Bob,

Thanks for the description of how the translations were done. I had wondered. Having read all that you sent me a good while ago, I'm now questioning whether I have them all. Are there really 700?

Next I am wondering whether anyone has written the story of your translations for any of the literary journals -- such as Philosophy and Literature. If not, it should be done. Robert Fulford might be a good one to do it, unless you know someone more suitable.

See a sample of his work at this address.

May I call it to his attention?

G.

Robert, I certainly hope you get some interest in the Kipling project. A couple of years ago, the Wall Street Journal ran an article calling for a new look at Kipling, so there's definitely a constituency outside the usual academic circles. I wish I could remember more details; perhaps a check through the Dow Jones archive would be worthwhile. Or your friend Tom Pinney may know of it. Hell, maybe he wrote it.

I get the impression that Christopher, who seems so passionate about honoring the sense of Borges, has little interest in rhyme or rhythm. While it is true that formal translation may entail some compromises on sense, it is also true that we lose something just as essential as sense, when we spurn the use of form while translating a language so close to our own.

For a thorough discusion of this topic, I commend the superb essay on translation by the late John Frederick Nims. It can be found at the start of his collected translations, "Sappho to Valery."

Alan Sullivan

Golias, don't know where you got that 700 number.
There are roughly about 425 Borges poems. You
have a copy of our version of the collected poems,
don't you?
I don't know who Fulford is, but yes, by all means,
if you think he would be interested, go ahead. I
have been disappointed that none of the journals
have published anything about this scandal. Or if
one has, I haven't seen it.
Christopher, you have a wonderful knack for posting
good poems in wretched versions. That Albornoz
milonga is a botch. Alastair Reid's version is
better, but still not very good. Here is the poem
in proper verse:

MILONGA FOR ALBORNOZ

Somebody knows the hour,
Someone has numbered the daY,
Someone for Whom there is never
Any hurry or any delay.

Albornoz goes by whistling
A milonga from his home town;
He cocks an eye at the morning
With his slouch hat slanted down.

A morning in 1890,
Late summer or early fall---
Down there in El Retiro
He could no longer recall

How many girls and cardsharps
Had lost their shirts by then,
How many knifefights he had with the law,
With outsiders and neighborhood men.

He was known for a thief and a hustler,
A no-good all his life,
But in a street on the Southside
He kept a date with a knife.

And not one knife, but three of them
Before the break of day
Came down on him in the darkness,
And he did not run away.

When his chest was pierced by the cold steel
His face looked none the sadder;
Alejo Albornoz went to his death
As if it didn't much matter.

I think he might be pleased to know
He is still remembered in rhyme.
Forgetfulness and memory---
That's all that there is to time.

Wretched, huh? Better go bone up on His Nims, I calculate.

Ciardi believed (and Wilbur still believes) that John Nims' intro to Sappho to Valery is the great essay on the art of poetic translation. John's first rule was that a translation of a great poem should be a great poem in English. Many of his translations--from Catalan, Gallician, Provencal, Latin, Greek, French, German and Spanish (all languages he knew!) meet that impossibly high standard. In every case he chose a form that approximated, as closely as possible in English, the form of the original. I believe that many of the Mezey/Barnes, Wilbur, Gioia, Fitzgerald, Ferry, etc. translations are similarly miraculous. We live in a great age for poetic translation which is conspicuously marred by the acclaim showered on truly wretched translators--i.e. Robert Bly, who makes every great poet he touches sound like bad Bly, or the inept contributors to the Viking Borges. But every age is full of acclaimed wretches and unacknowledged genius, and time redresses that injustice. Viewers of this thread as well as its Borges sonnet predecessor can foretell for themselves the fate of these various versions.

Apropos of Tim's accurate criticism of Bly as
translator, I thought you all might enjoy this
parody. Here's a Machado lyric, followed by my
quick englishing, followed by how I imagine Bly
might do it:

Que quiere el viento de encono
que baja por el barranco
y violenta las ventanas
mientras te visto de abrazos?

Derribarnos. Arrastrarnos.

Derribadas. Arrastradas.
Las dos sangres se alejaron.
Que sigue quieriendo el viento
cada vez mas enconado?

Separnos.

--------------my version

What does it want, the rancorous wind,
that sweeps down the ravine
and shakes the windowpanes
while I robe you in my arms?

Humiliate us. Sweep us away.

Humiliated, swept away,
the two lifebloods drew apart.
What does it go on wanting, this wind
more rancorous every moment?

Separate us.

-----and as rendered by Captain Bligh:

What wants the wild wind, anyway,
As it falls off the cliff
And violates the windows
While I give you a big hug?

To knock us down, drag us out.

Knocked up and drugged out,
Our bodily fluids bid each other adios.
What's the wind getting at with this line of questioning,
daily more tremendous?

To unglue us.

Good old Iron John, or Head, or whatever. This reminds me of the "hippie" Rimbaud that was issued once upon a time, though that was closer to Lord Buckley.

Since we are discussing the relative merits of translations, someone might notice that the Mezey/Barnes "Milonga for Albornoz" is mistranslated in ll.17-18 (see the Di Giovanni/Borges tr.), which colors the rest deleteriously.

[This message has been edited by Christopher Mulrooney (edited February 28, 2001).]

I'd rather discuss the merits of the Bly parody above. You know, Robert, if you hadn't overindulged with the "knocked up," "drugged out," and "bodily fluids," it would actually seem a credible translation in a distinct voice. Not the poet's voice to be sure. An imitation, a la Lowell. I've seen some of Bly's poetry, but not his translations. If this is what he does, I can understand why he would have some constituency. He makes everything American. A true imperialist.

Alan Sullivan

I don't know, Alan---the wind violating the windows
while I give you a big hug, and what's the wind
getting at with this line of questioning---I can't
help laughing out loud.
Christopher, thanks for pointing out that error in the
milonga. Surprising no one caught it before, since the
book has been gone over several times by both American
and Argentine experts. I can no longer ask Dick Barnes
whether he did it intentionally, and for what reason; he
did occasionally do such things, as I did, for the good
of the poem. But here I think he just misunderstood it.
(Although I'd say, even with the mistranslation it's still
a better poem in English than di Giovanni's, or Reid's.
It's a damned good little ballad.)

For Solan's sake, and to welcome Robert to his Mastery board, I'm bringing this back from the archives.