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harmonyharmony
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« on: 20:00:54, 17-08-2008 » |
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Hi all
Don't know if anyone can help me, but I need an English translation of a Spanish poem fairly urgently.
It's by Roberto Juarroz and it seems to be called Ejercicios de aproximación.
No sabemos a qué
ni quizá desde dónde.
Tal vez lo hayamos olvidado.
Algunas veces nos sentimos
como una marioneta
con los hilos cortados,
manoteando vacíos,
sostenidos apenas
por alguna palabra
que cualquier ráfaga deshace.
Pero otras veces el vacío
toma la densidad de un cuerpo
y asume esa palabra, la sostiene
como el primer árbol
sostuvo al primer fruto
y también al primer pájaro.
Y entonces ya no somos marionetas.
If anyone can help, I will be eternally grapefruit. I mean grateful.
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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martle
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« Reply #1 on: 20:04:08, 17-08-2008 » |
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I think tinners is at least proficient in Spanish, hh. Although perhaps I have that wrong - and of course someone else may be. Anyway, worth a PM?
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Green. Always green.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #2 on: 20:20:12, 17-08-2008 » |
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Someone very far from being a Spanish speaker writes:
something like
We do not know what
nor perhaps from where.
Perhaps we have forgotten.
Sometimes we feel
like a puppet
whose threads have been cut,
emptily gesticulating,
barely sustained
by some word
which the slightest gust destroys.
But other times the emptiness
takes the density from a body
and assumes that word, sustains it
like the first tree sustained
the first fruit
and also the first bird.
And then we are no longer puppets.
(the beginning and the end are pretty secure I think, around the middle it's as dodgy as heck.)
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Eruanto
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« Reply #3 on: 20:26:12, 17-08-2008 » |
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Just in case, I've emailed a Colombian friend about this. But I've no idea when he'll get the message.
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"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set"
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #4 on: 20:43:58, 17-08-2008 » |
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Thanks to all. The problem is that it has to go in the programme notes for our festival. Exercises approximation.
We do not know what
or perhaps from where.
Perhaps we have forgotten.
Sometimes we feel
as a puppet
with the wires cut,
Manote empty,
Sustained barely
in a word
that any burst undo.
But sometimes a vacuum
making the density of a body
and assumes that word, argues
as the first tree
held the first fruit
and also the first bird.
And then we are no longer puppets. Richard - I'm imagining that you wouldn't be happy with your translation appearing print? I'd attribute it to you!! |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #5 on: 21:09:03, 17-08-2008 » |
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Richard - I'm imagining that you wouldn't be happy with your translation appearing print? I'd attribute it to you!!
Er, I'd rather not, I mean it reads only barely better than the Google translation...  How soon do you actually need it? |
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #6 on: 21:14:47, 17-08-2008 » |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #7 on: 17:19:02, 18-08-2008 » |
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Richard's translation looks fine to me - I can't see immediately see anything wrong with it, although my Spanish is far from perfect (and a couple of things in that poem look a bit odd to me, like 'quizá' for 'quizás', but then Argentinian Spanish is quite odd anyway ...).
I'll try and have another look later. Been off-line most of the day and got to rush out again in a bit.
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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richard barrett
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« Reply #8 on: 18:15:22, 18-08-2008 » |
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Richard's translation looks fine to me blimey, how did I manage that? |
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #9 on: 18:31:05, 18-08-2008 » |
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Thanks to everyone (especially to Richard for his translation).
We've got the 'press launch' (whatever that entails) on Friday (though I'm not going to be there because I'm running away to join the circus) and this is the deadline for producing a mock-up of the programme (hence my panic). So what I'm going to do is initially provide just the Spanish text and then either in the finished programme, or in an insert, reproduce the translation by W. S. Merwin which I've just bought on a****n.co.uk because I could. I'll reproduce the translation here when I get the book.
This festival programme is turning out to be more trouble than it should be especially since I'm not down on the website as being in charge of it...
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #10 on: 02:43:49, 19-08-2008 » |
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a couple of things in that poem look a bit odd to me, like 'quizá' for 'quizás' My dictionary, which I suppose I could have bothered to check earlier if I hadn't been rushing out, reassures me that 'quizá' without the final 's' is a quite normal alternative. I've still never quite got used to the spelling of that word anyway. Spanish being the only language I've ever picked up from hearing it spoken, some of my initial ideas of how things were spelt turned out to be wildly inaccurate when I finally did get round to buying some books. Although it's a phonetically-spelt language, some sounds have two or three spelling options, especially if the Spanish you learn is Mexican or Latin American, as mine was. So I always imagined 'quizás' was spelt 'quisás'. Similarly, although even further off the mark, it was a long time before I realised that the verb in 'Hace frio' ('It's cold') was the present tense of 'hacer', 'to do' or 'to make'. (The phrase is exactly equivalent to the French 'Il fait froid'.) I always thought it was a completely different verb, 'Ase frio'!  |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #11 on: 00:14:37, 30-08-2008 » |
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Having received the book of poems on my return to Edinburgh, I find that this one is not included A fact that I could have probably checked before ordering it  Haven't quite decided what I'll do about the programme, but too tired to care right now  I quite like some of the poems in the book so I suppose that's something  |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #12 on: 00:17:55, 30-08-2008 » |
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Welcome back, hh: what a disappointment after all that, though,
And did you end up as sole caterer?
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