Afrikaans

On Translating Poetry

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Young Shepherdess by Jean-François Millet (1870–73) in oil. Public Domain.
Young Shepherdess by Jean-François Millet (1870–73) in oil.

Different Language, Different Opportunities

I recently stated that poetic subtleties rarely migrate between languages, and as I attempt to cast “Shepherd Girl” into “Skaapwagtertjie”1, an Afrikaans translation, the statement rings true with every stanza. Even in the rare instance where the Afrikaans allows for a faithful rendition of any given line, with all its poetic content intact, another becomes semantically impossible—either for lack of an appropriate rhyming word or some other linguistic complication.

This is, of course, the result of the inherent differences between languages, for just as each affords unique opportunities for polysemy and rhyme, so do its mechanisms for producing meaning—what word must go where (syntax), what syllable must be emphasised (accentuation), what rhythm must connect this word with that (cadence)—dictate the rules a poet must follow (or flout) to establish meaning and style.

The poet’s use of expressive device (through onomatopoeia, understatement, alliteration, imagery, cliché, symbol, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, idiom and prosody) in one language, may simply not be available in another, and thus the essence—the gestalt—of his poem is compromised or even lost entirely when translated. The result, therefore, will be an inferior facsimile—an approximation that is no more than a shell of the original. Allow me to illustrate:

An Example

A. G. Visser’s “Die Ruiter van Skimmelperdpan” (“The Rider of Dapple Grey Flat”) is a tense poem describing the gruesome ghost of a headless soldier on a fleeing horse. Impossible to translate in English are the movement and contextual dread contained within what is arguably its simplest line:

“‘Die galop … die galop … die galop?!’”2

In the Afrikaans, the natural downbeat of the syllables and the way in which the sounds of the two words connect in the repetition perfectly mimic the rhythmic doo-doo-DOOF, doo-doo-DOOF, doo-doo-DOOF of galloping horse (and racing heartbeat): [dî-KGa-lop, dî-KGa-lop, dî-KGa-lop].

Moreover, the depth of the [duh] in [dî] has the impact of a hoof stroke and the sliding guttural [KG] connecting the two syllables before and after it imitates the sound of gravel. All of this is lost in the staccato of an English rendering: “‘The gallop… the gallop … the gallop?!’” The downbeats, cadence and pronunciation—the “feel” of the English—deliver none of the urgency, desperation, tension and sheer terror that the very nature of Afrikaans invokes and sustains.

A poem—indeed, any artwork—is untranslatable because its Form and Content are inextricably linked. Just as Millet’s oil painting Young Shepherdess (if I may select a work particularly apt3) in watercolour loses a fundamental part of its import (namely the solemnity that oil imparts), so does rendering “Shepherd Girl” in Afrikaans sacrifice something integral to it. Changing the medium changes the meaning, wherefore a translation must take on a life of its own.

From “Shepherd Girl” to “Skaapwagtertjie”

Thus, I depart from the English where the Afrikaans demands it. I have already moved content from one stanza to another to recreate the narrative of the ballad within the confines of Afrikaans rhyme, introducing different details from my mother’s shepherding youth to facilitate the change. It is an enlightening and thrilling project. As I extract from the English original an Afrikaans counterpart, my goal is not to compose a copy, but an Afrikaans poem in its own right.

  1. Afrikaans, [skaahp-vuKG-teR-ki], pronounced as one word, with the [u] in “up”, the guttural [KG] in the Scottish “loch”, a trilled [R] and the [i] in “in”.
  2. [dî KGalop] with the [î] in “in” and the guttural [KG] in the Scottish “loch”. The line is uttered by the soldier’s wife, who also appears in the haunting, as she implores him to stop tormenting her with his nightly race past their cottage (hence the unorthodox punctuation): “‘Waarom rus jy nie, rus jy nie, Jan van der Meer? / Waarom jaag jy my elke nag op? / Sal daar nimmer ’n einde kom … altyd maar weer / Die galop … die galop … die galop?!’” (“‘Why rest you not, rest you not, Jan van der Meer? / Why chase me up every night? / Will there ne’er be an end … again and again / The gallop … the gallop … the gallop?!’”)
  3. Young Shepherdess was one of Millet’s largest and last works, the lowly peasant elevated to near godlike divinity by medium, composition, pose and halo-like lighting—not unlike the way in which the eight-year-old poet within me elevates his mother. (Incidentally, today is her 66th birthday.)
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I am delighted to report that a fourth stanza has materialised for “Shepherd Girl”, this after the third seemed too abrupt a conclusion to the vignette. Moreover, I am considering an Afrikaans version of the poem—not a mere translation, but a composition in its own right (my first in that language). Afrikaans—what I call low-resolution Dutch (from which it is derived)—is my mother’s mother tongue, a superb language for rhyme. Already I have translated one of the rough stanzas as a test, but first, there are weeks of work on the English draft to be done.

A Student’s Conceit

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Windblown grass on one of my favourite hillsides. Filmed 8 November 2017 (late spring in South Africa). (The text shall make its illustrative purpose clear.)

I cannot help but critique the lines of my betters while reading their work. No matter how celebrated (and deservedly so) they may be, the writing of great English and Afrikaans poets often carve a furrow in my brow. It is usually some unnatural or lacklustre use of language—some invention of the period in which the works were composed—that I, a modern reader, find impossible to overcome. I could embark on a diatribe about Wordsworth’s writing—his choice of metre and vocabulary at times so unbearable that I must set the verses aside in sheer despair—but here I want to cite a particular line from a poem by Toon van den Heever (1894–1956), “In die Hoëveld” (In the Highveld), the first of the second stanza:

“Op die Hoëveld, waar dit wyd is, waar jy baie ver kan sien…”

In the Afrikaans aesthetic, this is a line so dull, it defies belief. Describing the vastness of the highveld, it translates: “On the Highveld, where it is wide, where you can see very far”—one reels at its crudeness. Though no line can ever be wholly conveyed in another language, I assure the reader that the wincing effect of the English perfectly replicates that of the Afrikaans—an aberration in an otherwise expertly crafted poem. Granted, the words are conceived as those of a simple miner in a bout of homesickness1, but they are incongruous when one considers the calibre of the lines that precede and follow (amongst others, “Waar kuddes waaigras huppel oor die veld…” (Where herds of grasses skip across the field2))!

Why did he not render it “Op die Hoëveld, waar dit wyd is, waar ver die oog kan sien” (In the Highveld, ever vast, where far the eye can see3)? What led him to favour that particular version of the line above all others? Indeed, why does any artist make the artistic choices he makes? Whenever I recite “In die Hoëveld”, I pause in the interval between the two verses and wonder what unfortunate convergence of inspiration, idiosyncrasy and flair conspired to produce the abomination of a line I must utter at the start of verse two!

Nonetheless, “In die Hoëveld” remains my favourite Afrikaans poem4—its simple imagery is sublime. I own an anthology of selected works of various poets that includes it and have just ordered a later edition of the poet’s own publication in which it first appeared, Eugene en Ander Gedigte (Eugene and Other Poems)—moreover, I am making enquiries about the first edition (1931) which would be a fine addition to my modest but cherished collection. Thus, while my criticism is severe, my devotion to the poet is undiminished.

  1. In the verses, the ailing workman recollects a sweeter time and place “in the highveld”.
  2. Stanza one, line two. Direct translation: Where herds [of] wave-grass skip across the field.
  3. Or more accurately: On the Highveld, where it is wide, where far the eye can see.
  4. My favourite English poem is the untitled free verse stanzas by Richard Adams for Silverweed in the “Silverweed” chapter of Watership Down; my favourite French poem, the lyric and unaffected “Le Brouillard” (The Mist) by Maurice Carême. All of these share a common theme: a fascination with nature expressed in straightforward but evocative (and memorable) language—the great ambition of my poetry.