What does it mean to translate?
A couple years ago, when I most recently saw my wife’s uncle Richard, he’d asked me about my translation work. I translate mostly genre literature from the late 19th century and early 20th century (read: public domain) Latin America. Sometimes I translate contemporary prose and poetry, but not as often. I’m no professional, and while I read Spanish pretty well, I don’t have anywhere close to a native command, but I did study translation in grad school. Given that, Richard was curious to know more about the process. In particular, he wanted to know how translators knew their translation was “good” or “faithful” to the original. It was a good question, I said, but he had a narrower understanding of what translation was, or what it entailed.
Translation, to paraphrase Susan Bernofsky in my first grad school translation course, depends more on how well you know English than it does on how well you know your source language. I’m sure I make linguistic mistakes now and then in my literal translation of a text, but I’m capable enough to understand the gist of even the most complicated of sentences. This is really the basis on which translators create translations.
A Point of Clarification
To be very clear, I’m talking about literary translation as opposed to business translation. Literary translation is more of an artful interpretation than business translation, which may require a very precise, singular understanding of a text, such as a contract. I can’t think of an instance in which legal complications would arise from a translation of Don Quixote (the business of publication aside). If something like that has ever happened then I would be fascinated to hear about it!
Sometimes, I get the impression that people conflate the two ideas – that “translation” is an agreement on the best way to restate a text in another language, and that the most recent translation represents the most “accurate” version yet.
Not so!
A Closer Examination
Each translation is an independent interpretation of the source text, bringing to it a different perspective or emphasis on certain aspects. To wit: we can compare two translations of the opening of Beowulf, a more traditional translation by Seamus Heaney (2001, W. W. Norton & Company), and a newer feminist interpretation by Maria Dahvana Headley (2020, Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
Original:
Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon· hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scéfing sceaþena þréatum monegum maégþum meodosetla oftéah· egsode Eorle syððan aérest wearð féasceaft funden hé þæs frófre gebád· wéox under wolcnum· weorðmyndum þáh oð þæt him aéghwylc þára ymbsittendra ofer hronráde hýran scolde, gomban gyldan· þæt wæs gód cyning.
Seamus Heaney’s:
So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns. There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes, a wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes. This terror of the hall-troops had come far. A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on as his powers waxed and his worth was proved. In the end each clan on the outlying coasts beyond the whale-road had to yield to him and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king.
Maria Dahvana Headley’s:
Bro! Tell me we still know how to speak of kings! In the old, days, everyone knew what men were: brave, bold, glory-bound. Only stories now, but I’ll sound the Spear-Danes’ song, hoarded for hungry times. Their first father was a foundling Scyld Scefing. He spent his youth fists up, browbeating every barstool-brother, bonfiring his enemies. That man began in the waves, a baby in a basket, but he bootstrapped his way into a kingdom, trading lonliness for luxury. Whether they thought kneeling was necessary or no, everyone from head to tail of the whale-road bent down: There’s a king, there’s his crown! That was a good king.
The differences begin with the translation of the first word, “Hwæt,” which, as described by Hana Videen1, by itself has spurred some controversy in its interpretation as an interjection even though it is technically a pronoun that evolved to become the English word “what.” Is this word meant to grab the attention of the reader (or in an oral tradition, the attention of the listener), as in Headley’s translation? Or is it meant to be a more passive, conversational jumping-off point for the speaker, like Heaney’s translation, which we might also equate to a modern usage of “Well,” or “OK?”
Another difference: the name Scyld Scéfing. We don’t typically translate our names if we introduce ourselves to people who speak languages other than our own A man named Juan will be called Juan in English or Spanish or any other language. There are equivalents, John in English, Jean in French, but we don’t translate those. A name is a name. Heaney might be attempting to highlight a significance to this name with which an original audience might be familiar, and which would otherwise be lost on a modern audience. But what about “Sheafson?” Headley chooses to retain the original.
In this same line, Heaney retains the alliterative “S” in the original “Scyld Scéfing sceaþena,” whereas Headley substitutes an alliterative “f” with the phrase “first father was a foundling.” Then on the next line, Heaney chooses to forgo the alliterative “M” in the original “monegum maégþum meodosetla,” but Headley works in a “browbeating every barstool-brother.”
Neither translator mentions the Heruli2 in the original’s word “Eorle.”
Given that Headley’s translation professes a mission to emphasize gender, we see her choice to begin with “Bro!” and her use of “barstool-brother” to highlight gender and the male-centric tone of the story. Heaney’s doesn’t take such an angle, and so uses “mead-benches” to reflect more-literally the original image conferred by “meodosetla.”
Neither of these translations is “better” or “more accurate.” Rather, they embark on different missions, and taken into consideration with all the other translations, they contribute to a wider view of possible interpretations of a text far removed from the modern day. This is to say that when we translate, we attempt to interpret a text, to bring it from one context, spatial, temporal, or otherwise, into another. The translator is at least as present as the original author because the translation of every phrase is the result of a set of choices. If it weren’t so, nobody would ever care to translate a work more than once.