Poetry Forum

Quantum level: particles flick,
brief bursts of something from nothing.
A simple trick.
I grow tired
waiting for your universe to be born.
I hang motives on coat pegs
surrounding an empty room.
You alone see gamma rays burst green and gold.
Though you lean, framed at the window’s edge,
there is no light. You form no silhouette.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
original

The balcony

Quantum level: particles flick
between existence and extinction,
brief bursts of something from nothing.
A simple trick.
I grow tired
waiting for your universe to be born.
I hang motives on coat pegs
that surround an empty room,
dubious raincoats that curve their sleeves
anxious to please.
You alone see gamma rays burst green and gold.
Though you lean, framed at the window’s edge,
there is no light. You form no silhouette.


A very loose translation of this by Montale. I don't speak Italian, as you can probably tell.

Il balcone

Pareva facile giuoco
mutare in nulla lo spazio
che m'era aperto, in un tedio
malcerto il certo tuo fuoco.

Ora a quel vuoto ha congiunto
ogni mio tardo motivo,
sull'arduo nulla si spunta
l'ansia di attenderti vivo.

La vita che dà barlumi
è quella che sola tu scorgi.
A lei ti sporgi da questa
finestra che non s'illumina.

Shouldn't this be in the translation forum?

I thought not, as it's not me actually translating from the Italian, since I don't know Italian well enough. It's more an interpretation of the tone.

A very loose translation of this by Montale

A loose tone then and not translation.

There is definitely something in this, I think. The 'science bits' are a distraction for me, I'm not sure how much these interpretations are drawn from the original Italian, but the image of the figure on the balcony commands the poem and then the particles and the quantum read like abstractions, though I am guessing they are not. Same with the gamma rays.
Well, there is something transcendental about the figure on the balcony, a weary deity. And then we are suddenly in a cloakroom, beautifully described those sleeves by the way. It reminds me of something I read recently a translation of Tristan and Isolda where Christ is described as "a windblown sleeve".
There are conflicts here, but something beautiful too.

James Major wrote:A loose tone then and not translation.

Que??

Anyway, I quite like this, Ros. I can't comment on its relationship to the original as my grasp of Italian is tenuous to say the least, but I do think it has a nice sense of...well, what? A sort of godly contempt, almost mockery, perhaps. I like the last three lines especially.

Cheers
peter

Hmm. Interesting. I've found a translation of the first verse, Ros - have you seen that already?

It seemed an easy game
to change the space open to me
into nothingness, into uncertain
tedium your certain fire.

Of course you can run the Google translation of the original, which often gives splendidly silly results:

It seemed easy to play
in any way changing the space
that was my Open, in weariness
malcerto the certain your fire.

Now I have that void in joint
late all my plea,
nothing is checked on the very
the anxiety of waiting for you live.

The life giving glimpses
is that you only sees him.
To her you lean on this
window that does not light up.

Yes. An interesting project. Wouldn't you want to keep the original quatrains, at least?

Cheers

David

Thanks, chaps. David, yes, I have seen a couple of literal word-for-word translations, but overall I must admit I'm not sure of the point the poet is making, so I've been pretty free. Might be an idea to try quatrains, though. Calico, those bits are rather abstract, but I thought they were in the original, too. Had a lot of fun with it anyway, whatever the merits of the result!

Ros

I - with my very rickety Italian - would tweak that first verse (as translated above) into

It seemed an easy game
to change into nothingness the space
that was open to me, into an uncertain
tedium your certain fire.

Which is quite a far cry from your opening, but I'm not sure that I don't prefer yours anyway. Of course, at this stage I'm / we're not sure what light his ending may be throwing back on this first verse. I might look at that.

However, your poem is enjoyable as it is. You might have been better keeping schtum about the source of its inspiration. People like me have gone tearing off after reddish herrings.

Cheers

David

Sorry if I've had you chasing around after erroneous fish, David. I'm not sure my poem feels as if there's enough there to stand entirely alone, and conversely I didn't want people to think I was just nicking ideas. So I thought I'd better include the original.

Ros wrote:Sorry if I've had you chasing around after erroneous fish, David.

No no no. My fault, not yours.

It's interesting. Perhaps I should search around for a 'proper' translation, now I've had my go, to try to see what the poet was really meaning.

this is just an idea but i'd be tempted to keep the poem unchanged but change the title - to something like "some thoughts upon reading Montale's The Balcony" but something better than that obviously! This would make it clear that it isn't a literal translation but more of a reflection of it - like Ben's recent poem about the Lowry painting.
plus i quite like literal titles like that sometimes - gary snyder used to do with his poem titles quite a bit and they just felt really earthy and truthful like "At Five A.m. Off The North Coast Of Sumatra" or "I Went Into The Maverick Bar"

I hang motives on coat pegs
that surround an empty room,
dubious raincoats that curve their sleeves

had to write that first because i was that impressed
three tremendous lines for me

El

Tess, thanks - I did this for a sort of exercise, and I haven't thought about a title. You've got a good idea there.

El, thanks!

Ros

"Dubious raincoats" -- priceless phrase. How-about as a title

Generally I loved this. A bit uneven perhaps, but you are limited by the need to "translate".

Maybe if later on you get away from the original and make it more, err, your own?

Ian

It’s a big issue about translations. I really think that the ‘translator’ should see their version as their own poem. I have a bilingual collection of Eugenio Montales poems and your translation is nothing like the translation I have (which maintains the structure of the original). This is a word-for-word translation (with a little bit of liberty taken):

It seemed easy to play
in any way changing the space
that was my door in weariness
stairs leading to your fire.

Now the emptiness has joined
late all my plea,
nothing is checked on the very
anxiety of waiting for you here.

The life giving glimpses
is that you only sees him.
To her you lean on this
window that does not light up

The translation I have read is nothing like this either so, in essence, I think it is justifiable to call it your own composition. There is no suggestion of science in the original. Also there is no suggestion of G M Hopkins. Motales was very much influenced by Hopkins.

I think that this reads as a poem ‘inspired by Il balcone. From that starting point I think that this is a good work. I like the science use, it (ironically) presents the poem as metaphysical in its ‘other-worldliness’. I think I can see where you are going with this, the idea of opening a poem called balcony with ‘Quantum level’ is a nice touch and is a good introduction to the poem (it would make a better title, I think).

waiting for your universe to be born

is a great line and I think that it is the connection to the Montales. It captures the emptiness (futility?) of waiting, that is suggested in the Montales.

I really think that the last three lines should form a separate tercet because the ‘You’ hasn’t appeared a priori and it is not certain whether the statements are actually a thought about someone or whether they are being addressed to a person. Either way I feel that they form a separate stanza.

I like what you have composed though!

Denis Joe wrote:The life giving glimpses
is that you only sees him.

That's rubbish, Denis! In English, never mind as a translation.

Pretty shocking (or shockingly free) translation all round, I'd have said. Still, impressive that you have such a slim volume in your collection.

Denis Joe wrote:I like what you have composed though!

Yes, me too.

Denis, interesting, thanks for the comments. I don't think it (mine, anyway) can be called a translation if the person translating can't read the original language. I was working from something similar to your post - a literal word-translation, with the remit of trying to find a similar central image for Nothing, with no need to keep close to the original. Glad you liked it!

I've posted a revision.

Ros

I'm not sure about what David means the two lines he quoted make perfect sense to me (and I don't know what he means by 'slim volume'.

Anyhow I don't speak Italian and really only am aware of the sound of the language. I'm not not sure that a fluency with the language is that important. Don Patterson released a volume of Rilke's Orpheus sonnets a few years back and he admits that he doesn't know German and relied on existing translations. Admittedly he called his 'versions' rather than translations. I think that his use of that term is one that should be applied more widely.

I like that edit but I think that the line 'between existence and extinction' should not be taken out. It's a good line even if it hints at the misanthropic.

Actually, those two lines don't make much sense to me either. But then one of my problems was that I found it hard to get to the sense of the central section of the poem. But perhaps that would be the case in the Italian, too.

I'd agree that 'translations' that rely on earlier translations can only be versions, not true translations, which must involve some sense of the nuances of the words used in the original.

Thanks!

Ros

I seem to have upset Denis, which was not at all my intention. Sorry about that, Denis.

However, scrolling back up here, I see that the lines in question - La vita che dà barlumi / è quella che sola tu scorgi - as he has them are exactly as they are in the automatic Google translation (see above); I described those results as splendidly silly, and I see no reason to change that view. I don't need to use my very dodgy Italian to see that "The life giving glimpses / is that you only sees him" is just nonsense. It's not even proper English.

On a little further Googling, I've found someone else's version of them:

The life which glimmers dimly
is for your eyes alone to know.

That seems okay: barlumi is the plural of barlume, which is (among other things, it seems) a glimmer, and scorgere seems to be to see, behold or discern. So, as literally as I can make it:

The life which gives glimmers (or glimpses, perhaps)
is that which only you can discern.

Fascinating stuff, eh? You'll have to forgive me, I'm just a foreign language nerd.

Salute!

David

Well, I'm quite pleased then that

You alone see gamma rays burst green and gold.

could almost be mistaken for a translation of that idea.

Ros

Ros wrote:Well, I'm quite pleased then that

You alone see gamma rays burst green and gold.

could almost be mistaken for a translation of that idea.

It could, couldn't it!

David wrote:Fascinating stuff, eh? You'll have to forgive me, I'm just a foreign language nerd.

David

We have that in common David. No, I wasn't upset just a bit bemused. The lines that you quote strike me as the best lines in the translation (I stupidily started out using a dictionary and then went on-line to have it translated. My word-for-word one was pure gibberish) I felt that they had a Christian feel to them, possible in need of punctuation.