Translation, Dryden once said (it may have been more than once, for all I know), is a kind of Drawing after Life: whilst aiming at a true likeness, at its best will only imply a 'bringing nearer' to the original. I read that in a book about the misery-guts poet Georg Trakl by the happy Alexander Stillmark. So I thought I would give it a go. I went to the Tate today and started drawing some art, that Futurist Boccioni sculpture and the like, and lo! and behold, it did bring me nearer to the original. So much so that the gallery staff told me to stop riding the statue, please. That's arguably not true, but I did notice one thing: people spend more time reading the notices about the art than looking at the art itself. That's a true story. I had an exam today, in which I had to translate four texts from Gothic (Wulfila's Bible), Old Saxon (the 'Heliand') and two forms of Old High German, one the 'Tatian' and the other the 'Isidor'. Germanic Philology is the key to this. I did the first three in about forty-five minutes, but took forty-five minutes to do the Isidor. I kept getting stuck on a few words here and there. Not only that, but a fire-alarm was ringing for about half an hour. Alas, I did my best, and no more, but I did come away realising why I could not translate the Isidor well. It is, after all, an OHG translation from Latin, and in my opinion, not a very good one. So you see, my bad translation is actually a faithful rendering of the anonymous German monk's own attempt. I doubt I can convince the examiners of that. I should've drawn a picture instead.
To Heliand Back
9.5.05 17:25
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