Краткая антология переводов одного текста на один иностранный язык
В опросе приняли участие восемьсот человек, из них семь частично ответили на поставленный вопрос. Погрешность результатов опроса составила 3.62%. Первое место с колоссальным отрывом занял перевод #7. Автору перевода, англичанину Алану Майерсу, его собственный вариант тоже кажется очень хорошим. Он довольно нелицеприятно (впрочем, не называя имен) отзывается о почти каноническом переводе #13, также отмеченном как лучшим одним из участников нашего опроса:
Two modern American translators provide this version:
Insomnia. Homer. Taut sails.
I've read to the middle of the list of ships:
the strung-out flock, the stream of cranes
that once rose above Hellas.
Who could guess that the original rhyme scheme is ABBA, or that the first and last lines have twelve syllables each, the middle two thirteen, with a feminine ending? What trace is there of the poet's formal rhythmic skill which makes the verse so memorable - not to mention an internal rhyme in line 3? A sense of architectural poise is crucial to an understanding of Mandelstam's poetry, some notion of that unexpectedness of content within the traditional form which gives the poet his innocence and power. And yet the version quoted is accorded respect and praised as authoritative by literary critics. They render the last verse of the same poem:
The sea - Homer - it's all moved by love. But to whom
shall I listen? No sound now from Homer,
and the black sea roars like a speech
and thunders up the bed.
How far this departs from the original's form and force may be gathered from a comparison with a version of my own, which seeks at least to reproduce all the formal elements of the original.
Thus Homer, and the sea - love sets all things in motion.
To which shall I give ear? Now Homer says no more,
The dark declaiming waves, that melancholy roar
Bring surging round my bed the thunder of the ocean.
(Alan Myers, "Translating Russian poetry")
Почетное второе место занял перевод Александра Ситницкого (#16).
Уже после составления подборки переводов для опроса, я нашел статью Дэниела Уэбстера "Insomnia and Homer: A Comparative Study of Translations into English of an Early Poem by Osip Mandelstam", Translation Review, 2001, No. 60, pp. 20-30. В ней обсуждается пять переводов: наши #12 и #13, и три, которых я раньше не видел - Ирины Железновой, Джона Райли и самого Уэбстера. Как и Майерсу, Уэбстеру больше всего нравится собственный перевод. Для дополнения картинки, эти три перевода приведены ниже (вариант И.Железновой, по моему, мог бы выиграть конкурс на самый смешной перевод).
#27
Insomnia and Homer. Taut sails in the wind.
I count off a progress of ships that seems
Like a long brood of cranes that streamed
Once over Hellas without end.
A soft wedge of cranes that flew
To foreign seas that have crowned kings,
And swept over their waves on slender wings.
Without Helen, what is Troy to Greeks like you?
The sea and Homer. Everything is passion-laced.
But whom shall I listen to when the poet is mute
And only the sea is speaking, as it shoots
In black, coiling waves across my pillowcase?
Daniel Webster
#28
Insomnia. Homer. Bellied sails.
I counted half-way down the line of ships,
That drawn-out line, that flight of cranes which once
Upon a time rose above Hellas.
A wedge of cranes to foreign parts-
Foam of the gods on the heads of kings-
Where are you sailing? But for Helen, what
Is Troy to you, Achaeans?
Homer, the sea-everything-is love-moved. Whom
Shall I listen to? Look, Homer is silent,
And that orator, the black sea, brings
Its rhetoric, its heavy thunder, to my pillow.
John Riley
#29
Insomnia. White sails stretched taut in wind. The list
Of ships goes on and on. Insomnia and Homer:
A frothy brood of cranes, a feathered train that over
Old Hellas rose in times long past and veiled by mist.
By godly foam, by foam divine crowned are the kings,
The flight of cranes a wedge forced into alien borders.
What's Troy to you, O Greeks, without fair Helen? Hold you
Course for what distant shores on snowy canvas wings?
The sea, the sea and Homer-all is moved by passion.
Whom shall I listen to?... The poet silent keeps.
As for the sea-not so: it rants, it rants and weeps,
And, dark of wave, sweeps close, against my headboard dashing.
Irina Zheleznova