Seferis or Egw Yia Thn Antigrafh

We are here and the sun punctuates us with blood
We are here and the sea accentuates us with lies

He was heard speaking as he walked by
of mirrors shattered ages ago
of vanished forms within the broken mirrors
forms that no one can ever put together again
Because our minds are but a forest of dead friends
Because our hearts propel us ever forward
to desperate from dying hope
Until our bodies finally succumb to the ground
leaving Desire stand alone and thirsty

Waiting for the barbarians

C.Cavafy

Waiting for the Barbarians

-What are we all waiting in the agora for ?
-The barbarians are to come today.
-Why such idleness and quiet in the Senate?
Why are the Senators not making new laws?
-'Cause the barbarians are to come today.
Why would the Senators make any more laws now?
When the barbarians come we'll anyway need new ones.
-Why is our Emperor up and about so early,
why is he waiting by our grandest gate,
upon his throne, officially, clad in his full regalia?
-'Cause the barbarians are to come today,
and the Emperor is waiting for their leader,
for whom he has scroll with grants of fiefs and honors.
-Why are both our Consuls and our Tribunes out,
wearing their very finest, gold-and-crimson togas
why do they carry bracelets replete with precious stones
why hold staffs of ebony and ivory intertwined, all
worked around with filigrees of silver and of gold?
-'Cause the barbarians are to come today,
and such displays of wealth bedazzle their kind!
-Well then why are the orators also not about,
to weave their magic on the throngs, and say their pieces?
-'Cause the barbarians are to come today,
and such flowery talking quickly bores them!
-And now, why now suddenly such confusion,
(Oh my, look how serious everyone just became!)
why is the gathering breaking up so quickly,
people going homeward fast, their faces troubled?
-It is because the sun has set, yet no barbarians came.
Instead, some bordermen came from the frontier
and told us there are no more barbarians to be found.
-Alas! What are we now to do without barbarians?
These people were a kind of solution.

Kavafis

Konstantine Kavafis, usually found as C.Cavafy in English, is outside of Greece one of the best known modern Greek poets. I translated his poem "The God Abandons Antony". Note a "sacrilegious" last line change where I replaced the original "say goodbye to Alexandria going away" because it seemed to me a non-Greek audience might find it too obscure...


The God Abandons Antony

If late, past the midnight hour,
you hear strange, eerie music wafting up the streets,
then your plans, that bore no fruit,
your wishes, that will never be fulfilled,
your hopes, all in vain,
weep not for nothing.
Like a man long prepared, like a man brave,
say goodbye to this city which you're losing.

Above all do not fool yourself,
don't say your mind is playing you tricks;
don't say your ears cheat you;
such empty hope do not deign to accept.

Like a man long prepared, like a man brave,
like a man worthy to have owned such a city,
walk steady to the window and listen
moved, but without the tears or the pleading of a lesser man,
listen to this last gift, this last delight,
these otherworldly, eerie sounds of the godly troupe,
and say goodbye to your life that ends today.

Love Stood at my Door

This is the Ancient Greek poem by the woman poet Anacreontea which I mentioned at my last post. I must have halted and restarted a dozen times, and still I am less than satisfied with the result. It's just so difficult!

Love Stood at my Door

It was past midnight, the yawning stars already dreamed of dawn
and all the tribes of mortal men lay in slumber, sacked by toil
't was then that Love stood at my door and knocked asking to enter.
"Who is it" said I; "Leave me be - you shred my dreams to ribbons"
A boy's voice came "Fear me not, for I am only a child;
I'm lost and frightened, cold and wet walking the rainy night"

Pity I felt on hearing this and I looked outside, and I saw a toddler nude]
but for toy bow and quiver, with stubby wings upon his back, soaked and blue with cold.]
I let him in, brought him to sit right next to the fireplace
I toweled the water from his hair and warmed his hands in mine.

And he, as soon as he had felt the fire's warmth restore him
"I'll try my toy, to see if the damp has ruined the bowstring's vigor"
He nocked a dart point to the floor, drew the string to his ear,
then suddenly he turned on me and let his arrow fly-
it struck me right in the chest and vanished into nothing-

He vaulted upwards from the floor, stubby wings madly flapping
his eyes huge liquid with glee, his mouth alive with giggles
and between gasping for breath whooping grinning and giggling
he shouted straight down at me: "My Lady, I'm so sorry!
My bow is sound as can be, but oops! your heart will shatter."

The Thracian Filly

So I have decided to translate three Ancient Greek poems about love. This is risky as hundreds of people have tried their hand at translating Ancient Greek poetry. Dozens of attempts I have read, and so far all seem to strike me as having one of two major errors: Either they stay too close to the wording of the original -which in English renders for example Sappho's poetry into an bizzare jumble of words- or else they try to faithfully portray the structure and style of the original Greek, thus needing to use strange English words and forms. I have translated two poems by the same man and one by a woman. Today I post two very short poems written by the poet Anacreon, who is one of the nine great lyric poets, famous for his cynical words and often mocking style. This is the first poem:

The Rough-looking Girl

Now blond Love tosses me a purple ball
and asks me to play catch with this rough-looking girl
But she looks askance at my grey hair, and
-she must have lived in Lesbos!-
throws her own ball to - another girl

The original poem says nothing about a rough-looking girl. It says "motley-sandalled girl".
It also says "white hair", not gray. It says "she must come from well-built Lesbos" not "she must have lived in Lesbos". It is the opinion of quite a few critics that unless you translate more faithfully you are guilty of writing a poem whose only relation to the original is the choice of subject matter. But I beg to differ. To me "motley-sandalled girl" suggests a girl whose sandals have been torn and patched many times, i.e an active girl, a girl who plays tough games with the boys , who is sloppy, not delicate, headstrong. Retaining "motley-sandalled" does not convey any of this to the modern reader whereas rough-looking might. Speaking of white hair makes it look as if the writer was a paedophile since only people close to 60 get white hair nowadays; but at an age where the average life expectancy was close to 40 a 30-year-old could well have had white hair! And "well-built" today conveys nothing to the readers; better to leave Lesbos (which does have meaning to them) alone and merely connect it to the girl.

The second poem Anacreon wrote about this Thracian girl he fell for:

The Thracian Filly

Thracian filly, why do you avoid me and
look at me out of the corner of your eye?
You think I'm not good enough a man?

You should know; I could harness you tight
and make you sweat and pant and come
by both ways to the end of the road.

But for now, you prance on the prairie
and mocking me you giggle and play
because you have no able rider to mount you.


Compare if you will the translation of this same poem in the wikipedia entry for Anacreon.
The first and last parts are rather similar in meaning if not in style or art quality ; )
But the middle portion is very different. What does the literal translation "turn you at both ends of the road" or attempts (like in Headlam's version) to somehow alter it yet keep it mean to the modern reader? Nothing. It is not possible to connect the dots. But what Anacreon is doing is making an allusion to chariot races, where the horse had to turn on both ends of the stadium. And chariot racing was not a gentle sport. The horses were driven hard and whipped. And the term "both ends of the road" has significance which is lost on the modern reader, meaning as it does both the vagina and the anus. (Thankfully "come" has a double meaning in Modern English which accomodates well the double meaning of "bring" in ancient Greek; a bit of luck there!)
The poem does not wish to imply the man controls or "handles" the girl; it is explicitly -to the point of vulgarity- about sex. "I could fuck you both ways hard and you'd enjoy it" is what the writer is saying. The poem is both erotic/aggressive and indignant/defensive: it conveys desire, frustration, indignation, anger, regret and even insecurity all at once. That's why it is a classic. To deprive it of the explicit nature of the impotent lust the writer feels is to diminish it.
Of course a Victorian writer like Headlam cannot be expected to be so direct. But I have no patience with the modern translators who in the name of faithfullness promptly avoid the sexual aspect. Perhaps I should attribute it to a reverential self-censorship? Mozart once said that he avoided mythological themes because "those Ancients, they are always portrayed so stiff, as if they used to shit marble". Well said maestro!

Folk Song "The Passing of Death"

This is a folk song about Death. There are maybe 20 variants? In translation the most important problem is to find a word suitable for the spring-fed pool that often occupies the center of Middle Eastern (and some Greek) villages. I opted for "spring-pool" as being the only one conveying anything close to the original word, although as far as I know this is not a real English word....

The Passing of Death

Why are the mountains silent and stand all wreathed in clouds?
Is rain beating at their rocks, is thunder slashing at them?
No rain is beating on their rocks, thunder does not slash at them
it is just Death who is passing by, taking the Dead to Hades.
Young folk he drives in front of him, old folk he drags behind,
children and suckling babies he carries on his saddle.
The young ones turn and ask of him, the old ones kneel and beg him,
even the children pipe up pleas with tears in their eyes:
"My Lord Death, stop at a well, stop by some village spring-pool,
the old ones can rest the knees, children can play some game,
and the young folk can have a drink, look at the world they're losing"
"If I stop by some cool well, if by some village spring-pool,
women will come to fill their jugs and they will know their loved ones,
brothers or sisters, parents, friends, wife will meet her husband,
mother will know the baby she bore then had to bury.
Cruel I was to part them once, twice I will not do it."

One from Seferis

The Argonauts (By George Seferis)

"If a soul is to know itself, it must look into another soul" (The Odyssey, Homer)
"We saw the enemy and the stranger in the mirror" (Emperor John Tzimisces)

The comrades were good boys; they did not complain
of cold, thirst or toil
they had the manner of tree and wave
who accept wind and rain
accept sun and night
not changing within change.
They were good boys; for days on end they sweated on their oars
(with downcast eyes)
breathing in rhythm,
and their blood quickened a subservient skin.
Sometimes they would sing (with downcast eyes)
like the time when we passed by that fig-tree island,
past the cape where the dogs barked at us.

If a soul is to know itself, they sang,
it must look into another soul, they sang,
and the oars beat the sunset golden sea.
We went past many coasts, many islands, from one
sea into another sea, past seals and seagulls.
We met desperate women who wept for their lost children,
and other savage women who sought Alexander the Great
and glory sunk into the heart of Asia.
We rested by beaches full of night perfume and birdsong,
drank waters from springs which left on the lips
memories as of some great happiness.
But the journeys just would not end.
Their souls became one with the oars and the beams,
one with the serious figurehead on the prow,
with the wake at our back,
with the moisture which condensed on their brow.
The comrades ended one by one (with downcast eyes).
Their oars, bleached by the sun
mark the spots where they sleep under the sand.
Justice: No living soul remembers them.