Today I tried to translate into English a fragment of Miłosz’s “Treatise on Poetry” in a way that I would like.
For a long time, when reading Miłosz’s “Treatise on Poetry” in Hass’s English translation, I wondered why that English translation is written in a completely different rhythm than the original. In the original, most of it is, as far as I can see, in an eleven-syllable meter that sounds so pleasant and rhythmic. And that English translation—I have no idea how it is written; I see no regularity in it and hear none. And yet Hass is an experienced poet, so it is not as if he overlooked it or was unable to do it. And he knew Miłosz personally, so he surely showed Miłosz the translation, and Miłosz said, “you’re doing well!”
Well, in any case, that English translation does not sound good to me, so today I tried to start translating my favorite fragment, the one about the twenty-year-old poets of Warsaw, in a way that I would like. I took, where it suited me, bits from Hass’s translation, only stitching them together so that the rhythm would be the way I want it. And here it is: eight lines emerged, each with eleven syllables, and almost nowhere are two stressed syllables side by side. When I read it, I like it.
I translated this fragment:
Dwudziestoletni poeci Warszawy
Nie chcieli wiedzieć, że coś w tym stuleciu
Myślom ulega, nie Dawidom z procą.
Byli jak człowiek na szpitalnej sali,
Który śmiech dzieci i zabawy ptaków
Stara się pojąć raz tylko, ostatni
Zanim nie zamkną się kamienne wrota
I na przymierza z jutrem obojętny
Dba tylko o to, jak być wiernym chwili.
In Hass’s translation it sounds like this:
The twenty-year-old poets of Warsaw
Did not want to know that something in this century
Submits to thought, not to Davids with their slings.
They were like a man in a hospital room
Who, indifferent to pacts with the future,
Wants to be faithful only to the moment,
Wants to possess the laughter of children,
The aerial games of the birds, at least once,
For the last time, before the stone gate closes.
And in my translation like this:
Poets of Warsaw at the age of twenty
Refused to know that something in their era
Submits to reason, not Davids with their slings.
They were like a man in a hospital room:
Laughter of children, aerial games of birds
Trying to fathom before the stone gate shuts
And indifferent to pacts with the future,
Wants to be faithful only to the moment.
Please give your opinions as to which of these two translations you like more when read aloud.