CHAPTER TWO
TRANSLATION AS A FIRST STEP TO INFLUENCE
ARABIC TRANSLATIONS OF
ENGLISH POETRY:
Arabic translations of English
poetry played an important role in the growth of the language of Arabic
Romantic poetry: "…. the 'poetic pressure' of a poem produces an influence
in the language into which the poem is translated."(1)
Translation encouraged a radical recasting of the traditions of Arabic poetry,
not only in its content, but also in its form. In encouraging a reaction
against the conventional fixed rhyme and measure of traditional Arabic prosody,
it paved the way for free verse.
Salīb al-Masīh
(the cross of the Messiah) (1830), by an anonymous translator, is regarded as
the earliest translation:
"a pamphlet of twelve hymns in twenty four pages, done into
Arabic by an anonymous translator and printed by the C.M.S. in 1830. In 1836, a new reprint of 200
copies was made by the American mission in Beirut
MOTIVES FOR TRANSLATING
ENGLISH POETRY:
There were many motives that
encouraged the Arabs to translate European poetry. They had a strong desire to
be in touch with world literature, in order to be aware of the social,
political and psychological affairs of other nations. Naturally, they began to
study French and English literature, because French and English were officially
taught at school. There were two main motives for translation of English poetry
into Arabic:
(1) the demand of theatres for
dramatic texts, which Arabic poetry could not provide. Translations of
Shakespeare’s plays at the beginning of this century were largely due to the
demand of the theatres.
(2) the demand of schools for poetic translation because English
was compulsory in schools.
In a written communication,(3)
Nāzik gives the motives that encnuraged her to translate poetry:
(The motive for translating is my
admiration of the poetry I translate. This makes me wish to transfer it into
Arabic In verse so that the Arab reader may read it and enjoy it. I myself also
find pleasure in composing this poetry in Arabic. I have translated only a very
few poems and I have been engaged in expressing myself through my own poetry,
not through the poetry of other poets. I tinge every poem I translate with the
colour of the poetic phase that I am living in. That is why my translations in CAshiqat
al-Layl consists of the colours of my poetry and the images of my thoughts.
This is the quality of every precise translation, which must bear much of the
spirit of its translator. That is why the translation by Fitzgerald of al-Khayyām's
quatrains is Fitzgeraldian more than Khayyamian.)
In al-Tajzī'iyyah fī 'l-watan al-CArabī,(4)
Nāzik condemns bad translatiorn; she gives many examples to show its bad effects
on the reader:
(1) many foreign words have been
taken into Arabic, such as: فولكلور
Folklore, ايديولجية Ideology, اكاديمية academy, كلاسيك Classic, ميتافيزيقية Metaphysics, بيروقراطية Bureaucracy, تكنيك Technique, ليبرالية Liberalism, ديمقراطية Democracy, إمبيريالية Imperialism, تلفزيون Television, راديو Radio, تلفون Telephone, غرامافون Gramophone, and so on. She
wishes that these words were arabicized, and not simply transliterated. She
argues that if Arab writers simply borrow western vocabulary, the Arabic
language will inevitably lose its vitality.
(2) the use of various aspects of Latin syntax has been adopted,
such as: the multiplicity of things possessed dependent on a single possessor,
which leaves one or more words hanging in a non-separable form; the separation
of the possessed an the possessor by alien words, since the combination is
regarded as equivalent to one word; introducing the predicate (حال) before its subject, thus putting it in a case for which there
is so far no justification; and the piling up of things possessed, each
dependent on the one following. All these things are incorrect in Arabic syntax
and should be avoided.
(3) the use of another particular aspect of Latin syntax has
crept in the postponement of the verb in the sentence, so that it is preceded
by many adverbial and prepositional phrases and conjunctions.
(4) the use of European idioms has
become common. Examples of this are: إنسحب بانتظام (to make an orderly withdrawal), السوق السوداء (black market), الحرب الباردة (cold war), مؤتمر القمة
(summit conference). She does not disapprove absolutely of borrowing foreign
metaphors; she only warns the translators against incorrect devices in Arabic.
(5) the frequent use of parenthetical clauses, the separation of
the subject from the predicate by many words, and the use of very long
sentences confuse the reader.
(6) reading weak translations has a detrimental effect on the
readers; the practice of translation ought to be consistent with the
preservation of the purity of Arabic.
(7) bad translations prevent Arabic being enriched by new and
useful expressions. For example, the bad translation of the Bible has resulted
in odd expressions creeping into Arabic.
Whatever the fault of individual
translations, Nāzik insists, the practice of translation is necessary and
beneficial. She believes that the Arabs should benefit from western
intellectual and social matters; as we enriched western literature with the
works of famous Arib scientists and writers, we should benefit from their works
too:(5)
وقد يكون من
المفيد .... ان نتذكر ان الغرب حين يعطينا فكره مترجما الى لغتنا انما يرد الينا
اليوم بعض ديونه المتراكمة القديمة فكم قد اخذ في غابر القرون عن ابن سينا وابن
الهيثم وابن رشد والغزالي ومحي الدين بن عربي وابن خلدون وسواهم من اعلام الفكر
العربي. ثم ان حاجتنا العربية المعاصرة الى دراسة الفكر الغربي تكاد لا تقل عن
حاجتنا الى دراسة الفكر العربي نفسه.
(It may be useful .... to remember that when the West gives us its
thought translated into our language, it is only now repaying us some of it
acculumated old debts. How much has it taken in past centuries from Ibn Sīnā,
Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazālī, Muhyī al-Dīn b. CArabī, Ibn
Khaldūn, and other great names in Arab thought! Our contemporary Arab need to
study western thought is hardly less than our need to study Arabic thought
itself.)
Despite the difficulty of translating
poetry, there are many Arabic versions of English, American and French poems.
In "A Bibliography of Arabic Translations of English and American Poetry
(l830-l970)" in the Journal of Arabic Literature,(6) CAbd
ul-Hai produces a valuable list of Arabic versions of English and American
poems, in which he explains the inevitable incompleteness of his findings:
"Although every care has been
taken to make this bibliography a complete one, It is difficult to claim that
this has been achieved. Arabic translations of foreign poetry have appeared not
only in literary, or, generally, cultural reviews, periodicals, newspapers and
popular weeklies, but also in sport magazines, industrial and agricultural
bulletins, and even underground publications scattered over more than ten
countries in the Arab east. Moreover, some of these 'translations' are too blurred
to be identified with any particular original text. These factors introduce an
almost unavoidable element of tentativeness in the present bibliography."
Among those whose poems have been
translated into Arabic are: Matthew Arnold, Blake, Brooke, E.B. Browning,
Byron, Donne, T.S. Eliot, Gray, Hardy, Jonson, Keats, Kipling, Longfellow,
Larkin, Pound, Pope, C. Rossetti, Scott, Shakespeare, E. Sitwell, Tennyson,
Whitman, Wilde and Wordsworth. It is beyond our scope to mention every
translation listed by CAbd ul-Hai. Here we will concentrate on the
Arabic versions of Gray’s Elegy and Nāzik’s Version of Byron’s address
to the ocean.
(A) NAZIK’S AND OTHER ARABIC
VERSIONS OF GRAY’S ELEGY:
The Elegy was considered by
the Arabs as a pre-romantic personal lyric. They did not insist on its place
within a distinctively 18th century poetic tradition. Arab writers saw in the Elegy
a melancholia, a tendency to pessimism that had been part of their cultural heritage
from as far back as pre-Islamic times, and consequently felt a degree of
affinity with what the poem seemed to them to be saying. In "A
Bibliography of Arabic Translations of English and American Poetry"(7)
CAbd ul-Hai lists nine Arabic versions of Gray’s Elegy:
(1) Hāfiz, CAbbās. "Marthiyah Calā
maqbarat qaryah" (an elegy in a village graveyard) in al-Balāgh al-usbūCī,
Vol. iii, no. 107, 3rd of April, 1929, pp. 10-11.
(2) Andrāūs, Fū'ād. "Mrthiyah fī finā' kanīsah
bi-'l-rīf" (an elegyy in the courtyard of a church in the countryside) in al-Siyāsah
al-usbūCiyyah, Vol. iv, no. 174, 6th of July 1929, p. 11.
(3) al-Hamsharī, Muhammad. "Marthiyah kutibat fī finā'
kanīsat qaryah" (an elegy written in the courtyard of a village church) [V],
al-Siyāsah al-usbūCiyyah, Vol. iv, no. 209, 8th of March 1930,
pp. 21 & 25.
(4) Mahmūd, Hasan Muhammad "Marthiyah
nuzimat fī sāhat kanīsah", (an elegy composed in the courtyard of a
church), in Abūlū, Vol. ii, no. 8, April 1934, pp. 703-706.
(5) al-Tantāwī, CAlī
(6) Mandūr, Muhammad. "Marthiyah fī maqbarah
rīfiyyah", (an elegy in a country graveyard) in al-Risālah, Vol.
viii, no. 342, 22 January 1940, pp. 131-134.
(7) al-Malā'ikah, Nāzik. "Marthiyah fī maqbarah rīfiyyah"
(an elegy in a country graveyard) in CAshiqat al-Layl, 1945,
pp. 190-207.
(8) Gibriyāl, Zākhir. "Marthāt bayn maqābir qaryah"
(an elegy among the graves of a village) in al-ShiCr (Cairo
(9) Mahmūd, Mahmūd. "Marthiyah maktūbah fī finā' kanīsah
rīfiyyah" (an elegy written in the courtyard of country church) in al-Adab
al-Ingilīzī (Cairo
We can add two other versions to CAbd
ul-Hai's list:
(1) al-Muttalibī, Hārith. "Marthāt
kutibat fī maqbarat kanīsah rīfiyyah", al-Aqlām, vol. 2, November,
1969. pp. 48-50
(2) Khattāb, CIzzat CAbd al-Majīd. "Tarjamah
CArabiyyah li-marthiyat al-shāCir al-Ingilīzī Tūmās
Jrāy", in Majallat Kulliyat al-Adāb, Riyadh
CAbd
ul-Hai actually asserts that there are ten Arabic versions of the Elegy.
What he gives as the tenth version is an Arabic version of Gray’s Sonnet on the
Death of Mr. Richard West:
"Ten translations of his poem 'An legy in a Country
Churchyard' exist in Arabic. It is the only poem by which Gray’s reputation is
established in Arabic. For the Arab romantic poets, the poem was certainly more
than a pre-romantic poem; it was considered as firmly rooted, not in the
neo-classsical conventions of language, as it probably is, but in the romantic
vision of an isolated self torn by its deeply felt metaphysical concerns with
life and death. If any tension exists between vision and language in Gray’s poem,
it is resolved in the Arabic translations. The maturest of them is the one made
by Nāzik al Malā'ikah, as a young poetess." (8)
Nāzik is one of those who admire the
melancholy mood of the Elegy; she translates it freely; she changes the
imagery and the themes now and then to suit her native landscape, and her personal
ideas about life and death, wealth and poverty. The principal theme in the Elegy,
according to her, is that death is the end of rich and poor alike.
Of the two Arabic verse translations
that I have seen, Nāzik’s version is the most complete; al-Muttalibī gives a
verse translation of only the first fourteen stanzas, in a regular quatrain
form, in which all four lines rhyme. Andrāūs and Mahmūd provide more or less
comprehensive prose versions. Nāzik modifies and adapts a certain amount, but
every stanza is at least represented. She felt, as she reveals, such an affinity
with the melancholy atmosphere of the Elegy, that she was inspired to
produce, as one of her earliest works, a version, or rather an adaptation of
it. The vocabulary that we encounter in this adaptation becomes a notable
feature of her subsequent poetry:
"Words like al-huzn and al-Ka'ābah,
with their various derivatives form a recurrent element of her diction, In …. CAshiqat
al-Layl, in which her translation of the ‘Elegy’ is printed, they occur one
hundred and ninety times; and in the version of the ‘Elegy’ alone not less than
twenty times. Used with such abundance, they evoke an atmosphere of melancholy
which permeates the whole of her book."(9)
In 1929, Fū'ād Andrāūs rendered the Elegy,
with a short historical introduction:
"Gray was immersed for seven years in the writing of his Elegy.
This piece is perhaps the most widely disseminated poem in the English
language, and the secret behind this tremendous circulation is that it expresses
feelings and thoughts in which all share equally …. Gray’s Elegy treats
such matters, and when it studies them, it does not discuss them in an elevated
philosophical language, but in a simple, easy style, in which there is no
affectation or mannerism. The poet bestows on it a breath of his feeling of
true humanity and comprehensive compassion. He directs his imagination towards
the poor, ignoring the imposing tombs of the great in the church, giving his
attention exclusively to ‘the old heaps’ spread about in the yard outside. Here
a quts lion occurs to hi fl, which is I he core of his theme, the question of
the greatness and courage of the sleeping villagers in their past lives. He
does not try to find, and cannot find, an answer to this question, even though
an answer would mitigate the sharpness of the pain that thinking of the
question Inflicts on him However, he articulates the question, in all its
terrible awesomeness and splendor, in a language that penetrates hearts, and with
a deep vehement passion that has brought up for us this pearl, which has become
a living part of the language."(10)
Andrāūs’s version maintains the
original themes and imagery of the Elegy with a few modifications.
Unlike Nāzik’s, al-Muttalibī’s versions, but like Mahmūd’s, it is written in
prose. It consists of thirty paragraphs, rendering the thirty-two stanzas of
Gray’s Elegy.
In Abūlū (1934), Hasan
Muhammad Mahmūd rendered the Elegy in ten paragraphs, with a short introduction:
"This poem is considered the most eloquent elegiac poem
ever in English poetry because it portrays human emotions about life, and
contains a clear exposition of the truth of the philosophy of death."(11)
He quotes A. F. Hilton to the effect
that:
"What pours upon our mind of Gray’s imaginings among the
graves scattered in the church-yard is not far removed from the mental horizon
of the ordinary man, but it is formulated in a profoundly humanitarian language
, which the soul of man aspires to use but is unable to do so."(12)
Each paragraph is more or less
devoted to a particular theme. Thus they vary in length.
In 1945, Nāzik wrote her version in
thirty-three quatrains.(13) This is an independent poem. The other
versions are much closer to the original.
THEMES AND
INTERPRETATIONS:
The theme of the Elegy may
perhaps be summed up thus: death is the common end of all, and the only
consolation is to be remembered, if only for a short while and by only one
person. Gray’s reflections on the advantages and disadvantages of fame and
obscurity are incidental ornaments to this theme.
In Nāzik’s version, these ornaments
assume a greater importance. She sees the poem as more of a social critique;
she stresses the benefits of poverty more than she does the disadvantages. The
whole of stanzas 16, 17, 18 and 19 refer to these benefits, except the first
and last lines of stanza 16.
In the Elegy, Gray balances the advdntages and
disadvantages; in Nāzik’s version we do not find this balance. Her sympathy
with the poor seems to control her emotions so that she does not stress the
advantages of wealth:
فهم حيث لا مجالس
لا تصفـ ـيق حيث المحيا هدى وسلام
(They are where there are no assemblies and no applause, where
life is true religion and peace.)
غير ان الشقاء
اخمد في دنــ ـياهم الاثم
والاذى والغرورا
فاذا هم ولا
جرائم تدمي الا رض من حولهم
ولا تدميرا
(But wretchedness extinguished in their world crime, harm and
pride. / Here they are with no crimas reddening the earth around them, and no
destruction.)
وهو الفقر رد
انفسهم بيــ ـضا من الشر والاذى
والحقود
(It was poverty that made their souls clean of evil, harm and malice.)
ولقد امضوا
الحياة بعيديــ ــن عن النار
واحتدام الصراع
..............................
عبروا وادي
الحياة سكوتا مفرقي العمر في صفاء
الطباع
(They lived their Life far away from the fire and the blaze of
conflict. / .... / They passed along the valley of life in quietude, submerging
their days in serenity of nature.)
Nāzik appears to consider that Gray
depicts poverty as a blessing, in that it brings the poor 'peace', 'mercy',
'pure feelings', 'quietude' and 'serenity of nature', without noticing that
they are also represented as being at a disadvantage compared with the rich:
حرمتهم ايدي
القضاء نعيم الــ ــعيش
واستعبدتهم الالام
(The hands of destiny deprived them of happiness of life, and
sufferings enthralled them.)
وهم البائسون
ارضهم قفـ ـر وايامهم طوى وسقام
(They were the wretched ones; their land was desert, and their days
were hunger and illness.)
In fact, Gray does not imply that
the poor are happy and satisfied with their life; he implies that they do not
have the opportunities that the rich have, so that their 'lot' forbids them to
do what the rich do.
The complexity of the syntax of
stanzas 16, 17, & 18 may have contributed to Nāzik’s misrepresentation. For
instance, it is far from obvious that 'lot' is the subject of all three
stanzas; she appears to have disguised her non-comprehension of this by
constructing her version rather loosely, by making the subject variously القضاء (fate) [St. 16], الشقاء (misery) [St. 17], الليالي (the nights), and
الفقر (poverty)[st18].
The verb 'Forbade' in Line 67:
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a
throne,
is replaced by negative clauses in
Nāzik’s version [St. 17], with no attribution
of causation:
فاذا هـــم لا
جرائـــم تدمــــي الار ض مــن
حولهم ولا تدميرا
لم يخوضوا الحروب
سعيا الى المجـ ــد ولم يعرفوا
الدم المهدورا
(There they are with no crimes which make the earth bleed around
them, and no destruction. / They did not embark on war in order to gain glory,
and they did not know shed blood.)
This line is scarcely a faithful
representation of the original, but the next line is very wide of the mark
indeed; Gray says that the lot of the poor forbids them to 'shut the gates of
mercy on mankind,' whereas Nāzik renders it as:
والليالي مدت لهم
سبل الرحــ ــمة فاستعذبوا الشعورا الطهورا
(The nights have stretched out for them the paths of mercy, and
they found pure feelings Sweet.)
The interpretations in the other two
versions are perhaps more faithful to the original. Andrāūs concentrates on the
idea of 'fortune', repeating the word الحزن (sorrow) three times in stanzas 15, 16 and 17:
لقد حال حظهم دون
ان يبرز منهم من يحملون المجامع على الاعجاب والتهليل
(Their fortune prevented the emergence of any from among them
who could sway assemblies to admiration and acclamation.)
ولكن الحظ لم يقف
عثرة في سبيل نمو فضائلهم فحسب, فقد حدد جرائمهم وقيد رزائلهم فهو الذي حال بينهم
وبين الخوض في بحار من الدماء في سبيل الحظوة بتاج, وهو الذي منعهم من ان يغلقوا
ابواب الرحمة في وجه البشر
(But fortune did not only hinder the growing of their virtues;
it also confined their crimes and restricted their vices, for it was that which
prevented them wading in seas of blood to gain a crown, and it was that which
stopped them closing the doors of mercy in the face of human beings.)
الحظ هو الذي
منعهم من ان يكتموا صوت الحق في صدورهم ويطفئوا حمرة الخجل الذي لا يكتم ويملأوا
هياكل المترفين وارباب السطوة بالبخور يحرقونه على نار القريض.
(It is fortune that prevented them concealing the voice of truth
in their breasts, extinguishing the blush of shame which cannot be concealed,
and filling the temples of the rich and the lords of pride with incense, which
they burn on the fire of poetry.)
Mahmūd uses the word الدهر (Time/ fate) Instead of
'fortune':
لقد وقف الدهر
دونهم جميعا, وامات فضائلهم قبل ان بقوي غصنها اللدن, وانا ابقى جرائمهم في ثبت
الذكريات, ومنعهم من ان يسيروا وسط لجة الدماء المهراقة الى العرش.
(Time stood in the way of all of them, and made their virtues
die before their (virtues) gentle branch became strong, and only preserved their
crimes in the index of their memories; it prevented them walking to the throne
in the midst of the depths of shed blood.)
Although, in general , Mahmād
renders Gray accurately, he appears to have misunderstood 'but their crimes
confined' in the above passage, just as he has misunderstood 'and shut the
gates of mercy on mankind':
واغلق ابواب
الشفقة والرحمة فلم يدر الانسان كيف يلجها
(And it closed the doors of compassion and mercy so that no one
knew how to enter them.)
In Nāzik’s version, 'Ambition' [st.
8] is rendered as الساخرون
(the mockers), and 'Grandeur' [St. 8] as الاغنياء (the rich), and as اهل السمو والجاه (the people of rank and
consequence) in al-Muttalibī’s. They are undifferentiated, although multiple,
as شرف التجار
وفخامة السلطة وجلال السطوة
(the dignity of merchants, the eminence of potentates and the sublimity of
power) in Andrāūs's, as سادة الدنيا وحكامها وملوكها واقبالها (the lords, governors, monarchs and chiefs of the world) in
Mahmūd’s.
'The paths of glory' [St. 9] is
rendered as كل ما في الحياة
ينهي الى القبر (everything in life
leads to the grave) in Nāzik's version, as سبل المجد تنتهي في التراب (the paths of glory end in dust) in al-Muttalibī's, as ولا تنتهي سبل المجد الا
الى اللحد (the paths of
glory end only in the grave) in Andrāūs's, and as مآلها كلها للتراب (they all [power, glory, beauty, wealth, etc.] revert to dust)
in Mahmūd's.
'But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page / Rich with the
spoil of time did ne'er unroll;' [St. 13] is
rendered as:
فهم الجاهلون ما
رفرف العلــ ــم عليهم بجنحه
الطيار
(and they are the ignorant over whom
learning did not flutter with its flying wing)
in Nāzik’s versions as انطوى عنهم كتاب العلوم
في صفحاته (the book of
learning closed its pages to them) in al-Muttalibī's, as ولكن العلم لم يكشف قط
لعيونهم صفحته الفياضة (but learning did not ever reveal its generous
page to their eyes) in Andrāūs's, and as ولكن المعرفة والعلم لم يرفعا بعد سدولهما صفحات
غنية بتراث الزمن (but knowledge and learning had not yet raised
their curtains to reveal pages rich with the inheritance of time) in Mahmūd's.
'Chill Penury' is rendered as برد اللهيب (the coldness of the flame) in
Nāzik’s version, as اخمد الفقر باردا جذوة الالهام (Poverty coldly extinguished the firebrand of inspiation) in
al-Muttalibī's, as الفاقة القاسية
(cruel poverty) in Andrāūs's; it is omitted in Mahmūd's.
IMAGERY:
(1) VISUAL:
Nāzik tends to find Arabic
equivalents for the English natural references in English poem: the شجر السرو (the cypress trees) [St. 4] do
duty for the 'rugged elms' and 'yew-trees'; and الرمال (the sands) [l. 14], كثبان (dunes) and الاغوار (the hollows)
[St. 4] are associated with العشب
(grass) to replace 'the turf in many a mouldering heap' [St.
4]. Al-Muttalibī maintains the elements of the original setting of the Elegy:
'the ploughman', 'the beetle', 'the owl', 'the cock', 'the elms', etc.
The 'elms' [St.
4], as mentioned above, are rendered as شجر السرو (the cypress trees) in Nāzik’s version, as الدردار (the elms) in al-Muttalibī’s.
They are omitted in the other versions.
The 'rude forefathers of the hamlet
sleep' [St. 4] is rendered as رقد الراحلون من ساكني
القرية (those
of the inhabitants of the village who had departed slept) in Nāzik’s version,
as يهجع اجداد
القرية السذج البسطاء
(the artless, simple ancestors of the village slumber) In Andrāūs's, and as ينام الاسلاف من بسطاء
الناس (the
forefathers of the simple people sleep) in al-Muttalibī's, and as يرقد الجدود رقدة الابد
مضطجعين في لحودهم
(the ancestors laid it their graves sleep for ever) in Mahmūd's.
(2) AUDITORY:
The 'beetle wheels his droning
flight' [st. 2] is rendered as حفيف اجنحة الاطيار (the fluttering of the wings of the birds) in Nāzik’s version,
as أزيز .... من
خنفساء (a droning ….
from a beetle) in al-Muttalibī's, as طنين الصرصور (the buzzing of the cricket) in Andrāūs's, and as صرير الجرادة (the creaking of the locust) in
Mahmūd's.
'The moping owl' [St.
3] is rendered as قمرية (a
turtle dove) in Nāzik’s version, as البوم (the owl) in al-Muttalibī's and Andrāūs's and Mahmūd's. The cry
of the owl in Mahmūd's version is rendered as نعيب, and as نعيق in
Andrāūs's version. According to Arabic-English Lexicon,(14)
"The نعيب of the raven, or crow, is said
to be ominious of good; and نعيق of
evil."
'The swallow twittering' [st. 5] is rendered as مراح الطيور (the exuberance of the birds) in
Nāzik’s version, as غضى العصفور في عشه
(the small bird slept in its nest) in al-Muttalibī's, and as او اغرودة الطير الساحرة (or the magical warbling of the
bird) in Mahmūd's. "The cock's shrill clarion" [St.
5] is omitted in Nāzik's and al-Muttalibī's versions, and is rendered as صيحات الديك (the crowings of the cock) tn
Andrāūs's, and as صيحة الديك
(the cock's crowing) in Mahmūd's.
VOCABULARY:
(1) WORDS AND PHRASES:
Many words and phrases of the Elegy
are rendered differently in the four versions: the 'ploughman' [st. 1] is
rendered as الفتى الحارس (the guard boy) in Nāzik's
version, as الحارث (the ploughman) in
al-Muttalibī's, Mahmūd's and Andrāūs's versions.
'The pealing anthem' [St. 10]
is rendered as هتاف المديح
(the call of panegyric) in Nāzik’s version, as مديح (panegyric) in al-Muttalibī’s, as قصائد المديح (the poems of panegyric) in Mahmūd's, and as نشيد الحمد والثناء (the ode of praise and eulogy)
in Andrāūs's.
'Some heart' [St. 12] is rendered
as شاعرا (a poet) in Nāzik's and
al-Muttalibī's versions, as قلبا (a
heart) in Andrāūs's and Mahmūd's.
'The living lyre' [St.
12] is rendered as الناي
(the flute) in Nāzik’s version, as قيثار الشعر (the lyre of poetry) in Andrāūs's, and as القلوب (the hearts) [a
misunderstanding?] in Mahmūd's.
(2) PROPER NAMES:
The names Hampden, Milton and
Cromwell [St. 15] are kept in all the three
versions that continue past this point, Nāzik's, Andrāūs's, and Mahmūd's.
Nāzik says nothing of Hampden's significance, and possibly does not understand
it; she actually omits the second line:
ربما كان تحتها
(هامدن) ثا ن زواه مقره المجهول
(Perhaps there is a second Hampden under it, concealed by his
unknown abode.)
In the Elegy, Gray suggests
that the 'village Hampden' had the spirit of Hampden; he protested against
tyranny like Hampden but lacked his scope:
Some village-Hampden
that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant
of his fields withstood.
Both Andrāūs and Mahmūd render the
two lines with reasonable fidelity.
Andrāūs:
رب راقد هنا كان
(همدن) قريته. وقد وقف في وجه طاغية
الريف الصغير بجنان ثابت لا يهاب
(Many a one sleeping here
was the Hampden of his village. He withstood the little tyrant of the
countryside with a firm, fearless heart.)
Mahmūd:
وكم تحت هذه
القرية من بطل صنديد مثل همدن ثار على المستبد الظالم الطائش
(And under this village, how many valiant heroes are there like
Hampden who rose up against the oppressive, irresponsible despot.)
In line 51, Gray suggests that there
may be someone buried in the churchyard who might have achieved Milton
Some
mute inglorious Milton
In Nāzik's version, this is
rendered:
أو فتى مثل
(ملتن) الشاعر الملــ ــهم أخفاه
صمته والذهول
(Or a young man like (Milton
The third example is Cromwell. Gray
believes that one of the dead might have been another Cromwell if he had been in
Cromwell's position; he could not emulate Cromwell's 'crimes' because his position
in life forbade him to 'wade through slaughter to a throne' [1. 67]:
Some Cromwell guiltless of his
country's blood.
Nāzik somewhat alters the sense of
this line; she implies that Cromwell enjoyed the shedding of blood:
ربما كان تحتها
(كرومول) آ خر لم يصبه الدم المطلول
(Perhaps there is under it another Cromwell whom unavenged blood
did not fascinate.)
Andrāūs remains faithful to the
original [st. 14]:
أو (كرومول) آخر
برئ من دم ابناء الوطن
(Or another Cromwell who is innocent of the blood of the people
of his country.)
Mahmūd's version is perhaps
ambiguous; he may be implying that Cromwell sacrificed himself for his country,
or he may be implying a contrast in the hypothetical Cromwell:
أو كرومول سالت
دماؤه استشهادا في سبيل وطنه
(Or a Cromwell whose blood flowed in martyrdom for his country)
(3) THE PRONOUN 'THEE':
In stanza 24, 'thee' refers to
Gray's fictional counterpart, the rustic unlearned poet, and is rendered as يا شاعري وانت ( O my poet! and you) in the
first line ot the stanza, and as انت يا من قصصت انباءهم شعرا (you who have related their
annuals in poetry) in the following line:
آه يا شاعري
وأنت؟ وقد خلــ ــدت ذكرى الاموات
والبائسينا
(O my poet! What about you who immortalized the memory of the
dead and the miserable?)
Andrāūs and Mahmūd both simply use
the pronoun انت (you), not neccessarily
realizing who is being addressed.
Andrāūs:
أما انت يا من
تعنى بهؤلاء الموتى المهملين
(And you who are concerned with these neglected dead)
Mahmūd:
وأنت يا من تذكر
اولئك الموتى الساذجين
(And you who remember those simple dead)
In stanza 25, she emphasizes that
the address is to the poet:
ايها الشاعر الوفي
(O faithful poet!). She replaces the 'hoary-headed swain' by قلب ثان (another heart):
أيها الشاعر
الوفي وقد يهــ ـتف قلب ثان يجيب
السؤالا
(O faithful poet! Another heart may call out to answer the
question.)
(4) ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS:
The word 'artless' in stanza 24,
line 94 of the Elegy is ignored in Nāzik's version, or at any rate
replaced:
أنت يا من قصصت
أنباءهم شعـ ــرا وذوبت قلبك
المحزونا
(O you who have related their annals in poetry and have
dissolved your mournful heart.)
whereas Mahmūd appears to interpret
it in an idiosyncratic manner:
وانت يا من تذكر
اولئك الموتى الساذجين! لقد سطرت في هذه الابيات قصة الحياة الحقيقية
(You who remember those simple dead! You have drawn in these
poems the true story of life.)
Andrāūs is perhaps over-literal:
أما انت يا من
تعنى بهؤلاء الموتى المهملين فتسرد في هذه السطور روايتهم التي لا تصنع فيها ولا
تعمل!
(O You who are concerned with these neglected dead, relate in
these lines their story in which there is no artifice or affectation.)
In Andrāūs's version, the
'hoary-headed swain' is rendered more faithfully:
رب قروي قد اشتعل
رأسه شيبا ....
(Often a villager whose head is aflame with white hair ....)
In Mahmūd's, he is still
'hoary-headed' but is not necessarily a villager:
ولعل الجد يؤاتيك
فاذا بشيخ طاعن في السن وقد خط المشيب شعره وكلل فوده يقول:
(Perhaps luck will favour you, and here is an old man whose hair
old age has streaked with white and crowned his temples, who says:)
Gray’s description of the dead man
when he was alive is reasonably represented in all three versions; he was:
(1) active:
Nāzik:
طالما سار مسرعا
تنفض الانــ ــداء اقدامه وتطوي
التلالا
(How often has he gone swiftly; his feet shaking off the dews
and covering the hills.)
rendering line 99 in the Elegy:
'Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
Andrāūs:
كم شهدناه في بزوغ
الفجر يدفع بقدميه الطل وهو يوسع الخطى
(How often we have seen him at the appearing of dawn, pushing
away the dew with his feet, and widening his steps.)
Mahmūd describes his walking as
serious:
لقد رايته جادا
في سيره حين انبثاق الفجر يزيل بقدميه قطرات الندى
(I saw him serious in his walking at the time of the breaking of
dawn, removing the drops of dew with his feet.)
(2) scornful:
Nāzik:
كم رايناه شاردا
في المجالي وعلى ثغره ابتسامة ساخر
(How often have we seen him wandering absently in the landscape,
with the smile of a mocker.)
rendering line 105:
'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as
in scorn,
Andrāūs:
كان يهيم قرب ذلك
الغاب اونة باسما في هزء وسخرية
(He used to wander near that wood, now sm1ing in mockery and
scorn.)
Mahmūd:
وكم افتر ثغره عن
ابتسامة للسنبل النامي في الحقول
(How often would his mouth reveal a smile to the growing spikes
of grain in the fields.)
(3) imaginative and miserable:
Nāzik:
سابحا في الخيال
مغرورق العيــ ــنين نهب
اكتآبة خرساء
(Floating in imagination with his eyes suffused in tears, the
prey of dumb melancholy.)
representing line 106:
'Muttering his
wayward fancies he would rove,
Andrāūs:
وهو يهجس بافكاره
وخيالاته الجامحة
(And muttering his thoughts and his unruly imaginings.)
Mahmūd:
حين تضاربت
الافكار في رأسه
(When thoughts clashed in his head.)
(4) faithful, but disappointed in
love:
Nāzik:
أو كمن اخلص
الغرام فلم يلــ ــق سوى البغض
والجفاء هواه
(Or like one who has been sincere in his passion but whose love
has met with nothing but hatred and aversion.)
rendering line 107 & 108:
'Now drooping, woeful
wan, like one forlorn,
'Or crazed with care,
or crossed in hopeless love.
Andrāūs:
وآونة خافض الطرف
مهموما شاحب الوجه فكأني به مخذولا بائسا او كأن الهموم قد ذهبت برشده او كأنه صدم
في حب لا رجاء فيه ولا امل.
(Now with lowered gaze,
careworn and pare-faced; I felt forsaken by him and wretched, or as though
cares had taken away his reason, or as though he had dashed himself against a
hopeless love.)
Mahmūd:
وكأنما آماله قد
حطمت على صخرة الغرام الدامي,
(And it seemed as though his hopes had been shattered on the
rock of bleeding love.)
THE ADDRESS:
The 'Kinder'd spirit' is invited to
'read' the youth’s epitaph is identified as عابر السبيل (passer-by) in Nāzik’s version:
آه يا عابر
السبيل اقترب واقــ ـرأ رثاه
فذاك ما تستطيع
كتبوه على حجارة
قبر ما بكته غير الدجون دموع
(O passer-by! Come near and read his elegy, for that at least
you can do. / They wrote it on a tombstone; no tears mourned him except the
darkness.)
It is implied in Andrāūs's and
Mahmūd's:
Andrāūs:
فإن في طوعك ان
تقرا هذه العبارة المخطوطة على الحجر قرب تلك العوسجة العتيقة
(For you can read this hand written phrase on the stone near
that old boxthorn)
Mahmūd:
والان فلتقرأ هذه
القبرية المخطوطة قرب السنديانة القديمة:
(And now read this hand-wrltten epitaph ncar the old holm oak)
rendering lines 115 & 116:
rendering:
'Approach and read (for thou can'st
read) the lay,
'Graved on the
stone beneath yon aged thorn.'
Mahmūd says that he took the word قبرية (epitaph) from CI. I. al-MaClūf's "al-Qubriyāt; qubriyāt al-CArab"
(the epitaphs:
the epitaphs of the Arabs) in al-Muqtataf.(15)
He believes that the word was first used by Ibn Batutah In his Rihlah,
which was published in Egypt
THE EPITAPH
Andrāūs and Mahmūd do not give a
separate title to this section. Nāzik, not apparently being aware of any single
Arabic equivalent, renders it:
الكلمات المكتوبة
على القبر
(the words written on the grave)
In Nāzik's version, the Epitaph
occupies stanzas 31-33. In
Andrāūs's, it occupies stanzas 29-30, the first representing stanzas 30 and 31
of the original. In Mahmūd's, the three stanzas are combined into one.
The subject in stanza 30 is rendered
as شاعر محزون (a sorrowful poet) in Nāzik's
version:
هاهنا في التراب
في ظلة الشو ك وساد لشاعر محزون
جهلته الحظوظ
والمجد والشهــ ــرة في ظلمة الزمان
الضنين
(Here, in the earth, in the shade of the thorn, is a pillow for
a sorrowful poet, / whom fortune, glory, and fame ignored in the darkness of
niggardly time.)
In Andrāūs's. he is a فتى (a young man):
هنا يستند رأسه
الى حجر الثرى! وهو فتى يجهله الحظ وينكره الصيت, لم يعبس له العلم الصحيح رغم
حقارة مولده,
)Here, he rests his head on the stone of the earth -- a young
man whom fortune ignores and fame denies; true science did not frown on him
despite the humbleness of his birth.)
In Mahmūd's, he is a شاب (a
youth):
هاهنا تحت اطباق الثرى يضطجع شاب مجهول
الاسم عاكسه الحظ حيا وميتا وإن صاحبته المعرفة وصادقه الحزن والالم,
(Here,
under the layers of earth, lies a youth of unknown name, whom fortune thwarted,
both alive and dead, although knowledge accompanied him, and sorrow and pain
befriended him.)
Nāzik substitutes آلهة الشعر
(the goddess of poetry) [1. 126] for 'heaven' [l. 122]:
Large was his bounty and his soul
sincere,
Heaven did a recompence as largely
send:
ولقد كافــــأته آلهة
الشعــ ــر على قلبه النبيل
الرقيق
(And
the goddess of poetry has rewarded him for his noble and delicate heart.)
The gift given to the poet is 'the heart of a friend', which
is the noblest, gift possessed by a human being:
فحبته السماء
انبل ما تمنحه للاحياء: قلب صديق
(And
Heaven gave him the noblest gift that it could grant to the living: the heart
of a friend.)
The pathetic parenthesis ('twas all he wish’d) [1. 124] is
omitted:
He gained from
heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.
The third stanza of the Epitaph is rendered variously. Nāzik
represents 'his merits' as الخير and 'his frailties' as مقلة المساوئ;
the subject of the verb 'seek' is rendered as عابر السبيل:
آه يا عابــــر السبيل دع الشـــــا عر في مرقد الردى مطمئنا
لا تحاول كشف الستار عن الخيـ ــر ودع مقلة المساوئ وسنى
(O
passer by! Leave the poet secure in the resting place of death. / Do not try to
draw back the curtain from the good; and leave the eye of shortcomings asleep)
Andrāūs renders 'his merits' as فضله,
'his frailties' as المساوئ, and the subject as هو :
وهو لا يبغي الابانة عن فضله باكثر مما
ابان وهو لا ينبش عن نقائصه ليخرجها من مثواها الرهيب.
(He
does not wish to be revealed more of his merit than he [himself] has revealed,
nor does he disinter his defects so as to bring them forth from their fearful
abode.)
Mahmūd renders 'his merits' as فضائله
and 'his frailties' as رذائله, and the subject as قوم:
فلتصمتوا يا قوم! ولتكفوا عن ان تثيروا
ضجة صاخبة حول اسمه وفضائله ورذائله
(Be
silent, O people Refrain from raising a noisy tumuit about his name, his
virtues and his vices.)
The picture that Nāzik draws in the last two lines is rather
different from that of Gray. First of all, it is no longer the 'merits' and
'frailties' that repose 'in trembling hope', but the poet himself; second, the
'dread abode' has been reduced from 'the bosom of his Father and his God' to
'beneath the earth' / 'the resting place of death'; third, there seems to be
some contradiction between trembling and having been drawn into God's justice,
and consequently having closed one's eyes:
فوراء التراب قلب له في رحمة الله مأمل ليس يفنى
مأمل الخافق الذي ضمه اللـ ـه الى عدله فأغمض علينا
(Beneath
the earth is a heart that has an undying hope in the mercy of God -- / The hope
of the trembling one 'whom God has drawn into his justice, so that he has closed his eyes.)
Rendering:
(There they alike in trembling hope
repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.
Like Nāzik, Mahmūd disregards 'father', probably to keep the
poem in a more implicitly Islamic atmosphere. He also introduces, perhaps as
the result of a misreading, an alien flower. The 'abode' is completely
unspecific here.
Mahmūd:
فما اشبهها بزهرة الامل قد سكنت في مأواها
صامتة تحت رعاية الله
(How
like they are to the flower of hope; they have taken up residence in their
dwelling, silent under the care of God.)
Andrāūs retains 'Father'; this, in conjunction with his
name, argues a Christian background. His picture is much more faithful to Gray's:
.... من مثواها الرهيب في حضن ابيه وربه, فكلا فضله
ونقصه راقد على السواء في رعدة الامل ورهبة الرجاء.
(....
from their fearful abode in the bosom of his father and ihs lord; / Both his
excellence and his falling short are equally at
rest in the trembling of hope and the terror of expectation.)
ADDITTIONS:
There are several additional words and phrases in Nāzik's
version, such as في المساء الكئيب (in the melancholy
evening), المكدود
(the exhausted [herd]), الحزينات (the sad [landscape]), لقلبي انا
(to my heart) [st. 1]; فدوى هتافها
المحزون (and its sad calling echoed), قلبها المغبون (her
betrayed heart) [st. 3]; ليت شعري (would that I knew [an archaic conventional expression]) [St.
11]; حيث المحيا هدى وسلام (where life is true religion and peace) [St. 16].
al-Muttalibī adds comparatively little: the interrogative
particle اين
(where?) [St. 9], lines 33 & 34 -- …. اين اهل
'where are the people of ... ?'; قد استحال هباءا (It has dissolved
into nothing) [st. 11), line 43, فينتشي اغراءا (so
that it becomes intoxicated with temptation) line 44; وشل من جمراته (and neutralized some of
its embers) [St. 13], line 5l, and كل عزم يثور في خفقاته
(and in its throbbing every determination
was roused) [St. 13], line 52.
The additions in Andrāūs's version are fewer than those in
the other versions. It adheres more closely to the original themes and imagery:
(1) In the first paragraph, he adds متراوحا اليمنة واليسرى
(going to right and left) to render the third line of the first stanza of Gray's
Elegy:
The
ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
(2) apart from the word 'lot', the wording of stanza 15 (= 17 in the original) of
Andrāūs's version is additional:
لقد حال حظهم دون ان يبرز منهم من يحملون
المجامع على الاعجاب والتهليل, وقد ارهفت لهم الاذان اصغاء, او من يدرون الخير على
شعب مغتبط يطالعون في نظراته ثمار جهودهم في سبيله.
(Their
fortune prevented the emergence of any from among them who could sway
assemblies to admiration and acclamation, while ears listened closely to them,
or distribute goodness to a happy nation, in whose looks they see the fruits of
their efforts for its sake.)
In Mabmūd's version, examples of additions are:
(1) the fourth sentence in paragraph 3:
والان ليصمت كل همزة لمزة،
(And
now let every insinqating remark be silent! [cf. Qur'an, CIV, 1]);
(2) the thirteenth sentence:
لا تسخورا من هؤلاء الضعاف واهل الحقول
والارياف،
(Do
not mock these weak ones or the people of the fields and the country-side);
(3)
the second half of the seventeenth sentence:
والحياة الى جسد طلقته, والحركة الى قلب
بارحته،
(And
life to a body which it has divorced, and movement to a heart from which it has
departed);
(4) the second part of the second sentence of the fifth
paragraph:
قبل ان يقوي غصنها اللدن
(Before
its gentle branch became strong);
(5) السنبل النامي (the growing spikes of grain) in the seventh sentence of the
ninth paragraph:
(6) the third sentence: فلتصمتوا يا قوم! (Be silent O people!);
(7) the first part of the fifth sentence: فما اشبهها بزهرة الامل (How like they are to the flower of
hope!).
OMISSlONS:
Some words and even lines from the original are completely
omitted in Nāzik's version. Occassionally, she omits a complete line, perhaps
because she does not fully understand its implications, as in the third line of
stanza 5: "The Cock's shrill clarion or the echoing horn," where the
identity of 'the echoing horn' may have been puzzling; the second line of
stanza 15: "The little tyrant of his fields withstood"; and the first
line of stanza 21: "Their names, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd
muse," are omitted, again probably because of misunderstanding.
al-Muttaibī omits the last eighteen stanzas, 15-32; the
reason for this is unknown.
Mahmūd omits the last two lines of stanza 13:
Chill Penury repressed their
noble rage,
And froze
the genial current of the soul.
Andrāūs translates all the lines of the Elegy; he
makes a lot of substitutions for the difficult lines and words (see above).
INVERSION
Nāzik changes the order of the lines from time to time. An
example of this is her inversion of the first two lines of stanza 3, which is
virtually forced upon her by the exigencies of Arabic syntax:
Save
that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon
complain
ليس الا قمرية يرسل الشكــ ــوى الى البدر قلبها المغبون
عشـــها قنة تسلقها الزهــ ـــر واخفته في الظلال الغصون
(There
is nothing but a turtle dove whose injured heart sends its complaint to the
moon. / Its nest is a summit which the flowers have climbed and the branches
hidden in shade.)
and her inversion of the last two lines of stanza 4, the
reason for which is much the same:
Each in his
narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the
hamlet sleeps.
رقد الراحلون من ساكني القر ية بين الرمال والاحجار
اسلمهتم ايدي المنون الى ضيـ ـــق قبور تحت الثرى المنهار
(The
dead, who lived in the village, among the sands and the stones have lain down.
/ The hands of death have delivered them to the narrowness of the grave beneath
the subsiding earth.)
The only inversion in al-Muttalibī's version is that of the
last two lines of stanza 10:
Where through
the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of
praise.
يذكرون الفقيد
بالمدح انغاما تدوي ويطلقون الثناءا
في الجناح الطويل
يمتد والقبة تزهو كبيرة شمــاءا
(They
remember the dead one with encomia -- tunes that echo -- and they utter praises
/ in the long wing that extends, and the tomb that shines, great and proud.)
Andrāūs makes the first and the last lines of stanza 5:
The breezy call of incense breathing
morn,
……………………………………………..
No more shall
rouse them from their lowly bed
into the first sentence of paragraph 4 in his version:
عبثا تقيمهم
من فراشهم تحت الثرى دعوة نسيم الصبح وقد انتشر عبيره (In
vain, the invitation of the morning breeze, whose scent has been diffused,
tries to rouse them from their bed under the earth.)
Like Nāzik, Andrāūs, in his third paragraph, inverts the
last two lines of stanza 4:
يهجع اجداد القرية السذج البسطاء وقد اضجع
كل في حجرة الضيق ضجعته الى الابد
(The
primitive and simple ancestors of the village sleep, and each has been laid to
rest in his narrow room for ever.)
Like al-Muttalibī, Andrāūs inverts the last two lines of
stanza 10 in
his ninth paragraph:
لان الذكرى لم تعقد على مدافنهم الوية
الظفر بين دوي التسبيح يتردد بنشيد الحمد والثناء في ممر الكنيسة الطويل وسقفها
المقبب المنحوت
(Because
remembrance has not bound banners of victory on their tombs amid the echoes of
the glorification of God that make to resound the hymn of thankfulness and
praise in the long corridor of the church and its domed and sculptured
celling.)
Andrāūs makes the third line of stanza 26 into the first
sentence of his paragraph 25:
وكان يستلقي بقامته الطويلة في اهمال وغير
اكتراث وقت الغداة
(He
used to lie, his tall stature negligently and carelessly bestowed, in the
morning.)
rendering:
His listless
length at noontide would he stretch ….
COMPRESSION_AND EXPANSION:
Nāzik and al-Muttalibī treat almost each individual line of
the poem as a separate sentence.
Mahmūd compresses several of the original stanzas into one
paragraph: the first represents the first five stanzas, the second stanza vi
alone, the third vii-xi, the fourth xii-xv, the fifth xvi-xix, the sixth xx-xxi,
the seventh xxii alone, the eighth xxiii alone, the ninth xxiv-xxix, and the
tenth xxx-xxxii.
Andrāūs treats each stanza of the poem as a paragraph. He makes
two exceptions: stanzas ii-iii and xxx-xxxi are compressed into single
paragraphs.
THE IMPACT OF GRAY’S ELEGY ON NAZIK’S POETRY
(1) CONTRASTING THEMES:
Gray's contrasting themes of life and death, the rich and
the poor are influential in Nāzik's early poems, especially those of Ma'sat al-hayāt (the tragedy of life)
(1945, 1950, 1965). The most influential theme in Gray's Elegy is that
of stanza 9, especially the last line:
The
paths of Glory lead but to the grave.
In Ilā 'l-shaCir Kīts (to the poets Keats),
she opens the final stanza with:
وتمضي الليالي الى قبرها
(And
the nights are passing to their grave)
which recalls the last line of stanza 9 in the version. The subject
here is الليالي (the nights) instead of كل ما في الحياة (Everything in life).
In Unshūdat al-salām (the ode of peace) [st. 5 &
6], the same theme is recalled:
في غد رحلة فهل يدفع الامــ ــوات بالمال وحشة الاكفان
(Tommorrow
there will be a journey; will the dead pay with money for the loneliness of
their shrouds? / * * * / Every living being will go to the grave tommorrow
morning; is there any wealth in death?)
(2) IMAGERY:
In Fī ‘l-rīf
(in the countryside) of Ma'sāt al-hayāt [St.9 &11], the imagery of
the herd and the landscape in the first stanza of the version is recalled:
وقطيع الاغنام في المرج تحت الظــ ــل والفجر والندى والنسيم
........................................
* *
*
هل خلت هذه المجالي من الاغــ
ــنام وهل تعرى الفضاء؟
(And the flock of sheep is in the meadow, beneath the shade,
dawn, dew and breeze. / …. / * * * / Have these landscapes become empty of
sheep, and has space become naked?)
In Ma'sāt
al-shaCir (the tragedy of the poet) [St.
16 & 17], she recalls the image of the guardian in the third line of the
first stanza:
حسبك الان ما سهرت مع الحا
رس ترثي لليــله المكــــدود
* * *
*
قد آوى الحارس الكئيب الى الكو
خ الى غمضة الكرى والطيوف
(It is enough now that you did not stay awake with the guardian,
lamenting his laborious nights. / * * * / The
melancholy guardian went home to his cottage, to brief sleep and phantoms.)
In Ka'abat
al-fusūl al-arbaCah (the melancholy of the four seasons) [St. 58], she changes the subject of the sentence; she
uses الصائدين في
النهر الضحل instead
of الفتى الحارس:
هل سوى الصائدين في النهر الضحــ
ـل يعودون في المساء الكئيب
(Is there anybody except the fishermen by the shallow river, who
return in the melancholy evening?)
In Marthiyyah
li-'l-insān (an elegy for man) [st. 5], she recalls the original image of
the dead man in stanza 29 ('Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne.'):
ذلك الميت الذي حملوه جثة
لا تحس نحو القبور
(That dead one whom they carried as a corpse, which does not
feel, to the graves.)
In al-Ghurūb
(sunset) [St. 4, 5 & 6], she recalls, in
more general terms, the atmosphere and imagery of the Elegy:
أقفر العالم حولي لا نشيد
من صبي او هتاف او حفيف
................................
* * *
من بعيد ابصر الراعي الحزين
يرجع الاغنام في صمت الغروب
* * *
وبعيدا فــــي الفضاء المدلهم
خفقة مــــن جنح طير عابر
(The world became desolate round me -- no song / from a boy, no
call no rustling. / …. / * * * / From
afar the sad shepherd was seen driving home his sheep in the silence of sunset;
/ * * * / and ar off, in dark space, a flutter from the wing of a passing
bird.)
In his article
"Tarjamah CArabiyyah li-marthiyat al-shāCir al-injilīzī
Tūmās Jrāy",(16) in Majallat kuliyyat al-Adāb, University of Riyadh
الجو النفسي الذي كانت تعيش فيه نازك في الفترة التي كتبت فيها قصائد
ديوانها يشبه, الى حد ما, الجو النفسي الذي كان يعيش فيه المتحدث في قصيدة (جراي):
فهي تعشق الليل والريف, وتتحدث كثيرا عن الموت الذي سيريحها من الامها وذكرياتها
المرة وحاضرها الحزين.
(The psychological atmosphere, in which Nāzik lived at the time
of composing the poeras of her own collection, to a certain degree, resembles
that: of the speaker tn Gray's poem: she loves night and the countryside; she
talks much about death, which will give her rest from her pains, bitter
memories, and sad present.)
Khattāb traces
the impact of this version on Nāziks's poetry, by giving an example from her poetry
-- the first stanzas of al-Ghurūb, which are comparable to the first two
stanzas of her version.
(3) THE POET:
In Fī Cālam
al-shuCarā' (in the world of the poets) [St.
12], she associates the guardian with the poet to suggest their common melancholy:
يسهر الليل يتبع الحارس المكــ
ــدود في خطوه الرتيب الكليل
وقع اقدامه على شاطئ الصمــ
ــت أسى الشاعر الحنون النبيل
(Sleepless, he spends the night following the exhausted guardian
in his dull, monotonous steps; / his footfall on the shore of silence is the
grief of the compassionate and noble poet.)
In Fī ahdān
al-tabīCah (in the bosom of nature) [St.
13], she recalls stanza 26 of the Elegy:
وينام الراعي المغرد تحت السـ
ــرو مستسلما لايدي الخيال
(And the singing shepherd sleeps under the cypress tree,
yielding to the hands of imagination.)
(B) NAZIK’S
VERSION OF BYRON’S ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN IN CHILDE HAROLD’S_PILGRIMAGE:
Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage has been regarded as the greatest confessional poem
of the Romantic period in English literature .It had a tremendous impact on
Europe and America
Byron's poem was
translated into Arabic by many Arab writers. CAbd ul-Hai gives nine
versions of various cantos and stanzas from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
They date from 1901 to 1946, according to CAbd ul-Hai's list:(17)
(1) al-Muhīt,
min Tshāyld Hārūld (the ocean; from Childe Harold's), canto iv,
stanza clxxix, by Hāfiz CAwad in al-Majallah al-Misriyyah,
vol. 1, no. 23, 1901, p. 897.
(2) Min: Qsīdat
Tshāyld Hārūld (from the poem of Childe Harold), canto i & iii,
and fragments from canto iv, In al-Balāgh, Cairo
(3) Ughniyyat
Tshāyld Hārūld (the song of Childe Harold: 'Adieu, adieu! my native
shore') canto i, by Muhammad Clzzat Mūsā in al-Siyāsah al-usbūCiyyh,
Cairo
(4) CAsifah
Calā buhayrat Jinīf (a storm on lake Geneva), canto iii,
xcii-xciv, by Muhammad CAbd al-Wahhāb Mansūr in al-Siyāsah al-usbūCiyyah,
vol. iv, no. 206, 15 February 1930, 11.
(5) al-Bahr
(the sea, from Childe Harold’s Piligrimage), canto iv, stanza clxxix (no
translator, no source, no date).
(6) Tshāyld
Hārūld (Childe Harold), by CAbd al-Rahmān Badawī, Cairo
(7) Min: Tshāyld Hārūld (from: Childe Harold),
canto iii, stanzas 23-27 and 72-75 (no translator, no source).
(8) al-Bahr
(the sea), by Nāzik al-Malā'ikah in CAshiqat al-layl, Dīwān
(1), 1946. pp. 660-667.
From the above
list, we discover that Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage has not been
translated completely; the Arab translators choose certain cantos and stanzas
which suit their purposes. The earliest version, according to the list, was
published in 1901 in
al-Majallah al-misriyyah, by Hāfiz CAwad; Hāfiz CAwad
translated a passage in Canto 4 as al-Muhīt (the ocean) . The most
recent version was made by Nāzik al-Malā'ikah in 1946. In 1934, an
anonymous author, in the journal al-Muqtataf, rendered these stanzas,
with an introduction in which he describes them as an ode:
"Lord Byron
ends Childe Harold .... with what the critics agreed to call 'the ode of
the sea'. In the first stanza of this ode, there appears his rejection of
society, familiarity with solitude and isolation, 'not because he hates man but
because his love of nature is stronger' Then there pass through his mind images
of the states, and signs of change and revolution that have successively come
upon civilization."(18)
Nāzik’s version
of the ocean passage (1946) includes stanzas clxxix-clxxxiv of canto iv; the
passage in the original runs from stanza clxxv to clxxxiv. She quite possibly
chose this passage for translation because she came across it in an anthology.
THEMES
AND IMAGERY:
Nāzik was
attracted by the two contrasting themes in Byron’s poem: the theme of the power
of the sea and the weakness of man, the immortality of the sea and the
mortality of man; these two themes occupy eight stanzas of her version [St. 2-9].
The themes and
imagery of stanza clxxix are represented in the first three stanzas of the
version; in the first line of stanza clxxix, Byron addresses the ocean,
specifying its colour:
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue
Ocean--ro1l!
In lines 1 and 3
of the first stanza of the version, Nāzik does the same:
أيها البحر ايها الازرق الدا
كن إهدر ما شئت في الظلماء
(O dark blue sea, roll on as long as you wish, in darkness!)
In lines 3-6 of
stanza clxxix, Byron admits that man is responsible for destruction on earth;
he abuses his power for evil purposes. However, his power is limited when
compared to the limitless power of the sea:
Man marks the
earth with ruin -- his control
Stops with the
shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are
all thy deed ………………….
These lines are
represented in the second stanza of the version:
كل ما عنده من القوة الهوجاء جاء يا بحر عند شطك يعيى
فهو يطغى في الارض بالشر والتخـ
ـريب لكن تظل انت عتيا
وتظل الامواج منك كما كا
نت حمى زاخرا وسطحا سويا
ما عليها ظل لطغيان مخلو
ق سيبقى على الزمان صبيا
(All his violent strength becomes impotent on your shore, O sea!
/ He rules tyrannically on land with evil and desolation, but you remain
recalcitrant; / and the waves remain in you as they were -- bountiful sanctury
and flat surface. / On them there is no shadow of the tyranny of a creature who
will remain a child for ever.)
In lines 5-9,
Byron continues to emphasize the weakness of man in comparison with the ocean:
……………… nor doth remain
A shadow of man’s
ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling
groan,
Without a grave,
unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.
These lines are
rendered in stanza 3 of the version; the theme of the fifth and sixth Lines of
Byron’s stanza is not understood by Nāzik; they suggest that there is no trace
of man’s destructiveness left on the ocean when it swallows him up, except for
his own shadow as he sinks into the death of the sea. Nāzik, however, seizes
upon the 'shadow', disregarding, or perhaps misunderstanding, 'ravage', thus
producing a puzzling contradictory statement:
ذلك الحي ليس يترك من ظل
سوى ظله على الامــواج
عندما تحتويه امواجك الـهو
ج فيهوي في لجة الاشبــاح
صارخا هابطا الى عمق اعما قك
ميتا تحت الفضاء الساجي
دون قبـر يضـــم اشلاءه او
كفن غير رائعات الدياجـــي
(That living being does not leave any shadow on the waves but
his own. / When your violent waves envelop him, he will fall into the vast
deep, / crying, falling into your deepest depths, dead under the dark sky, /
with no grave to contain his remains or shroud except the awesome darkness.)
In stanza clxxx,
Byron continues this theme. In Nāzik's version, this stanza is expanded into two
stanzas [4-5]; the first two lines of the original are rendered in the first
two lines of stanza 4 of the version:
His
steps are not upon thy paths, -- thy fields
Are not a spoil
for him, ……………………….
كل ما فوق موجك الخالد الجبــ
ــار ما ان يبقي بقايا خطاه
ومســــافاتك البعيــدات ليســت ايها البحر ما تنـــــال يداه
(Nothing that is on your immortal and 1ighty waves will leave
traces of his steps; / nor will his hands encompass your great distances, O
sea!)
Lines 2-6 and 9
of the original are rendered in stanza 5 of the version:
تتلقاه موجة بعد اخــــرى
منك يا بحر في ظلام المساء
ثم ترمي به الرياح المخيفا
ت رفاتا ميتا الـــى الاجواء
فاذا ما خبا جنون اعاصيــ
ـر وماتت اصداؤها في الفضاء
عاد شلوا الى حمى الشاطئ السا
جي جسما عل حفاف الماء
(Wave after wave meets him, O sea, in the darkness of evening; /
then the dreadful wines throw him dead to the air; / and when the madness of
the hurricanes disappears and their
echoes die away in space, / he returns, a corpse, to the sanctuary of the quiet
shore, a body at the edge of the water.)
In stanza clxxxi
of Byron’s poem. the power of proud man is contrasted with the power of the
mighty sea; man's pride in his earthly power leads him to do evil.
Nāziks
translation of this stanza is free; she maintains the main theme of the stanza --
tyrants are weak in comparison with the sea. She inserts an extra apostrophe to
the sea at the beginning, for rhetorical effect [St.
6]:
ايها البحر آه ما هذه الاســ
ــوار تحت الحديد والنيران؟
أي شيء هذي القلاع الرهيبا
ت؟ وما سر ذلك الطغيان
(O sea! Ah! what are these walls beneath iron and fire? / What
are these awesome castles? / What is the secret of that tyranny?)
She disregards
more than half of the stanza; these two lines represent:
The armaments which thunderstrike the
walls
Of Rock-built cities, bidding nations
quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
She omits all
mention of ships, without which the stanza is deprived of most of its point. In
place of:
The oak leviathans,
whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
of lord of thee, and arbiter of war –
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy
flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which
mar
Alike the Armada's
pride or spoils of Trafalgar.
she has:
لقبوا سادة البحار وما هم
غير طيوف من الغرور الفاني
تتلقاهم قوى موجك الرا ئع
بالموت والاذى والهوان
(They called themselves "Lords of the seas", but they
were nothing but phantoms of mortal vanity. / The force of your awesome waves brought
them death, harm and humiliation.)
The presentation
of stanza clxxxii is superficial; the theme of this stanza -- the immortality
of the sea and the mortality of man -- is spread over two stanzas [the second
and the fourth lines of stanza 7]:
كل شئ يبلى وتلبث جبا را
كما كنت ساخرا ابديا
..........................
ذهبت كلها وماتت وما زلـ ـت
كما كنت ايها البحر حيا
Everything
decays, and you remain mighty, as before, mocking and eternal. / ..... / They
have all passed away and died and you still remain alive as before, O sea!)
[the last two
lines of stanza 8]:
وتبقيت انت مثلك بالامــ
ـس عميقا مدويا جبـــارا
لم يغضن جبينك الزمن الما ضي
وما زلت جاريا قهارا
(And you remain, as you were yesterday, deep, echoing arid
mighty; / passing time has not wrinkled your brow, and you are still running
strongly.)
These passages
represent lines 1, 5-9:
Thy shores are empires, changed in all
save thee –
……………………………
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves'
play,
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow:
Such as creation's
dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Nāzik fastens on
easy words and phrases to render directly, such as 'shores' [1. 1 & 4].
'The stranger' [1. 5], 'deserts' [1. 6], and the names of ancient empires:
Assyria, Rome and Carthage
(she omits Greece , probably
because of metrical exigencies [St. 7]). She
then composes her own poem round these elements, maintaining only a vague
connection with the original:
أين آشور؟ روما وقرطا جة ما
عاد ذكرها قط يحيا
(Where is Assyria ? Whene is Rome Carthage
She replaces the
interrogative 'what?' in Byron's stanza by
أين (where?):
Thy shores are empires, changed in
all save thee --
The verb 'obey'
in the fourth line of this stanza is rendered in the first line of stanza 7 of
the version; 'Death' , in this line, is used as a substitution for the object of
the verb 'obey':
كل شئ في الساحل الشاسع النا
ئي يطيع الموت البطئ العتي
(Everything on the wide, remote shore obeys slow, arrogant
Death.)
………………………… their
shores obey
The stranger,
slave, or savage; …......
She treats the
object 'The stranger' as the subject of the additional verb 'يتمشى' [st. 8]:
يتمشى فيها الغريب ....
(The stranger walked on them …. )
The first part of
line 6 is expanded into two lines [l & 2] of stanza 8 of the version; two
words are retained: 'realms' and 'deserts'; the first appears in the second
line of stanza 1, the second in the first line of stanza 8:
كل تلك السواحل الحلوة الغنــ
ـاء عادت تحت الزمان صحارى
يتمشى فيها الغريب وكانت
امــــس دنيا تفيـــض نورا ونارا
(All those sweet and prosperous shores have again become deserts
at the hands of time; / the stranger walks on them, while yesterday they were a
world that overflowed with light and fire.)
rendering:
Has dried up realms to deserts:
………
She replaces 'thine
azure brow' [1. 8] with جبينك
(your forehead), omitting 'azure' because, I think, she does not like to repeat
the word since she used it in the first stanza:
………………………………….
Time writes no wrinkle on tt1ne azure
brow:
At least half of
stanza clxxxii remains unrendered:
Thy
waters wash’d them power while they were free.
And many a tyrant
since; ….
……………………………
………….
save to thy wild waves' play,
Such as creation's
dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
BYRON'S
AND NAZIK'S RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE SEA:
The love
relationship between Byron and the sea goes through three stages:
(1) first, in
lines 1-6 of stanza clxxxiv, it is a sexual relationship, which is revealed in
the action of swimming in the sea; Byron imagines the waves of the sea as a
woman with whom he plays; his love of the sea is of the same kind as his love
of women, which fills him with joy and delight:
And I have loved thee,
Ocean! and my joy
of youthful sports was
on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy
bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy
breakers -- they to me
Were a delight; and if
the freshening sea
Made them a terror – 'twas
a pleasing fear,
This relationship
is represented in Nāzik's version [St. 10
& 11], although the sea is kept at a greater distance, and there is no
question of immersion (Nāzik cannot swim):
وانــــا أيــــها المحيط المـــدوي عاشق الموج والحصى والرمال
طالما سرت، في صباي، على الضفـ
ــــــــة مستغرقا بـــوادي الخيال
طالمــا سرت شــــــاردا مثل اموا
جك نشـــــوان ضاحكا للمجالي
كل حلمي ان يحتوي زورقي موج
جك يوما فترتـــــوي آمالــــي
* * *
.................................
طالما من امواجك الباردات الـ
ـبيض اترعت في الاماسي كأسي
ليت شعري فهل نسيت اغاريــ
ـدي وحبي الطاغي وفورة نفسي؟
(O resounding ocean. I am
the lover of the waves, the stones and the sands. / How often, in my youth,
have I walked by the shore, immersed in the valley of imagination! / How often
have I walked absent-minded like your waves, intoxicated, smiling at the
landscape! / All I dream is that your waves will contain my boat one day, so
that my hopes may be satisfied. / *
* * / .... / How often from your
cold, white waves have I filled my beaker in the evenings! / Would that I knew
if you have forgotten my songs, my overflowing love and the effervescence of my
soul.)
(2) second, it is
a child/mother relationship [1. 7]; Byron loves the sea and is not afraid of
its dreadful waves; he feels safe in the sea because he swims very well; he believes
that the sea will take care of him because it is to him like a mother to her
child:
for I was as it
were a child of thee,
Byron's
expression of his relationship with the sea as a child
with his mother
is not obviously rendered in Nāzik's version; Byron's relationship with the sea
is physical, whereas Nāzik's relationship is more innosent; she recalls her
feelings when she was a child playing by the sea like a child playing near its
mother; this is due to the differences in the cultures of the two poets, and
the differences between their sexes [St. 11]:
كيف يا بحر تنسى مراحي عند
امواجك الجميلات أمسي؟
عندما في طفولتي كنت الهو في
شواطيك بين بشري وانسي
(O sea! How can you forget my cheerfulness by your beautiful
waves yesterday, / when I was a child playing happily and companionably on your
shores?)
Stanzas 11 and 12 in Nāzik's version echo
stanza 48 of Abū Mādī's al-Talāsim:
اين ضحكي وبكائي وانا طفل صغير
اين جهلي ومراحي وانا غض غرير
اين احلامي وكانت كيفما سرت تسير
كلها ضاعت ولكن كيف ضاعت لست ادري
(Where is my laughter and crying when I was a child? / Where is
my ignorance and cheerfulness when I was young and innocent? / Where are my dreams,
which used to behave as I did? / All have gone, but how they have gone I do not
know.)
Nāzik's attitude
towards the sea is different from Byron's; it has two contradictory aspects:
love and fear. She has loved the sea since childhood; she spent a great deal of
time as a child playing by the water, because her house was situated by the
river Tigris . The simple difference that Nāzik,
unlike Byron, was not a swimmer; this perhaps goes the same way to explaining
the absence in her rendering of Byron's sense of the movement and feeling of
the sea against his body.
(3) third, it is a rider/horse relationship:
And laid my hand thy mane -- as I do
here.
Nāzik Ignores
this relationship, because she cannot find any equivalent in Arabic to the
phrase 'white horses', which is an English expression for foam-tipped waves.
ADAPTATION:
Nāzik's version
of the passage on the ocean in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is more independent
than her version of Gray's Elegy: she rarely retains the order of the
stanzas or the development of the themes of the original.
(1) OMISSION:
Nāzik does not
translate all the stanzas; she begins her version by rendering stanza clxxix,
which is the fifth of the stanzas in the passage, presumably because she
believes that the passage begins with stanza clxxix and ends with stanza
clxxxiv.
She omits not
only whole stanzas, but also phrases within stanzas; sometimes she omits without
substitution, sometime with substitution; example of this is that she omits all
of stanza clxxxiii, because, I believe, of a religous difficulty for her in
describing the sea as a mirror of god; she omits phrases, such as 'a drop of
rain', 'bubbling groan' 'unknelled, uncoffin'd and unknown' [st. clxxix] and
replaces them with the phrases: تحت الفضاء الساجي (under the dark sky), غير رائعات الدياجي (except the awesome darkness) [St.3], Byron’s line echoes
well-known lines in Shakespeare's Hamlet (Act 1. Scene V., 1. 76-9]: "Unhouseled,
disappointed, unannealed ….", and Milton
Nāzik does not
follow the stanzaic form of the original; she uses the same form of quatrain
stanza as she does in her version of Gray’s Elegy.
(2) COMPRESSION
AND EXPANSION:
Compression and
expansion are common in Nāzik's versions of English poems; she renders them
freely, she does not consider herself bound by the order of the stanzas and the
lines; she rearranges them in a manner appropriate to her own feelings; for
instance, she compresses lines 5 and 6 of stanza clxxxi of the original into
line 3 of stanza 6 of the version, perhaps because she is reluctant to indulge
in enjambement, as in Byron's poem:
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs
make
Their clay
creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee,
and, arbiter of war --
All her lines are
end-stopped:
لقبوا سادة البحار وما هم
غير طيف من الغرور الفاني
(They were called the lords of the sea, and yet they were
nothing but a phantom of mortal vanity.)
THE
IMPACT OF BYRON'S ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN ON NAZIK'S POETRY:
The Impact of Nāzik's
version of Byron's passage on the ocean is much less than that of her version
of Gray's Elegy, because the themes of Gray's Elegy are more appropriate
to her romantic mood than those of Byron's passage.
(1) THE DEVICE OF ADDRESSING NATURAL ELEMENTS:
Nāzik uses the
device of addressing natural objects and phenomena quite frequently in her
poetry written both at the time of her version of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
and subsequently. Examples of this are her addresses to the moon in Ughniyah
li-'l-qamar (a song to the moon) [St. 6]:
البث كما انت عاما عجزت
ارواحنا ان تعي خفاياه
(Remain as you are, a world the secrets of which our souls have
been unable to learn!)
her address to
the sun in Ughniyah li-shams al-shitā' (a song to the winter sun) [st.
1]:
أذيبي بها قطرات الجليد
عن العشب، عن زهرة لا تريد
فراق الحياه
(Melt with them
the drops of ice from the grass, from a flower that does not want to part with
life!)
her address to
the wind in Unshūdat al-riyāh (the ode of the winds) [Part 2, st . 4 ]:
أقبلي أقبلي يا فتاة النشيد
وابحثي بينهم عن فؤاد سعيد
(Come on, come on, O girl of the ode, / and search among them
for a happy heart!);
and her address
to the nightingale in Ilā 'l-shāCir Kīts (to the poet Keats)
[St. 6]:
صفي شاعري كيف امضى المساء
على قدمي ذلك الميت
(Describe how my poet spent the evening / at the feet of that
dead one!)
Clearly, she is influenced
thematically nut only by Byron's passage on the ocean but also by Shelley's address
to the West wind and Keats's address to the nightingale, the sun and the moon.
However, as far as her general poetic vocabulary is concerned, these poems seem
to have had much less impact than Gray's Elegy.
(2) WEAKNESS
AND STRENTH:
The contrasting
theme of the weakness of man and the strength of the sea is frequently found in
Nāzik's poetry, for instance in Ma'sāt al-hayāt (the tragedy of life)
(1945). Although she is horrified by the sea, she admires its strength and
always contrasts it with human weakness; man is always defeated by the sea in
her poetry:
ما الذي تصطاد في بحر الزمن
وغدا يصطادك الدهر العتي
(What do you hunt in the sea of time, when recalcitrant fate
will hunt you tomorrow?)
In Unshūdat al-Salām
(the ode of peace) [St. 32], she talks about
the pride ot human beings despite their weakness:
فيم نطغي؟ وكيف ننسى قوى الكو
ن وما في الوجود اضعف منا
.................................
* * *
لن تدوم الايام لن يحفظ الدهــــ ــر كيانا لكائــــن بشـــري
(Why do we become tyrants? How can we forget the powers of the
universe, when there is nothing in existence that is weaker than us? / …. / * *
* / The days will not last, time will not preserve existence for a human
being.)
NOTES:
(1)
CAbdul-Hai,
M. Tradition and English...., p. 84.
(2)
ibid., p. 84.
(3)
a written
communication from Nāzik al-Malā'ikah in 1984.
(4)
al-Malā'ikah, N. al-Tajzī'iyyah
...., p. 136-9.
(5)
ibid., p. 147.
(6)
CAbdul-Hai
M. "A bibliography of Arabic Translations of English and American Poetry
(1830-1970)", Journal of Arabic Literature, vol. vii, 1976, p. 120.
(7)
ibid., p. 132.
(8)
ibid. Tradition
and English....,p. 27.
(9)
ibid. 28.
(10)
Andrāūs, F. "Marthiyah
kutibat fī fīnā' kanīsah bi-'l-rīf li-'l-shāCir al-injilīzī Tūmās
Jrāy", al-Siyāsah al-usbūCiyyah, no. 174, Saturday, July
6, 1929, p. 11.
(11)
Mahmūd, H. M. "Marthiyah
nuzimat fī sāhat kanīsah", Abūlū, vol. ii, no. 8, April. 1934, p.
703-6.
(12)
ibid., p. 703,
citing from I. F. Higton's note on the Elegy [the translator does not
give any information about the source].
(13)
Al-Malā'ikah, N. "Marthiyah
fī maqbarah rīfiyyah", Dīwān (1), pp. 668-690.
(14)
Lane, E. W. Arabic-English
Lexicon, vol. (1), 1984, p. 2813.
(15)
Mahmūd, H.
"Marthiyah nuzimat fī sāhat kanīsah", Abūlū, vol. ii, no. 8,
April, 1934, p. 703-6, citing from CIsā Iskandar al-MaClūf.
"al-Qubriyāt; qubriyāt al-CArab", al-Muqtataf, vol.
31, May 19, 1906, pp. 381-388.
(16)
Khattāb, CI.
CA. "Tarjamah CArabiyyah li-marthiyyat al-shāCir
al-Injilīzī Tūmās Jrāy", Kulliyyat al-Adāb, Riyadh University
(17)
CAbdul-Hai
M. "A Bibilography of Arabic Translations of English and American Poetry
(1830-1970)", Journal of Arabic literature, pp. 125 & 126.
(18)
Anonymous,
"Hadīqat al-muqtataf; Mukhtārāt min Bayrūn", in al-Muqtataf,
vol. 84, January-June, 1934, p.750.
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