Imagery in Translation

For thee to disdain it, One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother, And Pity from thee more dear

Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love,

But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above

And the Heavens reject not: The desire of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow?

Перевод К. Бальмонта:

Слишком часто заветное слово людьми осквернялось,

Я его не хочу повторять, Слишком часто заветное чувство презреньем встречалось,

Ты его не должна презирать. И слова состраданья, что с уст твоих нежных сорвались,

Никому я отдать не хочу, И за счастье надежд, что с отчаяньем горьким смешалось,

Я всей жизнью своей заплачу.

Нет того в моем сердце, что в мире любовью зовется,

Но молитвы отвергнешь ли ты? Неудержно вкруг солнца воздушное облачко вьется,

Упадает роса на цветы, Полночь ждет, чтобы снова зари загорелося око,

И отвергнешь ли ты, о мой друг, Это чувство святое, что манит куда-то далеко,

Прочь от наших томительных мук?

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Практикум по художественному переводу

Перевод Б. Пастернака:

К...

Опошлено слово одно И стало рутиной. Над искренностью давно Смеются в гостиной. Надежда и самообман — Два сходных недуга. Единственный мир без румян — Участие друга.

Любви я в ответ не прошу, Но тем беззаветней По-прежнему произношу Обет многолетний. Так бабочку тянет в костер И полночь к рассвету, И так заставляет простор Кружиться планету.

EXERCISES FOR COMPARISON

• Read about Percy Bysshe Shelley and his poetry.

• Read the poem, analyse its imagery and mood. Mark the stylistic devices used in the text.

• Identify key-words in the text and note their role in the imagery and logic of the poem.

• Reconstruct the verse pattern of the text: its rhythm, me­ tre, rhyme scheme and form of stanzas. Think of how it may be connected with the imagery and mood of the poem.

• What impression does this poem produce on the reader? Would you classify this text among more emotional or more log­ ical poetry?

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Imagery in Translation

• What other words may be put in line withthe worship, the desire, the feeling, the devotion, lovel What connects them in one group? What is different about them?

• Try to change this text into a sonnet. See if the results influence the character and mood of the poem.

• Translate this poem word for word into Russian. See what grammar transformations are necessary to make the text sound more "poetic" in Russian.

• Make your own decisions about what to retain and what to omit in translation of this poem.

• Reconstruct the rhyming frame of the text to place the most important words in the strongest positions connected by rhymes.

• Fill in the lines within the rhyme scheme with the rest of words to save the source metre.

• Work carefully on the grammar and vocabulary equiva­ lents and transform the source units if and when necessary.

• Read the result aloud to see if the rhythmic pattern of the translation is similar to that of the source poem.

• Compare your version with the other translations of the same poem. Comment upon the difference.

• Discuss the results.

Task for translation: Ozymandias

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Hulf sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

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Практикум по художественному переводу

And on the pedestal these words appear:"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and dispair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.

EXERCISES FOR TRANSLATION

• Study the contents and imagery of the sonnet.

• Find out the meaning of the name Ozymandias and its Russian counterparts.

• Study the metre and rhyme scheme of the text to deter­ mine the most important positions for words in it.

• Experiment with the text: render it in prose to change the rhythm and analyse the results.

• Translate the text word for word to preserve as much of the source vocabulary and syntactic structure as possible.

• Reconstruct the metre and rhyme scheme of the sonnet in Russian; select the words for the rhyming pairs.

• Complete the lines with words and arrange the syntactic structure of the Russian text.

• Read the resulting text aloud to compare its sound to the source text.

• Complete the translation and discuss the results.

• Look for some more versions of the sonnet in translation. Compare your own text with them and comment on the differ­ ence.

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