On Alan Baker's comment about voicing patterns:
>This may be true of Zukofsky's version of Catullus, which I've just been
>reading, but in that particular instance, it produces a very convoluted
>English. Yet I've been told that the original is very plain-speaking.
Sisson on the other hand has produced a very readable Catullus
>which sounds nothing like Zukofsky's. Which is right?
>It seems that Sisson's is more useful for those with no Latin (like me)
>while Z's might be for those who do know Latin and are interested
>in how the sounds (but not the sense?) can be reproduced in English.
>It's a rare skill that can capture both.<
No doubt this is right, but I unfortunately don't have either the Zukofsky or
Sisson by me. The examples I've looked at include Pound's translation of the
first 25 lines of The Seafarer compared with Michael Alexander's rendition of
the same line. Pound is closer to the voicing patterns at the cost of seeming
archaic. The results can't be quantified but can be sensed by reading the
first line -- try to feel when your voicebox is buzzing as you read and when
it isn't (the effect shows up markedly when measured by linguistic machinery).
Maeg ic be me sylfum sothgied wrecan
May I for my own self song's truth reckon (Pound)
The tale I frame shall be found to tally (Alexander)
Similarly, take two translators of Chaucer, Coghill (Penguin) and Morrison
(Viking Portable). Coghill claims to have respected Chaucer's tone of voice
or manner and Morrison says, modestly enough, "I have reproduced Chaucer's
verse forms in my versions, but I cannot pretend to have caught the quality of
his rhyming or of the *motion* of his lines." (my itals) According to my
measurement system, based on linguistic laboratory recordings, taking 50 lines
of Chaucer, a total of 510 syllables, Coghill matched the voicing patterns on
232 syllables, whereas Morrison only matched them on 157 syllables.
I believe that voicing patterns and verse pace are intimately related, and
that this is little recognised. Similarly, voicing patterns and tone/music
are necessarily intimately related, since there can be no intonation, in the
sense of "pitch" without voicing patterns. If I'm right, this would suggest
that the closer-matching Coghill versions live somewhat up to his claim of
catching tone and manner, whereas Morrison, alas, lives up to his modesty --
he hasn't caught the pace much. I selected these two translations precisely
because my ear had already told me this, and, being used to listening for
voicing patterns, I could already guess that these patterns were playing a
role in the difference.
At the risk of boring you, I've also shown this at work in a few lines of
French translation from Gerald Manley Hopkins:
I am soft sift
In an hourglass -- at the wall
fast (Wreck of the Deutschland)
Pierre Leyris:
Je passe au sas
D'un sablier -- contre le paroi, ferme . . .
And Jean-George Ritz:
Doucement me voici tamisé
en un sablier -- a la paroi
Adhérent
Here, machine traces readily show what the unaided ear can immediately
spot -- that Leyris (again at the cost of slight oddness) catches the pitch,
movement, and voicing patterns of Hopkins's oddness much better than the more
orthodox French of Ritz.
We're all dependent on translation; so I wouldn't, of course, say that all
verse should be read in the original. My only point is a modest one because
I'm not a gifted linguist. With our normal schooling (left school when just
16) it's usually possible to make more headway with a Romance language
bilingual text than one at first thinks. Russian, Chinese -- OK, can't do,
but I do feel immensely frustrated when I read Li Po in translation and know
that I'm missing the magic of the ideogram system of prosody or can't catch
that peculiar Russian tone.
Catullus, Dante -- facing pages editions, please, preferably in prose! Then,
when I know them a bit in the original, I'd like to see how Sissons, Zukofsky,
Pinsky, and the rest have done by the original: but only as a person taking
delight in expert translation, as a kind of art.
Doug
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