CONFRONTING TRANSLATION DEAD-ENDS
When you’re translating, what do you do when you know you don’t know what to think about what you’re translating? I wouldn’t be surprised if this affected the output of your work.
In any case, I took the liberty of translating the text of this Leave Britney Alone Backmasked video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9eVrtx78ZU into French and German, in case it could help one find some answers to such a question. Of course, I hasten to add that there’s nothing at all to “get” with this particular video…
FRENCH
Pourquoi est-ce je veux le sucre toujours ? En le whisky que personne n’a acheté parce que je sais qui se trouve là-dedans ! C’est anime… UN !!! Parce que je sais qui se trouve dans la 13ème roue gauche… Colline… JE SAIS QUI SE TROUVE EN LA COLLINE GAUCHE !!! [Charabia] Britney Spears. Une fête d’amandes toute bizarre avec un Wii Sony Shagwell ne m’impressionne même pas mademoiselle et je veux baiser avec tous les moissons sur la terre… Testament… JE SAIS QUE J’HABITE EN LA COLLINE GAUCHE !!!
GERMAN
Warum will ich jedes Tages den Zucker? Im Whiskey den niemand gekauft hat weil ich weiss wer darin steht! Es ist Anime… EINS! Weil ich weiss wer im 13ten linken Rad steht… Hügel… ICH WEISS WER IM LINKEN HÜGEL STEHT!!! [Quatsch] Britney Spears. Ein ganz verrücktes Mandelparty mit einem Wii Sony Shagwell beeindruckt mich nicht einmal Fräulein und ich will mit allen Pflanzen auf der Erde ficken… Testament… ICH WEISS DASS ICH IM LINKEN HÜGEL WOHNE!!!
HAMLET SOLILOQUY BLOG
How wonderful that I have been able to find French and German translations of Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy online! I have known for some time that Shakespeare has been translated into other languages but have never actually known about these until recently:
French https://www.academia.edu/28394798/A_French_translation_of_Hamletsoliloquy.pdf
German https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/en/Shakespeare%2C_William/Monologue_of_Hamlet/de/4849-Hamlet-Monolog
Well, everyone’s heard of it, even people who have never read Hamlet (like me). If you’re one of these people, you may wish to take a moment to find out what the soliloquy is all about (not just a modern English translation, but its significance in relation to the rest of the play). I suggest clicking on this link https://owlcation.com/humanities/Shakespeares-Hamlet-What-do-the-soliloquies-reveal-about-Hamlets-true-feelings-and-thoughts Of course, the text of it can sound odd, even unintelligible, to modern English speakers, not just because of all the old-fashioned language but also all the confusing use of metaphor and juxtaposition and stuff of euphuistic English of Shakespeare’s time which goes over the head of the average person whose life is not like that of the Bard.
Now, before the list that follows, I would like to mention that it is not really my position to critique on the works of Shakespeare – I studied some of his works at school (at GCSE and A-level), but that’s as far as it goes. It’s not like I’m a bona fide scholar of Shakespearean literature or whatever. But I will tell you one thing that I have learned from this exercise: while letting your imagination run free can often prove a means of stress relief, you should be careful about doing it when translating – you should not let it prevail over your judgement when you read whatever you will read in the original material. So feel free to dispute the veracity of some of the stuff I have written or to offer different perspectives. I have at least acknowledged that Hamlet is contemplating suicide at this point, with much weighing on his conscience. After all, this is set in a culture hundreds of years old. In any case, I read this soliloquy again, with these off the bat remarks inspired by it:
“The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” – not so much fortune as misfortune!
“…shocks that flesh is heir to” – odd expression! Why is “heir” an adjective here, anyway? And I thought only a person, not an object, could be an heir!
“Perchance to dream” – “perchance” is just one of many archaic words rarely heard of, let alone used, outside the works of Shakespeare. Just like “ay, there’s the rub” a bit later on – people would likely say, “ay, there’s the catch” today, although I can compare “rub” with “friction”, accepting that friction in a figurative sense is often unwelcome in the grand scheme of things. Like tension between multiple parties, in dispute.
What is supposed to be meant by “mortal coil”? And the bit after that, “must give us pause”, sounds like it was written by someone illiterate, in all honesty – it might as well have been written “must make us pause” in the sense of “stop us in our tracks and force us to stop and think.”
In “There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life”, the use of the word “respect” in this context may cause confusion; and “so long life” looks like another case of illiterate English; why isn’t it “such [a] long life”?
“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time” – For who would associate whips and scorns with time, as if to argue that the torments associated with whips and scorns don’t necessarily have to come from a person?
“The law’s delay” would probably have been better off written as “delay in the pursuit of justice”, and with “the insolence of office” “office” is strictly metonymy for an official body (think of the word “officer”!) and not any old office as a room in which some sort of writing-type/organisation activity is conducted.
When I read “and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes” I can only imagine how far my ignorance of Shakespearean English extends. Because in modern English, “patient” is not a verb, and “the unworthy takes” – with “takes” used as a noun – doesn’t make sense! What can I say? Mind you, I had wondered if “the unworthy takes” meant “unworthy men” – more on this in particular can be found later on in this article.
Next come the lines “When he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life…” – So first we had “perchance” and now we see another three words no-one uses any more: “quietus”, “bodkin” and “fardels”. Along with all the strange sentence structuring and uncommon words choices by today’s standards, doesn’t it make you wonder how some of this was even translated into other languages? Is it that hard to believe that they just translated some of the old words with non-old words, like translating “bodkin”, which means “knife”, into French as “couteau” (or “lame”, meaning “blade”, as the case really is)? Speaking of “uncommon word choices”, apart from “patient” used as a verb etc. as mentioned above, you don’t do something “under” “a weary life”, do you? It should be “in” or “during” or something as far as I can tell.
Looking at “Than fly to others that we know not of?” I still can’t reason the point where the question was introduced.
“And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action.” …OK, it is hard to follow that at a glance, isn’t it? But it essentially means that obsessive thinking (or, if you like, brooding, born of conscience) impedes people from doing things that could be great. I can see there’s meant to be an element of imagery as a literary device here, but who could understand this when they read it the first time.
“Soft you now!” Shakespeare was supposed to be a great English playwright; is he taking the piss here? Because this bit looks like it was written by someone whose first language is not English and has problems in it. Nobody has ever used “soft” as a transitive verb! It’s hard even to rewrite it in comprehensible modern English, it seems to me, but I have come up with something: “Clemency and peace befall you”.
So I looked at the French one, and appreciated the following things in particular about it:
Vivre ou ne plus vivre ?/Etre ou ne pas être – The first of these suggestions is “To live or to live no longer?” I am actually thinking that one’s better than the latter, which ironically means literally “To be or not to be?”
For “That is the question” we have not “Cela c’est la question” but “Tout est là” – “Everything is there” in English. “Tout” meaning no physical objects in this case, but it’s very well put idiomatically. I like it.
Considerable yet commendably apt sentence restructuring as the “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer” bit starts off “Et quoi de plus noble enfin?” (“And what is more noble?”) “Slings” and “arrows” are replaced with the French words for “assaults” and “wounds”.
“The thousand natural shocks” is translated as “Infinite pains” for some reason – why “infinite” rather than “a thousand”? Still, “pains” is far easier a term to get a grip on than “natural shocks”.
Well, “perchance” was translated as “peut-être”, which is no old French expression, but then how could we have expected anything else? Not that I think that this is negative in any way. It’s the same with “there’s the rub” translated as “voilà ce qui détonne” just afterwards – although that translates literally as “This is what detonates”, which doesn’t make sense! At least not literally: think of it as referring to a forceful and serious (if nondescript) situation that was inevitable, and now the time has come for it to take place – “break out”.
I noticed that “For in that sleep of death” was translated as “Dans un sommeil de mort” – “A sleep of death” – when “that” always implies a clear connection with something that has just been said while an indefinite article doesn’t. And yet, the indefinite article works in this case: you immediately understand it as part of an explanation of something that has just been referenced.
“Piège mortel” means “mortal trap”, which helped me to appreciate the word “coil” in the original English version better. Not too far away from, say, an image of a coil of rope wrapped around someone tightly, restricting them… only too much.
If not for reading this French translation I would never have begun trying to conflate “giving someone pause” with “leaving them in peace” – more like giving them temporary respite from something they don’t like.
I have to give the French translator of this soliloquy credit: while the original associates “respect” – a word surely used out of context? – with the troubles and torments of life, they dared to relate “fear” (“peur” in French) with them. With the right kind of rewording, I’m confident that it essentially conveys the intended meaning well.
In the French version “fanfaron” translates as “braggart”, whereas a “proud man” in the original version doesn’t always have negative connotations. A proud man isn’t necessarily an arrogant type. “Imbécile” simply means “stupid”. Fair enough.
“The pangs of despised love” is effectively defined in the French translation of it: “The nightmare of having to love the one who despises you.” It’s the same with the French translation of “the law’s delay” just after it i.e. it hints at the obstacles that should be recognised with asserting one’s rights under the law and having them respected.
“The insolence of office” is translated as “l’insolence des puissants” – “the insolence of the powerful”. Contrary to what I mentioned earlier, maybe “office” is in fact not limited to those with positions of official power.
“The spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes” is translated in the French version as “les rebuffades subies par qui patiemment se soucie bien pourtant d’hommes de peu” – only now can I at least have a good guess as to what it means! I retranslate the French version as follows: “the repulse suffered by he who patiently shows concern for men who are, in fact, worth little.”
No-one says “quietus” any more – in French I see “finding one’s quietus” translated as “finding peace”, which is hardly an archaic or literary expression, but whatever. Meanwhile, “bodkin” is translated as “lame”, which means “blade”, and while that’s no old-fashioned word either I can only conclude it as good enough. Note also that “bare” in the original, which in this case means “unsheathed”, is cleverly rendered in the French version with the words that mean “at the point of”. Good stuff.
“Who would fardels bear” is translated as “Who would choose to transport tonnes?” (literal English translation), which amuses me somewhat. It seems, how should I put it, too technical to be literal.
“S’épuiser à vivre” is an interesting expression – “to exhaust oneself living”, even if said life is not described as “weary” or any other negative adjective in the French translation.
I was surprised to see “the dread of something after death” translated as “If he didn’t fear death” in the French version. Obviously no-one wants to experience dying, but if you’re paying attention you will see that that’s not what it’s alluding to; it’s alluding to the unanswerable question of what happens after death: it’s followed by “ce pays sans retour, toujours inexploré” – “this country from which no-one returns, forever unexplored”.
I examined the French translation provided for “puzzles the will” – I can’t say I actually got my head round it.
“Conscience” was essentially translated as “to think in this way” (with reference to what has just been said). So, like a definition of the facts which would in fact be covered by the concept of conscience in the case of Hamlet right now?
“And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought” – translation: and so one’s inborn determination is undermined by the burden that comes with brooding. The French translation insists on a metaphorical expression of it which more or less hits the nail on the head, although it seems to hint at psychological freedom rather than rigour and determination for the sake of it: “And the first burst capable of shaking the yoke is all softened by this shadow”.
“With this regard” is translated as “Sous ce jour singulier”, which is “during this single day” in English. How best to accept that?
It’s bizarre but, again, I can follow the French translation better than the English original at the bit where “and lose the name of action” is translated as “pour n’aboutir à rien”, which has the connotation: “it will ultimately amount to nothing”.
So “Soft you now! The fair Ophelia!” is translated as “Attention! Fais silence! Voici venir ici Notre belle Ophélie” in French. Silence is essentially implied as “soft”; fair enough.
“Be all my sins remember’d” is translated as “Recommande-moi bien pour le pardon de mes péchés”, which basically amounts to “I plead that I be recommended to act toward the absolution of my sins” (in your prayers). Which is a good, very much non-literal translation: why would you ask someone to remember all your sins as no more than factual information? Everything happens for a reason, and guilt is often associated with sins.
And with the German version:
Right at the beginning, “Sein oder Nichtsein”, I’m not too sure whether to treat it as infinitive verbs or nouns i.e. “Existence or non-existence? That is the question (here).”
“And by opposing end them” in the German version is “Im Widerstand zu enden” (lit. “to end them in resistance”, or, if you like, “with resistance conduct.” But why doesn’t it end with a question mark in the German version?
“and, by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” in the German version is “und zu wissen, dass ein Schlaf das Herzweh und die tausend Stöße endet die unsers Fleisches Erbteil”, which translates as “and to know that a sleep ends the thousand shocks which will be inherited by our flesh” – and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a fine example of the kind of creativity required for translating something like the “To be or not to be” soliloquy. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s easy to believe that not even an idiot would blindly confide in a machine translator when translating something like this? Meanwhile, “’tis a consummation devoutly to be wished” is translated as “ist ein Ziel, aufs innigste zu wünschen”, more literally translated as “is an aim to be wished for at the innermost level”. Don’t you just love it?
With “Perchance to dream” translated as “Vielleicht auch träumen” (“maybe also to dream”) in the German version, you see a (or should that be another?) small example of how German actually works, beyond all the dry grammatical clarifications only to be expected in classroom German lessons and that. I suppose you don’t dream if you’re not sleeping to begin with.
The German version only describes the “sleep of death” as the “sleep”. I can understand if the German translator behind that was inclined to be poetic and, to a certain extent, euphemistic, but I personally would have put “Todschlaf” (“death sleep”).
“Mortal coil” is basically “earthly urge/impulse” in this German translation of this soliloquy – I can “get” the latter much more easily than the former. How about you?
So, in the German version, “Must give us pause” is translated as “Das zwingt uns stillzustehn” – “That forces us to stand still” (in the sense of “stops us in our tracks”/ “brings us to a standstill” and “compels us to [somehow] reckon with something”). I for one fully agree that that is far more effective than to say that the thing in question “must” “give us pause”, as if it either “should” or “well, it is only to be expected”.
Now I come to the translation of “There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life”, which in the German version is “Das ist die Rücksicht, die Elend lässt zu hohen Jahren kommen”. I cannot accept so easily “respect” being translated as “Rücksicht” in this context – for “Rücksicht” normally means “hindsight”, at least in my experience – but “die Elend lässt zu hohen Jahren kommen” (roughly: “sadness will come for many long years”) has helped me to understand that, in the original, what is being implied is that the calamity is drawn out over so much of one’s life.
“The oppressor’s wrong” is translated as “Des Mächt’gen Druck” – the “powerful one’s pressure” – in German, which just doesn’t have the same ring to it. This is less true with “des Stolzen Misshandlungen” (“the proud man’s mistreatments”) for “the proud man’s contumely” and “Verschmähter Liebe Pein” (“spurned love pain”) for “the pangs of dispriz’d love”, while “des Rechtes Aufschub” can be translated quite literally as “the law’s delay”. Meanwhile, “the insolence of office” is translated as “Den Übermut der Ämter”, meaning, essentially, “the arrogance of those in office”, which threw me a bit as I would otherwise have been inclined to translate “Übermut” as “excess courage”, or rather “overconfidence”.
“The spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes” in German is “die Schmach, die Unwert schweigendem Verdienst erweist”, which is something that I would otherwise have translated into English as something like “the shame recognised with the lack of value afforded to silent merit”, which is quite different from what I saw in the French rendering of this bit (see above).
With “who would fardels bear” translated as “Wer trüge Lasten” in this German version, I think we can agree that “fardels”, although a disused antiquated word, basically means burdens. Moving on.
In the German version, “Lebensmüh” is the expression selected for “a weary life”, but I don’t buy it too readily. “Life struggle” – but all have problems in life, and it’s not the same as “a weary life” (depending on how you would be conditioned to look at the term “a weary life”, I guess).
“Than fly to others that we know not of?” in German is “als zu unbekannten fliehn” – “than to fly to unknown ones.” Of course, it is true that it’s not just one given subject person who has no knowledge of their own ills elsewhere (i.e. in the afterlife); in can be stated quite accurately that no-one could even begin to define them!
At “And enterprises of great pith and moment”, in German I have seen that “enterprises” is translated as “Wägestücke”, which I don’t exactly “buy” too readily. For one, “Wägestücke” means “weight pieces/units” – if that’s supposed to be a figurative account of enterprises, than it’s awfully far-fetched in my book; not least because weight pieces/units are tangible item nouns. Enterprises aren’t. Meanwhile “great pith and moment” seems to be translated as “high flight and value”, which only draws attention to the words of the original English version yet again.
“Still!” – in the German version this essentially amounts to “be still”… which makes far more sense than “soft you now!”, in modern English parlance, at least.
For “the fair Ophelia” we have “Die reizende Ophelia” (“the lovely Ophelia”) in the German version – is it just me or is “lovely” too cute or mawkish in this case?
Finally, the German translation provided for “Nymph, in thy orisons, be all my sins remember’d.” essentially amounts to “Nymph, include all my sins in your praying”. Well, the sense of penitence on Hamlet’s part is certainly understandable there. So I say that it works well.