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Unread 11-05-2023, 10:09 PM
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AZ Foreman AZ Foreman is offline
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Default Bialik: "Seer, go, flee"

This Hebrew poem is relentlessly iambic. Its language taut. Biblical. Unmodern. But rough. It's full of phrasing that echoes scripture, as is common for Hebrew poetry of this time. I've drawn attention to some instances that seemed important to understand in the crib which I interspersed with my transcription. The transcription is not Modern Israeli Hebrew, but the Ashkenazic pronunciation that Bialik wrote in, and wrote for.

The main reason I wanted to post this one here is because I'm having just an impossibly hard time choosing between my options on this one, coming up with the best of my possible worlds. I have come up with an alternate possibility for S1-2 and three different possibilities for S3-4.

Here's a recording of me reading the original out loud in Ashkenazic pronunciation.

"Seer, go, flee"
By Haim Bialik

(Amos 7:12)

"Go, flee"? It's not my way to flee. Not such as I do flee.
For my flock taught me to walk slow.
My tongue did not learn fluency. Other tongues learned smooth words. Not me.
My words falls like an axe's blow.

Was my strength spent in vain? The blunder I swung in vain? Not mine the blunder.
Is yours. Bear the iniquity. Yours is the sin, the guilt for good.
My hammer found no anvil under.
My sharp axe bit a rotten tree. fell on rotten wood.

No matter. Such my fate. Today,
My gear bound to my belt and back,
A worker cheated of his pay,
Slow as I came, I shall go back.

I'll go home to my valley, cut Back to my valley and my hut.
A pact with sycamores, and stay. Allied with sycamores I'll stay
But you are canker. You are rot.
The storm will blow you all away.

***

Alternate version

"Go, flee"? My kind flees not. My herd
Taught me slow walking with their tracks.
My tongue learned no smooth talk. My word
Falls sharp and heavy as an ax.

And if I swung in vain, the blunder
Was yours. Your sin. For you failed me.
My hammer had no anvil under.
My ax fell on a rotten tree.

No matter. I accept my fate.
Girt with the gear of my rude art,
A laborer cheated of his rate,
Slow as I came, I will depart

Home to my valley. There shall I
Make pact with sycamores today.
To putrid you I prophesy
The whirlwind. Now be blown away.


Another version of S3-4

No matter. Such my fate, this age.
With gear girt at my loins once more,
A wage-hire cheated of his wage,
I'll go back to my woodland door

At my own slow pace, and there make
My covenant with sycamores.
But you are rotten. You will break.
The storm will shatter you and yours.

Yet ANOTHER version of S3-4

No matter. Let my fate be so.
I'll gird my tools back up instead,
A wage-hire paid no wage, and go
Calm as I came, back to my shed

Deep in the woodland dells, and borrow
My strength from sycamores today.
But you are putrid rot. Tomorrow
The storm will sweep you all away.


***

Transcription with crib

khóyze, leykh, brakh

Seer/prophet, go, run away

The title is a quote from Amos 7:12 ("Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there")

leykh brakh? loy-yívrakh iš komóyni!
halóykh balót limdáni bkóri,
gam dábeyr keyn loy-lómdo lšóyni
ukhkárdoym kóveyd yípoyl dvóri.


"Go flee?" A man of my kind flees not. (Or: Nobody flees the way I do)
My flock (lit. "my cattle") taught me to go slow/calmly.
My tongue did not learn to even speak properly (or: And my tongue hasn't learned to say Yes),
But like a heavy ax my words fall.

The words for "speak" (dábeyr) and "my words" (dvóri) are related and share a root. Ditto the words for "they taught me" (limdáni) and "it learned" (lómdo).

vim kóykhi tam lorík— loy-fíši,
khatáskhem hi, usú heóvoyn
loy-mótso tákhtov sdon patíši
kardúmi bo be'éyts rikóvoyn


And if my strength is spent in vain, it was not my crime/wrongdoing.
It is your sin. Bear ye the (guilt for) iniquity.
My hammer found no anvil under it.
My ax came (down) on rotten wood/tree.


(The "my strength is spent in vain" borrows the wording from Leviticus 26:20)

eyn dóvor! ášlim im-goyróli:
es-kéylay ékšoyr lakhgoyrósi,
uskhír hayóym belí skhar póli
ošúvo li balót kšebósi


No matter! (Or: "There is no word") I will make peace with (accept) my fate.
I will tie my tools to my belt.
A day-hire (day-laborer) without pay for my work,
I will return calmly as I came.


The words for "hire" (skhir) and "pay" (skhar) share a root.

el nóvi óšuv vel-amókov
veékhroys bris im šíkmey yóar
veátem — átem msoys verókov
umókhor yíso kúlkhem sóar


I will go back to my habitation and its valleys
And make a covenant with the sycamores of the forest.
But you (pl.) - you are canker/corruption and rottenness
And tomorrow the storm will carrry you all away.

The word for "habitation" in context has undertones of a humble home. The word for "my habitation" נוי nóvi is identical in pronunciation to נביא "prophet", and so the phrase "I will go back to my habitation" el novi ošuv is identical in sound to a hypothetical אל נביא אשוב "I will turn back (in)to a prophet". The idea of prophethood hovers unexpressed over the line in its sound.
The term for "making a covenant" (literally "cutting a covenant") is the standard Biblical phrase for making covenants with God, other nations etc.
The "sycamores of the wood" subverts the more authentically Biblical phrase atsey yoar "trees of the forest", setting the sycamore apart from the rotten tree in the second stanza.
The "storm carrying away" echoes phrasing from e.g. Isaiah 40:24, 41:16, and more generally carries with it overtones of the storm/whirlwind as the instrument of God's wrath.

Original Text:

חוֹזהֶ לֵךְ בְּרַח
חיים נחמן ביאליק

“לֵךְ בְּרַח?” – לֹא-יִבְרַח אִישׁ כָּמוֹנִי!
הֲלוֹךְ בַּלָּאט לִמְּדַנִי בְקָרִי,
גַּם דַּבֵּר כֵּן לֹא-לָמְדָה לְשׁוֹנִי
וּכְקַרְדֹּם כָּבֵד יִפֹּל דְּבָרִי.

וְאִם-כֹּחִי תַם לָרִיק – לֹא-פִשְׁעִי,
חַטַּאתְכֶם הִיא וּשְׂאוּ הֶעָוֹן!
לֹא-מָצָא תַחְתָּיו סְדָן פַּטִּישִׁי,
קַרְדֻּמִּי בָא בְּעֵץ רִקָּבוֹן.

אֵין דָּבָר! אַשְׁלִים עִם-גּוֹרָלִי:
אֶת-כֵּלַי אֶקְשֹׁר לַחֲגוֹרָתִי,
וּשְׂכִיר הַיּוֹם בְּלִי שְׂכַר פָּעֳלִי
אָשׁוּבָה לִּי בַּלָּאט כְּשֶׁבָּאתִי.

אֶל-נָוִי אָשׁוּב וְאֶל-עֲמָקָיו
וְאֶכְרֹת בְּרִית עִם שִׁקְמֵי יָעַר;
וְאַתֶּם – אַתֶּם מְסוֹס וְרָקָב
וּמָחָר יִשָּׂא כֻלְּכֶם סָעַר.

Last edited by AZ Foreman; 11-09-2023 at 06:25 PM.
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  #2  
Unread 11-06-2023, 09:40 AM
Carl Copeland Carl Copeland is online now
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A powerful poem, AZ, and the first I’ve ever read by Israel’s national poet. Here are my initial thoughts:

"Go, flee"? Not such as I do flee.

I don’t care for “do.” The archaism isn’t a problem for this poem, but it just seems so dispensable. At a minimum, I’d suggest “will.” You could also do something like “I’m not the kind to flee.”

For my flock taught me to walk slow.

I lost the meter here and was going to suggest “My flock has taught me,” but then I realized that you must be stressing “my.” Alexander Givental told me that cases like this are unambiguous in Russian: you simply follow the meter, here stressing “my.” In English, though, we’re encouraged to read naturally, and a natural reading is probably more likely to stress “flock.” I guess I still think it would be better to force the meter with “has taught me.”

BTW, “flock” is the right choice, I think. “Herd,” though appropriate for cattle, has unwanted connotations of the herd instinct. For that reason, among others, I prefer this version of S1 to the alternative.

Yours is the sin, the guilt for good.

I don’t think “for good” works. I first read it as “guilt for [doing] good” and only then considered the idiomatic sense (“forever”). For that reason, among others, I prefer the alternative version of this stanza, though I’d keep “found” in place of “had,” and I suggest taking “iniquity” from the crib for L2: “Was yours. Your own iniquity.”

My gear bound to my belt and back,

I prefer this version of S3, but it seems to me that “My tool belt bound around my back” would sound more natural for L2. Update: Not sure I agree with myself anymore. I was thinking of “(lower) back” as equivalent to “waist.” Does that work? Maybe not.

Allied with sycamores I'll stay.

This version of S4 ends very strongly, so I prefer it, but it is a pity to lose the biblical concept of “covenant” in L2. You might still be able to do something with “pact” instead of “allied.”

Thanks for the notes and recording too. I’m fascinated.

Last edited by Carl Copeland; 11-07-2023 at 12:14 AM.
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  #3  
Unread 11-06-2023, 10:37 AM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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Might you consider expanding the lines to pentameter to give you more room to work with? As it stands, a lot of the lines feel clipped to fit into tetrameter, and there are some unnatural phrases. For example, "no anvil under" isn't really good English, is it? And "Such my fate" isn't rally natural either. And "Not such as I do flee" has the same problem. Here's a sample of S1 that I've rewritten as IP:

"Go flee"? But it is not my way to flee.
My flock has schooled me well, and I walk slow.
Smooth words that others use are not for me.
My heavy words crash down, an ax's blow.
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Unread 11-06-2023, 11:11 AM
Andrew Frisardi Andrew Frisardi is offline
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Good to see you posting here, Alex.

I had the same thought as Roger about using pentameter, to give you more wiggle room. On the other hand, the folksy feel of the tet feels right for this, and I suspect you'll want to keep that.

I’ve been reading your alternative stanzas, and have a few thoughts.

For stanza 2, it seems to me you could get closer to the literal sense that you have in your crib, and still keep the meter and rhyme, e.g.,

And if my strength is vainly spent,
it’s you who sinned, it wasn’t me.
No anvil for my hammer meant
My ax fell on a rotten tree.


I hope you don’t mind me fiddling. I just mean to say I think S2 can be bettered in either version.

For S3, I definitely prefer the second one. “Woodland door” complicates the imagery too much. On the other hand, I think there might be better solutions than the “instead / shed” rhyme pair.

I also wonder about S4, which I’d prefer without the run-on from S3. The self-contained stanzas seem integral to the poem in its prose simplicity.

More thoughts later, maybe, as I read more.

Last edited by Andrew Frisardi; 11-06-2023 at 11:16 AM.
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  #5  
Unread 11-07-2023, 01:25 AM
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AZ Foreman AZ Foreman is offline
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Oh this is useful! I'm just popping back in now. Had a long day: will think on this some more and revise tomorrow.

I definitely agee that there's a register-clash in this use of "for good" here.
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Unread 11-09-2023, 02:55 PM
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AZ Foreman AZ Foreman is offline
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Thank you so much, Robert, Andrew and Carl. Alright I've made some adjustments and edits to the tetrameter version here. Carl I think is right about "for good". Andrew was maybe right about translating the first line of S2 more literally, and definitely about the value of not having a run-on between S3-4.

With "not such as I do flee" I was trying to account for the ambiguity of the Hebrew line which can be read as "A man like me does not run away" OR "No man runs away like I do". But I suppose all I did was make it opaque.

I decided that maybe I could account for the "covenant" with the phrase "cut a pact". That is literally what the Hebrew phrase means. In Biblical Hebrew one literally "cuts" a covenant, and I think the idiom can work in English if only just. There's also "cut a deal" which means much the same thing but that feels like the wrong register.

I do want to keep the tetrameter. I tried a pentameter version, but found that a lot of lines just needed so much padding for that to work. It occurred to me to try something in irregular pentameters. It wound up musically different from Bialik. Here's one such version FWIW.

"Go, flee"? None such as I do flee.
My flock taught me slow walking with their tracks.
My tongue did not learn fluency.
My word falls like a heavy ax.

And if my strength was spent in vain, the blunder
Is yours. So on your heads the crime.
My hammer found no anvil under.
My axe struck rotten lime.

No matter. I'll accept my fate and go,
Tools girt about me as before,
A wage-hire cheated of his wage. As slow
As I arrived, I'll leave once more.

I'll go home to my valley and there form
A covenant with sycamores today.
But you are putrid rot. Tomorrow's storm
Will blow you all away.

Last edited by AZ Foreman; 11-09-2023 at 06:20 PM.
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Unread 11-10-2023, 03:06 AM
Andrew Frisardi Andrew Frisardi is offline
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I really like the new draft. It's a good poem in its own right. Yes, "cut a pact" is a stretch, but for me at least, it's an acceptable one because of the similarity to "cut a deal," which was in the back of my mind when I came across your phrase.
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Unread 11-10-2023, 01:22 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
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I like "cut / a pact" too. Very nice draft. I like the simplicity and axe-like deliberation of phrases like "a worker cheated of his pay" and "But you are canker. You are rot." S1's context seems to demand a voice that eschews fancy phrasing, enjambments, etc.

Perhaps "My school was livestock, walking slow."
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Unread 11-10-2023, 05:23 PM
Carl Copeland Carl Copeland is online now
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I also like the new draft and “cut a pact.” It passes as an idiom even if it isn’t. It first sounded too informal, but then it got me thinking the N may cut down some sycamores and they’ll be hard under his axe in contrast to the rotten trees he’s leaving behind. I like that.

I’d still suggest “My flock has taught me to walk slow” to prevent the many proponents of natural reading from getting a trimeter: “For my FLOCK │ TAUGHT me │ to walk SLOW.” The new S2L1 can also be read naturally as a trimeter: “Was my STRENGTH │ spent in VAIN? │ The BLUNder.” That could be made more “relentlessly iambic” with something like “Was all my strength in vain?” It’s an interesting question, though, to what extent readers can be relied on to shift back and forth between natural and meter-driven readings.

Last edited by Carl Copeland; 11-11-2023 at 06:50 AM.
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