Poem translation (Toon Tellegen)

[gaius]

Hi all,

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) I have never been gifted with the spark of brilliance (perhaps slight insanity?) that it takes to write beautiful things myself. Fortunately, I can translate a little bit. Since I have always found it a great injustice that people oblivious to the Dutch language cannot read the brilliant poetry written in it, I decided to start translating some poems to English.

Today I translated a poem by my favourite poet, Toon Tellegen (the original poem and credits are in the hidden box). His poems are all so simple, yet the texts contain so many beautiful things! I know it's not strictly specific to go, but a little creative inspiration cannot hurt a go player either, can it? Please, let me know whether you like it, or whether you think the translation works! If people appreciate it, I might post other ones in the future. Thanks!



Imperative

Be just a little bit sad,
always,
or you'll find yourself lost,

but be just a little bit lost -
too far for help to arrive -
or you'd only find yourself happy,

yet be a little bit happy,
inexplicably happy,
jump over the moon,

or you'd find yourself sad,
a little bit sad,
always.

The original text:


Men moet

Men moet altijd enigszins verdrietig zijn,
anders is men verloren,

maar men moet wel een beetje verloren zijn –
van het reddeloze soort –
anders zou men alleen maar gelukkig zijn,

toch moet men ook gelukkig zijn,
zo maar gelukkig kunnen zijn,
in alle staten van geluk,

anders zou men maar verdrietig zijn,
enigszins verdrietig
altijd.

Toon Tellegen
From: Minuscule oorlogen, niet met het blote oog zichtbaar
Querido, Amsterdam 2004

[Shaddy]

I like this poem a lot, and ｔｈｏｕｇｈ　Ｉ cannot read the original I'd say you did a great job translating.

[daal]

Thanks for sharing! Although I am not oblivious to the Dutch language (I've heard that it exists), I haven't run across very many works by Dutch authors. I enjoyed reading your translation, and it inspired me to try reading the original as well. Although my Dutch is slightly below rudimentary, I nonetheless have a comment about your translation. First of all I liked the poem as I read it in English, however it seems to me that in two instances your translation gets a bit more specific than the original, adding imagery where the author left it out. First by specifying the sadness as "too far for help to arrive," which seems more dire than just saying sadness of the hopeless sort, and then with "jump over the moon." While your images get similar ideas across, they seem to alter the tone somewhat, which detracts from the way that the author seems to just be playing with thoughts. Nonetheless, if you hadn't translated it, we probably never would have read it, so thanks again, and keep 'em coming!

[quantumf]

Thanks Gijs, I enjoyed that. As you know, I know a somewhat bastardized form of Dutch (Afrikaans), which although somewhat lacking in vocabulary compared to English, at least retains an expressive power that English often lacks. It was thus interesting to read this rather wistful but beautifully written Dutch poem. I thought you captured the essence rather well (although the jumping over the moon was a bit of a stretch ).

Poem translations are rather fraught with difficulty, as the best are so closely tied as they are to the nature of the language itself, but please don't let this discourage you from trying!

[gaius]

Thanks for the nice comments!

(...) it seems to me that in two instances your translation gets a bit more specific than the original, adding imagery where the author left it out. First by specifying the sadness as "too far for help to arrive," which seems more dire than just saying sadness of the hopeless sort, and then with "jump over the moon." While your images get similar ideas across, they seem to alter the tone somewhat, which detracts from the way that the author seems to just be playing with thoughts. (...)

Both of those are, indeed, mine (I tend to take quite a few liberties when translating poetry). I just don't really feel the rhythm in the more literal translation:

but be just a little bit lost -
of the hopeless kind -
or you'd only find yourself happy

The same goes for the jumping over the moon. I am not really aware of a really good English translation of "in alle staten van geluk" that preserves the rhythm, so I decided to throw in a wacky image of my own. You do have a point though! Hmmm... I will think about a good way of saying this without specifying these images so directly.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[cyclops]

soaked/filled with joy ???