Translation: Addendum

I recently published a post on translating Cavafy’s poem God Abandons Antony from Greek into English. I received a lot of helpful feedback from people who read it, which I thought to share here as a follow-up. As I don’t have explicit permission to share people’s names, I will identify people by their initials. As in the first post, K&S refers to Keeley & Sherrard, and E.S. refers to Evangelos Sachperoglou (K&S and E.S. produced two different translations of the poem, which I used as reference while working on my own).

As a reminder, below is my translation alongside the original:

First, many thanks to GP, who noticed that I originally mistranslated the last line as ‘and say goodbye to her, to Alexandria that is leaving’.

Second, my mother-in-law notes that ‘your luck that is runing out […] do not mourn in vain’ feels clunky. Her suggestion is to add the word ‘these’ at the end of the clause:

your luck that is running out, your work

gone wrong, your life’s plans that were all

proven illusions, do not mourn these in vain.

I think this is a neat solution.

A family friend, AS, made several points:

• In the original post, I noted that the poem’s first word, σαν, can be translated as ‘if’ instead of as ‘when’. AS pointed out that another famous Cavafy poem, Ithaca, also begins with σαν; in that poem, translating the word as ‘if’ feels very wrong — so, using this as guidance, choosing ‘when’ seems the right thing to do.
• I could have gone with ‘exquisite melodies’ instead of ‘exquisite music’ — in the original, the word for music in in plural, so ‘melodies’ is more faithful grammatically. But neither ‘melodies’ nor ‘music’ captures the register of the original; and between the two, I think music is closer, so I’ll stick with that.
• One could go with ‘projects gone wrong’ instead of ‘work’ — but again, I think I’ll stick with work, because projects feels a bit too millenial.
• AS argues that ‘σταθερά’ refers to Antony’s psychological state, rather than his movement, and so a better translation to ‘go steadily to the window’ is ‘approach the window with composure’. I like this suggestion.
• Finally, AS suggests ‘without the cowards’ pleas’ instead of ‘without the coward’s pleas’; the original also uses the plural, but in this case, I much prefer the singular — I think it’s, well, more poetic. So this once I will deviate from the source.

My friend PAG makes the following suggestions:

• ‘favoured’ or ‘honoured’ instead of ‘deemed worthy’. Both work, but as I noted in my first post, the Greek ‘αξιώθηκες’ has slight connotations of the judgement being made by a super-human force. I think ‘deemed worthy’ is closer to that sense than ‘honoured’; ‘favoured’ does seem more divine, but less linked to worth.
• ‘listen with open heart/tenderness’ instead of ‘with deep emotion’. Here I respectfully disagree with PAG — I think ‘deep emotion’ is closer to (what I think was) Cavafy’s intention.
• ‘do not deign to hold out empty hopes like this’ is clunky. PAG thinks something like ‘you are above these empty hopes’ is more appropriate. I think he’s right (though the wording needs to change to an instruction — ‘rise above these [or such?] empty hopes’). I did not consider this in my first post, as I was trying to stick to the original as much as possible, but I think it’s a good suggestion.
• Playing around with punctuation on the ‘your luck that is running out […]’ verse. I think I can combine with idea with my mother-in-law’s suggestion — ‘ — do not mourn these in vain’.

Finally, my great-uncle VC shared my translation with a scholar, SG, who has worked on Cavafy. SG commented more on my analysis of the differences between K&S and E.S., rather than on my own translation. In my post, I noted that I much prefer the K&S version, as I found the E.S. one too grand, too melodramatic. But SG notes that E.S.’s translation maintains the original’s iambus — something I myself hadn’t noticed. So that’s worth keeping in mind.

With these changes, the new translation looks like this:

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear

an invisible procession going by,

with exquisite music, with voices,

your luck that is running out, your work

gone wrong, your life’s plans that were all

proven illusions — do not mourn these in vain.

As one long prepared, and with courage,

say goodbye to her, to Alexandria that is leaving.

Above all, do not fool yourself, do not say

that it was a dream, that your ears deceived you;

rise above such empty hopes.

As one long prepared, and with courage,

As befits you, who were deemed worthy of such a city,

approach the window with composure,

and listen with deep emotion, but without

the coward’s pleas and whining,

listen, as a final pleasure, to the sounds,

the exquisite instruments of the mystical procession,

and say goodbye to her, to Alexandria that you are losing.