Ask the poems, then
Yosano Akiko’s poetry presents an interesting challenge insofar as it is tanka, but deviates from traditionally tanka-like diction. The translator’s task when bringing Akiko into another language is, as I see it, to somehow communicate this unconventionality while retaining the essential tanka-like qualities of the poems.
Uta ni kike na
Tare no no hana ni
akaki inamu
omomuki aru kana
haru tsumi motsu ko
Instinctively I tend rebel against the idea of forcing the English translation into 5-7-5-7-7, but I’ve come to appreciate the need to have some kind of formal constraint, and that is a convenient one. I must admit to being swayed by Royall Tyler’s Genji translation, where the poems are both lovely translations as well as strictly following syllable counts.
Akiko tends to use jiamari1 very liberally, so we’ll allow that in our translation as well—ideally, in the same lines as the original.
Another formal constraint that inexorably suggests itself is meter—even rhyme. The trouble when introducing rhyme into verses as short as tanka is that they almost inevitably sound glib, or playful, as though the translator is overly pleased with their own wit. So we’ll pass on rhymes for now, and stick to a syllabic constraint.
Go ask the poems, then—
Who, among the field blooms
would refuse the scarlet?
Oh yes, she has her charms, indeed
The child with her spring-sin.
As a certain professor was famously quoted, “minimally acceptable.” We’ve managed to match syllable count, anyway. We’re not thrilled with “blooms,” though, and “spring-sin” is an odd turn of phrase. And could we manage to translate the formal constraint into something more English? The aforementioned rhyme, say? Are we out of our minds for trying? Most probably, yes.
Asking of the poems this: In blossom-fields wild
Who could begin to leave behind the scarlet flower-child?
Her youthful charms and winsome ways, her heart a-quickening
But carried in her darling breast, the weight of sin in spring
Well, maybe somebody can. A real poet, for example. Clearly not me. This is wordy, redundant, overblown… yes, even trite. But as a proof of concept, it’s not entirely without merit—just mostly. We might try choosing a different meter and rhyme scheme. What do you, the viewers at home, think?
1 Jiamari: “too many characters,” the technique of using a line that is deliberately longer than the form traditionally allows, typically for emphasis.
September 17th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
Minor nitpick, but “whom” is out of place in the first version, as it’s not an object. I see it’s gone in the second version anyway. That said, I almost always favor minimalist translations over expanded, flowery versions, even if the former results in some unusual English. The translator always winds up writing a new poem, but sometimes the poem is newer than it should be—Ezra Pound’s lovely translations are hardly translations at all, just original poems loosely inspired by Asian source material.
In terms of really trying to get or give a sense of the original, then, I prefer as little tampering and embellishment as possible, given the almost impossible nature of the task. If that results in some odd English, so what? It’s like an accent: everyone fights so hard to get rid of it, without realizing that being too ordinary is not much of a virtue.
Translating poetry is difficult enough from a Romance language into English, but translating from Asian languages, even modern-ish Japanese, is such a pain. My Tang poetry class gave me such respect for translators of poetry.
September 17th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
Noted and changed. I am a fool.
I agree with you in principle, but in practice it is often ridiculously hard to bring the same density of sense that Japanese tanka have while maintaining the syllable count. Nobody seriously does rhyming translations anyway, but I feel like it’s worth an exploration—even though mine is obviously terrible.
Now, a few translators/translation do manage to bring over the essence of the original, but it is very hard. I definitely feel like it’s alright to take some liberties and go for analogous associations rather than trying to come up with identical ones, if that makes any sense. I agree that this stretches the notion of “translation,” but that kind of cognitive leap is perhaps unavoidable with translation of poetry.
Naturally, since translation is one of those topics on which equally-informed and -educated people can disagree vehemently about, there will never be a final solution. But that’s kind of why I like it (translation). You can always use another translation. Ultimately, if I had to choose one of these to use in a publication, I would of course go with my more literal one. But I still think the second one has value, if only as a place to start discussion.
Finally, having an accent, as you say, is fine, but blatant ungrammaticality is not, IMHO—and I have seen examples of this. Unless of course the original poem is also ungrammatical, in which case, sure.
September 17th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Actually, I really like reading multiple versions of a poem, as well as taking a hack at looking at the original. It’s kind of like looking at a scuplture in a mirror; it’s not as good as looking at the real thing, but multiple angles are better.
And I have a soft spot for some of those older rhyme-ish translations like “Summer grass: Of stalwart warriors’ splendid dreams, the aftermath.” (Probably changed a bit by my memory.) The first two lines of the second translation work very well in that way. The last two have potential, I think, but feel a bit too awkward. Maybe it’s just my aversion to the word “darling.”
Don’t mind me.
Oh, and I think I wasn’t totally clear—I meant that the translator ALWAYS winds up writing a new poem, regardless of conscientiousness and linguistic ingeniousness, which is (like you said) unavoidable.
September 17th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
“Darling” is highly negotiable there. I’m not thrilled with it myself.
Yeah, that’s the trouble with poetry. I just can’t bring myself to allow it to be dismissed as impossible or untranslatable even though the reality is that it often is just that, and the best you can hope for is an adaptation. This is a huge topic that has a bunch of angles, and I highly recommend checking out Hofstadter’s Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language for a wonderfully thorough and optimistic treatment of translation and poetry.