Oh my god, Iβm about to go on a ramble, Iβm sorry, I canβt help it, the inner translation nerd is coming out. Iβm so sorry.Β The thing isβthereΒ is actually no such thing as an accurate translation.
Β Itβs literally an impossible endeavor. Word for word doesnβt cut it. Sense for sense doesnβt cut it, because then youβre potentially missing cool stuff like context and nuance and rhyme and humor. Even localization doesnβt really cut it, because that means youβre prioritizing the audience over the author, and youβre missing out on the original context, and the possibility of bringing something new and exciting to your host language. Foreignization, which aims to replicate the rhythms of the original language, or to use terminology that will be unfamiliar to the target cultureβ(for example: the first few American-published Harry Potter books domesticated the English, and tradedΒ βtrousersβ forΒ βpantsβ, andΒ βMomβ forΒ βMumβ. Later on they stopped, and let the American children view such foreignizing words asΒ βsnogβ andΒ βporridge.β)βalso doesnβt cut it, because you risk alienating the target readers, or obscuring meaning.Β
Another cool example is Dante,Β and the words written above the gates of hell: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.Β
In the original Italian, thatβs Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. Speranza, like most nouns in latinate languages, has a gender: la. Hope, in Italian, is gendered female. Abandon hope, who is female. Abandon hope, who is a woman. When the original Dante enters hell, searching for Beatrice, he is doomed, subtly, from the start. Thatβs beautiful, subtle, the kind of delicate poetic move literature nerds gorge themselves on, and you canβt keep it in English. Literally, how do you preserve it? We donβt have a gendered hope. It doesnβt work, canβt work. So how do you compensate? Can you sneak in a reference to Beatrice in a different line? Or do you chalk her up as a loss and move onto the next problem?
Youβre always going to miss somethingβthe cool part is that, knowing youβre going to fail, you get to decide how to fail. Ortega y Gasset called this The Misery and Splendor of Translation. Basically, translation is impossibleβso why not make it a beautiful failure?Β
My point is that literary translation is creative writing, full of as many creative decisions as any original poem or short story. It has more limitations, rules, and structures to consider, for sureβbut sometimes the best artistic decision is going to be the one that breaks the rules.Β
My favorite breakdown of this is Le Ton Beau De Marot, a beautiful brick of a translatorβs joke, in which the author tries over and over again to create aΒ βperfectβ translation of βA une Damoyselle Maladeβ, an itsy bitsy poem Clement Marot dashed off to his patronβs daughter, who was sick, in 1537.Β
This is the poem:Β
Ma mignonne,
Je vous donne
Le bon jour;
Le sΓ©jour
Cβest prison.
GuΓ©rison
Recouvrez,
Puis ouvrez
Votre porte
Et quβon sorte
Vitement,
Car ClΓ©ment
Le vous mande.
Va, friande
De ta bouche,
Qui se couche
En danger
Pour manger
Confitures;
Si tu dures
Trop malade,
Couleur fade
Tu prendras,
Et perdras
Lβembonpoint.
Dieu te doint
SantΓ© bonne,
Ma mignonne.
Seems simple enough, right? But itβs got a huge host of challenges: the rhyme, the tone, the archaic language (if youβre translating something old, do you want it to sound old in the target language, too? or are you translating not just across language, but across time?)Β
Le Ton Beau De Marot is a monster of a book that compiles all of HofstaderβsΒ βfailedβ translations of Ma Mignonne, as well as theΒ βfailedβ translations of his friends, and his students, and hundreds of strangers who were given the translation challenge (which you can play here, should you like!)Β
The end result is a hilarious archive of Sweet Damosels, Malingering Ladies, Chickadees, Fairest Friends, and Cutie Pies. Itβs the clearest, funniest, best example of what I think is true of all literary translations: that theyβre a thing you make up, not a thing you discover. There is no magic bridge between languages, or magic window, or magic vessel to pour the poem from one language to anotherβtranslation is always subjective, itβs always individual, itβs always inaccurate, itβs always a failure.Β
Itβs always, in other words, art.Β
Which, as a translator, I find incredibly reassuring! Youβre definitely, one hundred percent absolutely, gonna fuck up. Which means you canβt fuck up. You can take risks! You can experiment! You can do cool stuff like bilingual translations, or footnote translations! You write your own code of honor, your own rules that your translations will hold inviolable, and fuck it if that code doesnβt match everyone elseβs*. The translations they hold inviolable are also flawed, are failures at the core, from the King James Bible right on down to No Fear Shakespeare. So have fun! Itβs all in your hands, miseries and splendors both.Β
