cenée Santo

AP Literature

Mr. Gallagher

22 December 2010

Poetry in Translation
Meta Cognitive

Emmanuel Moses, a French poet and translator created a work known as ³He and

I.´ Within this compilation of writings, the poem ³Veille et sommeil,´ is the poem I

chose to translate. It turns out Moses¶ complete work was translated by Marilyn Hacker.

³Veille et sommeil´ alludes to two different worlds; the real world and the dream world.

The arrangement of my poem copies the original by Emmanuel Moses. At first, I

did not plan to arrange my poem this way. I wanted to indent the words ³bows´ and

³breaks´ in the first line, making them each their own separate line. I figured this would

add a dramatic effect to the poem, but after much thought, I felt as though it wouldn¶t

pertain to the meaning of my poem. Marilyn Hacker, the translator followed Moses¶

structure, but she did not follow his punctuation. In my translation, I wrote ³the shadows

flee«´ and ³nevertheless revealing an unrecognizable medium«´ These are the only

two cases in the poem in which there are punctuation. The ellipses add to the meaning of

the poem because the ellipses lead us to believe that there are many possibilities to come.

If I had put a period, it would have ended the possibilities of dreams.

Marilyn Hacker, the translator of Moses¶ ³Veille et sommeil´ made a decision

that I was not fond of. Instead of leaving the title as a direct translation, which would

have been ³Watch and Sleep,´ she decided to add ³Between.´ I agree with Hacker¶s

purpose for translating the title as ³Between Waking and Sleeping.´ When I read his
poem, I felt as though Moses was discussing the difference between reality and dreams.

But, I translated my title directly. I feel as though the direct translation is a stronger title

and does not give the meaning of the poem away.

Beginning with the first line of the poem, the original French translation is, ³ In

this place of conciliation where the time bow and scatters.´ Hacker translated the opening

line as ³In this place of reconciliation where time bends and is scattered.´ I did not like

what Hacker did here. In my poem, I wrote, ³In this sin forgiving place where time bows

and breaks.´ One can see that I made a good amount of changes. To begin, I decided not

to use the translation for conciliation (reconciliation) in my poem. When thinking of

reconciliation, I thought of church, a place of reconcile, forgiveness. Therefore, I wrote,

³sin forgiving place´ because I felt it had a deeper meaning. By including this in my

poem, I was able to instantaneously bring the idea of religious subtext to the surface.

Also in the first line, I wanted to use the literary technique of alliteration when it came to

describing time. Hacker, in her translation wrote, ³where time bends and is scattered.´

This did not flow when I read it, which was my main concern for the opening line of my

poem. In exchange, I wrote bows and breaks. In French, ploie means bow, which I

thought was important to the elegant French culture, so I kept the direct translation. I

used breaks instead of the direct translation ³scatters´ because when something scatters it

parts and disappears. I though that using ³breaks´ would give me the opportunity to use a

literary technique and show that time can break or stop for a moment. Also, I wanted the

adjectives to be in the same tense. Much like Hacker did, I kept the idea that ³ducks fly.´

Instead of using ³fly´ I used ³soar´ to better the imagery of the poem, as if the wings of

the ducks were open to the possibilities to come. When ducks fly, they travel from place
to place or fly south for the winter. Where they fly is a mystery to us, which is a dream

world, a ³fabrication.´ Originally in the fourth line of my translation, I wrote ³the song

of the sowers of rice rises again.´ It flowed awkwardly and didn¶t sound good. Therefore,

I rearranged the order of the words so now it reads ³the song of the rice sowers rises

again.´ Their song rises ³with the tawny owl.´ The tawny owl has a mythical association

with bad luck and death because of its nocturnal habits and eerie imitated call. The tawny

owl and the song of the rice sowers relate to nightmares, which can occur when one is

asleep. Nightmares in this poem are represented as sins that can be forgiven in the real

world and comforting dreams.

In the second stanza of ³Between Waking and Sleeping,´ Hacker begins to

describe the water as ³green and silver, the water no longer reflects knees.´ According to

the word for word translation, I understand why Hacker chose theses descriptions up until

the point where she writes ³no longer reflects knees.´ Nowhere in the word for word

translation does Moses include the phrase ³no longer.´ Lines 8 and 9 in the second stanza

of my poem relate to dreams that one has previously had and they are reoccurring.

Sometimes we ³rediscover old faces, under wrinkled masks.´ In other words, sometimes

dreams or nightmares can come back to us when we sleep, but they are masked and we

cannot remember where we have encountered them before. We cannot remember a lot of

the detail because remember in this ³sin forgiving place´ time breaks.

The second stanza is where I did most of my revisiting and reconstructing. In

lines 11 and 12, I had originally written ³but the delicate crown of the clover/ protects

these enclosed by bondage.´ Initially, I had interpreted the delicate crown of the clover as

the protector of dreams. A clover is green, which is the color of envy and wealth, things
that should be protected. I used the direct translation of delicate crown because I felt it

had a strong meaning, but not strong in the sense that the dreams needed to be guarded.

Guarded was too harsh a word for the meaning of my poem. Green, also represents safe

and restful places. In my translation, the ³crown of the clover´ is the dream that protects

³these enclosed by burden.´ I decided to replace the word bondage with burden. I felt as

though the word bondage had a sexual sub context and that was not the direction I wanted

to go in with my poem. Using bondage would take away from the purity of dreams and

the religious sub context. Continuing the idea that there is religion within the lines of my

poem, I wrote ³the evening illuminates the lights of Christmas´ as opposed to Hacker¶s

³and evening lights them up like Christmas candles.´ In the word for word translation,

³bougies´ is interpreted as candles. But, in order to get the feel of dreams coming alive

during the nighttime, I used ³lights.´ There are various types of lights during Chritmas

time, not just candles. They all come alive during the night when they are lit up. I used

the lights of Christmas as a metaphor for dreams coming alive when you go to sleep at

night. The ³lights of Christmas´ is the line in the poem that connects with ³this sin

forgiving place´ in the first stanza. The dreams that come alive reveal ³an unrecognizable

medium«´ In the word for word translation, the word ³digitales´ in French translates to

³digitalis.´ Hacker decided to use this translation in her poem, but I decided against it for

two reasons. The first reason being that ³digitalis´ didn¶t flow with the colloquial diction

of my poem. Second, the definition of digitalis is a drug prepared from the dry leaves of

foxglove and containing substances that stimulate the heart muscle. I strongly disagree

with Hacker¶s use of this word. Therefore, in my translation, I replaced ³digitalis´ with

³medium.´ Yes, it is a completely different word, but it relates to the poem and gives it
more meaning. ³An unrecognizable medium«´ suggests the world of the unknown,

where and why you can¶t interpret your dreams or make sense of the. Especially with the

ellipses following the word medium. Not only do they follow the structure of Moses¶

poem, the ellipses make the reader think that there are many never-ending possibilities.

There was no hesitation when it came to fixing the first line of the third stanza for

my translation. I jumped on the opportunity to transform this line. Hacker¶s line reads as

follows, ³for anyone who loses his way often.´ This is such an awkward line. It doesn¶t

flow smoothly and the reader stumbles upon it. The way Hacker wrote this line made it

seem like she just added the ³often´ as a last minute critique. I felt that ³often´ was

necessary to include especially because ³souvent´ which is in Moses¶ ³Veille et

sommeil´ means often. In my poem, I wrote ³the way is often lost.´ I decided to leave out

³anyone´ because I felt as though ³the way is often lost´ is a general statement that could

pertain to anyone. My first line in the third stanza flows nicely. The next line

unfortunately did not follow suit. Originally I had ³having no secret of ruts.´ Yes, it¶s

awkward. For such an awkward translation, I thought that Hacker did a good job of

arranging the words correctly, so I kept what she wrote. In the next line of her translation

Hacker writes ³which keep up their own legends.´ The only correction I made was I got

rid of ³keep up´ because I felt it was too plain and didn¶t fit with the rest of the line.

Instead, I used ³share´ because everyone discusses his or her dreams with one another.

Line 19 of Hacker¶s translation reads, ³of amorous metamorphoses.´ Though I like her

word choice, ³amorous metamorphoses´ did not fit with the colloquial diction of my

translation.
 In the last stanza of the poem, the last two lines caused a lot of controversy. In

Moses¶ original poem he writes, ³quand arrive le balbuzard/ gare aux demoiselles

endormies´ which translates word for word as ³when arrive the osprey station to the

Misses sleepy.´ As I had mentioned, French is known for the miscommunication between

translations. Hacker swapped the last two lines of the poem, which I was not fond of. In

other words, ³sleeping maidens take warning/ when the osprey arrives´ is opposite of

what Moses¶ originally had. I decided to follow Moses and write ³when the osprey

arrive/ the sleeping maiden awakens.´ I thought that it would be reasonable to write the

reason why the sleeping maiden awakens before saying ³the sleeping maiden awakens.´

Also, I chose to use the word awaken instead of Hacker¶s ³warning.´ When I think of

warning, I think of bad things that give me a reason to be scared and worry. When one is

disturbed during their sleep, they are awakened not warned. I felt that warned was not the

right word because it gave the poem a more serious tone. Another word I had trouble

with was osprey. I wasn¶t sure if I should include it or not. But, when I looked up the

word osprey, it means a large fish eating bird of prey with long narrow wings and a white

underside and crown. Reading this description, it seems as though the osprey is a

beautiful bird. If I had tried to incorporate a type of fish eating bird such as a pelican, it

would take away from the elegancy of the French language and the image of the poem.

In his poem ³Veille et sommeil,´ Emmanuel Moses distinguished the difference

between reality and dreams, both good and bad. I do not think that Hacker¶s translation

did Moses¶ justice. French is a romance language that is spoken so fluently, so beautifully

that Moses wanted to present it to his audience by discussing a question prominent all

around the world; what is the difference between dreams and reality?