It’s taken me a long time to understand the idea of “the impossibility of translation.” Jacques Prévert has given me some insight into what that might mean.
Prévert was a poet, playwright, and screenwriter who came to prominence in the post-war period. (The odd word playwright is discussed in the English notes below.) More than most poets I’ve run into in any language, he plays with the sounds of words. For example, his poem Le temps haletant, “The panting time,” which sounds like le temps a le temps, “time has time,” or from one of my favorites, Il ne faut pas…, which starts Il ne faut pas laisser les intellectuels jouer avec les allumettes–“you must not let intellectuals play with matches”–and ends le monde mental ment monumentalment. Notice all of the strings of ment, which is the 3rd person singular present tense of the verb to lie:
Le monde mental ment monumentalement.
Translatable in a way that doesn’t lose how wonderful that line is? I think not.
Today’s National Poetry Month treat is his poem Le balayeur, which I have only found on a page with a translation into Hungarian–why not… Here’s the stanza that got me thinking about “the impossibility of translation.” To establish the context: an angel is trying to convince a street sweeper to jump into the Seine to save someone who’s drowning. The sweeper (le balayeur) eventually concedes:
Finalement
le balayeur enlève sa veste
puisqu’il ne peut faire autrement
Et comme c’est un très bon nageur
grimpe sur le parapet
et exécute un merveilleux « saut de l’ange »
et disparaît
Et l’ange
littéralement « aux anges »
louange le Seigneur
In the end
the sweeper takes off his jacket
because he can’t do otherwise
And because he’s a very good swimmer
climbs onto the parapet
and executes an excellent swan dive
and disappears
And the angel
literally beside himself with joy
praises the Lord
Here’s what makes that impossible to translate well: we’re talking about an angel here, l’ange, right? And that whole part of the poem is full of expressions that are built on the noun “angel:”
Finalement
le balayeur enlève sa veste
puisqu’il ne peut faire autrement
Et comme c’est un très bon nageur
grimpe sur le parapet
et exécute un merveilleux « saut de l’ange »
et disparaît
Et l’ange
littéralement « aux anges »
louange le Seigneur
Here are the relevant French/English correspondences:
- le saut de l’ange: literally “angel’s jump,” but in English, “swan dive”
- aux anges: literally something like “with the angels,” which in English is an extremely euphemistic way of saying “dead;” meanwhile, the English equivalent of aux anges would be “over the moon; beside oneself; beside oneself with joy.”
The thing that I find really clever, though, is the last verse of this part of the poem, where the angel praises the Lord:
louange le Seigneur
Sigh–Prévert is wonderful…
Here’s the poem, followed by its translation into Hungarian by Justus Pál, followed by some notes on the English in this post:
Le BalayeurAu bord d’un fleuve Apparaît alors L’Ange gardien plante l’index vers le ciel Une jolie femme arrive La femme s’en va sans le voir Le balayeur reprend son balai Une autre femme passe L’Ange apparaît L’Ange une nouvelle fois Le balayeur reprend son balai Soudain des cris Le balayeur abandonne son balai L’Ange gardien apparaît Mais l’Ange toujours l’index au ciel Finalement C’est une fille très belle L’Ange la toise d’un mauvais œil L’Ange intervient La « diablesse » qui reprend goût à la vie Le balayeur sourit aussi L’Ange les menace des foudres du ciel Ils éclatent de rire L’Ange gardien essuie une larme |
Az utcaseprő (Balett) (Hungarian)
A folyó partján
seper az utcaseprő
unatkozik tán
felnéz a napra
kicsit szerelmes ő
Arra megy egy ölelkező
szerelmespár rájuk tapad a szeme
A pár eltűnik
leül
egy kőre ő
Most a zene
az idő dallama
mely eddig szép volt és szelíd
hirtelen megkeményedik
csikorgó lesz és fenyegető
Ekkor megjelenik
az utcaseprő őrangyala
nagyon egyszerű mozdulat
reápirít a lustaság miatt
s azt ajánlja jó lesz munkához látnia
Így inti ég fele emelt ujjal
majd eltűnik az angyal
Söprűt ragad az utcaseprő
Jön egy remek nő
a párkányra könyököl
a folyóba néz
Háttal fordul felé
így is nagyon szép
Az utcaseprő nesztelenül odalép
mellé könyököl
félénk meleg kezével
megsimogatja
azaz csak úgy tesz mintha simogatna
utánozza az előbbi férfit aki barátnőjével
erre sétált és simogatta
A nő elmegy észre sem veszi
ő meg ott marad a söprűjével
s hirtelen megállapítja
hogy az angyal közben visszalibbent
és látott mindent
megrovón néz rá
fájdalmas pillantással
mind szeretőbben
s fenyegetőbben
Az utcaseprő veszi a söprűjét megint
söpörni kezd
Az angyalnak hűlt helye mire feltekint
Arra megy egy másik nő
Abbahagyja a söprést
Sokatmondó mozdulatokkal
ezt is azt is elmeséli neki
hogy ő mármint a nő
milyen gyönyörű azt dicséri
Megjelenik az őrangyal
Rémülten menekül a nő
Az őrangyal még egyszer
megmagyarázza az utcaseprőnek
azért van ott hogy söpörjön
aztán lelép
Az utcaseprő seprűt ragad miként elébb
Hirtelen kiáltásokat hall
jajveszékelést
a folyó felől
Nyilván
fuldoklik valaki az kiabál
Az utcaseprő félreteszi a seprőt
De aztán meggondolja magát vállat von
és nem is hederít a kiáltásokra
söpör tovább
Megjelenik az őrangyal
Az utcaseprő pedig úgy söpör
hogy hasonlítaná sem lehet semmit a söpréséhez
Példás és pontos munkát végez
Ám az angyal ég felé emeli mutatóujját
Haragos szárnyát meglebbenti
s értésére adja az utcaseprőnek
hogy persze nagyon szép feladat
utcát seperni
de hogy viszont
valaki esetleg vízbe fúl ezalatt
És nyomatékosan rábeszéli
mivel az utcaseprő
hallani sem akar róla
A végén
az utcaseprő leveti zubbonyát
mást nem tehet nem hagyják békén
kitűnő úszó lévén
felkapaszkodik a párkányra
és csodálatos „angyal-fejessel„
eltűnik a habok között
Az angyal pedig ezalatt
a szó szoros értelmében angyali hangulatban
dicséri az Urat
A zene ezúttal
kétségtelenül mennyei jellegű
Az utcaseprő
hirtelen felmerül
karjában hozza
kit megmentett a habok közül
Nagyon szép lány
és meztelen
Az angyal rossz szemmel nézi a dolgot
Az utcaseprő
végtelen gyengéden
lefekteti egy padra
ápolja
éleszti
simogatja
Ám az angyal közbelép
s melegen ajánlja az utcaseprőnek
hogy dobja vissza a folyóba.
ezt a „nőarcú ördögöt”
közben a „nőarcú ördög” életkedve
hála az utcaseprő simogatásának visszatér
felkel
nevetve
Az utcaseprő is mosolyog
Mindkettő táncra perdül
Az őrangyal megfenyegeti őket a menny villámaival
Azik ketten kinevetik
átölelik egymást
elballagnak tánclépésben szemérmetlenül
Az őrangyal letörli kicsorduló könnyét
veszi a söprűt
és seper… seper… seper… seper…
kér-lel-hetet-lentül.
English notes
I used the word playwright to describe Jacques Prévert. It seems somewhat bizarre, in that it means “someone who writes plays,” but it ends not with -write, but with -wright. For example, here are some other words that refer to people who write things:
- copywriter
- ghostwriter
- screenwriter
- skywriter
- speechwriter
- songwriter
Copywriter, speechwriter, and songwriter are clear analogues: they mean someone who writes copy, speeches, and songs, respectively, while a playwright is someone who writes plays. What gives?
As my theater professor explained it to me (decades ago–yikes…), the intent is to convey the idea that writing a play is a matter of craft, of arduous labor, of building. How does that work? Because other words that end in -wright refer to people who build things “by the sweat of their brows:”
- wheelwright (le vanneur, I think)
- wainwright (person who builds builds wagons–I had to look that one up myself)
- shipwright (person who builds ships)
- cartwright (person who makes carts)
Zipf's Law 
I agree some writings are untranslatable . Some words in one language convey several meanings, or several feelings, and that is precisely why the author has chosen these words . Some languages own tenses that have no equivalents in other, there are many causes that can prevent an accurate translation . In poetry, translating the meaning while keeping the music of the sounds is nearly always impossible . Of course all wordplays are rarely translatable . I admire great translators but I know they cannot do what is impossible . So let’s learn all languages !
Note : beware, it is “monumentalEment”, and the swan dive is “le saut DE L’ange” .
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Fixes made–thank you!
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I am impressed with your ability to appreciate Prévert’s writing on so many different levels. As a a sometime translator, I think it’s possible to transpose the art of writing beyond literal translation of words. But you have to make choices and sacrifice different aspects. Meaning, mood, word play…it’s truly an art of its own
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This is one dimension of translation complexity. I’d like to add three more that are quite common, not only in poetry:
The translation from old forms of a language into the present epoch can be quite a challenge if the original meaning is to be preserved… think about conveying all the little indecent and nasty comments of Shakespeare that only reveal themselves if you use the then-common pronunciation. Rhymes appear where there were none. Words pronounced become ambiguous puns.
The translation of “le saut de l’ange” as “swan dive” could really be understood as a _trans_-lation, i.e., the transfer of one idiomatic expression into the corresponding one in another language. It’s like “crossing one’s fingers” in English, and “den Daumen drücken” (press one’s thumb) in German. However, there are also cases in which the criteria for choosing the translated concept are more complex and determined by context. “Die Kinder spielten Fußball im Garten.” (= the kids played soccer in the garden) may have to be translated into “The kids played basketball in the driveway.” in American English, transferring the concept of a typical sports activity of kids into the corresponding concept in the target language, possibly also moving the typical German location of this activity to a typical U.S. English location. You will find similar examples with cultural references to types of food and beverages.
Finally, the concepts themselves may have a different mapping to reality. Think about English “safety” and “security” represented by German “Sicherheit”, or Russian distinguishing dark blue (“синий”) from light blue (“голубой”, having also the meaning of “gay”), while in Japanese green and blue are concepts often blurred for historical reasons. Mapping concepts between different semantic models of the (assumed) real world adds another dimension of fun.
Translations by non-native speakers of the target language often sound involuntarily funny if these properties of concepts are ignored – or respected in the wrong way. It reminds me of a conference in Firenze in the 1990s, where a German professor was giving a talk on autonomous driving and the challenges of detecting masses in the way of the moving vehicle. There was a question from the audience: “What about tumble weed?” – after a moment of apparent translation and explanation, the answer was “I do not understand, there are no bushes growing on German autobahns” 🙂 Cultural references can be hard.
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The tumbleweed story is great. 🙂
The basketball in the driveway/soccer in the garden problem is a tough one. What are the arguments in both directions?
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Well, it depends on whether you want to translate close to the original (then the kids will play soccer – keeping the German setting, just expressed in a different language) or in the sense of engaging in a typical type of sports for kids (then the kids may play basketball, baseball, or whatever in different countries – culturally transferring the sentence into a different language).
It’s something we called at some point the “national cheese”. If you want to plainly express people are having some generic cheese, that may be Emmentaler in Germany, Cheddar in UK, Brie in France, and Mozarella in Italy – just for the reason that having Cheddar in Germany is much less likely. It works with many types of foods and beverages, but also car brands, etc.
In effect, translation is not only about cultural context, it’s also about the intention of the translator who has to make a choice, and that’s a danger because the reader may not immediately be aware of the translation choices made… Political statements are fun in that respect – and we’ve had a plethora of translations to listen to during the weeks before the EU parliament’s elections.
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