[Julie Steiner]

2015 ERATOSPHERE TRANSLATION BAKE-OFF
MAIN EVENT ENTRY K

Title:

"Belle de Nuit" (left untranslated by the competitor; literally, it means "Beautiful woman of night").

Lyricist and Composer:

French lyrics by Pascal Aligon (contemporary), and music by the entry's translator (contemporary).

Translator's Note:

Pascal Aligon is a friend of mine, and asked me if I would be interested in setting his poem to music, which I did. It was written in the aftermath of the suicide of a dear friend of his called Betty, and her name is used as an acrostic in the repeated chorus. I was not able to reproduce this feature, just as I was not able to keep the rhyme scheme, except for the chorus and the last stanza.

I’ve tried to keep the translation as close as possible to the original, but there are a couple of lines where I couldn’t do so, and those lines are more of a loose re-interpretation than a strict translation of the original.

Finally, the sung translation matches the original music syllable for syllable, except in two places where a single note had to become two shorter notes, although it doesn’t affect the melody.

Sung Versions:

1.) French lyrics, performed by an unidentified but very lovely singer--perhaps she'll be identified when the Bake-off is over.
2.) The contestant's English translation, performed a cappella by the Top Secret Yodeler.


The Competitor's Translation:

You know, they no longer talk of you,
And all too soon, your friends forget.
But deep inside, I love you still,
In a heart calcified to stone,
Wishing so much that you were here

Fair as the day,
Imprisoned in the night,
Love seems to stay,
Your smiling face is bright -
Can this be reality?

It’s been already nearly six months
Since you went away, who knows where?
The days that pass seem very long ...
Life will never be quite the same,
Knowing you won’t be returning.

Fair as the day,
Imprisoned in the night,
Love seems to stay,
Your smiling face is bright -
Can this be reality?

Now, at last, I no longer blame you,
Leaving us all without a word,
Not having known, not having found
Some better way to shape your life.

No answers come to my questions,
Though I have tried to understand,
Reached the end of all conjectures,
And wasted many, many tears.
But tell me why? Just tell me, why?

Fair as the day,
Imprisoned in the night,
Love seems to stay,
Your smiling face is bright -
Can this be reality?

And like a wild beast at bay,
You gave a final hopeless cry
In this dark place, this alleyway,
Where you chose to come – and to die.

But you will always live in me.


The Original French Lyrics:

Tu sait on ne parle plus de toi
Les gens oublient un peu trop vite
Je t'aime toujours au fond de moi
Dans mon coeur dur comme le granit
J'aimerais tant que tu sois là

Belle comme le jour
Enfouie dans la nuit
Tu es amour
Ton visage me sourit
Y a-t-il là, réalité ?

Ça fait déjà presque six mois
Que tu es partie pour là-bas
Le temps qui passe me parait long
Ça a changé mon horizon
Savoir que tu ne reviendras

Belle comme le jour
Enfouie dans la nuit
Tu es amour
Ton visage me sourit
Y a-t-il là, réalité?

Aujourd'hui je ne t'en veux plus
D'être partie sans prévenir
D'avoir pas su d'avoir pas pu
Gérer au mieux ton avenir

Pas de réponses a mes questions
J'ai réfléchi pendant des heures
Utilisé toutes mes notions
Essuyé tant et tant de pleurs
Mais pourquoi donc,mais pourquoi donc?

Belle comme le jour
Enfouie dans la nuit
Tu es amour
Ton visage me sourit
Y a-t-il là, réalité?

Et comme une bête aux abois
Tu as préféré en finir
Dans cette ruelle, dans cet endroit
Où tu es venue pour mourir

Tu resteras toujours en moi


The Competitor's Literal English Prose Crib

You know, they no longer talk of you;
People forget a little too soon.
I love you still, deep within me,
In my heart as hard as granite.
I wish so much that you were here

Beautiful as the day,
Buried in the night,
You are love,
Your face smiles on me -
Is this reality?

It’s been already nearly six months
Since you went away down there;
The time that passes seems long to me ...
It has changed my horizon [perspective?]
To know that you won’t return.

Beautiful as the day,
Buried in the night,
You are love,
Your face smiles on me -
Is this reality?

Today, I no longer blame you
For having left without warning,
For not having known, not having been able
To manage better your future.

No answers to my questions;
I’ve thought about it for hours,
Used up all my notions,
Wiped away many, many tears,
But why then, but why then?

Beautiful as the day,
Buried in the night,
You are love,
Your face smiles on me -
Is this reality?

And like an animal at bay,
You preferred to to end it
In this alleyway, in this place
Where you came to die.

But you will always be there within me.


Commentary by Top Secret Yodeler:

Because I kept muffing the second key change without an instrumental point of reference, I ended up listening to the original performance in my headphones, while singing from the sheet music provided by the contestant. I can thus confirm that the note divisions of the translation are, indeed, almost 100% identical to that of the original.

A little less determination to cleave to the original timing would have given the translator more naturalness in the phrasing. For example, "Now at last, I no longer blame you, / Leaving us all without a word, / Not having known [...]" might easily have become "Now at last, I no longer blame you / For leaving us all without a word, / For not having known [...]". Pick-up notes placed at the ends of the previous measures could accommodate the two "For"s without bumping "leaving" and "not" from the emphatic downbeat.

I've gotta say, the singer of the original has an enviably gorgeous voice.

Commentary by Top Secret Distinguished Guest:

Wow, this competitor actually wrote the music for the French original, in addition to translating it. Clearly the intention was to make the rest of the competitors look like underachievers. Seriously, though, that's an impressive feat.

At times I, like the Yodeler, suspect that the natural phrasing of the crib, included with minor alterations to the musical timing, would have been more emotionally resonant than abrupt-sounding phrases shoehorned into the existing note values. I have no doubt that the composer has the talent to make these melodic adjustments, but the language of the competition guidelines ("must be singable to the original tune") may have given the impression that doing so would be penalized too severely to make it worth the risk. That's unfortunate.

Since the original refrain contains an acrostic that spells out the addressee's name, I wonder if the title is also an acrostic of the addressee's initials, which might be one explanation for leaving it untranslated.

Even in the original language, the acrostic in the refrain--a significant feature of the poem, but a purely visual element--remains invisible in performance. However, in the French version of the song, I feel that the rhyme compensates for the loss of that dimension of the poem. Since the English version loses so much of the rhyme, most of the verses have only the melody itself to provide structure for these sentiments and clarify these phrases' interrelationships. In contrast, the line ends of the refrain do chime with each other, giving more of a sense that these particular words are exactly the right ones for the occasion.

The refrain's unrhymed final line, "Can this be reality?", would have more impact if it were expressed more simply and directly: "Is this really happening?"

Interestingly, the final verse does use rhymes, but I did not even notice the "bay" and "alleyway" rhymes in performance -- only on the page. This suggests to me that, in the earlier verses, focusing energy only on selected rhymes that really count, plus the freedom to rearrange the timing a bit, might make the inclusion of rhyme a less daunting proposition.

Going back to Verse 1, "In a heart calcified to stone", I would prefer the original granite imagery, which is more clearly metaphorical. The scientific term "calcified" in conjunction with "heart" had me thinking of medical calamities involving plaque accumulation and hardened blood vessels, such as coronary artery disease, rather than emotional states.

In Verse 2, "Since you went away / who knows where?" doesn't seem quite right, either, because it's not yet clear that this question is purely metaphysical. For all the reader knows at this point in the song, the person whom the narrator is addressing has simply disappeared, not died.

In the final verse, although the phrase perfectly parallels the French, "In this dark place, this alleyway, / Where you chose to come" places "come" in such an oddly emphatic position for so long that it may place unwanted images in the listener's mind until "and to die" finishes the thought.

I share the Yodeler's opinion that the original performance sounds gorgeous, and will add that the instrumentation is very lovely, too.

[Skip Dewahl]

S1L1 "People forget a little too soon." is off meter.

S1L4 "In a heart calcified to stone," is off meter.

S2L2 "Imprisoned in the night," is off meter, and the meaning is "Vanished in the night".

"Ça a changé mon horizon", where Ça merges with the auxilliary "a", as
Ç'a, one syllable.

S6L1 "No answers come to my questions," is off meter.

Having pointed out a few quips, my biggest objection is, save for two lines in the final stanza, the complete avoidance of rhyme, but chin up, because this is so heartfelt that we'll give you a pass.

[Catherine Chandler]

The translator's voice is so nice! It must have been quite an emotional experience to put the mourning person's words to music.

There's an error in L1 in the French version. It should read "Tu sais" instead of "Tu sait".

I don't agree with the translation of L2 from "les gens" to "your friends". It makes a general statement into something it (perhaps) isn't.

The refrain is quite problematic: L2 is gravely mistranslated (three times), L3 is a weak, tame and much-too-bland way of saying "You are love", L4 adds brightness where there is none in the original, and, as pointed out by the TSDG, L5 could have more punch.

Also, it's really too bad the translator could not retain the rhyme scheme and acrostic (which is a vital part of the text, written with the dearly departed in mind and heart).

The saving grace of this translation is the melody. I don't feel the depth of emotion of the original French in the translated text.

Oh, I forgot to mention, "belle de nuit" (besides being the name of a flowering plant) is French slang for prostitute. I think the title is, therefore, unfortunate, unless it was intentional on the part of the poet, which I doubt. The translator left it in French. Yikes!

[Susan McLean]

The music is lovely, so the translator has made a major contribution by writing the music. Yet the translation itself feels disappointing to me without some rhymes to structure the verses, outside of the refrain. I think something like the acrostic in the refrain is a minor loss (especially since one does not hear an acrostic when it is sung). The rhymes, however, add a sense of control that acts as a counterpoise to the emotion of the piece. Without that control, the piece feels more artless--heartfelt, yes, but lacking in art.

Susan

[Martin Rocek]

I'm very impressed by both performances--the translator's and the Yodeler's, but agree that the translation, particularly the refrain, has some major weaknesses.

Listening to these entries has been great!

[Kyle Norwood]

I agree with those who would have liked to see more of the rhymes in this otherwise effective translation.

[Mary McLean]

I agree that the mix of rhymed and unrhymed stanzas is uncomfortable, but I'd be tempted to get rid of the rhyme where it is rather than add more. "Your smiling face is bright" makes me cringe a bit. In this case I think the rhyme damages the impact of the lovely music and genuine emotion.

[Ann Drysdale]

Here's where my lack of musical understanding makes me unfit to comment on this. It came across to me as a long recitative that never quite got to the aria. I feel guilty about this and apologise to all concerned. I can feel the pain and anger at what Betty did and feel that the translation is more than adequate, but there's something I'm not "getting" between there and the music.

[Marion Shore]

I found the song hauntingly beautiful, and the performance is lovely. However, I don't think the translation does it justice. I am mystified by the translator's decision to abandon rhyme. It seems to me it's better to take some liberties – as he/she has done with the refrain and the last verse, which though flawed are far more successful than the rest – and keep the rhyme. As it is, the translation reads like a prose crib and weighs the delicate, ethereal melody down like a lead balloon.

[Brian Allgar]

Julie, thanks once again for all the hard work you’ve put into this Bake-off, and for your splendid performances. It’s good to know that at least I don’t have to reply to two different people!

As I’ve said on the results thread,the French version was sung by my lovely wife, Françoise Allgar, but I obviously couldn’t name her without blowing my own anonymity.

You were right in supposing that “… the composer has the talent to make these melodic adjustments, but the language of the competition guidelines ("must be singable to the original tune") may have given the impression that doing so would be penalized too severely to make it worth the risk.” I allowed myself two little extra notes, but didn’t dare stray further from the original. Had I done so, I could certainly have smoothed out some of the phrases. Indeed, the crib already contains the missing words “for” in verse 3:

Today, I no longer blame you
For having left without warning,
For not having known …

I made several attempts to keep at least some of the rhymes, but they all ended up in the wastepaper bin, and I was running out of time – or so I thought. Even though the translation was unfinished, I thought that half a lyric was better than none, so I packaged up everything I had so far (including two versions of the sheet music) and sent in my submission. Shortly after doing so, I saw that the deadline had been extended by an entire month … Ah, well. Keeping as close as possible to the meaning, making the words and syllables exactly fit a somewhat irregular melody, and making it rhyme, proved one constraint too many in what I believed to be a limited time.

You might like to know that Françoise thinks that you, too, have a lovely voice, and she was very impressed by your a cappella performance.

*************************************************

Skip, thanks for the comments. When you say that some lines are “off meter”, I think you are confusing the metrical requirements of a poem on the printed page with the different needs of setting words to an existing tune, in this case a rather fragmented one. Of course, I am perfectly capable of writing regular iambic tetrameter, but to have done so would have resulted in stressed syllables falling on unaccented notes, and vice versa. Believe me, juggling with the words to avoid this problem took quite a while, especially as there are lots of pauses between phrases, and they too had to be respected.

And actually, “enfouie” doesn’t mean “vanished” but “buried”, as in the crib.

*************************************************

Catherine, thank you for your comments. I am rather surprised by your remarks on the title, which I find misplaced, and – dare I say it? - just a touch offensive. Yes, in certain contexts, “Belle de Nuit” can be a euphemism for “prostitute”, but that is hardly its primary meaning, and it is not one that occurred to the French author, my French wife, or any of our French friends and relations who have heard the song. Perhaps you would have preferred me to translate the title as Mirabilis jalapa?

It may interest you to know that there is a guest-house called “Belle de Nuit” in the village of Oppède-le-Vieux. I very much doubt whether any of the people who stay there are expecting to find themselves in a brothel.

*************************************************

Susan, Martin, Kyle, Mary, Ann, Marion: thank you for your comments, and for liking the the song itself. I agree with you all about the shortcomings of the translation.

*************************************************

Finally, the vexed question of the rhymed refrain. I agree that it has a couple of very unsatisfactory – OK, Mary, “cringe-making” – lines, although I don’t mind the loss of the acrostic; as Julie said, it is not noticeable in the sung version, even in French.

But here is a challenge for anyone who disagrees. Translate the refrain:

Belle comme le jour
Enfouie dans la nuit
Tu es amour
Ton visage me sourit
Y a-t-il là, réalité?

in such a way as 1) to keep it as close as possible to the meaning of the original; 2) to preserve the abab rhymes; 3) to keep the exact syllable count 4/6/4/6/7; 4) to ensure that stressed syllables fall on accented notes and vice versa; and 5) to make the initial letters an acrostic on BETTY. If anyone can do this convincingly, I shall have a bottle of champagne sent to them.