Warning: possible pretension ahead – ymmv.

I’ve recently been reading Afrikaans poetry. I’m doing this for two reasons; I’m finding more and more that being in the US develops my appetite for all things Afrikaans[1] and poetry is short[2]. I’m also finding that I’m not seeking out new poetry but am rather returning to the poets whose work I read while in high school; nostalgia I guess. And I’ve found myself wanting to post some of that poetry as a record of what I’ve been reading. But just posting it in Afrikaans doesn’t do much and so I’ve arrived at a great point of folly; an attempt to translate Afrikaans poetry into English. Now this is an outright bad idea. Translating literature is a serious undertaking that requires years of study, not only of technique but also of the authors whose work you attempt to interpret. And translating poetry is an even more difficult matter since poetry is all about the feel of the words and how they interrelate; it’s about images and associations and inferences – the least concrete form of writing.

But despite my knowing that I would be entering a world fraught with pitfalls and pretension I just couldn’t resist making an attempt at translating an NP van Wyk Louw masterpiece. I should say up front that I am not at all happy with how I’ve translated the title. The title of this poem is absolutely crucial to its tone and while the literal translation may work on the opening line it doesn’t work as a title.

Here’s the original in glowing Afrikaans

And my interpretation

Once more

Once more I want to in the twilight
again in our town stand at our dam,
again with my sling up into the dark shoot,
and listen, and even though I become sore and dull,
how the pebble far away in the reeds
from the dark into the dark water drops.
(1954)

The problem with the translated title is that while the English phrase ‘once more’ is functionally the same as ‘nog eenmaal’ there is a sense of finality to the Afrikaans phrase which I don’t find in its English counterpart. The essence of this poem is that the author’s longing to experience that moment just once more – one last time. The English phrase leaves the interpretation open to multiple times – ‘once more’ is not the same as ‘just one more time’ – it’s too close to ‘once again’.

I exchanged a couple of mails with a friend on the translation and he offered some interesting observations.

[CK] I find quite intriguing how ambiguous and difficult it is to translate spatial terms from one language to another:
“op on dorp” becomes “in our town”
“uit donker” becomes “from the dark”
[me] Totally agreed – I feel that not being able to perfectly translate ‘op ons dorp’ is especially sad.
[CK] I realise that I have no idea what he means by the ‘seer en dof’. I suspect this is a reference to aging (‘word’ could be interpreted as ‘grow’?)
[me] Now, now, now, now – I think that you’ve hit on the key phrase of the entire poem. And in particular I think that you’re right about the aging aspect. Re-looking the original, that phrase is the only which does not originate in the physical; a tangible item, place or action. I agree that it relates to aging and possibly dying. It may be a stretch to infer but it could be that the author thinks of this moment as the one, of all the moments of his life, that he chooses to relive at the moment of dying.