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The article has The poet is a man who feigns And feigns so thoroughly, at last He manages to feign as pain The pain he really feels Looks like
by kybernetikos 3y ago
The article has
The poet is a man who feigns
And feigns so thoroughly, at last
He manages to feign as pain
The pain he really feels
Looks like it's different translations of the first stanza of the Portuguese original, the poem Autopsicografia
O poeta é um fingidor
Finge tão completamente
Que chega a fingir que é dor
A dor que deveras sente.
- velcrovan 3y agoThese are good examples of the “live sparrow” vs the “stuffed eagle” modes of translating poetry: https://thelocalyarn.com/article/the-live-sparrow https://thelocalyarn.com/article/the-live-sparrow
- kybernetikos 3y agoThe original has an ABAB rhyme scheme. Interestingly both translations have tried to retain one of the rhyming pairs, but they chose different lines. In one we have feign/pain (ABAC) and in the other we have act/fact (ABCB). Given how difficult translating poetry is, I think the Edouard Roditi translation (feign/pain) is really good (he even manages to rhyme two words that rhyme in the original and get the number of syllables close to the same), but the Richard Zenith translation (act/fact) has so much more energy.
- sasaf5 3y agoAnd of course, both translations have to do without the "fingidor/finge dor" wordplay.
- sasaf5 3y agoWhy not: The poet is a man who feigns Who's so good at his act He manages to feign as pain The pain he feels in fact.
- jorl17 3y agoI always feel that the original has a very implied period at the end of the first verse. My attempts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37629946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37629946
- jorl17 3y agoThis is my take at translating the original. Punctuation is my own but I think it reflects the original poem. The poet is a faker. He fakes so thoroughly that he even fakes as pain the pain he feels truly. Or for a more liberal translation (aches=pain) that manages ABAB: The poet is a man who fakes. He fakes aches so completely that he even fakes as aches the aches he feels truly.
- jorl17 3y agoReplying to myself, can't edit (again). I eventually decided that in my previous comment we could replace "truly" with "sincerely" and it is, in my opinion, _miles_ better. I eventually also thought of a third one: The poet is a man who feigns. He feigns so thoroughly that he even feigns as pains the pains he feels sincerely. (If one has a problem with "man"/"he", this also works:) The poet is one who feigns. They feign so thoroughly that they even feign as pains the pains they feel sincerely.