"Clair de lune"
Dan Clore
Verlaine's classic poem "Clair de lune" and these four
translations of it. I think that Clark Ashton Smith's
translation does the best job of conveying the sense of
Verlaine's poem in an equivalent versified form. Don't
forget to listen to Debussy's musical interpretation, "Clair
de lune" from Suite Bergamasque, while reading them.
Three of the translators change the poem's central metaphor
into a simile. Verlaine leaves it implicit that the
landscape described is a painting; O'Shaughnessy and
MacIntyre both make this explicit, O'Shaughnessy going to
the point of renaming the poem "A Pastel" and naming
Watteau, the painter Verlaine presumably had in mind. All
but Smith give up the wordplay of "masques et bergamasques".
A Bergamask dance is a clownish rustic dance like that of
the folk of Bergamo, Venice. The OED gives this as the
proper spelling, though the one citation noted (William
Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream) gives only the
variants Bergomask and Burgomaske.
Clark Ashton Smith's use of "antical" to translate
"fantasque" (fantastic) does not match the OED's definition
of the word ("fronting external objects, and thus remote
from the axis"), but he obviously intends it as a variant of
"antic".
Clair de lune
by Paul Verlaine
Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmants masques et bergamasques,
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.
Tout en chantant sur le monde mineur
L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,
Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,
Au calme clair de lune trist et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.
A Pastel
translated by Arthur O'Shaughnessy
Your soul is like a landscape choice and fair,
Joyous with dancing, lutes, and masquerade,
Wherein the folk, though gay garb they wear,
Look almost sad throughout the long parade.
All singing in the minor of love's kisses,
And life the willing slave of love the strong,
They seem as though they doubted of their blisses,
And dreamy moonlight mingles with their song:
The dreamy moonlight of a Watteau painting,
That silences the birds, and where one sees
The sobbing fountains all like figures fainting,
Tall, slim, amid the statues and the trees.
Moonlight
translated by John Gray
How like a well-kept garden is your soul,
With bergomask and solemn minuet!
Playing upon the lute! the dancers seem
But sad, beneath their strange habilements.
While, in the minor key, their songs extol
The victor Love, and life's sweet blandishments,
Their looks belie the burden of their lays,
The songs that mingle with the still moonbeams.
So strange, so beautiful, the pallid rays;
Making the birds among the branches dream,
And sob with ecstasy the slender jets,
The fountains tall that leap upon the lawns
Amid the garden gods, the marble fauns.
Moonlight
Translated by C.F. MacIntyre
Your soul is like a painter's landscape where
charming masks in shepherd mummeries
are playing lutes and dancing with an air
of being sad in their fantastic guise.
Even while they sing, all in a minor key,
of love triumphant and life's careless boon,
they seem in doubt of their felicity,
their songs melts in the calm light of the moon,
the lovely melancholy light that sets
the little birds to dreaming in the tree
and among the statues makes the jets
of slender fountains sob with ecstasy.
Moonlight
translated by Clark Ashton Smith
Your soul, it is a garden set apart,
Where masques and bergamasques go mummer-wise
And dance and strum the cithern, though at heart
Half-sad beneath their antical disguise.
Singing in minor mode, to muted string
Of love triumphant and life opportune,
They scarce believe the happy theme they sing,
And their songs pass and mingle with the moon,
The fair, the mournful moon, so silently
Making the birds to dream in coverts lone,
And the slim founts to sob with ecstasy
Among the tranquil statues bowed in stone.
--
Dan Clore
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Robin Sommo
literal translation of the original, without regard to form?
It would be helpful in deciding which of the translators'
liberties were minor, and which impertinent.
Regarding "antical," I think a case might be made for
using it in its official meaning to describe disguises.
thanks,
R.
"Dan Clore" <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
news:3F0FF907...@columbia-center.org...
AJA
Je suis tres contente de vous assister a choisir le poeme le plus
artistique ci-dessous!
All the best,
Ann
"I walk in wonders beyond myself." --C. S. Lewis
Your soul is a chosen (cherished) landscape (backdrop)
>Que vont charmants masques et bergamasques,
Where go charming plays and skits
>Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Playing the lute and dancing and (that are) quasi
>Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.
sad under their fantastic disguises
>
>Tout en chantant sur le monde mineur
All while singing in the minor key (lit. world)
>L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,
conquering love and opportune life
>Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
They don't seem to believe in their happiness
>Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,
and their song mixes in the moonlight
>Au calme clair de lune trist et beau,
in the calm moonlight- (the) sad and beautiful
>Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Which makes the birds dream in the trees
>Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
And cry with ecstasy the jets of water
>Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.
The great slim water jets among the marbles
R.A. Leonard
632 pages on this very subject.
Robin Sommo wrote:
--
__________________________________________
R.A. Leonard
Ottawa Canada
http://www.raleonard.com/
Fiona Webster
> Ob Book: Le Ton Beau de Marot by Douglas R. Hofstadter (1997)
> 632 pages on this very subject.
Another Ob Book: Reading Rilke by William Gass. Brilliant
book about the problems of translating poetry, with line
by line comparisons of several different translators of
Rilke. I recommend it to all, but especially to Rilke fans.
--Fiona
Jorn Barger
Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masked and costumed figures stroll
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad under their fantastic disguises.
While they sing in the minor mode
The victory of love and the opportunities of life
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song blends with the moonlight
The quiet moonlight, sad and beautiful,
Which gives dreams to the birds in the trees
And makes the fountain sprays sob in ecstasy
The tall willowy sprays among the marble statues.
Elodie Lauten
Your soul is the choicest of countries
where charming maskers, masked shepherdesses,
go playing their lutes and dancing, yet gently
sad beneath their fantastic disguises.
While they sing in a minor key
of all-conquering love and careless fortune,
they don't seem to trust in their own fantasy
and their song melts away in the light of the moon,
in the quiet moonlight, lovely and sad,
that makes the birds dream in the trees, all
the tall water-jets sob with ecstasies,
the slender water-jets rising from marble.
A.S.Kline
Your soul is like a landscape fantasy,
Where masks and Bergamasks, in charming wise,
Strum lutes and dance, just a bit sad to be
Hidden beneath their fanciful disguise.
Singing in minor mode of life's largesse
And all-victorious love, they yet seem quite
Reluctant to believe their happiness,
And their song mingles with the pale moonlight,
The calm, pale moonlight, whose sad beauty, beaming,
Sets the birds softly dreaming in the trees,
And makes the marbled fountains, gushing, streaming--
Slender jet-fountains--sob their ecstasies.
Norman R. Shapiro
Your soul is a select landscape
Charmed by masqued dancers,
Playing the lute and dancing and yet
Sad beneath their fantasy disguises.
Singing in a minor key
Love the conqueror and the easy life,
They can't believe their happiness
And their song melds into the moonlight,
The peaceful moonlight sad and beautiful,
That makes the birds dream in the trees
And the fountains gush ecstatic jets of water,
Great spouts of smooth water among the marbles.
unattrib
Your heart is a sacred ground
Where magical masks and dances are happening
Playing lutes and dancing, half-sad,
Under their wondrous disguises.
Everyone sings in minor key
Of victorious love and wonderful life
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonbeams.
In the clear moonlight, sad and lovely,
That dreams the birds into the trees
Hear the sobs of ecstasy from the fountains
The grand fountains among the stone.
unattrib
Your soul is a landscape chosen
Charmed by masks and bergamasks,
Playing the lute, and dancing, and close
To sad under their whimsical faces.
All while singing in a minor key
Victorious love and life opportune,
In their happiness they show disbelief
And their song joins the light of the moon,
Sad and beautiful, in the calm moonlight
That causes the birds in the trees to dream
And forces the water jets to sob from ecstacy,
The great jets of water, amongst the marbles, slight.
unattrib
I think Wallace Stevens retired the crown for moonlight
poetry, and everything else looks feeble by comparison.
Certainly strict iambic pentameter is absurd for this
task-- Verlaine's metre is anything but strict.
Most translators prefer 'soul' to 'heart' for 'ame' but
I think 'soul' is way too drippy.
I wonder if "un paysage choisi... Que vont" isn't the
hardest cruxnut for the translator-- it's hardly a
_landscape_ being described, given all the revellers.
If 'choisi que vont' can mean 'chosen for the giving of'
that would help.
> >Tout en chantant sur le monde mineur
> All while singing in the minor key (lit. world)
I think 'monde' is a typo here (for 'mode').
> >Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
> Which makes the birds dream in the trees
Cf Nabokov: "[Joseph Conrad] once wrote that he
preferred Mrs. Garnett's translation of Anna Karenin
to the original! This makes one dream -- "ca fait
rever" as Flaubert used to say when faced with some
abysmal stupidity."
sheila miguez
<f...@oceanstar.com> wrote:
I've mentioned this before, but only in rap.
_Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei_
Eliot Weinberger, Octavio Paz
--
sheila
AJA
>
>Most translators prefer 'soul' to 'heart' for 'ame' but
>I think 'soul' is way too drippy.
Mais, the whole poem is rather moist, n'est-ce pas?
>
>I wonder if "un paysage choisi... Que vont" isn't the
>hardest cruxnut for the translator-- it's hardly a
>_landscape_ being described, given all the revellers.
>If 'choisi que vont' can mean 'chosen for the giving of'
>that would help.
Yes that's the hardest. Vont is plural. What is the subject, then?
masques et bergamasques, non?
Your suggestion is very good, I think.
>>Votre âme est un paysage choisi
>Your soul is a chosen (cherished) landscape (backdrop)
>>Que vont charmants masques et bergamasques,
>Where go charming plays and skits
>>Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
>Playing the lute and dancing and (that are) quasi
>>Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.
>sad under their fantastic disguises
I just noticed that I mistook the word fantasques for fantastique.
It's not fantastic, but changeable/flighty/dreamlike/mirage etc.
>
>> >Tout en chantant sur le monde mineur
>> All while singing in the minor key (lit. world)
>
>I think 'monde' is a typo here (for 'mode').
>
>> >Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
>> Which makes the birds dream in the trees
Tastes in translation varies, of course. Some prefer maximum
readability in one's native language- which can be a problem when
translating from French to English, for instance. Also words such as
'amen' don't carry exactly the same sentiment in both languages-
language being a question of culture, etc.
Because I read a fair amount of French, I prefer my translations to be
the bare bones, and leave the art to French. If I'm reading something
in a language I don't have, I prefer a more liberal or artful
translation. I don't appreciate it when the force/esprit/ is lost,
however or changed beyond what the author intended.
Very interesting discussion.
I must say I've enjoyed this group very much the past few days I've
been here.
Best,
Ann
Dan Clore
>
> This is an interesting exercise. Do you think we might have a
> literal translation of the original, without regard to form?
> It would be helpful in deciding which of the translators'
> liberties were minor, and which impertinent.
I'll do my best. Note that "monde" was a typo for "mode" in
the fifth line.
> > Clair de lune
> >
> > by Paul Verlaine
> >
> > Votre âme est un paysage choisi
> > Que vont charmants masques et bergamasques,
> > Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
> > Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.
> >
> > Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
> > L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,
> > Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
> > Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,
> >
> > Au calme clair de lune trist et beau,
> > Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
> > Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
> > Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.
Moonlight
Your soul is a choice landscape (painting)
Where go charming masques and Bergomasks,
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad in their fantastic disguises/costumes.
All singing in the minor mode
Victorious love and opportune life,
They do not have the air of believing in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight,
With the calm, sad, and beautiful moonlight,
That makes the birds dream in the trees
And the fountains (waterspouts) sob with ecstasy,
The slender fountains amidst the marble statues.
Overliteral and inelegant, but suitable for the purpose, I
think.
Elko Tchernev
> I thought it might be entertaining to compare Paul
> Verlaine's classic poem "Clair de lune" and these four
> translations of it. I think that Clark Ashton Smith's
> translation does the best job of conveying the sense of
> Verlaine's poem in an equivalent versified form. Don't
> forget to listen to Debussy's musical interpretation, "Clair
> de lune" from Suite Bergamasque, while reading them.
>
I didn't like any of the four translations; actually I liked your
mot-a-mot translation best. For some reason the poetry was lost in the
four "poetic" translations, or at least that's how I felt it.
I tried to translate it myself, jocundly at first, but gradually it
turned serious. Now I like my translation best, even though it has some
flaws I am aware of, some artsy expressions I hope work for other
readers besides me, and of course flaws I am unaware of. Regardless, to
me it feels just right, true to the melancholy of the original.
Moonlight Beams
translated by Elko Tchernev
Your soul is an exquisite painter's landscape,
where charming masks partake the bergomask,
and play the lute, and almost can't escape
the sadness their fantastic garments bask.
They sing in minor, of love that is winning
and fortuitous life, but they don't seem
to be believers in what they are singing,
and their sad songs alloy the moonlight beams.
The moonlight beams, so calm and sad and pretty,
that set the birds on dreaming in their trees,
and make the fountains sob their blissful ditty -
the slender fountains by the marble frieze.
Dennis M. Hammes
>
> Robin Sommo wrote:
> >
> > This is an interesting exercise. Do you think we might have a
> > literal translation of the original, without regard to form?
> > It would be helpful in deciding which of the translators'
> > liberties were minor, and which impertinent.
>
> I'll do my best. Note that "monde" was a typo for "mode" in
> the fifth line.
Heh. I'd wondered, didn't google.
>
> > > Clair de lune
> > >
> > > by Paul Verlaine
> > >
> > > Votre âme est un paysage choisi
> > > Que vont charmants masques et bergamasques,
> > > Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
> > > Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.
> > >
> > > Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
> > > L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,
> > > Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
> > > Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,
> > >
> > > Au calme clair de lune trist et beau,
> > > Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
> > > Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
> > > Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.
>
> Moonlight
>
> Your soul is a choice landscape (painting)
> Where go charming masques and Bergomasks,
> Playing the lute and dancing and almost
> Sad in their fantastic disguises/costumes.
I think the flavor of the original is the literal "disguise."
"Masque" is enough to remove it from the milieu of the spy thriller.
>
> All singing in the minor mode
> Victorious love and opportune life,
> They do not have the air of believing in their happiness
I wonder if the connotation of the original should be preserved with
"good hour," possibly put in the quotes (however the concept is also
English).
If I /hafta/ stuff it into pentameter (and I probably do), I can
get
"They've not the air, believes in their good hour,"
while remaining strictly literal, but the ellipsis alters (a little)
the tone of the original, which I find to be soliloquacious esp. in
conjunction with the next line.
> And their song mingles with the moonlight,
I'd even keep the specification, ungrammatical in English,
"And their song, it mingles with the moonlight,"
>
> With the calm, sad, and beautiful moonlight,
...since this construction is /also/ clausal, parallel, and
parenthetical.
> That makes the birds dream in the trees
Then I'd push the dream with the English Poetical Misconstruction
(which arises directly of the literal),
"That makes dream the birds in the trees,"
> And the fountains (waterspouts) sob with ecstasy,
> The slender fountains amidst the marble statues.
"The grand jets slender among the marbles."
You've /got/ to keep the "grand." Granted that "jets" has a
rather different /immediate/ conntotation today, it relaxes into the
proper (contemporary) meaning in the rest of the line; "jet" in
English didn't have to be specified as a "water jet" or "fountain";
it was, and obviously is here, a single vertical jet, usually from
ground level, common at Versailles.
I can also make a case for parked airplanes, but only if one
insists on allowing the obvious misinterpretation...
>
> Overliteral and inelegant, but suitable for the purpose, I
> think.
Not all that inelegant, it very "works."
>
> --
Dan Clore
--
------(m+
~/:o)_|
To change the world
be that change.
http://scrawlmark.org
Dan Clore
Good.
> > All singing in the minor mode
> > Victorious love and opportune life,
> > They do not have the air of believing in their happiness
>
> I wonder if the connotation of the original should be preserved with
> "good hour," possibly put in the quotes (however the concept is also
> English).
> If I /hafta/ stuff it into pentameter (and I probably do), I can
> get
> "They've not the air, believes in their good hour,"
> while remaining strictly literal, but the ellipsis alters (a little)
> the tone of the original, which I find to be soliloquacious esp. in
> conjunction with the next line.
>
> > And their song mingles with the moonlight,
>
> I'd even keep the specification, ungrammatical in English,
> "And their song, it mingles with the moonlight,"
That's okay, it was once a common practice in song and
poetry to follow a noun with a pronoun that way.
> > With the calm, sad, and beautiful moonlight,
>
> ...since this construction is /also/ clausal, parallel, and
> parenthetical.
>
> > That makes the birds dream in the trees
>
> Then I'd push the dream with the English Poetical Misconstruction
> (which arises directly of the literal),
> "That makes dream the birds in the trees,"
Possibly one should specify that "dream" here probably
refers to daydreams, reveries, rather than literal
(sleeping) dreams.
> > And the fountains (waterspouts) sob with ecstasy,
> > The slender fountains amidst the marble statues.
>
> "The grand jets slender among the marbles."
> You've /got/ to keep the "grand."
Omitted it by mistake. Should render in English as "great",
I think, rather than "grand".
> Granted that "jets" has a
> rather different /immediate/ conntotation today, it relaxes into the
> proper (contemporary) meaning in the rest of the line; "jet" in
> English didn't have to be specified as a "water jet" or "fountain";
> it was, and obviously is here, a single vertical jet, usually from
> ground level, common at Versailles.
> I can also make a case for parked airplanes, but only if one
> insists on allowing the obvious misinterpretation...
One could also use the term "jets d'eau" in English, since
the term has been in use for centuries, or "jetteaus", an
archaic English form.
> > Overliteral and inelegant, but suitable for the purpose, I
> > think.
>
> Not all that inelegant, it very "works."
Thanks.
In another post AJA says:
> I just noticed that I mistook the word fantasques for fantastique.
> It's not fantastic, but changeable/flighty/dreamlike/mirage etc.
Dictionaries give the word "fantasque" the meaning
"fantastic", but it should be specified, I think, that
"fantastic" here does not refer to what we would think of as
fantasy (there's no implication that their dressed up as
goblins, elves, etc), but simply refers to extravagance,
oddness, quaintness, etc.
The word "fantasque" is also current in English, but pretty
damn rare (Clark Ashton Smith used it, for one).
Jorn Barger
(after Verlaine)
Your heart's a courtyard, favored
For balls and masquerades
And the strumming of lutes, but flavored
With sadness, under these charmed charades.
something something something
Of happy endings for loves divine
something something something
Dreams dissolving in moonshine.
The bright moonshine, so melancholy
That even nesting birds must moan
And fountains sob in the ecstasy
Of slender jets of water upon stone.
AJA <ahne...@microdsi.net> wrote in message news:<26b7279181a37568...@free.teranews.com>...
> I must say I've enjoyed this group very much the past few days I've
> been here.
My analysis of rab:
- prime usenet real estate for discussion of books, in theory
- ideally, people should address threads to the general public,
with descriptive subjectlines and self-contained summaries
of the issues
- in practice, rab since the start has been dominated by 10-20
heavy posters who read most postings and respond to many
- since most visitors can't/won't invest that many hours, the
heavy posters become a clique that know each other and make
little or no effort to address the general public
- in practice, all you can do is scan the subjectlines and
ignore the giant threads and the non-descriptive subjects
Jorn Barger
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jo...@enteract.com (Jorn Barger) wrote in message news:<16e613ec.03071...@posting.google.com>...
>
> . Moonshine
> (after Verlaine)
>
> Your heart's a courtyard, favored
> For balls and masquerades
> And the strumming of lutes, but flavored
With sadness, under those charmed charades.
>
> something something something
> Of happy endings for loves divine
> something something something
Dreams dissolving in moon-shine.
>
The bright moon-shine, so melancholy
> That even nesting birds must moan
And fountains sob with the ecstasy
Lewis Mammel
Clair the Loon
by Ford Fairlane
Vote for me and get choice pay
which wont charm masks and icebergs,
Jauntily, too loud and dancing and a sort of
Trisket leers at your fantastic disguise.
You chant at the little moon,
Love vanquishes and you vie for the opportunity,
It wont pass across the air in your bonnet,
and crazy Clair in your violent lawn chair.
Oh! Calm loony Clair trysts with her beau,
Quite fat, the oily river dances to work,
and the water jets sing in ecstasy,
the grand svelte water jets, cheese and marbles.
joe green
Good God -- you are rhyming "pretty" and "ditty" and the fey
"begomask" with, by God, "mask. Quelle horreur!
joe green
Oh, it's "bask!" Even worse!
Elko Tchernev
Go ahead, Master, make a better translation than mine. I won't mind
if you rhyme "bergomask" with "trask", as long as it serves to convey
the poetry of the piece.