differences (one tsvetaeva, two translators)
Elaine Feinstein’s translation:
Bent with worry
Bent with worry, God
paused, to smile.
And look, there were many
holy angels with bodies of
the radiance he had
given them,
some with enormous wings and
others without any,
which is why I weep
so much
because even more than God
himself I love his fair angels.
Christina Davis’s translation [jubilat, seven]:
Differences. I’m engulfed in an ocean of questions.
Why are there different numbers of stanzas? How can the translators get away with that?
Where do the women heaving stunted breasts come from?
How do you heave a stunted breast?
Word choice seems to have a huge impact on meaning. The real poem is therefore completely elusive. Love versus worship, fair angels versus messengers. And the meaning was probably elusive even in the original, multiplying the obscurity into even more intolerable layers of wingshadow.
Did Marina use odd punctuation, truncated grammar, and alliteration like Davis?
The second version seems like a poem. The first is pale and watery in comparison.
Is Davis translating more of Marina?
What about the genesis of competing translations? Does everyone agree the first set is bad and a new set is really needed? But how much work Feinstein did!
Did angels have free will? I forget. Is the poem about angels or human/angels?
Marina reminds me of Emily Dickinson. I’d like to know more about the similarities and differences (he did not put the differences on them…). Emily was privileged and potbound and Marina was tortured and transplanted without mercy.
1992 (Feinstein) and 2003 (Davis). What poetic influences waxed and waned during those 10 years to yield such different translations? Or is it a matter of the individuals involved?
WHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYW
I’m exercised about this. Why? It’s a mystery.
I was chanting “worry worn god for once paused pleased” last weekend while mowing the lawn. Love that line. I don’t memorize poems, but I might want to memorize this one.
I used “nothing feathers” in last night’s word/bird sketch. I don’t know if I’m plagiarizing Christina or Marina.