VOICES

I believe..........

Emily Dickinson (1830–86).  Complete Poems.  1924.

Part One: Life

VI

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin
        

Unto his (her) nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

Solh va Doosti (paz a vosotros)

Nadia

Extinguish....hmmm...

It's great in and of itself but if you place the phrase as you wrote it within the context of the dynamism of the entire piece, the string of Latinate words creates a kind of a "lull", it slows the movement too much. So I think I'll stick with "kill off."  But you're right, in the new version "corrupted" sounds FINE, I DON'T need corrupting anymore, and CERTAINLY not decaying. 

The road runs through the capillaries of life.

Incubation's essence on the uterus boat of the moon

Will kill of all corrupted cells

And in sun's chemical space after rising

There is only sound

Sound absorbing the particles of time.

 Why should I stop?

 If anyone can give me a good argument for why fertilization is a BETTER translation than incubation (because, frankly folks I'm clueless and depending completely on you for this one..), I'll rework it. Toward the end, the poem ABSOLUTELY DESCRIBES the process of "fertilization", NOT "incubation."  BUT

incubation SOUNDS sooo f-ing fantastic with uterus and moon..

Robin

essence of

essence of incubation....

will extinguish the corrupted cells...

Zan Amrikai

I really didn't want to toot my own horn.  I said many languages, but to tell you the truth, the Romance Languages are like dialects of one language. So I started with Spanish when I was in junior high, then French in college, then Latin in grad school (compulsory) and after that Italian and Portuguese were like toasting an English muffin.  Anyway I'm really only "fluent" in Spanish and French, and also German. The other languages I've studied my knowledge is not all that hot.

BUT I had to make a point to this poster.  See some people here,  they do to me what they do to each other. As soon as I SAY or DO one single thing they don't like (suggest Forough is great, suggest Forough is not great, whatever) they HAVE TO discredit me on every level.  So I'm stupid AND rude AND mentally ill  AND have hot flashes and am a BAD translator...It's a variation on the "You are apan-Turkic Israeli Mujahad" theme.. 

 So I take great pains to discredit and dismantle it whenever I can. In this case it involved flaunting my translation credentials. To tell  you the truth, I've known linguists that were FAR better at languages than I....that could learn Chinese, Sanskrit, tribal languages EASILY, that would learn a word ONCE with photographic memory and never EVER forget it and so on. I just know the Romance languages and German and a smattering of other stuff.
Persian though...that's where I live...I only studied it for about a year 03/04 and then I stopped because...I got...so hurt..by this person...and now I'll start again. It's very basic to me, it's like...being...a fish...in water...it's..comfortable...but I'm only at an intermediate level.  I could NEVER have done that translation without using Hillman's as a skeleton...but I have a very strong feel for it. I was definitely well-equipped.
Best,
Robin

Essence...essence...

Essence of incubation in the uterus boat of moon

will kill off all corrupting cells

and in sun's chemical space after rising

there is only sound

sound absorbing the particles of time....

Keshti - Fertilization / Incubation

I BELIEVE the three of you, she means KAASHTAN as the primary meaning, keshti rather than ship or boat. My question now is which is better, is it fertilization or incubation? They're BOTH really good words.

 The good thing about incubation is that it takes care of the idea of "environment.'  But it's more STERILE than fertilization. Fertilization is RICH, it's feminine, incubation is a little scientific. And since we then go to chemicals in the next line, do we want the RICHNESS of fertilization or that slight sterility implicit in INCUBATION which becomes MORE pronounced when we get to the CHEMICALS? 

Whichever one I go with, I'm going to throw in boat or ship somewhere because it's an important RESONANCE and I want to KEEP that resonance. To give you an example of what I mean, in Ahevan Sales' "Winter" (Zemestaan) I translated "lulivaj" as "like a tippling gypsy whore."  I like to KEEP the resonances when they're important but I BELIEVE you, the PRIMARY meaning comes from "kaashtan."  But then....there are these birds FLYING, and there's this ROAD running through life, and there's this incubation or fertilization on the moon...the ship...of the uterus...and the moon...swimming....this RESONANCE....I will keep both. So fertilization or incubation?

See?

Thinking later about "meaning's sperm" as it relates to "sedaa" which of course in Persian is BOTH sound AND voice, this leads me back to fertilization...

Robin i

Keshti (as related to

Keshti (as related to planting or culturing) or Kashti (as in a boat), which one?

1. As in boat:

The surroundings' essence of the uterus boat of the moon...

2. As in planting:

The incubation essence of the moon's uterus...

I think Forough was thinking more in the lines of #2.

Keshti...

I am leaning toward something like:

The fertilizing environment of the boat of uterus moon

Will kill off all corrupting cells

And in sun's chemical space after rising....

Keshti / Barbarian

I am SO fascinated by this elucidation of "keshti" by two posters. I have to also say that the mystery of GREAT poetry is that it DOESN'T mean the one OR the other, it means the BOTH. And that is one of the GREAT challenges of translating GREAT Persian poetry, and one of the reason I sometimes opt for using several words instead of just one...."sacrificing" the original rhythm and succintness to convey the multidimensionality. (And also why I DON'T consider Forough's poetry TRULY great until the last works, they lacked this hyper-language of resonance....but again, GOOD work can accomplish GREAT things by speaking to the hopes and dreams of ordinary people in a language they can easily grasp).

Back to Keshti. You have to remember Forough wrote this poem at the time when our earth, our Mother, was first being seen via satellite photos.  It's crucial.  She's talking about something like "spaceship earth," "spaceship cosmos", a SHIP that GROWS and GROWS as our "binesh" (insight, vision, SEEING), expands....tomeet the challenges and ecstasies of our greatness and smallness within an ever-expanding universe.  Ahmad Karimi-Hakak pointed out that Forough was the FIRST Iranian poet EVER to fully explore; the personal, the political AND the cosmic. And he is right. But the cosmic, I must insist, she ONLY explored in her last works, from whence her TRUE greatness emerged. 

As for Barbarian, call ME the Barbarian.  It comes from Barbaros, a non-Greek island...all it means is "stranger." There are no value  judgements to it. So too, were the Achaemenids barbarians when they first came to Shush, so the Arabs and Turks, when they first came to Iran, so I here, an exile among exiles, am "Barbara", a stranger.

"Alone, a stranger and afraid, lost in a world I never made."

But I will say this to to my fellow exile and stranger.  Barbarian: this is MY blog. You can curse at me, call me unbalanced, character-assassinte me, even threaten to kill me (as is not infrequently done on this site) and I will NEVER delete you or ALLOW jj to delete you, if I can persuade him otherwise. But I converse how i CHOOSE to converse on MY BLOG.

Barbara

barbarian

Where did you leave your iranian politeness and mehman-navazi today? As you know, persian poems are very complex and some of that complexity shows up only in translation, specially by a native of the target language. E.g., when you read this very same poem, did you know that "keshti" is derived from "keshtan" for planting and not a ship. Respecting others is never harmful, and you are way off-base on that.

Barbarian......Oh no you didn't........

Your title fits you well. Where do you get off so high and mighty.  Rosie T. is on this website because she actually gives a damn about Iranians.

Why else would she go through all the effort to learn your language. She probably only thinks the only man worth dating is an Iranian. Hell! I feel the same way.

You know how crazy American society thinks a woman is if she likes Iranians and worst would actually consider one as a suitable match. We don't give a damn because we know better.

Mobarak/Felicitaciones

Wow, Rosie, I think I was more impressed by your language studies than by the poem. :^) My studies were in Linguistics and I, too, speak several languages--Spanish also my best foreign language--but not as many as you do. The Persian I know I learned from listening, but I would like to study it formally to better know it. (Pimsleur helps, but it won't do the trick for more intensive learning.)

As for Jamshid's comment that the three "thank you" versions you wrote are not Persian, my experience has been that in several decades of being related to Iranians, (and I do mean Persian Iranians--not Torkoman, not Arab, not Kurds...)I have yet to hear Sepaas. From all the Iranians I've known, it's been Kheili Mamnoon, or Mamnoonam, or Merci, or Motashakkeram.(Chashm and lotf dareed, and the like, take on another ta'arof aspect.) BELIEVE ME, Jamshid, no one gets as bent out of shape at language misuse as I do, but I think that your comment--well-intentioned as it may be--is a little pedantic. Is language prescriptive or descriptive? Some of us would prefer it to be a prescriptive model (you are "supposed to" say it like this, vs. this is how people "usually" say it).

Good for you that you looked for such mood in your translation. Maybe one day, when my Persian is better, (especially because it takes me about three minutes to read one sentence), maybe I will tackle some translations, too. By the way, I agree with your assessment of the right direction of translating---from least known to best known language. But in creative writing, you do have to have a good understanding of the lesser known language in order to uncover nuance just as uncovering nuance (in one's own language) requires greater skill than mere literal translation.

ZA

few screws loose

Is it me or does this rosie woman sound unbalanced? Who writes back a book of responses to comments that are a few lines or one paragraphs? She expects us to believe she is educated, but can't seem to express herself without resorting to being vulgar. Don't worry she is DEFINITELY not Iranian, maybe just has too much time on her hands and would like to teach us our own language, Due to her superiority complex. Because as we all know: us stupid , foreign, uneducated barbarians can't apprieciate our own poetry and literature and need translations and explanations from her, an educated, exalted american old lady.

Wow!

That gives me a lot to think about. I'll definitely make some changes.  But of course it's not just a simple case of inserting the correct literal meanings you give...they also have to FIT...the rhythms...the resonances.. the problem with English is always that the strings of Latinate words start to sound...clunky...unpoetic...you know, nature, fertilizing, environment...it's a mouthful!  "Surrounding conditions" I thought NOT so clunky because it's like a lexical unit, like one word only....

I chose "decaying" over "corrupt" for rhythm. I'll think about it...there's always..corrupted.. hmmm...

and I HAVE TO get a new dictionary....it's been...quite a while... you've no idea....."My" Golestan...was...a killer....

:D

Robin

THANX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

کیفیت محیط کشتی زهدان ماه سلول های فاسد را خواهد کشت

Dear Rosie,

The word ‘keshti’ in the above sentence does not mean ‘the ship’ as you might have found in the dictionary. It refers to the verb ‘kesht’ or ‘kaashtan’ in Persian that means ‘to plant’ or ‘to cultivate’. The word ‘moheet’ can be translated as ‘environment’ or ‘milieu’. My version of the line you translated as ‘Surrounding conditions on the uterus ship of moon’ will be ‘The nature of fertilizing environment in the moon’s uterus’. In the next line, you have used ‘decaying’ for Forough’s ‘faassed’. The adjective used by Forough is much closer to words ‘corrupt’ and ‘degenerate’ in English. For those who are familiar with Forough’s poetic language and her taste for irony and bitter humor, the contradiction between the words fertilizing and killing in these two lines is not surprising (a fertilizer can also be a pesticide). In her noble and creative world ('moon’s uterus’), Forough did not find any room for degenerates (e.g. newspaper worms).

Keep up the good work. I am looking forward to reading more of your translations.

Cheers,
Naazer

My Golestan - Jamshid / Naazer

No I don't mean Hafez's Golestan. I meant MY Golestan. I had discovered Forough and my original intention at end of '03 was to make a Hollywood filmscript about her life...and then I fell in love with a Persian filmmaker and he called me Khanom-e-Gol, from Hafez's, Biyaa taa Gol Barafshaanim... and that's where Rosie came from, NOT from Forough's roses in this peom...And well...it didn't work out...and that's what I was referring to. MY Golestan.
As for sepaas, he liked that one too, but then how could I say "mmmm"? 0:D
Anyway, what would you suggest in place of "connecting tunnels"?

Naazer: Hmmmm, fertilizing! Now THAT's important! Thanks.
Robin

To Bad Poet

The reason why I'm better equipped to translate FROM Persian INTO English is BECAUSE I'm a native English speaker. This is a basic tenet of translation. There are actually very few TRULY bilingual people; studies have been done and most people are stronger in one language than in the other no matter how bilingual they appear to be. Some few are truly bilingual and fewer still truly polylingual (the great German poet Paul Celin was one of these...) It's NOT good to translate a final version AWAY from your strongest language, you should ALWAYS translate INTO it, and English is mine. So the question of me vs. native Persian speakers here is a moot point.
Especially since we were comparing Hillman and me. It's really irrelevant to the discussion. But that's okay. I'll go on..
As for my Persian, I worked, as I said, with the skeleton from Hillman and a dictionary. I DIDN'T mention I worked after completing a two-month intensive in intermediate Persian with the Consortium under Dick Davis in Ohio (you know, the translator of Shahnameh?), having brought myself up to intermediate level all on my own. But I did. And I was able to do this because I'm a linguist and have studied ten languages and am pretty fluent in five and VERY fluent in one, Spanish, which is ALMOST as good as my English. But I would NEVER offer a final version of a translation in Spanish without working with a true native speaker on it.

Actually translation is a funny field. Poets translate better than anyone, and non-poets really shouldn't do it, and that is one of the problems with Hillman's translation. He is an academic more than a poet. I'm not an academic. I WAS on an academic fast track in my youth but I left it because I knew I wasn't one. I'm an artist. A poet. That's why I'm so good at translations of poetry. Many well-known literature translators, when they wish to translate something,when they "fall in love" with a poem in translation and wish to "commune" with the original and render their own version (translation generally being considered a "labor of love"), having NO knowledge of the original language, simply PAY a native speaker to make a literal version, and then take it from there. The great American theater critic and translator Eric Bentley works that way.
I was very fortunate, I had enough Persian not to have to do that, and I also had Hillman's translation. I COULD NOT have done it without Hillman's translation. Impossible. But my IS better than his. I'm sure of it. There are things that just went right by him...for example, the windmills rotting. He just didn't get it.
Now. Back to Forough.
You can consider Forough's other work great, I don't, and I don't have a problem with that. A lot of hermiddle stuff is good, some of it is VERY good. But I don't believe she was achieving GREATNESS until her last work, right before she died. So what? Who cares I think? If YOU think she was great, that's fine. As I more or less said, in a very real sense, her late middle work WAS great inasmuch as she was able to articulate profound personal and political struggles in a clear, cogent voice. But this clear cogent voice, in MY personal opinion, is NOT the voice of great poetry, although it CAN be the voice of VERY GOOD poetry. Her poem about the Garden, her poem about the little boy seeking the Someone Greater than Anyone (the Imam, the Mehdi, Mossadeq, Daddy...) they are VERY VERY GOOD poems. But IN MY OPINION, great poetry sings in ways that go far beyond ordinary expression and is NOT easily or at least not CLEARLY graspable to most people. Hence, Garcia Lorca, Baudelaire, the interpretative mysteries of Hafez, Dylan Thomas, Eliot....That's my OPINION about great poetry, that's all, and. Forough did not begin to SING in this kind of hyper- or super-language, if you will, until right before she died.
If you differ with me, that's fine. If you think poetry which does not exceed the boundaries of ordinary language and reality can be called great, that's fine. But why are you calling my translation abilities into question just because we have differences of opinions about whether Forough's middle period is "great" or "good", when it's perfectly obviously to anyone who knows anything about poetry that I made a DAMN excellent translation.

As for my current abilities with Persian, I already explained to Colonel Hemayat when he posted me a poem that I can't read it until I replace my Persian dictionary, which I used so much that it fell apart and had to be thrown out. Without my dictionary, I'm not much in Persian, and with my dictionary, I am. It REALLY is that simple.

All the academic critics admit that Forough was very uneven. And she was so YOUNG when she died. She really was only just coming into her own. Of COURSE she was achieving greater heights at 32 than at 22 or 27 or whatever. But isn't it funny...that... isn't it? If I'd towed the Foroughism line and said "Oh she was so WONDERFUL aaalways", you'd probably be here telling me how faaaaaabulous my translation is. And instead here you are, talking instead about what a piece of shit it is and I am. Just because of a couple of comments I made to Critic attacking him for attacking me and Forough......
"We are such stuff as dreams are made of and our little lives are rounded by a sleep..." Vanity, vanity, all is...vanity....
Robin

Re: Rosie

Deep mourning for the loss of your Golestan? Sorry but I didnt' get it. Why didn't you buy another Golestan? Or were you meaning something other than the book?

You refered to the word "binesh". So you do speak Farsi? I did notice the use of "insight" instead of "vision" for "binesh". I think yours is more accurate.

I am not comfortable with the existing translations (and yours too), regarding the "connecting tunnels". It does not sit well.

Lastly, for "thank you", you said all the wrong words and missed the correct one: Mamnoon, Moteshaker, Merci. None is Farsi. The correct Farsi word is "Sepaas" or "sepaas gozaaram".

If forough was so mediocre then ..

Hi Rosie,

If you are a real American (not knowing Farsi), and if you were so moved by Forough's only "good" poem so much that you even had to learn the whole damn language and to read and to translate the poem yourself, then we must have different definitions for "mediocre" or "good".

I remember that in your previous posts you had confessed that you couldn't get the full meaning of a few simple comments in Farsi (directed to you), then how come --all of a sudden-- you are translating Forough better than Farsi_is-their_native_language people?

'محیط کشتی'

Dear Rosie,

Well done! Just a friendly suggestion: The literal translation of the above phrase is 'the fertilizing environment'.

Cheers,

Naazer

Rosie

Thank you and very nice observation: 'insight' is a very nice word for 'binesh' which is more than seeing, rather seeing from inside as opposed to seeing with eyes, vision, or 'didan'. Also, I like your approach of starting from an already existing translation and improving on it. That makes more sense since some of translations of persian poetry is pretty bad and need people with different perspectives to really find an equivalent expression. Also there is an iranian lady who has translated forough's poems that can be used as a third reference. Best of luck to you.

Wow! You actually made Jamshid..........

Rosie,

Congrats! You actually made Jamshid very happy. He could use some happiness from time to time. All I can seem to do is aggravate him. Oddly, enough I am not even trying to cause him a headache. I seem to do it naturally.

Replies to Critic, Jamshid, Teach and Yo

To Critic, well then if that is your conscious agenda, and if you choose to do it wisely, then...jeesh away, Sir, jeesh away... :D

To Jamshid: I used Hillman's translation as a skeleton for my own, which is very very different from his. I couldn't find any other translations. Other than that all I had was me and my dictionary. I was in a period of deep, deep mourning at the end of 2005 over the loss of my... well..Golestan..and I had completely and totally cut myself off from contact with any Iranian people, events or organizations.

To Teach: please by all means, go ahead and use it and credit me. And question and modify where necessary. I faced some very difficult choices in the translation, particularly the use of "insight" instead of "vision" for "binesh", and the use of "constellation" in place of "constitution." Needless to say, translation must be a collective endeavour; no one translation of any poem can EVER be the "right" one.

To Yo: I'm so happy you're happy. Now, if you could hear traces, just...TRACES...of Forough's song, in the voices of people such as the Colonel, I would be even happier.... I've never met Hillman personally,but it seems he's right here on this website, talking through me and you.

Chez jj is "a very very very fine house." Khaaneh-ye-dust, injaast...
Robin

You must admit ...

ThatI may or may not be critic but I do a good job in pissing people off!

I like Forugh

She is lovely. I wish they were more girls like her.

Mmm...to the rest of the posters

The three "m's"--
mersi, mamnoon, motshakeram.
Robin

Forough Mini-Me To Critic / Sickening

Your brief post are encapsulates several valid points along with your own discrediting of yourself Let us briefly address it all and then put it to bed:
You are quite right. Forough began a poor poet, then became a mediocre one, finally at best a good one, and right before she died she was on the cusp of becoming a great one. I consider this poem to be her ONLY great poem. Had she lived longer she would have no doubt have produced more great poems, but that could have been unfortunate, actually.
Because you see, Sir, the REASON why there is such a "cottage industry" around Forough's mediocre and merely "good" poems is BECAUSE the language remains clear enough for the ordinary person to grasp, and those poems of hers articulate the Iranian struggle for personal and political freedom so clearly and beautifully, ESPECIALLY for young women. I see nothing "sickening" about "mediocre" or merely "good" work being put to great use, OR about great work being less known than mediocre. That is the way the world is. So...
Then YOU come along and the irony is that you and I probably share an UNpopular opinion here amongst the Forugh readers, which is that most of Forough is not great, and lots not even good. But YOU'RE so filled with vitriole you can't even bother to read THIS poem (which is NOT as well-known as the others BECAUSE it's so much better, and so there's a VERY good chance you haven't read it) OR my translation (which is NO mini-anything, dear Sir, I assure you, there is NOTHING mini-anything about ME) or bother to find out about any of MY other work here on this site, whether I am a poet or not, etc. before you attack me. And thus you attack yourself because quite frankly, Sir, you're making a fool of yourself.
And this is unfortunate because voices such as yours are needed to remind ANYONE following ANY agenda, even if only Forough-ism, of its dangers. You are SO attached however to the agenda of your ANTI-agenda that instead of performing a good service, your voice becomes one of those which turns dialog into a "swamp", the one of which in this poem Forough SPECIFICALLY, I mean SPECIFICALLY speaks.
You see, Sir, this in my opinion ONE GREAT poem of hers was inspired by EXACTLY the kinds of comments you make. The "collaboration of lead type" and the "newspaper worms" she speaks of were her slanderers and "critics" in the Tehran daily press CONSTANTLY CONSTANTLY ridiculing her, NOT about her poetry but about her LIFE STYLE. But all that abuse did was inspire her to her ultimate, and short-lived, true greatness.
Critic. Yeah, right. You didn't read her poem, you haven't read me, you DON'T know all that much about poetry and you HAVEN'T given much serious thought to the psychosocial and political dynamics surrounding the Forough "cottage industry" in Iran. Critic. Yeah. Right.
Robin Jayne Goldsmith

Robin Jayne Goldsmith

Oh, Not another Forough mini me!

They say, if you can't do it, teach it! Now it should read: If you can't say it, translate it! this culture Forough worship is too much. It is sickening.

In Farsi...

  تنها صداست که می ماند

چرا توقف کنم،چرا؟

پرنده ها به ستوی جانب آبی رفته اند

افق عمودی است

افق عمودی است و حرکت : فواره وار

و در حدود بینش

سیاره های نورانی میچرخند

زمین در ارتفاع به تکرار میرسد

و چاههای هوایی

به نقب های رابطه تبدیل میشوند

و روز وسعتی است

که در مخیله ی تنگ کرم روزنامه نمیگنجد

چرا توقف کنم؟

راه از میان مویرگ های حیات می گذرد

کیفیت محیط کشتی زهدان  ماه

سلول های فاسد را خواهد کشت

و در فضای شیمیایی بعد از طلوع

تنها صداست

صدا که ذوب ذره های زمان خواهد شد .

چرا توقف کنم؟

چه می تواند باشد مرداب

چه می تواند باشد جز جای تخم ریزی حشرات فاسد

افکار سردخانه را جنازه های باد کرده رقم می زنند .

نامرد ، در سیاهی

فقدان مردیش را پنهان کرده است

و سوسک ....آه

وقتی که سوسک سخن می گوید .

 چرا توقف کنم؟

  همکاری حروف سربی بیهوده ست .

  همکاری حروف سربی

اندیشه ی حقیر را نجات خواهد داد .

من از لاله ی درختانم

تنفس هوای مانده ملولم میکند

پرنده ای که مرده بود به من پند داد که پرواز را بخاطر

 بسپارم

نهایت تمامی نیروها پیوستن است ، پیوستن

به اصل روشن خورشید

و ریختن به شعور نور

طبیعی است

که آسیاب های  بادی میپوسند

چرا توقف کنم؟

من خوشه های نارس گندم را

به زیر پستان میگیرم

و شیر می دهم

صدا ،  صدا ،  تنها صدا

صدای خواهش شفاف آب به جاری شدن

صدای ریزش نور ستاره بر جدار مادگی خاک

صدای انعقاد نطفه ی معنی

و بسط ذهن مشترک عشق

صدا ، صدا ، صدا ، تنها صداست که میماند

در سرزمین قد کوتاهان

معیارهای سنجش

همیشه بر مدار صفر سفر کردهاند

چرا توقف کنم؟

من از عناصر چهارگانه اطاعت میکنم

و کار تدوین نظامنامه نیست

مرا به زوزه ی دراز توحش

 درعضو جنسی حیوان چکار

مرا به حرکت حقیر کرم در خلاء گوشتی چکار

مرا تبار خونی گل ها به زیستن متعهد کرده است

تبار خونی گل ها میدانید ؟

Good job!

That's a very nice English version of Foroug's poem. Did you translate from Farsi? Or did you improve on an existing translation?

I had seen some English translations before but they don't protray Forough's feelings. Yours is one of the better ones.

I will post the Farsi version of the poem later so that those who can read Farsi could better appreciate your translation.