The divorce between the French and poetry, their orphan, distresses me. Do you know many people here who read them, poems? I mean, without being forced to, professionally or because, being a poet oneself, one is obliged to see what others are doing — out of politeness above all (I read you, you read me, you scratch my back…), and also in case there might be some new contortion to espouse, some step into the clouds to fall into line behind… The poets of this country, by dint of riding the subjective or the formal, long ago left the planet of their potential readers — only the astrophysicists’ units of distance can henceforth account for the spaces that separate the emitter from the intended receiver. Now, a poet without readers is like… nothing; here, I won’t even go looking for a comparison, so sad is it. And an author who is content to sell five hundred chapbooks, when there are how many millions of French-speakers already? — that is unacceptable.
Hold on, you will tell me, why so much vehemence? It smells of the artificial, of excitement on demand… Mistake: whoever opens himself to poetry cannot take things calmly. That is the only excuse for my abrupt language; it is authentic. Let us continue.
So I, who was not born French, and therefore still capable of imagining that poetry can be a little nearer the heart, I tell myself that to translate into French the poems of others could be a way of showing that all is not lost; dear reader, do not leave, not yet, do not close the book, let us try together, of the past let us make a clean slate… and I serve you up a spoonful of poetry from back home, fragrant as a shoulder of lamb with thyme, you will ask for more, that’s for sure.
But it is difficult, this exercise; generally the enthusiasts stammer and choke on their pleasure — the surest way to fail to share it. To transpose into French a poem born elsewhere is a perilous art; love and fervor, useful ingredients, are far from sufficing. If translators are traditionally roughly handled, accused of a thousand betrayals, it is particularly serious in poetry. But let us see the matter more closely.
Choosing the magic of the word, not the apparent meaning…
Often I find in the translators here a singular way of approaching poetic translation — in truth, one might believe that it is failure they are aiming at. At least a certain “school” of translators: the one that seems to believe that poetry stems from the spirit of geometry rather than from the spirit of finesse — and that appears to hold sway in our dead-end of translation.
Let us make this explicit: in a poem there is, to be sure, generally an informative content, a “meaning,” more or less apparent, more or less essential. There is also the form, which is no less important than this content. There is the rhythm, the rhyme (sometimes…), the assonance, the alliteration, the music. There is, for the words, for each of them, a context, hidden meanings — which differ from one language to another — to sum up the whole (without clarifying anything), each language has its spirit, and the spirit of the language governs its poetry, like every other form of verbal expression. More than any other form, in truth. In a true poet — and we have of course set the others aside — each word is a choice; it is not always by the apparent meaning that this choice is governed. A poem that does not take the reader under its charm is merely prose, possibly rhymed prose, full stop. A translation that does not restore this charm is indeed a betrayal.
This fundamental given makes the difficulty of the translation, of the transposition of a poem into another language. The ambition must be to translate everything, to lose nothing along the way. Otherwise, how to ask the reader to feel the emotion, the slightest emotion, on reading it? Now, the “French” school evoked just now, which makes my hair stand on end, is that of apparent humility. To simplify its approach: it is a matter of making the client understand, by a note, an introduction, or some other preliminary text, that the original is very beautiful, sublime, and that only those who can approach it directly are capable of savoring its felicities. As for him, the client, since he is not capable of reading the original, he must believe in this beauty on trust. To compensate him a little, to justify the cost of the volume of translations he has just paid for, he will be furnished with information about the apparent content of the poems: a sort of word-for-word that, in civilizations more respectful of poetry, is the point of departure of the work of transposition, the very first draft of the translator. To deliver “that” as a finished product is an imposture. And, to return to our point of departure, it is not with “that” that the French could rediscover the taste for poetry.
The justification of this “school” lies, as I was saying, in an apparent humility. What am I, little translator, before the Master whom I undertake to render a little more accessible? He, recognized as a great poet, and universal; I, unrecognized, not daring to call myself a poet, and, in any case, displaying no ambition of any scope. When the drudge is not sheltering under cover of the University, thereby giving his work the plumage of the serious and the honorable — as if it sufficed to be a doctor of the Sorbonne to make poems worth anything…
Come now, the cards must be laid on the table: whoever boasts of translating the poets must also boast of being a poet himself. And he must have, without detours, the ambition of recreating in French the emotion that arises in the reader in the original language. A task far more complex than the informative translation evoked just now!
It is also true that this work of translation is altogether different from original creation: the hand and the imagination of the translator are firmly guided by the author; the creation belongs entirely to the latter. The former has another labor, a patient labor of marquetry, which perhaps requires as much inspiration as the first bringing-to-birth, but in a different register. Julian Tuwim, an excellent Polish poet, was himself an attentive translator. He wrote: A translated poem must show the same time as the original. That is why the work of the translator resembles that of the clockmaker… The same time. This sentence seems to me to make the task explicit precisely, and we are far from the “translations” evoked just now.
All this deserves — and requires — an illustration by example. Among the innumerable possible ones, I choose a poem by J. Tuwim (since he has just been evoked): L’orage (ou l’amour) (The Storm (or Love)).
Here, first of all, and for the clarity of what follows, is the original poem and its transposition into French, fruit of the procedure that is going to be described:
Burza (albo miłość).
Zamknij pamięć, bo idzie burza, Wiatr firanki nadyma. Idzie burza, niebo się zachmurza I patrzy moimi oczyma.
Zamknij oczy, żeby noc opadła Na burzliwe, na huczące dalekim gongiem. Wieją firanki jak widziadła. Zamknij okno. Rozpacz nadciąga.
Między oknem i pamięcią — przeciągiem Ciemne myśli, jasne oczy — a przez ulicę Dumy szumne i żałobne chorągwie. Zamknij życie. Otwórz śmierć. Już błyskawice .
Storm (or love) [Burko’s French version, rendered into English below]
Close memory, the storm comes; Beneath the wind, the curtains waver. The storm comes, the sky goes out And overflows from my pupils.
Close your eyes, that the night may fall On the stormy, on the rumbling of distant gongs. The curtains stretch out, phantoms. Close the window. Despair comes.
From the window to memory, dark thoughts And clear gazes come and go. The hour strikes. The rustling dreams fall at half-mast. Close life. Open death. Already it thunders .
In this poem, built on the analogy — classic in appearance — between the state of nature and the state of soul of the poet, the poetic construction rests on three key lines: the first of the first stanza, the first of the second, and the final line: Zamknij pamięć, bo idzie burza… Zamknij okno, żeby noc opadła… Zamknij życie. Otwórz śmierć. Już błyskawice.
It is consequently essential that these three lines, in their form as in their content, be rendered exactly, on pain of losing the skeleton of the poem. Once this guiding idea has been brought to light, we must begin the work by drawing up a word-for-word, as precise as possible:
8 f Close memory, for the storm comes 6 f The wind swells the curtains. 9 f The storm approaches, the sky darkens (clouds over) 9 f And looks with (through) my eyes.
9 f Close your eyes, so that the night may fall 12 f On the stormy, on what rumbles in a distant gong. 8 f The curtains stretch out like apparitions. 8 f Close the window. Despair approaches.
10 f Between the window and memory, (as) in a draft of air 12 f Dark thoughts, clear eyes — and through the street 10 f Sonorous (loud) elegies and flags of mourning. 11 f Close life. Open death. Already, lightning bolts.
The stanzas carry alternating rhymes according to the scheme a b a b; the rhymes are classic, they are at least sufficient, with the exception of two assonances (gongiem/nadciąga, in the second stanza, and przeciągiem/chorągwie in the third) — which work well in Polish, where the tonic accent is stronger than in French and where it suffices for the supporting consonant after the accented vowel to be the same for the illusion of rhyme to hold. The third line of the first stanza contains an internal rhyme (burza/zachmurza) that has a precise role. As for the rhythm, I have placed before each line the number of syllables it contains, and the nature of the rhyme (masculine — feminine).
A glance at this last indication shows that the poem is not locked in a rigid straitjacket, that it pulses to the rhythm of emotion. Thus, the second line of the second stanza lengthens like the rumbling of a distant thunderclap, which seems unwilling ever to stop. It echoes the second line of the first stanza which, though shorter, by its internal rhyme seems to imitate the rebound of a similar rumbling. The third stanza, more lyrical, frees itself completely and takes on amplitude, contrasting with the shorter rhythm and the apparent neutrality of the “informative” lines at the beginning of the poem.
As for the apparent meaning, one must also take care with it, for its limpidity can hide things. The first stanza, so “meteorological” in appearance, catches us off guard from the very first line: where one expects a simple “close the window, for the storm approaches,” one has “close memory…” — this storm is perhaps not outside; it is perhaps solely a matter of a great fit of melancholy coming on, inescapable as a cumulonimbus… An impression confirmed by the last line, where the darkened sky is inside, overflowing from the poet’s eyes. This idea unfolds across the second stanza: is it in echo of the outer world, is it solely in the soul of the poet, that the storm — or rather despair — approaches? The swing outside/inside recurs in each of the three stanzas — the window and memory, the thoughts and the gazes… And it suffices to close one’s eyes for the night to fall.
Armed with these considerations and analyses, let us begin the work of reconstruction. And first, the first stanza:
The first line, limpid in appearance, short, informative, must be translated as simply as possible; it seems to me that Ferme la mémoire, l’orage vient (“Close memory, the storm comes”) is worth more than the word-for-word translation: I elide “for” to gain in force and concision. The line has ten syllables and the rhyme is masculine, but this seems admissible — a little more abrupt perhaps; one will have to see the overall effect when the rest of the stanza is there. The second line poses the first problem: Tuwim says simply the wind swells the curtains. At once I am tempted to follow its neutral simplicity and find a certain weakness in this neutrality. In doubt, one suspends the work to jump to the lines that follow: the third, with its internal rhyme, imposes itself miraculously: l’orage vient, le ciel s’éteint (“the storm comes, the sky goes out”) at once translates the content well and respects the form — even more concise than in Tuwim; and the inner rumbling is there. Moreover, here is a line that rhymes with the first, as in the original. “s’éteint” (“goes out”) instead of “s’assombrit” (“darkens”) is good. …Et regarde par mes yeux (“…and looks through my eyes”) — there, one must work it over. In Polish, the soberness of the line makes its force, and heightens the inner tension. In French, it is flat, does not sufficiently translate the movement from inside toward outside. “Déborder” (“to overflow”) seems to me better. From then on, “yeux” (“eyes”) becomes a questionable frame for this overflowing; “prunelles” (“pupils”) creates a better syllabic balance. One then obtains a coherent image: the storm-sky overflows from the pupils of the poet… That is good; the only trouble is that it is not by Tuwim. First betrayal.
It is time to come back to the second line, left in abeyance. “prunelles” has numerous rhymes which I spare you, for that would be neither here nor there. “Chancellent” (“waver”) imposes itself; to say of curtains that they waver is bold, but it is an acceptable image1. Once again, it is not Tuwim, and one will have to pull oneself together before the end. A glance at the whole achieved so far: if the content has been somewhat deformed, the form seems acceptable; the irregularity creates a panting similar to that of the Polish poem, the rhymes are of comparable quality, and one feels no artifice of translation. We will come back to it.
The second stanza yields more easily. It is impossible to explain how — the French words fall into place of their own accord, follow docilely the Polish canvas. The second line faithfully reproduces the muffled rumbling of the thunder in the distance, the assonances are willing to spring up at the strategic spots… Even the Polish approximation of the rhyme “gongiem/nadciąga” finds a sort of equivalent in the pair “tombe/fantômes” (“fall/phantoms”). The only small flaw is in the third line: …les rideaux s’étirent, fantômes… (“…the curtains stretch out, phantoms…”) a little pretentious, it seems to me — but I do not see how to improve it. On the other hand, le désespoir vient (“despair comes”), rather than “arrive” (“arrives”), taking up again the verb of the first line, of the storm that comes. A small difference from the Polish, where there is a verb “arrives” reserved for the storm, which makes an impression of the inescapable, without equivalent in French. The repetition of the same verb compensates for this untranslatability by the iteration that underscores the parallel “storm”/“despair.”
The third stanza… It is the decisive moment; where the poem will founder on the reefs or else manage to reach harbor. Unfortunately, it is very difficult! That draft of air which serves as the support for the poetic image aligning the gazes and the thoughts does not work at all in French. Przeciąg in Polish is concise, sober, and above all does not have the French context of instability (“that boy is a real draft of air”…). Something altogether different is needed. The general idea to safeguard is that of an exchange outside/inside, what one sees/what one thinks; with also an idea of mourning, of procession… And all this to arrive at the last line, which closes the stanza, the poem, the eyes, life… and which must not be missed. So let us first go straight to it.
Ferme la vie. Ouvre la mort. Déjà, des éclairs… (“Close life. Open death. Already, lightning bolts…”) It is almost as good in French as in Polish, just as choppy, just as dramatic. My reluctance bears on the ending: “déjà des éclairs” (“already lightning bolts”) is soft; besides, speaking of the thunderbolt, one says in French “il tonne” (“it thunders”) and not “il luit” (“it gleams”); the thunder takes precedence over the lightning. Let us then put déjà il tonne (“already it thunders”) — yes, that is better — and let us go back up toward the beginning of the stanza. To find a rhyme for what we have just decided, “L’heure sonne” (“The hour strikes”) seems to impose itself at the end of the second line. It is not in the Polish text, but the idea of the inescapable, the echo of Apollinaire… I am a little ashamed, for it is yielding to the temptation of facility. Let us leave it for now and see the rest. To replace the unfortunate draft of air with “aller et venir” (“to come and go”) would be acceptable; which would give De la fenêtre à la mémoire, les pensées sombres et les yeux clairs vont et viennent… (“From the window to memory, dark thoughts and clear eyes come and go…”). But I would put “regards” (“gazes”) instead of “yeux” (“eyes”), for the parallel is better established between “gaze” and “thought.” Then viennent et vont (“come and go”) instead of the reverse, it is simpler. L’heure sonne (“The hour strikes”), held in reserve just now, then completes the line well — and will end up staying there… We betray the original more and more, dear translator! There remains the third line to render the idea of procession, of mourning, of flags at half-mast… A mysterious click makes the whole spring up, in a single flow: les rêves bruissants en berne tombent… (“the rustling dreams fall at half-mast…”) which seems to me sumptuous. What a cadence! Quite in the spirit of the Polish assonances — less discreet, it is true. It remains for me to persuade myself that the abandonment of the “elegiac songs” is rather a boon for the French version — which is obtained without difficulty, for their evocation is not compatible with the soberness that emanates from the Polish text. And I am also forced to abandon the indication in the street, which is far more damaging, for I thereby suppress one term of the swing outside/inside; this “in the street” precedes, in fact, the return toward the inside: Ferme la vie. Ouvre la mort… (“Close life. Open death…”) but I consent to it without reluctance, for this recurrence seems to me of little importance.
It remains to try to replace that unfortunate hour that strikes without one’s knowing why, in the second line. The fourth line is practically imposed; the rhyme must therefore echo tonne (“thunders”). Everything is tried, from “trombone” to “bonbonne” (“demijohn”), and, weary of the struggle, I give up.
On rereading the whole, a few days later, I am not perfectly satisfied. The two weaknesses, at the second and the tenth lines, annoy me. But nothing better comes… and if one decides that these two betrayals are venial (I very much want it to be so), the whole seems fairly close to the atmosphere of the Polish poem. Above all, above all, this new poem does not smell of translation — it is good or it is mediocre, but while reflecting the original it does not make it perform those contortions that set one’s teeth on edge. It will stay like that.
To finish entirely with this poem, I cannot resist the pleasure of citing for you another translation, fabricated long ago — the year of my birth — by an honorable translator. Here it is:
Here is the storm. Soothe your memory, The evening wind has swelled the curtains, Here is the storm and the sky is all black Seen through our eyes, the black sky is so beautiful!
Close your eyes, so that the night may fall. On this black sky a distant gong resounds. The sheet shudders like a corpse in its tomb. Close the windowpane and weep. All is in vain!
A draft of air between the soul and the wall, Dark thoughts, clear eye, and in the street, The smoking noise2 on flags of homespun. Close life. It is death. The lightning was.
This citation in extenso just to show that the art of betraying is infinite, and that each translator pulls the blanket toward himself, often unconsciously. The essential thing is not to leave the author too much out in the cold…
What has become of my vehemence of the beginning? It has subsided over the course of this patient/impatient labor of transposition. Which does not prevent it from being still just as difficult for me to understand the divorce of the French reader from HIS poetry… But this is henceforth your affair. It is not only translators who betray poetry — there are also the readers…
Notes
Among the avatars attempted, there was also… sous le vent, les rideaux fasseyent… (“beneath the wind, the curtains luff…”) which abusively introduced the sea into Tuwim’s poem; and above all, at the fourth line one was then irresistibly tempted by… et déborde de mes oreilles… (“and overflows from my ears…”) no comment!↩︎
This strange “smoking” probably comes from a misreading that confused dumy (elegies) and dymy (smokes)…↩︎