For those interested in translations of Dante, I thought I'd try out a passage: the last 19 lines of canto 27 of the Purgatorio. To avoid using up lots of space here, though, I've created a document you can reach by clicking on this link:
http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/purgatorio-27.pdf or, if you prefer, http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/purgatorio-27.doc.
Here you'll find the Italian plus a couple of English translations. Take a look and tell me what you think. And if you have another translation you'd like us to look at, post it as a comment.
18 comments:
Finally--I've been wondering where to find Dante translations. Welcome to the blogging world Dr. Young!
I'll comment later about the translations, and perhaps add one or two of my own favorites. But for the present, I think it was Shelley who remarked that Virgil's departure from the Divine Comedy was the saddest episode in all of the world's great literature, and I'm inclined to agree with him. It's sort of like Moses suffering and enduring so much for all those years, making it all the way to Mt. Nebo and the Jordan River, and then not being allowed to enter the Promised Land.
Also interesting that Virgil is speechless and in awe when confronted with Beatrice (as I remember)--allegorically the inadequacy of human intellect in the face of divine revelation.
One reason I picked the passage I did is that I love the endowing of Dante with divine trust and a kind of independence (he is now his own king and priest). Also, it's the end of a canto, so we can see how different translations handle that.
I don't see the Comedy parodied very often, but that was a good effort by someone who obviously was familiar with it.
I've just discovered an Italian version--but I don't know if this is the original, since it doesn't seem to follow the rhyme scheme exactly. Maybe Garry can help work on this:
Nel mezzo del viaggio di scatenamento di vita,
_ Ho vagato en una foresta enorme dei Redwoods
_ e di non vedere percorsi diritti, Ho saputo che ero nella California.
“Woah dell'OH,„ Ho gemuto, e trovato non potrei dire una cosa
_ Poiché ho saputo che la canzone circa “voi può non andare mai.„
_ Così sono stato spaventato come completamente dalla mia mente.
Seriamente, Ho desiderato al dado o lancio;
_ Ma tranquillo avrò un atteggiamento mentale positivo
_ e descrivo quegli alberi troppo-alti arroganti.
Another parody of sorts, though with no humorous intent, was by T. S. Eliot in Little Gidding, in a section about running into a "familiar compound ghost" (sort of based on Yeats). The section has no rhyme scheme, but gives the effect of tercets by alternating stressed and unstressed endings, for instance:
In the uncertain hour before the morning
_ Near the ending of interminable night
_ At the recurrent end of the unending
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
_ Had passed below the horizon of his homing
_ While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin
. . .
Using "S" for strong or accented line ending and "W" for weak or unaccented line ending, the scheme is WSW SWS etc., comparable to Dante's rhyme scheme aba bcb etc.
As promised, I'm adding my own two bits to this discussion by adding Mandelbaum's version:
"When all the staircase lay beneath us and
we'd reached the highest step, then Virgil set
his eyes insistently on me and said:
"My son, you've seen the temporary fire
and the eternal fire; you have reached
the place past which my powers cannot see.
"I've brought you here through intellect and art;
from now on, let your pleasure be your guide;
you're past the steep and past the narrow paths.
"Look at the sun that shines upon your brow;
look at the grasses, flowers, and the shrubs
born here, spontaneously, of the earth.
"Among them, you can rest or walk until
the coming of the glad and lovely eyes --
those eyes that, weeping, sent me to your side.
"Await no further word or sign from me:
your will is free, erect, and whole -- to act
against that will would be to err: therefore
"I crown and miter you over yourself."
Thanks, Garry. I like Mandelbaum's translation. Though I miss the rhymes, it appears he's very accurate, and his tercets capture some of the feel of Dante's.
In comparison, I'd say Binyon is my least favorite so far, even though he's pretty accurate and tries to follow Dante's entire rhyme scheme. But his language is archaic, and he's forced into partial rhymes that make his whole attempt at rhyming somewhat futile.
I really like Ciardi, who rhymes well (though only rhyming the outer lines of each tercet). But he appears to be the least accurate of the bunch, adding various poetic touches (extra adjectives, etc.) and making other changes (interpretive or simply to make the poetry work) that slightly misrepresent the original.
Next time you visit, Garry, do you think you could correct the Italian version of Dante's visit to California (above)?
I'll come back to that parody a bit later, but for the moment, suffice it to say that it isn't good Italian, which I'm sure the author knew when he penned the lines. It's almost a word-for-word, literal translation, and it obviously makes no effort to duplicate Dante's terza rima.
But moving right along to the main subject at hand, here's the Hollander version of that passage from Purgatorio, canto XXVII:
"When the stairs had all run past beneath us
and we were on the topmost step,
Virgil fixed his eyes on me
"and said: 'The temporal fire and the eternal
you have seen, my son, and now come to a place
in which, unaided, I can see no farther.
"'I have brought you here with intellect and skill.
From now on take your pleasure as your guide.
You are free of the steep way, free of the narrow.
"'Look at the sun shining before you,
look at the fresh grasses, flowers, and trees
which here the earth produces of itself.
"'You may sit down or move among these
until the fair eyes come, rejoicing,
which weeping bid me come to you.
"'No longer wait for word or sign from me.
Your will is free, upright, and sound.
Not to act as it chooses is unworthy:
over yourself I crown and miter you."
I don't know how familiar you are with this translation, but the Hollanders, Robert and Jean, are a husband-wife team. He teaches at Princeton, and she is an accomplished poet in her own right. Their Comedy translation will be complete in August, when Paradiso is scheduled for publication, and I recommend purchasing the entire set. The original Italian faces its English translation on the opposite page, so one can follow both very easily. Also, the footnotes are both lavish and informative.
Very nice. From this brief passage, I think I may like the Hollander translation even a little better than Mandelbaum's, though they're both good.
Apparently there are a goodly number of other English translations of Dante. Another that comes highly recommended is by Mark Musa. My friend Madison Sowell, a professor of Italian, a Dantist, and currently head of BYU's Honors Program, has written reviews of Musa's translations of the Purgatorio and Paradiso. Try these links; if they don't work, let me know--I'll see if I can make the reviews available:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0038-7134%28198304%2958%3A2%3C448%3AP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-C
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0038-7134%28198507%2960%3A3%3C669%3AP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G
Nobody bothers include Dorothy Sayers in such compilations anymore?
For what it's worth, if anything, my thoughts on some different English translations of Dante:
* Sayers (with Reynolds for Paradiso or Heaven). Tries to reproduce Dante's terza rima to varying degrees of success and failure. Critics remark the failures feel too forced, which is true, but perhaps contrary to most I find Sayers far more often succeeds. I'm quite impressed with her translation. It holds up even today, and it still does terza rima better than any other English translation with which I'm aware. I think Sayers deserves considerable credit in the history of literature and translation. For example: she's the only major female translator of Dante's Commedia in English to date, that is, whose translation can vie with other translations for "best" translation; she was a mystery writer, poet, literary critic, and translator, all roles in which she quite arguably largely succeeded, and at a time when it was difficult for a woman to do, unlike now; her Dante almost single handedly helped establish Penguin Classics as the best selling paperbacks for the masses that Penguin Classics still is today, and perhaps surprisingly her translation is still one of the best selling translations today. Best of all, however, even if one doesn't care for her translation, her notes and commentaries on the Commedia are excellent and a model for how notes should be. Some of it is a bit dated now, but most of it is very much relevant and even seems fresh. She was very intellectually gifted and capable. The only issues that come to mind with Sayers's transportation are her mild use of archaisms (e.g. thees and thous) and the fact that Penguin doesn't have an Italian facing edition of her translation as far as I know, which I believe Penguin only started doing with their Robin Kirkpatrick translation of the same. But both these issues are fixable. Honestly, if Penguin could very slightly revise her translation so it reflects the best text and removes archaisms - like how publishers have slightly revised (say) the Constance Garnett translation of The Brothers Karamazov in the Garnett and Susan McReynolds translation or how the Maudes's translation of War and Peace was slightly revised by Amy Mandelker - and reissue the Sayers translation with Italian facing pages, then I'm quite certain it'd be the best available translation in English.
* Musa. Simple and clear language. It uses iambic pentameter with enjambments and almost reads as if prose. It sometimes has an understated elegance, but more often I find it commits the cardinal sin of making Dante sound boring, which Dante is anything but! That is, Misa's Notes are pretty good, not the best, but good enough. For Dante, notes are almost as important as the translation, since even in his own day Dante could be quite abstruse. Honestly I don't like admitting this, since I typically prefer people read the text on their own as much as possible before referring to notes and commentary and suchlike, but (unlike most other great works of literature) notes are a necessity when it comes to following Dante on his journey.
1/x
* Esolen. A fine, clear, muscular translation. It captures Dante's straightforward diction, starkness, and pointedneess. But I don't think it sings and soars as Dante often does. I suppose no translation can capture the whole of Dante, especially since Dante is a greater poet than any of his translators. At best, we might hope a translator can capture the most essential aspects of Dante and more aspects than other translators can capture.
* Ciardi. Probably the most popular choice for most people. He uses a dummy terza rima scheme rather than an actual one. He's often gorgeously poetic, but he's likewise less formally faithful to Dante. In fact, he often plays quite fast and loose with Dante. However, arguably Ciardi has the best notes for a single volume of the Comedy
* Pinsky. Amazing or intolerable, depending on how one feels about him as a poet. He only ever translated Inferno.
* Merwin. Much the same or similar could be said for Merwin as for Pinsky. He only did Purgatorio.
* Hollanders. Husband-wife team. Jean was the poet, Robert the scholar. They were among the first to digitize Dante for the internet, first ate Dartmouth, then at Princeton, where their translation and notes are still available to read online for free. Their translation gets the job done well enough. It's probably the best translation if one wishes to have a strictly formally equivalent translation that's still readable in terms of factors like structure and syntax, word choices and word orders. Their notes are extremely detailed and comprehensive, perhaps the most comprehensive of any notes, even overwhelming so.
* Durling and Martinez. Closest to a prose translation. Very detailed notes as well. But Durling strongly holds to the debatable idea that Dante was homosexual and that's reflected in the notes here and there.
* Sinclair and Singleton. They're clearly distinct translations. Sinclair came first, then Singleton a generation later, I believe. But I group them together because they sound nearly identical to me. I assume Singleton must've borrowed heavily from Sinclair. In any case, Singleton is wonderful prose. I think it's still the best prose translation of Dante today despite some dated language. And Singleton has fantastic notes. Extremely detailed. Indeed, his entire work is 6 volumes - 3 volumes for each of the canticles and 3 more volumes with notes and commentary on each canticle. His notes are legendary.
* Kirkpatrick. He's good, and never boring to read, but he can be difficult to read, especially if it's the first translation one has ever read for the Commedia. His translation reads almost as if it's a mixture between Dante and English literary giants like Shakespeare and Milton. Or at least as if it's Dante mediated through English literature. Kirkpatrick often comes across as a very theatrical presentation of Dante too, which can be good inasmuch as the best reading is done with ear as well as eye. But it can also be distracting as Kirkpatrick seems to want to stand out too much so that Kirkpatrick's voice seems to drown out Dante's. Kirkpatrick can also be a bit jarring at times such as when he uses four letter words (e.g. "fig-fuck" for an Italian gesture that's similar to the middle finger), though one might argue this well conveys the effect Dante wished to have on his readers.
3/x
* Mandelbaum. One of the very best English translations in a crowded field filled with fine English translations. Unlike many other languages, we've been fortunate in English to have so many good or at least decent translations of the Commedia. Mandelbaum has a truly beautiful contemporary or modern style. It reads sublimely. And it's quite faithful to the original Italian text. It's perhaps the most faithful verse translation. As such, it well combines accuracy with literary style. A translation is like a middleman - it can try to bring Dante closer to the reader or it can try to bring the reader closer to Dante. Mandelbaum balances both quite well. And his notes are very good. Mandelbaum is perhaps the best translation to purchase in terms of having all the essentials when starting to read Dante - affordable, accurate, approachable, very good notes, and it is available with Italian facing pages.
* Clive James. A very lively translation that often grips you. But it's too eccentric. And James intentionally eschewed providing notes which is almost unimaginable to me when it comes to Dante. I'd be the first to do away with notes if it detracts from the reading experience in any way, shape, or form, since in general I strongly believe the text should be encountered and grappled with directly, but that's virtually impossible when it comes to Dante since Dante is all too frequently incomprehensible for contemporary readers.
* Mary Jo Bang. Similar to James, though even more eccentric than James. In fact, I'd say it's the most eccentric of all Dante translations.
* Cary. Very old, dated, but still readable. It was the most popular Dante translation for like a century. The first major English translation that was good too.
* Longfellow. Still an awesome translation, and the very first American English translation, if one doesn't mind and can follow the 19th century language.
4/4
elpilgrim (whoever you may be): Thank you for your detailed and truly helpful comments on various translations.
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