Oersetprojekt: Mandelstam, 'Tristia' (1918)

Tusken no en 31 desimber wol ik besykje it fers 'Tristia' fan Mandelstam yn it Frysk oer te setten, wylst ik it Russyske orizjineel net lêze kin. Hjirûnder steane fjouwer oersettingen, trije Ingelske en ien Nederlânske. De earste twa binne net rymjend, wylst dat eins al moat. Dy't oare oersettingen hat of tsjinkomt, jou asjebleaft lûd. Op YouTube is noch in (sprutsen) Ingelske oersetting fan Brodsky te finen. 




Oersetting: Clarence Brown en W.S. Merwin, 1973

I have studied the science of good-byes,
the bare-headed laments of night.
The waiting lengthens as the oxen chew.
In the town the last hour of the watch.
And I have bowed to the knell of night in the rooster’s throat
when eyes red with crying picked up their burden
of sorrow and looked into the distance
and the crying of women and the Muses’ song became one.

Who can tell from the sound of the word ‘parting’
what kind of bereavements await us,
what the rooster promises with his loud surprise
when a light shows in the Acropolis,
dawn of a new life,
the ox still swinging his jaw in the outer passage,
or why the rooster, announcing the new life,
flaps his wings on the ramparts?

A thing I love is the action of spinning:
the shuttle fluttering back and forth, the hum of the spindle,
and look, like swan’s down floating toward us,
Delia, the barefoot sheperdess, flying –
o indigence at the root of our lives,
how poor is the language of happiness!
Everything’s happened before and will happen again,
but still the moment of each meeting is sweet.

Amen. The little transparent figure
lies on the clean earthen plate
like a squirted skin being stretched.
A girl bends to study the wax.
Who are we to guess at the hell of the Greeks?
Wax for women, bronze for men:
our lot falls to us in the field, fighting,
but to them death comes as they tell fortunes.

Oersetting Kees Verheul, 1974

Afscheid is een wetenschap die ik geleerd heb
van klachten, blootshoofds in de nacht.
Ossen herkauwen, het wachten duurt,
in de stad verstrijkt het laatste uur van de nachtwake
en ik buig mij voor de rite van die hanennacht
toen ogen die hun verdriet als een bepakking droegen
met roodbehuilde randen in de verte staarden
en een schreiende vrouwestem zich met Muzenzang vermengde.

Wie kan bij het woord afscheid zeggen
hoe ons leven verlopen zal, los van elkaar,
wat het hanengekraai ons voorspelt
wanneer het vuur op de acropolis brandt?
En wie weet bij de dageraad van een nieuw leven,
wanneer de ossen lui herkauwen in de stal,
waarom de haan, heraut van een nieuw leven,
klapwiekend op de stadsmuur staat?

Ik houd van handen die de woldraad spinnen,
de spoel die heen en weer schiet, het wiel dat snort.
Zie hoe, licht als zwanedons,
Delia blootsvoets aan komt snellen!
O, schrale bodem van ons leven,
hoe arm is de taal van de vreugde.
Alles is vroeger geweest, alles komt terug
en zoet is alleen het ogenblik van herkennen.

Laat het dan zo zijn: een doorzichtig wasfiguurtje
ligt op een schone aardewerken schaal
uitgespreid als een eekhoornvacht.
Een meisje buigt zich over de schaal en kijkt.
Ons is het niet gegeven vragen te stellen aan de Erebos.
Was is voor vrouwen wat brons is voor de man.
Ons lot wordt beslist op het slagveld.
Zij sterven terwijl ze in de toekomst kijken.

Oersetting A.S. Kline, 2000

I have studied the Science of departures,
in night’s sorrows, when a woman’s hair falls down.
The oxen chew, there’s the waiting, pure,
in the last hours of vigil in the town,
and I reverence night’s ritual cock-crowing,
when reddened eyes lift sorrow’s load and choose
to stare at distance, and a woman’s crying
is mingled with the singing of the Muse.

Who knows, when the word ‘departure’ is spoken
what kind of separation is at hand,
or of what that cock-crow is a token,
when a fire on the Acropolis lights the ground,
and why at the dawning of a new life,
when the ox chews lazily in its stall,
the cock, the herald of the new life,
flaps his wings on the city wall?

I like the monotony of spinning,
the shuttle moves to and fro,
the spindle hums. Look, barefoot Delia’s running
to meet you, like swans down on the road!
How threadbare the language of joy’s game,
how meagre the foundation of our life!
Everything was, and is repeated again:
it’s the flash of recognition brings delight.

So be it: on a dish of clean earthenware,
like a flattened squirrel’s pelt, a shape,
forms a small, transparent figure, where
a girl’s face bends to gaze at the wax’s fate.
Not for us to prophesy, Erebus, Brother of Night:
Wax is for women: Bronze is for men.
Our fate is only given in fight,
to die by divination is given to them.

Note: Mandelstam wrote: ‘In night’s stillness a lover speaks one tender name instead of the other, and suddenly knows that this has happened before: the words, and her hair, and the cock crowing under the window, that already crowed in Ovid’s Tristia. And he is overcome by the deep delight of recognition....’ in ‘The Word and Culture’ in Sobraniye sochineniy. The reference is to the night before Ovid’s departure to his Black Sea exile, in his Tristia Book I iii. Divination was carried out by girls, who melted candle wax on the surface of a shallow dish of water, to form random shapes. Erebus was the son of Chaos, and Night his sister. In versions of the Greek myths Eros and Nemesis are the children of Erebus and Night. Erebus is also a place of shadows between Earth and Hades. Verse 3 echoes Tibullus’s poem to Delia Book I III 90-91 and Pushkin’s early (1812) poems to‘Delia’.

Oersetting Ilya Shambat, 2001

The essence of farewell I have extracted
From hatless laments of the sleepless night
As oxen chew, and waiting grows protracted,
And end of city vigil is in sight -
And I recall the rooster night with fear
When lost in doleful journey for too long
Into the void the tear-drenched eyes did peer
And woman's cry mingled with muse's song.

Who yet again can say farewell, unknowing
What longing and what sorrow waits for us,
What good is it to judge the rooster's crowing
When fire is burning in Acropolis;
And on the somewhere dawn of some new lifetime,
While in the shed the oxen calmly stall,
Why does the rooster, herald of new lifetime,
Flap his flamboyant wings on city wall?

And yet I love the way fate weaves her gown:
The shuttle runs, the spindle turns apace,
And straight ahead, look now, for like swan's down
The barefoot Delia is flying in your face!
Oh, of a life is but a shoddy structure
When tongue is starved so utterly for light!
All was before, all will repeat then rupture
And only recognition brings respite.

Thus it will be: A figurine, transparent,
Stands on an earthen dish that's clean and wide,
And like a snow-white winter squirrel pelt
A girl leans over wax and looks inside.
Ours not is to divine the Greek Erebus:
Wax is to her what bronze is to her mate.
Our dice falls only in the field of battle;
With divination women seal their fate.