Multiple Personality Disorder

Good idea MPD

 It sounds nice also because now you have

خویش

next to

خش‌خش

خوب!

بعد از روزها عذاب کشیدن، تصمیم گرفتم «ترغ و تروغ» را برداشته و بجای آن «خش‌خش» بگُذارم.

*

 I even like "Rebirth" alone 

How about "A Birth, Distinct"  (not too bad?)

I don't know it's a mystery :).  

But "Another Umbelical Cord" is a definite possibility ;).

Omid, that was very funny. 

How about "a different rebirth"?

I don't like "another birth" either, I think it sucks :O)  I have been loaned a book of Forough's side-by-side poem translation, Farsi on one side, English on the other side with line numbers, which is great because I can read them line by line and I say, oh boy! this translation sucks :O)

How about "another umbilical cord"?

The path in the image looks like a nice place for riding bikes,,

The kind that an Islamic female bicycle rider might one day use.

MPD

I will tell you a secret.  I once tried to translate a very popular poem of "Tavalodi Digar" by Forough Farokhzaad.   I literally could not get beyond the title.  

Tavalodi Digar has time and again been translated as "Another Birth" which in English only implies repetition.  In Persian the title of the poem, in my view, is about a qulitative difference in the new birth.  Could I call it a "New Birth", not convicing and too close to a new born.  I thought maybe it should be a "A different birth" and so on and so forth and then I stopped.  I still don't know how to translate Tavalodi Digar in the way that I understand Forough meant to convey.  The funniest of all was "Born Again" :) which probably is close to the Persian intent but because of the popular use of the Born Again Christians, would be comical as Forough'e title :).

So I am so grateful to you first because you take the time and also because I know very well how difficult and trying this work (translation of a poem) is.  Your results are impressive.

Poetry translation is a balancing act

I'd say this was the second most difficult poem I've ever translated (never mind which one was the most difficult one).

Poetry translation is a balancing act, balancing between rhyme, rhythm, feel, musicality, meaning (intended, hidden, derived), imagination, imagery, etc.  I try to stay with original words as much as possible, but that option is hardly ever completely possible.

For instance, if the original poem says "iron", I'd say "aahan", no big deal there.  But, what if the original poem says "the leaves crackle in protest!"  The closest thing we have in Farsi for "crackle" is "tragh o toroogh kardan", but "tragh o toroogh kardan" causes several problems for the verse in Farsi.  For one thing, it is a compound verb consisting of four words (actually according to "loghatnameh dehkhoda" the word "toroogh" does not even exists without being used alongside with "tragh").  So, here we have one word in English, "crackle," that's going to be replaced with four words in Farsi.  By the time that is done the verse in Farsi becomes too long; it loses the feel of the original poem, it will not really rhyme well, and it won't sound well musically.

So, what about "naaleh mikonand"?  The leaves "dar eteraaz naaleh mikonand!"  Well fine.  It's poetic, except, later we we find out that the leaves are supposed to be dead, turnig to dust.  Dead leaves in the English poem could, and did, "crackle", but they do not "moan," because no moaning comes out of them since they are dead.  So, I get into this agonizing mood for several days and nights :O) trying to decide whether I should use "dar eteraaz tragh o toroogh mikonand," to remain with the closest thing to the original "meaning" of the poem and lose the other components of the poem; or to use "dar eteraaz naaleh mikonand," and lose some other components of the poem.  The choices are limited and either way it's agonizing :O)

The other words, many of them double, triple, and quadruple entendres (ambiguity of meaning arising from language that lends itself to more than one interpretation) are: burden, guile, faint, bond, proof, mum, sudden, and fall.  Were the trees shamefully quiet, "saaket," as if they had done something wrong, because they let go of the leaves, or are they "khaamoosh," because it's autumn and they have to go to hibernation?  Are the leaves burdened because of their weight, "sangeen", which also means down mood, or are they saddened because of their hopeless situation, "naa-govaar"?  And so on, and so forth...

So anyway, it's a balancing act.  One cannot keep everything (everyone) in the original poem happy, sooner or later one of them, or a few of them, gets mad, not that any of you guys are mad, yet.

Thank you all for reading.

Double Joy

It was a great joy to read Mehrban's poem in English and now it is another joy to read this beautiful translation to Persian. Excellent choice of words MPD Jaan. You are one heck of a translator (either way).

MPD

Thank you!  Thank you!

I think this was a particularly difficult poem to translate because of some of the English words with double meanings but you have done a great job.

I can't tell you what an excitement it is for me to see your translation of  (our) poem. 

Thanks MPD jan

I hadn't be able to undrestand all and apreciate it in English

Ghorbanat.

Orang