From the weblog "Mental
Lapses"
on Saturday, October 03, 2009--
Mutatis
mutandis
In researching a short paper on The
Tempest, I came
across
an interesting example of translations. In act V scene 1, as Prospero
the magus is about to renounce his power, he describes it in the
following terms:
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing
lakes, and groves
And ye that on the sands with
printless
foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do
fly
him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets
that
By moonshine do the green sour
ringlets
make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you
whose
pastime
Is to make midnight mushrumps, that
rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose
aid
(Weak masters though ye be) I have
bedimmed
The noontide sun, called forth the
mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the
azured
vault
Set roaring war; to the dread
rattling
thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's
stout
oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based
promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs
plucked up
The pine and cedar; graves had my
command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and
let
'em forth
By my so potent art.
(The Tempest 5.1.33-50)
This is taken from a translation of
Ovid's Metamorphoses by Arthur Golding (1567):
Ye airs and winds, ye elves of hills,
of
brooks, of woods
alone,
Of standing lakes, and of the night,
approach ye
everychone!
Through help of whom, the crooked
banks
much wondering at
the thing,
I have compelled streams to run clean
back ward to their
spring.
By charms I make the calm seas rough
and
make the rough
seas plain,
And cover all the sky with clouds and
chase them thence
again.
By charms I raise and lay the winds,
and
burst the viper's
jaw,
And from the bowels of the earth both
stones and trees do
draw,
Whole woods and forests I remove; I
make
the mountains
shake,
And even the earth itself to groan
and
fearfully to quake.
I call up dead men from their graves.
(Metamorphoses, 7.265-275)
Golding was translating the following
passage from Ovid:
auraeque et venti montesque amnesque
lacusque,
dique omnes nemorum, dique omnes
noctis
adeste,
quorum ope, cum volui, ripis
mirantibus
amnes
in fontes rediere suos, concussaque
sisto,
stantia concutio cantu freta, nubila
pello
nubilaque induco, ventos abigoque
vocoque,
vipereas rumpo verbis et carmine
fauces,
vivaque saxa sua convulsaque robora
terra
et silvas moveo iubeoque tremescere
montis
et mugire solum manesque exire
sepulcris!
(Metamorphoses 7.197-206)
Compare those passages with the Oxford
World Classics
edition:
Ye winds and airs, ye mountains,
lakes
and streams
And all ye forest gods and gods of
night,
Be with me now! By your enabling
power,
At my behest, broad rivers to their
source
Flow back, their banks aghast; my
magic
song
Rouses the quiet, calms the angry
seas;
I bring the clouds and make the
clouds
withdraw,
I call the winds and quell them; by
my art
I sunder serpents' throats; the
living
rocks
And mighty oaks from out their soil I
tear;
I move the forests, bid the mountains
quake,
The deep earth groan and ghosts rise
from
their tombs.
(Metamorphoses 7.263-274)
Draw
your own conclusions if you wish, but I think it just makes the point
that it takes a poet to translate poetry. And even then, the Tempest is
not by Ovid; it is clearly Shakespeare. A great translator re-makes the
story in the image of his own language; the Tempest is not Ovid, but
you can see the seed in the fruit.
(It makes
the old Authorized Version of Colossians pretty cool: "Giving thanks
unto the Father, . . . Who hath delivered us from the power of
darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:"
Maybe that's the best metaphor we have for resurrection; somehow, the
old will be there but it will be completely remade.)
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