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Fwd: Query on VN's translation of Khodasevich
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Dear Don,
I don't know if my attempt to send this query to the list was lost in the
flurry of mails, or deleted because it was ignorant. If the reason was
ignorance, please delete again.
Dear List
I need the help of someone familiar with Khodasevich’s poetry – and of
course, someone familiar with Nabokov's oeuvre.
I am writing a review of a Danish book, a luxurious literary history of
the Russian emigration – Mette Dalsgaard Den tunge lyre: Ruslands emigrant
litteratur 1917-1985. En litteraturhistorisk fremstilling. København:
Gyldendal, 2005.
The book contains one of the finest, of the few, Danish portraits of
Nabokov, though done in somewhat heavy strokes of the brush. But in the
passage concerning Khodasevich, Dalsgaard has a footnote which raised my
eyebrows. It concerns KhodasevichÂ’s poem Ballada, and runs as follows (in
my hasty translation):
“Vladimir Nabokov translated the poem into English. Peculiarly, however,
he rendered “the sun with the sixteen candles” in the first stanza as “a
60 watt bulb”. It is probably Nabokov’s authority which caused this
version to appear in diverse English anthologies, monographies, and
literary histories” (89).
Now, I am not skilled in transliteration and therefore I cannot render the
line in Latin letters, but KhodasevichÂ’s poem appears both in Russian and
English in David M. BetheaÂ’s Khodasevich: His Life and Art. (Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1983) on pp. 238-240. There the English translation is done
by Bethea who also translates the words from the last line of the first
stanza as “a sixty-watt sun”, and not, as Dalsgaard mis-quotes Nabokov’s
version, “a sixty-watt bulb”.
Dalsgaard’s version of the opening verse is: “Jeg sidder i mit runde
kammer/ Og ser fra min skrivebordsstol/ PĂĄ himlens stukornamenter/ Og den
sekstenarmede sol” (125). In English this, roughly, becomes: “I sit in my
round chamber/ And look from my writing chair/ At heavenÂ’s stucco
ornaments/ And the sixteen-armed sun”. Clearly Dalsgaard perceives the
Russian line as concerning a chandelier of some sort.
What I wonder is:
- Did both Nabokov and Bethea mistranslate Khodasevich? – I very much
doubt that.
- Does the “sixteen candles/lights” of the Russian text refer to a
specific Russian light bulb or any such light source, of which Dalsgaard
is in the dark? And if so: which?
I do have a selection of KhodasevichÂ’s poetry (Moscow 1991) and BeteheaÂ’s
book at hand, but I have to admit that my Russian is very scant.
I will welcome any comment.
Best Wishes,
Ole Nyegaard, Aarhus University, Denmark.
----- End forwarded message -----
I don't know if my attempt to send this query to the list was lost in the
flurry of mails, or deleted because it was ignorant. If the reason was
ignorance, please delete again.
Dear List
I need the help of someone familiar with Khodasevich’s poetry – and of
course, someone familiar with Nabokov's oeuvre.
I am writing a review of a Danish book, a luxurious literary history of
the Russian emigration – Mette Dalsgaard Den tunge lyre: Ruslands emigrant
litteratur 1917-1985. En litteraturhistorisk fremstilling. København:
Gyldendal, 2005.
The book contains one of the finest, of the few, Danish portraits of
Nabokov, though done in somewhat heavy strokes of the brush. But in the
passage concerning Khodasevich, Dalsgaard has a footnote which raised my
eyebrows. It concerns KhodasevichÂ’s poem Ballada, and runs as follows (in
my hasty translation):
“Vladimir Nabokov translated the poem into English. Peculiarly, however,
he rendered “the sun with the sixteen candles” in the first stanza as “a
60 watt bulb”. It is probably Nabokov’s authority which caused this
version to appear in diverse English anthologies, monographies, and
literary histories” (89).
Now, I am not skilled in transliteration and therefore I cannot render the
line in Latin letters, but KhodasevichÂ’s poem appears both in Russian and
English in David M. BetheaÂ’s Khodasevich: His Life and Art. (Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1983) on pp. 238-240. There the English translation is done
by Bethea who also translates the words from the last line of the first
stanza as “a sixty-watt sun”, and not, as Dalsgaard mis-quotes Nabokov’s
version, “a sixty-watt bulb”.
Dalsgaard’s version of the opening verse is: “Jeg sidder i mit runde
kammer/ Og ser fra min skrivebordsstol/ PĂĄ himlens stukornamenter/ Og den
sekstenarmede sol” (125). In English this, roughly, becomes: “I sit in my
round chamber/ And look from my writing chair/ At heavenÂ’s stucco
ornaments/ And the sixteen-armed sun”. Clearly Dalsgaard perceives the
Russian line as concerning a chandelier of some sort.
What I wonder is:
- Did both Nabokov and Bethea mistranslate Khodasevich? – I very much
doubt that.
- Does the “sixteen candles/lights” of the Russian text refer to a
specific Russian light bulb or any such light source, of which Dalsgaard
is in the dark? And if so: which?
I do have a selection of KhodasevichÂ’s poetry (Moscow 1991) and BeteheaÂ’s
book at hand, but I have to admit that my Russian is very scant.
I will welcome any comment.
Best Wishes,
Ole Nyegaard, Aarhus University, Denmark.
----- End forwarded message -----