men Henry Snodden and me we’ve nearly forgotten
that scraggy coastguard station –
You won’t recall the house of the customs men a ruin from the Black and Tan war
on the bluff that overhangs the reef: it stood on Tim Ring’s hill above the harbour
It’s been waiting, empty, since the evening like an empty a crude roofless barracks
your thoughts swarmed in -- same as the station in Teelin or Carrick
and hung there, nervously. with the usual concrete harbour
like a berm built the century before last
Sou’westers have lashed the old walls for years to make a new fishing village with a slightly
and your laugh’s not careless anymore: daft
the compass needle wanders crazily name – in this case Portnoo – below the head
and the dice no longer tell the score.
You don’t remember: other times one August we came back and instead
assail your memory; a thread gets wound. of that ruin there was only the grassy track
on the grassy hill and so the field’s stayed
I hold one end still; but the house recedes year after year though we’re both afraid
and the smoke-stained weathervane that one day very soon that unused field
spins pitiless up on the roof. ‘ll be sold as sites – then we’ll watch
I hold on to an end; but you’re alone, as a new colony of thatched
not here, not breathing in the dark. breezeblock cottages – Irish Holiday Homes –
with green plastic oilgas tanks at the back –
Oh the vanishing horizon line, as a new colony starts up all owned
where the tanker’s lights flash now and then! by people like us from Belfast
Is the channel here? (The breakers who’ve at last laid that claggy building’s ghost
still seethe against the cliff that drops away…) -- well I wouldn’t go as far as that
You don’t recall the house of this, my evening.
And I don’t know who’s going or who’ll stay. [Tom Paulin]
Trans. Jonathan Galassi
The Coastguard Station