Strength and yearning: translating Hebrew poetry
I just came back from the first in a series of close friends’ weddings. All in all it was beautiful and a lot of fun. As the bride entered, I and another three (including her grandmother) sang (two verses of) a setting of a 17th century poem, based on the Song of Songs, which I also had the opportunity to translate.
Having never tried to translate poetry before, it was an exciting challenge. Some poems require a literal translation; others need to have the right sense but also the rhythm and rhyme. In this case, I chose the latter.
With the help of others, especially Simon Holloway, this is what we came up with:
Chishki Chizki (חשקי חזקי) by Isaac Aboab da Fonseca (1605-1693)
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My strength, my yearning1 day by day: O king, dispel my dark away! My source, my sun, though still so bright: Your sun, my king, shall give me light. Awake; Awake! O ten-stringed lyre: |
חִשְׁקִי חִזְקִי מִדֵּי יוֹם יוֹם מַהֵר הָאֵר מַלכִּי חָשׁכִּי רִמְשִׁי שִׁמְשִׁי עוֹד לֹא יִכְבֶּה יָאִיר לִי אוֹר שִׁמְשֵׁךְ מַלְכִּי עוּרִי עוּרִי נֵבֶל עָשׂוֹר |
Notes:
- There was some disagreement on this opening line, as to whether the words were singular feminine imperatives (”have yearning, have strength”) or first person possessives (”my yearning, my strength”). The overall context of the verse suggests speech to a male, and so we decided on the possessive reading. [↩]
Beautiful work!
There is so much exquisite poetry out there just waiting to be translated (some of them haven’t even been published).
btw, check out my new posts, you may find them interesting.
take care.
Comment by ha-historion — 30 November, 2007 @ 7:52 am
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