Рецензия на «Высоцкий Баллада о любви English» (Евгения Саркисьянц)

Dear Eugenia,

You are right - the rhyming is very sophisticated. Apparently as a result of this you are forced to make some choices of words which, unfortunately, are hard to interpret, especially without knowing the original. Let's take the first stanza:

When tides of the Great Flood have reacquired
Their rest within the limit of the BAY,
From the retrieving foam, unseen and quiet,
Onto the shore love slowly made its way,
Dissolving in the air till time required -
That time to last forever and a day.

What BAY, if the flood is the Great one?
By RETRIEVING you perhaps meant RETREATING.
Who is UNSEEN AND QUIET? the foam?
Your LOVE is unstressed suggesting that it has already appeared
among the acting characters - as if every flood had a love hidden in it. (Compare with 'Onto the shore I slowly made my way' where the unstressed 'I' is OK since the first person is always there.) You need to move LOVE to a stressed position (e.g. Then slowly love made to the shore its way.)

So, a lot of work still remains to make the translation 'work.'

Strangely, although Vysotsky is the most translated of the 'bards'
(there is a website with multiple attempts to translate dozens of his songs into several languages), I haven't seen any truly satisfying English translation - somehow Vysotsky is among the hardest.

Cheers,

Alexander

Александр Гивенталь   07.07.2012 20:55   •   Заявить о нарушении