Translating Donne: A way out
Short lecture delivered at the Pagtubod sa Tataramon (Conference on Language and Faith), 16 January 2015, Holy Rosary Major Seminary and Ateneo de Naga University, Naga City.
To translate John Donne, that is to rearticulate, recompose, or relay his works in another language, is never easy. To unravel and discern his canonical works, in the very first place, is almost a suicidal task. We are talking here about a body of work that spans not just the lifetime of an Elizabethan poet-mystic, but moreso, one that stretches across a timeline of a peregrination, like those sojourns that brought forth for us holy men and women, from tenebrosity to brilliance, from disarray to immaculateness, from affliction to constitution, from corporeal to ethereal, form Headean to Elysian, from here to there and all in-betweens. To translate Donne is never easy, and I say this not to brag, but to articulate my own infirmities. When the book was recognized at the National Book Awards two years ago, Dr. Isagani Cruz approached me and asked in jest: "Are you alright?" Surely, he knew who and what the hell Donne is. I think he meant "What? Translate? Donne? Now? Seriously?" Then again, I retell this not to brag, but, again, to articulate my own infirmities. Because the question raised by Dr. Cruz was exactly the quintessential query anyone could have asked me. I hope to tell you why.
My presence here this morning, in fact, can be considered either as: a. "Oh, well, give Vic a slot because, anyway, he works for the press and his Donne book does not sell," or b. "Ok, you'll have the slot you asked for." I surmise both answers would be correct. The truth is, because it happened that I was working in the same room where K.S. Cordero was when he was plotting the schedule of activities for this conference, I volunteered to give a short lecture too, but on a different topic—I wanted to lecture on the word bansáy. The next day, he said, make it on your translation of John Donne. Both given answers are correct then.
On this note, let me start by saying again that translating Donne is never easy, but I will further say that translating Donne is a way out. Here, it is experientially personal. And this will be the first time I am sharing this with an audience. I love listening to writers and artists sharing poetics, artistic processes or even techniques, I love listening to critics pointing out in works of art things that are sometimes leave us in reactions like "What?!" But, I was never a fan of unveiling secrets regarding raisons d'être—I don't like stories about love poems written because one is ensnared in the greatest affection of his or her lifetime, I don't like stories about paintings done because of artists inspired by this or that, narratives of the muse—whether one that is beautiful or one that is rather unacceptable. Unveiling reasons takes away the mystical—it leaves no room for inquiry. Worse, most of the time the sentimentality may solicit sympathy rather pathetically.
But, perhaps, by the same grace which Donne continuously implored until his death, this will be a narrative of a raison d'être—the very thing I don't wish to subscribe to, but for the purpose of this lecture, nevertheless, is exactly what I need to admit, what you need to know, and I believe, what John Donne deserves. If, instead, you are interested in the process of translating Donne, get a copy of my book and read the preface. It's all there. for now, I believe, this is the best way to make faith and language meet. There is no other way of saying this.
I translated Donne as a response to a sense of deep, utter loss, in fact, it was the biggest sense of loss that I have ever felt and experienced in my life. Early in the summer of 2011, I lost my mother, I lost her to liver failure that resulted from a complication of diabetes. When she died, it was a loss of everything for she was everything to her only son. She was my first teacher. It was from her books where I first encountered and felt awed by the sheer beauty of a word—how it is said or written, conveyed to other or simply kept in heart. It was primarily with her, too, that I think I first experienced life.
The passing on of my mother left me no time to mourn. I almost singlehandedly managed everything. A few minutes after she expired, a few feet from her mortal remains, I needed to call the funeral services. Thereafter, I needed to manage everything related to her wake—coordinating with the funeral parlor, receiving calls and text messages from everyone, supervising everything, and so on and so forth. Needless to say, there was no time to mourn. I was simply not allowed that experience. I had no access even to tears, and that left me puzzled.
The months that followed were haunting times. Yesterday, I blurted out to Doods Santos and Paning Prado that, despite not having gone to a shrink, I was most probably undergoing depression. I lost direction. I withdrew from things. I withdrew from work, students, friends, and even the remainder of my family. For a couple of months, I exiled myself to a cottage somewhere in a wooded portion of Pasacao. Bread and jam and water for meals. Books and movies for companions. Those were dark, really dark times. As dark as darkness I could not describe, I resorted to many things—desperate measures.
Then, surprisingly, Donne was there. If not by grace, then by accident. My first encounter with Donne was when I was in Ateneo de Naga high school when we were made to read and recite "Death Be Not Proud"
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/ Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;/ For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow/ Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me./ From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,/ Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,/ And soonest our best men with thee do go,/ Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery./ Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,/ And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,/ And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well/ And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?/ One short sleep past, we wake eternally/ And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. (Holy Sonnet X)
—such recollection made me to turn to Donne, only to discover an even darker spirit, from his early poems that wondered at fevers and graves, blood and sunsets, funerals and angels, relics and dreams—all vestiges of death—to the poems he wrote in his later years—of holy men and women, songs to the divine, litanies of supplications, seeking forgiveness despite self-admission of tremendous guilt and unworthiness. He was definitely ecstatic at the prospect of death. Reading the bulk of his works gave me the impression that thoughts of death, of passing, of loss, were in fact, hallucinogenic for him. He was a mystic—a mystic of death. He saw Death—Death with capital D—ironically, as a full, living entity—"Death Be Not Proud". Therefore, Donne, at all perspectives, was the best companion in those time when I was, like him in his poetry, confronted from all corners by death.
Like Ignatius of Loyola in his prolonged ecstasy inside that cave in Manresa, I held on to and lingered in Donne's poetry. (Incidentally, in his later years, the Anglican Donne hated Ignatius, read his "Ignatius, His Conclave".) But I was not waiting for epiphany. I was simply reeling in consolation that I was despondent, but I was not the only one suffering from it. Here was a man who devoted his lifetime to not simply confronting but wrestling with Death, only to desire and embrace Death for the solace of eternal divine presence.
This is my play's last scene, here heavens appoint/ My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race/ Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,/ My span's last inch, my minute's latest point,/ And gluttonous death, will instantly unjoint/ My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space;/ But my ever-waking part shall see that face,/ Whose fear already shakes my every joint:/ Then, as my soul, t' heaven her first seat, takes flight,/ And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,/ So fall my sins that all may have their right/ (To where they're bred, and would press me) to hell./ Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,/ For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil. (Holy Sonnet VI)
Here is where I turned to language. I wanted more of Donne. Like the apostles in the mountain, dazzled by the luminosity of Jesus, Moses and Elijah, I wanted to build a small cot for myself.
I has become a habit of mine to translate into Bikol lines or poems that I find striking. And because the stretch of the lyric sequence brought by Donne's poems—from "The Flea" to the "Hymn to God the Father"—struck me all the time, so I translated all of it.
Recalling now Isagani Cruz's question, I can say then, yes, I was alright, as I am now, perhaps. Translating Donne was never easy. There was a day when I needed to take the 45-minute ride from Pasacao to Naga to buy for me a copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, because I could not understand some of the words. There was no internet in my place of exile. Even at the time the whole manuscript was being edited and annotated by Doods Santos, she pointed out certain blunders which I needed to fix.
Nevertheless, the whole experience was my way out. It was a way of confronting face-to-face Death—not as simply a phenomenon on which we can ruminate, theorize, poeticize and thereafter fall into deep sleep, after all it was all in the mind. Death was real, as real as our presence in this room. It took me Donne to fathom Death. My way of translating Donne tells of a narrative of grief—from denial to anger to bargaining to depression to acceptance—or a story of a crisis—from the triggering event to escalation to crisis to recovery to post-crisis depression.
Let me read to you the Bikol translations of the poems I've read earlier. There is no better way to end this short lecture.
Haré magpaabaw-ábaw, Kagadánan, minsán pang inapód ka ninda/ Na mabagsík asín makangirhát, huli ta iká bakô nanggád;/ Huli ta si mga hinonà mong saímong dinanyarán/ Daí man nautsán, abáng Kagadánan, atâ daí mo man akó madádaog./ Sa pagpahingálo asín pagtúrog, na saímong mga ladáwan,/ Ay, kaogmáhan, asín sa saímo dakól pa an ma-gíkan,/ Maabot an panahón, an mga oomáwon ming katóod maiba saímo,/ Paghúlid kan saíndang mga tùláng, pagpahumalî kan saindáng mga kalág./ Iká orípon kan kapaládan, pagkakátaon, mga hadì, asín mga daíng-súkat,/ Asín minaérok sa hilo, iríwal, asín kakundían,/ Alágad an lumáy o talampúnay, pinapatúrog man kamí,/ Ay, oróg-oróg pang masirám kisa saímo; anó an inóorag-órag mo?/ Saróng halìpót na turog, minámata kitáng daíng sagkód,/ Asín daí nang kagadánan; magágadan ka, Kagadánan. (Banal na Soneto X)
Iní an huring kabtáng kan sakóng pasáli kun nuarín pinasabóng/ Na kan langit an huri kong lakdáng; an sakóng pakíkilamágan/ Nakákalangkag, alágad kaskás an sakóng dalágan, minsán patapós na;/ An huring dupá kan sakóng dalan, an huring punto kan huri kong minúto;/ Dangan pagsúsuwayon kan labí-kapaslóng si Kagadánan/ An sakóng hawak asín kalág, asín akó matúrog na garó daíng sagkód;/ Alágad siring man na an daíng sagkód na pagmatá mapahiling kan lawog/ Na panalmíngan nin ngirhát na minápatákig sa sakóng mga tùláng./ Dangan, sa enot na sakát kan kalág pasíring sa kalangítan,/ Asín an kinàbánon na hawak sa kinàbán man madánay,/ Matútukal man an sakóng mga kasàlán, asín an gabós manínigô kun saín/ Sindá manínigô asín mamàwoton nindá na akó mapa-impyérno./ Iibahan akó nin matatános, asín huhubáon an gabós kong karàtán,/ Huli ta babayáan ko an kinàbán, an lamán, an poón kan kasàlán. (Banal na Soneto VI)
Looking back, perhaps, and again, I'd say that translating Donne is not easy. Because perhaps the task of translating Donne is set aside for the unstable, the infirm, the ill, the disordered, the psychotic, the mad, the disturbed. So be it.
Let it be done. Let it be Donne.
My presence here this morning, in fact, can be considered either as: a. "Oh, well, give Vic a slot because, anyway, he works for the press and his Donne book does not sell," or b. "Ok, you'll have the slot you asked for." I surmise both answers would be correct. The truth is, because it happened that I was working in the same room where K.S. Cordero was when he was plotting the schedule of activities for this conference, I volunteered to give a short lecture too, but on a different topic—I wanted to lecture on the word bansáy. The next day, he said, make it on your translation of John Donne. Both given answers are correct then.On this note, let me start by saying again that translating Donne is never easy, but I will further say that translating Donne is a way out. Here, it is experientially personal. And this will be the first time I am sharing this with an audience. I love listening to writers and artists sharing poetics, artistic processes or even techniques, I love listening to critics pointing out in works of art things that are sometimes leave us in reactions like "What?!" But, I was never a fan of unveiling secrets regarding raisons d'être—I don't like stories about love poems written because one is ensnared in the greatest affection of his or her lifetime, I don't like stories about paintings done because of artists inspired by this or that, narratives of the muse—whether one that is beautiful or one that is rather unacceptable. Unveiling reasons takes away the mystical—it leaves no room for inquiry. Worse, most of the time the sentimentality may solicit sympathy rather pathetically.
But, perhaps, by the same grace which Donne continuously implored until his death, this will be a narrative of a raison d'être—the very thing I don't wish to subscribe to, but for the purpose of this lecture, nevertheless, is exactly what I need to admit, what you need to know, and I believe, what John Donne deserves. If, instead, you are interested in the process of translating Donne, get a copy of my book and read the preface. It's all there. for now, I believe, this is the best way to make faith and language meet. There is no other way of saying this.
I translated Donne as a response to a sense of deep, utter loss, in fact, it was the biggest sense of loss that I have ever felt and experienced in my life. Early in the summer of 2011, I lost my mother, I lost her to liver failure that resulted from a complication of diabetes. When she died, it was a loss of everything for she was everything to her only son. She was my first teacher. It was from her books where I first encountered and felt awed by the sheer beauty of a word—how it is said or written, conveyed to other or simply kept in heart. It was primarily with her, too, that I think I first experienced life.
The passing on of my mother left me no time to mourn. I almost singlehandedly managed everything. A few minutes after she expired, a few feet from her mortal remains, I needed to call the funeral services. Thereafter, I needed to manage everything related to her wake—coordinating with the funeral parlor, receiving calls and text messages from everyone, supervising everything, and so on and so forth. Needless to say, there was no time to mourn. I was simply not allowed that experience. I had no access even to tears, and that left me puzzled.
The months that followed were haunting times. Yesterday, I blurted out to Doods Santos and Paning Prado that, despite not having gone to a shrink, I was most probably undergoing depression. I lost direction. I withdrew from things. I withdrew from work, students, friends, and even the remainder of my family. For a couple of months, I exiled myself to a cottage somewhere in a wooded portion of Pasacao. Bread and jam and water for meals. Books and movies for companions. Those were dark, really dark times. As dark as darkness I could not describe, I resorted to many things—desperate measures.
Then, surprisingly, Donne was there. If not by grace, then by accident. My first encounter with Donne was when I was in Ateneo de Naga high school when we were made to read and recite "Death Be Not Proud"
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/ Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;/ For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow/ Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me./ From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,/ Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,/ And soonest our best men with thee do go,/ Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery./ Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,/ And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,/ And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well/ And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?/ One short sleep past, we wake eternally/ And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. (Holy Sonnet X)
—such recollection made me to turn to Donne, only to discover an even darker spirit, from his early poems that wondered at fevers and graves, blood and sunsets, funerals and angels, relics and dreams—all vestiges of death—to the poems he wrote in his later years—of holy men and women, songs to the divine, litanies of supplications, seeking forgiveness despite self-admission of tremendous guilt and unworthiness. He was definitely ecstatic at the prospect of death. Reading the bulk of his works gave me the impression that thoughts of death, of passing, of loss, were in fact, hallucinogenic for him. He was a mystic—a mystic of death. He saw Death—Death with capital D—ironically, as a full, living entity—"Death Be Not Proud". Therefore, Donne, at all perspectives, was the best companion in those time when I was, like him in his poetry, confronted from all corners by death.
Like Ignatius of Loyola in his prolonged ecstasy inside that cave in Manresa, I held on to and lingered in Donne's poetry. (Incidentally, in his later years, the Anglican Donne hated Ignatius, read his "Ignatius, His Conclave".) But I was not waiting for epiphany. I was simply reeling in consolation that I was despondent, but I was not the only one suffering from it. Here was a man who devoted his lifetime to not simply confronting but wrestling with Death, only to desire and embrace Death for the solace of eternal divine presence.
This is my play's last scene, here heavens appoint/ My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race/ Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,/ My span's last inch, my minute's latest point,/ And gluttonous death, will instantly unjoint/ My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space;/ But my ever-waking part shall see that face,/ Whose fear already shakes my every joint:/ Then, as my soul, t' heaven her first seat, takes flight,/ And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,/ So fall my sins that all may have their right/ (To where they're bred, and would press me) to hell./ Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,/ For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil. (Holy Sonnet VI)
Here is where I turned to language. I wanted more of Donne. Like the apostles in the mountain, dazzled by the luminosity of Jesus, Moses and Elijah, I wanted to build a small cot for myself.
I has become a habit of mine to translate into Bikol lines or poems that I find striking. And because the stretch of the lyric sequence brought by Donne's poems—from "The Flea" to the "Hymn to God the Father"—struck me all the time, so I translated all of it.
Recalling now Isagani Cruz's question, I can say then, yes, I was alright, as I am now, perhaps. Translating Donne was never easy. There was a day when I needed to take the 45-minute ride from Pasacao to Naga to buy for me a copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, because I could not understand some of the words. There was no internet in my place of exile. Even at the time the whole manuscript was being edited and annotated by Doods Santos, she pointed out certain blunders which I needed to fix.
Nevertheless, the whole experience was my way out. It was a way of confronting face-to-face Death—not as simply a phenomenon on which we can ruminate, theorize, poeticize and thereafter fall into deep sleep, after all it was all in the mind. Death was real, as real as our presence in this room. It took me Donne to fathom Death. My way of translating Donne tells of a narrative of grief—from denial to anger to bargaining to depression to acceptance—or a story of a crisis—from the triggering event to escalation to crisis to recovery to post-crisis depression.
Let me read to you the Bikol translations of the poems I've read earlier. There is no better way to end this short lecture.
Haré magpaabaw-ábaw, Kagadánan, minsán pang inapód ka ninda/ Na mabagsík asín makangirhát, huli ta iká bakô nanggád;/ Huli ta si mga hinonà mong saímong dinanyarán/ Daí man nautsán, abáng Kagadánan, atâ daí mo man akó madádaog./ Sa pagpahingálo asín pagtúrog, na saímong mga ladáwan,/ Ay, kaogmáhan, asín sa saímo dakól pa an ma-gíkan,/ Maabot an panahón, an mga oomáwon ming katóod maiba saímo,/ Paghúlid kan saíndang mga tùláng, pagpahumalî kan saindáng mga kalág./ Iká orípon kan kapaládan, pagkakátaon, mga hadì, asín mga daíng-súkat,/ Asín minaérok sa hilo, iríwal, asín kakundían,/ Alágad an lumáy o talampúnay, pinapatúrog man kamí,/ Ay, oróg-oróg pang masirám kisa saímo; anó an inóorag-órag mo?/ Saróng halìpót na turog, minámata kitáng daíng sagkód,/ Asín daí nang kagadánan; magágadan ka, Kagadánan. (Banal na Soneto X)
Iní an huring kabtáng kan sakóng pasáli kun nuarín pinasabóng/ Na kan langit an huri kong lakdáng; an sakóng pakíkilamágan/ Nakákalangkag, alágad kaskás an sakóng dalágan, minsán patapós na;/ An huring dupá kan sakóng dalan, an huring punto kan huri kong minúto;/ Dangan pagsúsuwayon kan labí-kapaslóng si Kagadánan/ An sakóng hawak asín kalág, asín akó matúrog na garó daíng sagkód;/ Alágad siring man na an daíng sagkód na pagmatá mapahiling kan lawog/ Na panalmíngan nin ngirhát na minápatákig sa sakóng mga tùláng./ Dangan, sa enot na sakát kan kalág pasíring sa kalangítan,/ Asín an kinàbánon na hawak sa kinàbán man madánay,/ Matútukal man an sakóng mga kasàlán, asín an gabós manínigô kun saín/ Sindá manínigô asín mamàwoton nindá na akó mapa-impyérno./ Iibahan akó nin matatános, asín huhubáon an gabós kong karàtán,/ Huli ta babayáan ko an kinàbán, an lamán, an poón kan kasàlán. (Banal na Soneto VI)
Looking back, perhaps, and again, I'd say that translating Donne is not easy. Because perhaps the task of translating Donne is set aside for the unstable, the infirm, the ill, the disordered, the psychotic, the mad, the disturbed. So be it.
Let it be done. Let it be Donne.
Comments