Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
Lots of people don't read translated poetry. At best it's a shadow of the original, at worse it is a distorted image resembling very little the original poem. However, just because cheese is not milk and ham is not beef it does not mean that byproducts are not tasty too.
Nobel Prize winning poet Octavio Paz was a firm believer in and devoted practitioner of translated poetry. He published his collected translations, Versiones y Diversiones (Versions and Fun) in three editions 1973, 1978 and 1995, each edition growing larger than the previous one.
In the first edition of Versions and Fun Octavio Paz published his translations of many poets from England (Donne), America and France (Eluard, Apollinaire), Sweeden and Portugal (Pessoa), India, Japan and China (Wang Wei), including Basho's famous 'Araumi ya/ Sado ni yokotau/ amanogawa' as 'Tendido fluye del mar bravo a la isla: río de estrellas'.
I still remember the first time I read that poem by Basho. I was undergoing Japanese language training at Tokyo and at the section of the library reserved for foreign students there was a 3 volume hardcover anthology of haiku; I'd never read any haiku before, I opened it at random and read those immortal Japanese words rendered in romaji, and the sound of that little poem impressed me so much, I still haven't forgotten it. By the way, it can be translated as 'Over the rough sea/ Flowing towards Sado isle/ The River of Heaven'. Or as 'Rough and wild sea/ Stretching to Sado / Our galaxy of stars '.
In any case, Octavio Paz, besides being an enormously erudite writer, was also a very fun and creative poet. In the Quignard vs Paz thread I already published translations of some of the best of Paz poetry. Let me just add a little thing to display his playful side:
La Calle/The Street
It is a long and silent street.
I walk in darkness: I stumble and fall
and get up and with blind feet I step upon
the silent stones and the dry leaves,
someone behind me also steps upon them:
if I stop, he stops; if I run, he runs. I look back,
and seeing nobody there, I yell: 'Who's there'.
Everything seems dark and without exit,
and I keep ending up at the same corners
always facing the same street
where nobody awaits for me or follows me
where I follow a man who stumbles
and gets up and blindly yells at me: 'Who's there'.
Es una calle larga y silenciosa.
Ando en tinieblas y tropiezo y caigo
y me levanto y piso con pies ciegos
las piedras mudas y las hojas secas
y alguien detrás de mí también las pisa:
si me detengo, se detiene;
si corro, corre. Vuelvo el rostro: nadie.
Todo está oscuro y sin salida,
y doy vueltas en esquinas
que dan siempre a la calle
donde nadie me espera ni me sigue,
donde yo sigo a un hombre que tropieza
y se levanta y dice al verme: nadie.
Nobel Prize winning poet Octavio Paz was a firm believer in and devoted practitioner of translated poetry. He published his collected translations, Versiones y Diversiones (Versions and Fun) in three editions 1973, 1978 and 1995, each edition growing larger than the previous one.
In the first edition of Versions and Fun Octavio Paz published his translations of many poets from England (Donne), America and France (Eluard, Apollinaire), Sweeden and Portugal (Pessoa), India, Japan and China (Wang Wei), including Basho's famous 'Araumi ya/ Sado ni yokotau/ amanogawa' as 'Tendido fluye del mar bravo a la isla: río de estrellas'.
I still remember the first time I read that poem by Basho. I was undergoing Japanese language training at Tokyo and at the section of the library reserved for foreign students there was a 3 volume hardcover anthology of haiku; I'd never read any haiku before, I opened it at random and read those immortal Japanese words rendered in romaji, and the sound of that little poem impressed me so much, I still haven't forgotten it. By the way, it can be translated as 'Over the rough sea/ Flowing towards Sado isle/ The River of Heaven'. Or as 'Rough and wild sea/ Stretching to Sado / Our galaxy of stars '.
In any case, Octavio Paz, besides being an enormously erudite writer, was also a very fun and creative poet. In the Quignard vs Paz thread I already published translations of some of the best of Paz poetry. Let me just add a little thing to display his playful side:
La Calle/The Street
It is a long and silent street.
I walk in darkness: I stumble and fall
and get up and with blind feet I step upon
the silent stones and the dry leaves,
someone behind me also steps upon them:
if I stop, he stops; if I run, he runs. I look back,
and seeing nobody there, I yell: 'Who's there'.
Everything seems dark and without exit,
and I keep ending up at the same corners
always facing the same street
where nobody awaits for me or follows me
where I follow a man who stumbles
and gets up and blindly yells at me: 'Who's there'.
Es una calle larga y silenciosa.
Ando en tinieblas y tropiezo y caigo
y me levanto y piso con pies ciegos
las piedras mudas y las hojas secas
y alguien detrás de mí también las pisa:
si me detengo, se detiene;
si corro, corre. Vuelvo el rostro: nadie.
Todo está oscuro y sin salida,
y doy vueltas en esquinas
que dan siempre a la calle
donde nadie me espera ni me sigue,
donde yo sigo a un hombre que tropieza
y se levanta y dice al verme: nadie.
