The Music of Translation

Each particular text requires that the translator be attuned to its needs. The needs are varied and complex in any transposition from one language, one culture to another. Here I will focus on the exploration of a text’s specific musical needs. From the poetic to the technical, and to varying degrees, each text will require assorted scales of attention to facilitate the flow of language. To accomplish this a translator must be an attentive listener and, in addition, competent at hearing the music in the words. What does the text shout, and what does the text murmur? Will the range of notes touch all ears across all cultures? Translation preserves, transforms and invents. Choices are made. The subtle reverberations require ears equal in might to those versed in translating the songs of the trees.

As a writer and poet, I depart from views such that superior texts carry an inherent, coherent rhythm and musicality, ingredients that reinforce the particular excellence of their semantics. An effective translator will embrace a parallel, lucid rhythm in the target language. In my translations, I have not needed to sacrifice meaning in a prose text in order to preserve the underlying musicality.

In translating, I first assess the essence of the work to establish if music—the score—lies at the core of the text as in the case of L=a=n=g=u=a=g=e poetry or rhyme. At times, the primary need of the poem will speak to the obvious choice I must highlight in translation. At other times, when the need for semantic meaning and music are equally married and essential to the experience, such as in a sonnet or other rhyming, I have opted to highlight meaning. In the instance of language poetry, music will take precedence. I see two distinct levels of music in a text. The most apparent is exemplified by rhyme and might be called the

beat of the poem while a secondary one, subtle and conducted by punctuation, I will call a poem’s cadence. In the following example, alliteration from sibilant sounds is the essence of this poem.

MUSIC III

for Adriana

Rita Taborda Duarte

translated by paulo da costa

Simply

scholarly

from soporiferous sound

to sonorous silence

Also

so,

sharply sage

is the solar

clef

MÚSICA III

À Adriana

Rita Taborda Duarte

Sapientemente

sempre

de soporífero som

a sonoríssimo silêncio.

Assim

também,

sustenidamente sábia

é a clave

solar

In translating, I value the transposition of the breath alongside the semantics of a text, the word, the cadence, the tempo. I see merit in not reshaping the music of an original text to the rhythm of a target language. Instead, I endeavour to remain true to the distinct music and syntax of the original work. I do not shorten the length of the sentences from the original language because English speech favours sentences significantly shorter than the Portuguese, by this I mean, I do not change the punctuation of a text. Either amputation or prosthesis would change the breath of the sentence, the breath of the book and, as a consequence, the musicality of the text. I am a reader who appreciates the strangeness conveyed in the sound and structure of a foreign text. The strangeness that stays true to the spice and flavour I would expect from a distinct view of the world arriving from another language, voice and culture, and to illustrate this I have included a poem from the Portuguese poet Nuno Júdice.

IMAGEM

Nuno Júdice