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Trinity Journal of Literary Translation | 1 by Alicia Mitchell 2 Editorial When JoLT began to take shape two years ago it was not immediately obvious that it would have received as much support as it did, or that that support would increase day by day. I am very grateful to the members of the Executive board who have served for two years alongside me, and those who stepped in at various stages to help keep the publication running. A lot of us are moving on from Trinity at the end of this year, and I would like to wish everyone the best of luck in the future, hoping you will look back to these days with a smile—remembering that the long editing sessions, constantly jammed email inboxes, and impossibly long to-do lists would not have been overcome without you, and the publication would not have survived its early days. As well as the board members, the language editors have played their ever-important role, often while juggling submissions of their own and academic assignments (alongside all sorts of other responsibilities). Also, I would like to thank the sponsors of the publication for their continued faith, and renewed pledges; without the School of English, the School of Languages, Trinity Publications and the Alumni Association you would not be reading the second volume of JoLT. This year, the committee approached the selection of a theme very carefully—hoping to identify a one-word aesthetic statement that would communicate a number of important concepts in translation, while also allowing for free interpretation. ‘Outlandish’ was chosen from a number of other potential candidates, and we believe it best expresses a number of key concerns for translators: the otherness of the translator who straddles two (or sometimes more) semantic spaces, the topographical linguistic difficulties represented by dialect translation (something we have given special emphasis to this year), and the otherness of. This year marks a number of firsts for the publication, chief of which is the presentation of a variety of feature contributors—whom we thank for their generous contribution—Ciaran Carson, James Reidel, Finn O’Connor and Nicholas Johnson. This volume also marks the first inclusion of a translation from English into Irish. While the latter may seem contradict one of the basic principles of the publication, the board wishes to recognize that Irish is more than nominally an official language of the college. The board agreed to engage in this niche earlier this year, and we are now happy to announce that the presence of translations into Irish should constitutionally feature in all future JoLTs. The constitution which has been drawn up will soon be available online, and it is officially presented—concomitant with the launch of this volume—in order for the board to receive comments before ratifying it in the coming months. We hope our readers will take the time to read it and let us know their thoughts. Trinity Journal of Literary Translation | 3 I must add a crucial thank you for all the translators that have submitted work to this year’s edition. We received work from across the English-speaking world; students from as far apart as Los Angeles and London have contributed towards the 18 languages in this volume (we have succeeded in beating last year’s 16!). The inclusion of JoLT’s first translations from Hittite, Afrikaans and Bulgarian (as well as many more languages) represents only one of the milestones reached this year. The EBSCOHost indexing, alongside cataloguing requests from a number of libraries across Ireland, mark important steps in the growth of the journal, and which we are very proud and happy to announce. As with last year, a lot of good work had to be turned down for reasons of space, but we hope everyone will maintain their relationship with JoLT and submit next year, as well as in the future. Finally, I’d like to announce that, after a long selection process, the Chief Editor of JoLT Volume III (2014-15) will be Áine Josephine Tyrrell, who is currently completing her third year of studies in TSM English & Drama. Claudio Sansone Chief Editor The JoLT Staff Claudio Sansone Chief Editor Kerstina Mortensen Chief Language Editor Thady Senior Webmaster, Design & Layout Editor Executive Board Lola Boorman Public Relations Officer Caroline Boreham Communications Officer Jessica Bernard Treasurer { Dr. Peter Arnds Faculty Advisor Hadewych van Heugten Mark Kenny Patricia Gonzalez Language Editors Aneta Woźniak Ursula Scott { Jonathan Baum 4 Copyright Every effort was made by translators and editors to secure copyright wherever it was necessary. If you feel your work has been published here without consent or in a form that is inappropriate, please contact us immediately and we will ratify it and/or make amends in the errata to our online edition as soon as possible. We regret that in certain places translations had to be published without the original text and sources to reflect the wishes of certain estates and the inability of reaching the appropriate bodies. Contents Illustration: JoLT 1 A True Portrait of the Author 47 by Alicia Mitchell trans. John Kearns Editorial 2 Lemko Elegy 49 trans. John Kearns Featured Translator: Ciaran Carson The Given Name 7 Online: In the Lemko Graveyard 51 Urban Warfare 9 trans. John Kearns Deor 11 Online: Jack Kerouac 53 trans. Gerard Hynes trans. Maarten Walraven & François-Carl Svenbro Beowulf 15 trans. Helen Conrad-O’Briain Online: To Rika 57 trans. Sherence De Jongh The Myth of Illuyanka 17 trans. Naomi Harris The Poetess 59 trans. Sherence De Jongh Compert Con Culainn 19 trans. Julie Leblanc Online: Wouldn’t You Believe It? 61 trans. Andrés Alfaro From The Catalogue of Women 21 trans. Claudio Sansone Psalm 136. Super flumina Babylonis 73 trans. Bernard Mackey Prayer for Charasos 23 trans. Claudio Sansone Online: The Concoction of Friends 75 trans. Keith Payne Featured Translator: James Reidel Online: The Saint 27 Pagan Rome or the Poster at the Entrance to the Cinema II 79 Winter Path in A Minor 29 trans. Keith Payne Online: De profundis 31 Online: Psalm 33 Online: The Woman Who Weaves II 81 Online: Elis 37 trans. Keith Payne Sebastian Dreaming 41 Online: Time Added 83 trans. Keith Payne Trinity Journal of Literary Translation | 5 Gaetano Cellini, “L’umanità contro il male” (1908) Online: The Widows 85 Online: An Old Man 139 trans. Keith Payne trans. Caroline Boreham Online: The Silkworms 87 At the Grand Theatre in Paris 141 trans. Ursula Meany Scott trans. Aaron Carr Featured Translator: Finn O’Connor Time of Sucession 147 Michelangelo 21 103 trans. Venina Kalistratova Michelangelo 94 105 Online: Aviva-No 153 Michelangelo 95 107 trans. Yael Segalovitz Online: Michelangelo 101 109 Invictus 161 Online: Michelangelo 103 111 trans. Colm Mac Gearailt Online: Michelangelo 151 113 Online: Michelangelo 161 115 Featured Translator: Nicholas Johnson Online: Michelangelo 247 117 On Translating Ernst Toller’s Die Maschinenstürmer 162 Online: A House Made of Stone 119 Prologue 169 trans. Emily Drumsta A Yiddish / Hiberno-English Dictionary 178 Online: Onward, onward, noble steed 129 by Sam Slote trans. Emily Drumsta Online: Dialect to dialect translation: Online: The Sea 135 Belli, Burgess, Garioch 180 trans. Caroline Boreham by Jim Clarke House with a Garden 137 trans. Caroline Boreham 6 | French • Featured Translator: Carson Featured Translator: Ciaran Carson These poems are part of a projected book, working title From Elsewhere. Those with French/English titles are my translations of poems by Jean Follain (1903-1971); those with English titles are my response to the translations, whether spins on them, or takes on them. In other words, they form a dialogue of sorts. Paroles: The Given Words There was talk of alleged love affairs around the antique table well versed with worm the iron warming on the stove a pot of lentils stewing darkly through the open doorway the beauty of the tart foliage and some birds with red throats in the face of human words ruled by a time-tested syntax took one’s breath away. Trinity Journal of Literary Translation | 7 The Given Name In a junk shop from a bookcase riddled with woodworm he takes a book blows the dust from it opens it at a coloured plate to behold the emerald bird that dazzled for a moment on the threshold of the world outside his door threescore years ago whose name he did not know until now. 8 | French • Featured Translator: Carson L’affiche: The Poster The boy bouncing a barrel hoop along for want of a toy one runs whooping to himself but to him who comes to spell out under the N and the imperial eagle the words of the conscription poster the old man in the uneasy sunshine drinking a glass of rough cider has just this to say: “the next century will be worse” in spite of which the lovers passing him by go on singing. Trinity Journal of Literary Translation | 9 Urban Warfare A soldier from a foot patrol hunkers in a doorway gun scanning the length of the street whatever might happen next unblinkingly a woman passes wheeling a pram, the soldier remembers a child opening his eyes to a blue sky a white cloud the sound of a bird singing from a rooftop. 10 | Old English Deor Welund him be wurman wræces cunnade, anhydig eorl earfoþa dreag, hæfde him to gesiþþe sorge ond longaþ, wintercealde wræce; wean oft onfond, 5 siþþan hine Niðhad on nede legde, swoncre seonobende on syllan monn. Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg! Beadohilde ne wæs hyre broþra deaþ on sefan swa sar swa hyre sylfre þing, 10 þæt heo gearolice ongieten hæfde þæt heo eacen wæs; æfre ne meahte þriste geþencan, hu ymb þæt sceolde.