[Matt Q]

Hi Julie,

Thanks posting this. It's a poem I'd likely not otherwise have read and I enjoyed it.

I don't what variations you're allowing yourself with the metre, but this seems to deviate:

"Each FOOT has TWO of them. WHY?". Or at a push, "EACH FOOT has"

Hard to see an easy fix, assuming it needs fixing. Could you get away with something like: "Two on each ankle. But why?"

This line:

“Why, then, by Zeus, do you lack any at all in the back?.”

"in" seems the wrong preposition to me: "at" is how I'd refer to hair growing at the back of my head. I'd ask the barber: "a little more off at the back, please". Maybe that's just a US/UK difference?

“Once I have passed on my swift-flying feet, I am captured by no one
trying to grasp, from behind, something to make me rewind.

I wonder if something like "longing" or "yearning" is better than "trying", given the crib.

Like Carl, I wonder at "rewind". Though we speak of rewinding time it does feel like a modern metaphor (cassette tapes, film reels etc.). Plus even if you want to evoke spinning wheels, bobbins etc, the metaphor in the poem isn't of Kairos spinning, spooling or unspooling. He's running, presumably in straight line.

best,

Matt

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Matt Q

I don't what variations you're allowing yourself with the metre, but this seems to deviate:

"Each FOOT has TWO of them. WHY?". Or at a push, "EACH FOOT has"

Hard to see an easy fix, assuming it needs fixing. Could you get away with something like: "Two on each ankle. But why?"

I groove to the elegiac beat and fudge the stressing here without even noticing, but I do prefer to force the correct meter wherever possible, so it’s a good point and not a bad suggestion.

BTW, Julie, I much preferred “Whither the wind turns, I fly” (or however it went—no trace of it left).

Originally Posted by Matt Q

This line:

“Why, then, by Zeus, do you lack any at all in the back?.”

"in" seems the wrong preposition to me: "at" is how I'd refer to hair growing at the back of my head. I'd ask the barber: "a little more off at the back, please". Maybe that's just a US/UK difference?

I suppose it must be. “In” is natural for me, though I wouldn’t bat an eyelash if you came into my barbershop and said “at.”

[Matt Q]

Just coming back to wonder about:

“Change in the wind makes me fly.”

It seems to have a somewhat different meaning from the crib's: "I fly in the wind". It can be read as saying "I [only] fly when the wind changes". Or "when there's change in the wind [in the air], I fly".

-Matt

[Julie Steiner]

Draft Four posted above.

Thanks very much for your helpful comments, Matt and Carl. I've spent the past week fussing with making the meter smoother and the language as plainspoken as possible, and Kairos's answers abrupt, for the most part. He's definitely in a hurry.

I think the point of mentioning the wind in the context of Opportunity and seizing a fleeting advantage is not just flight, the air, and swiftness per se, but also changeability (especially in a sailing culture), so I've tried to convey that fickleness better in Draft Four.

I obstinately want to stick with "rewind," not just for the perfect rhyme with "behind," but because the verb in the bit I've translated "I'm sprinting—as always" in L3 is a variant of τροχάζω, "to run like a wheel, run along, run quickly," that is itself based on τροχός, "wheel, potter's wheel, whirlwind, circular race."

Spindles, lathes, bow drills, tops, windlasses, and other things that quickly wind and re-wind are all such ancient technologies that the general concept of pulling something backwards by means of something stringlike shouldn't be too anachronistic or gender-specific (even if fishing reels, movie reels, and magnetic tape were invented after the poem was written). But the reader's perceptions can only be affected by what they see in the poem, not by what I might argue outside it. I hope that by adding "reeling me in," the pulling-back-by-a-string concept might overcome the very strong tape/film connotations of "rewind."

I'm also thinking of the way people twist their wrists to wind a strap or rope around their own hand so it doesn't slip through their grasp. Also not in the original, but not too far of a stretch for the concept of stopping someone by grabbing a lock of their long hair, I hope.

As for "in the back" vs. "at the back" for hair, "in" is more colloquial for me (as in the description of the mullet hairstyle as "Business in the front, party in the back"), but I have no objection to "at."

Thanks again.

Originally Posted by Carl

BTW, Julie, I much preferred “Whither the wind turns, I fly” (or however it went—no trace of it left).

Oops, sorry, I thought I had changed that quickly enough that no one saw it. I had decided that "whither" was a little too archaic nowadays for a poem with such simple diction.

[Carl Copeland]

Julie, “reeling me in” does help, and your explanation is more than enough to shut me up, if not to make me completely happy. BTW, I’d press “rewind” in the previous couplet. With “any such hair,” I suppose you’re allowing for some, just not any hanging down, but it takes too much thinking. I’d revert to “any at all” or, if the detail is important, how about “any long hair”? Otherwise, the translation reads wonderfully well.

[Julie Steiner]

Thanks, Carl. L8 is now reverted.

[Glenn Wright]

I’m very impressed with your work on this, Julie. You capture the sense of bemused wonder of the human speaker and the laconic, stern tone of the statue’s replies. I’m really delighted with how naturally you incorporated the internal rhymes in the pentameter lines. The exchange reminds me of the stichomythic repartee in Greek drama.
The only line in which I felt a tug was L 10. The word “rewind” left me a bit confused., even after reading your explanation of how it plays off τροχός.
The only alternative I could come up with that kept the spinning image was:

reeling me in from the rear, trying to bring me back here.

I feel like I learned a lot about the craft of translation by studying your careful, perceptive work on this. Coincidentally, it happened to be in elegiac couplets.
Glenn

[Matt Q]

Hi Julie,

I think "rewind" works better with "reel me in".

I had a couple of thoughts:

I wondered about:

“Wind-borne, I fly through the air.”

which iseems closer to the literal meaning given in the crib, whilst (maybe) maintaining the implicit meaning you wanted. Plus, arguably, the metre is improved, avoiding "HERE and THERE".

Also, given the crib says that the back of his head approaches baldness(es), you could have:

"Why, then, by Zeus, are you balding so much at the back?"

which avoids the repetition of hair, and the slightly stodgy "lack any such hair", and also adds some nice alliteration.

best,

Matt