Shakespeare in translation [updated]

1/ A Shakespeare fan never runs out of things to read. 

I’ve been enjoying If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation by Daniel Hahn. 

When the Royal Shakespeare Company commemorated the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, they had a sketch in which a bunch of (famous) Shakespearean actors argued about where to put the emphasis in “To be or not to be, that is the question”—the first “be”? the second “be”? “or”? “not”? “to”? “that”? “is”? “question”? In one chapter of If This Be Magic, Hahn listed (and briefly discussed) 15 different translations of the line into Spanish. 

A translator has to think about meaning, double meaning, ambiguity, tone, register, the constraints of language, the choice to make when a word in the source language is ambiguous but has to be one or the other in the target language, etc.; a translator of Shakespeare also has to think about verse form, rhyme, rhythm, metre, sound, speed, emphasis, performance, dramatic effects, puns, jokes, wordplay, homophones, etc. Much is lost in translation but also much is gained, Hahn argues (though of course he would say that, as he’s a translator himself). It’s a thought-provoking and fascinating book, and I like that he’s funny. 

(My only regret is that the book doesn’t discuss Vietnamese; it also doesn’t include Norwegian, but I’d make do with Danish).  

A similar book about translations of Homer (into English) would also be interesting, though of course I would understand it less as I can’t read Homer in the original.

If you like Shakespeare and/or language and translation, read If This Be Magic. 

2/ Is Shakespeare in translation still Shakespeare? I tend to think not. But it’s a fact—an interesting fact—that Shakespeare is one of the few playwrights who hold the global stage very well in translation. If we compare French dramatists, Molière is performed widely in many languages around the world—I have read Molière as translated by 5-6 different people and he’s always a hoot—but Racine doesn’t have the same appeal. When people read or watch Shakespeare in translation, his poetry is lost but his other qualities—his metaphors, his range, his characterisation and psychological insight, his examination of power and politics, his understanding of human nature, his sense of pacing and understanding of drama, and so on—are still there. When I read Racine, I suspected that much of his greatness was in the French alexandrine verse that got lost in translation.

Shakespeare in Swahililand by Edward Wilson-Lee is also an interesting read by the way. 

3/ I suppose I don’t need to tell you what I think about translating Shakespeare from English into (today’s) English. 

Have you heard of Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Retold by James Anthony? Let me ruin your evening/ morning. 

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29: 

When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes

I all alone beweep my out-cast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate.

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

(Like to the Lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at Heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,

That then I scorn to change my state with Kings.

James Anthony’s rewriting: 

What awful luck! I’ve been humiliated,

And so I sob alone for no one cares;

Not even God hears I’m infuriated;

Only my mirror duplicates my swears.

I wish I could be far more optimistic,

With ample friends who’ve got so much to say,

Like writers, thinkers, anyone artistic

Who’d help me look on life a different way.

Yet when I’m in despair, with self-made scorn,

I fondly think of you, then thoughts deploy,

Just like a warbling songbird marking dawn,

Alleviating pain with songs of joy.

For when I dream of you, my heart grows rich;

If offered wealth, I would decline to switch.

Ugh. 

Addendum: I suppose I could (and should) say that Daniel Hahn’s book is less about Shakespeare—whether Shakespeare is still Shakespeare in translation, why he has held the world stage so well for hundreds of years, and so on—than about the art of translation and the creativity of translators. The idea is essentially, this is what Shakespeare wrote and what he was doing, and these are the constraints of the language, so what do the translators do with it? 

Thơ Hồ Xuân Hương về phụ nữ

Hồi trước, tôi đã gom lại một mớ bài thơ tục của Hồ Xuân Hương. Nhưng Hồ Xuân Hương tất nhiên đâu chỉ viết thơ tục. Giờ gom lại một số bài về phụ nữ.

 

Bánh trôi nước

Thân em vừa trắng lại vừa tròn,

Bảy nổi ba chìm với nước non.

Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn

Mà em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son.

 

Thương thay phận gái

Thương thay phận gái cũng là người

Nỡ bỏ xuân xanh quá nửa đời

Ông Nguyệt nỡ nào trêu quải mãi

Chị Hằng khéo nhẽ éo le thôi

Hoa còn phong nhụy ong ve vãn

Gió đã phai hương bướm tả tơi

Quá ngán thợ trời ghê gớm bấy

Xuân xanh được mấy chút thương ôi

 

Thương ôi phận gái

Thương ôi phận gái cũng là chồng

Ghét bỏ nhau chi hỡi Nguyệt ông

Rồng tắm ao tù từng phận tủi

Mưa gieo xuống giếng uổng lòng mong

Xót thân hoa nở song lầm cát

Thẹn mặt trần ai đứng giữa vòng

U hẳn tiền nhân sao đấy tá

Thôi đành một kiếp thế cho xong

 

Lấy chồng chung

Kẻ đắp chăn bông kẻ lạnh lùng

Chém cha cái kiếp lấy chồng chung

Năm chừng mười họa hay chăng chớ

Một tháng đôi lần có cũng không

Cố đấm ăn xôi xôi lại hỏng

Cầm bằng làm mướn mướn không công

Nỗi này ví biết dường này nhỉ

Thời trước thôi đành ở vậy xong

 

Thương

Há dám thương đâu kẻ có chồng,

Thương vì một nỗi hãy còn không.

Thương con cuốc rũ kêu mùa Hạ,

Thương cái bèo non giạt bể Đông.

Thương cha mẹ nhện vương tơ lưới,

Thương vợ chồng Ngâu cách mặt sông.

Ấy thương quân tử thương là thế,

Há dám thương đâu kẻ có chồng...

 

Không chồng mà chửa

Cả nể cho nên hoá dở dang,

Sự này có thấu hỡi chăng chàng.

Duyên thiên chưa thấy nhô đầu dọc,

Phận liễu sao mà nảy nét ngang.

Cái tội trăm năm chàng chịu cả,

Chữ tình một khối thiếp xin mang.

Quản chi miệng thế lời chênh lệch,

Chẳng thế nhưng mà thế mấy ngoan.

 

Thân phận người đàn bà

Hỡi chị em ơi có biết không

Một bên con khóc một bên chồng.

Bố cu lổm ngổm bò trên bụng,

Thằng bé hu hơ khóc dưới hông.

Tất cả những là thu với vén

Vội vàng nào những bống cùng bông.

Chồng con cái nợ là như thế,

Hỡi chị em ơi có biết không?

 

Hồ Xuân Hương 

Lúc nào đó chắc phải nhìn thử mấy bản dịch tiếng Anh xem thế nào.

7 Greeks: Translations by Guy Davenport

The first thing I’m gonna say is that I don’t particularly like reading poetry in translation (look, I don’t even read much poetry in the original). However, Tom (Wuthering Expectations) gave me this book because of my fascination with the ancient Greece, so here we go. And it’s interesting.   

Artilochos 

A bigger problem than reading in translation is that we don’t have the poems in their entirety—only fragments. Artilochos seems good though. 

There are some interesting bits about war. 

3 

Let him go ahead. 

Ares is a democrat. 

There are no privileged people 

On a battle field. 

184 

In the hospitality of war

We left them their dead 

As a gift to remember us by.

My favourite bits are the dirty, raunchy ones. 

11 

Like Odysseus under the ram 

You have clung under your lovers 

And under your love of lust, 

Seeing nothing else for this mist, 

Dark of heart, dark of mind. 

36 

He comes, in bed, 

As copiously as 

A Prienian ass

And is equipped 

Like a stallion. 

96 

To engage with an insatiable girl, 

Ramming belly against belly, 

Thigh riding against thigh. 

These horny poems make me think of Aristophanes. 

Sappho 

I have read Sappho before, in the Penguin translation by Aaron Poochigian. I know she’s important and highly regarded, but can’t say I have any strong feelings about the fragments I’ve read. 

I suppose I like these: 

15 

Desire has shaken my mind

As wind in the mountain forests 

Roars through trees. 

65 

I

Percussion, salt and honey, 

A quivering in the thighs; 

He shakes me all over again, 

Eros who cannot be thrown, 

Who stalks on all fours

Like a beast. 

II 

Eros makes me shiver again

Strengthens in the knees, 

Eros gall and honey, 

Snake-sly, invisible. 

213 

I 

The moon has set, and the Pleiades, 

It is the middle of the night, 

Hour follows hour. I lie alone. 

II 

The moon has gone 

To her Endymion 

The Pleiades

Their seven lovers please. 

Since Esperos glistened 

And the moon rose red

I have listened 

Alone in my bed. 

Alkman 

Judging by these fragments, the poems of Alkman (or Alcman) aren’t raunchy like the poems of Artilochos, nor erotic like Sappho’s.  

4 

There is the god’s revenge. 

Happy the man of calm mind 

who weaves his day 

unweeping. But I sing

the light of Agido: I see 

her as the sun, which she, 

Agido, calls 

to shine, its witness. 

But I may not 

praise or blame her. 

Our mastersinger

must come first, 

as in a field

the sleek, galloping 

stallion, 

winner of races, 

stands apart, 

as if seen in a dream. 

I like that image. 

7 

And is not Hagesikhora, 

the fine-ankled, ours? 

Does not she keep close to Agido? 

She honors the feastday. 

Hear them, gods, 

gods whose ends they fulfil. 

O choirmaster, 

I am a mere girl, 

I sing like the rafter owl, 

yet I sing

to welcome the goddess of the dawn, 

the queller of pain, 

the Hagesikhora has led us 

the lovely way to peace. 

Anakreon 

Guy Davenport has a rather interesting section in the Introduction talking about the real Anakreon versus a group of poems by imitators that “inspired and was imitated so beautifully by Belleau, Ronard, and Herrick” (it wasn’t discovered till the 19th century that those poems were not by Anakreon). 

The fragments in this book are by the real Anakreon. 

I like a few. 

19 

In the month of Posideion, 

When the clouds are fat with rain, 

Wild storms bring us Zeus. 

20 

Can myrrh rubbed on a chest 

Sweeten the great round heart inside? 

33 

I climb the white cliff again 

To throw myself into the grey sea, 

Drunk with love again. 

53 

And now my hair is thin and white, 

Grizzled the locks above my ears. 

Youth’s gone, and with it, all delight. 

My teeth are going with the years. 

What time remains is short and sweet. 

Therefore I often cry and dread 

Dark Tartaros where I shall meet 

In dreary rooms the weeping dead. 

For Hades’ house is dark, and black

The downward road, the hateful way, 

Unwilling and with no way back, 

Downward ever, and there to stay.

Who says the ancient Greeks were alien? Who says we can’t relate to their writings? 

Herakleitos 

Better known as Heraclitus, he’s a philosopher, not a poet like the previous ones in the collection. His central ideas are the unity of opposites, and change (everything is constantly changing, becoming). 

Ovid may have been influenced by him? 

21 

One cannot step twice into the same river, for the water into which you first stepped has flowed on.

I didn’t know that line was from an ancient Greek! 

65

At night we extinguish the lamp and go to sleep; at death our lamp is extinguished and we go to sleep.

101 

Sea water is both fresh and foul: excellent for fish, poison to men. 

Diogenes 

Another philosopher. I don’t particularly care for his writings. 

There are just some funny lines. 

17 

How proud you are of not being proud, Plato says, and I reply that there is pride and pride. 

58 

I’m turning that invitation down: the last time I was there, they were not thankful enough that I came. 

Herondas

Herondas (or Herodas) was a poet who wrote “mimos, or mime played by a single maskless actor taking all the parts, probably in city squares of an afternoon or on small stages in wine shops”, notes Guy Davenport.  

I have nothing to say, as I just find them strange—unlike any drama I’ve read. Judging by Herondas and Aristophanes, the ancient Greeks seem to like bawdy jokes. 

My favourites in the collection are Artilochos, Anakreon, and Herakleitos. 

A few sonnets I like from the 16th and 17th centuries

I’ve never been much of a poetry person. I thought Shakespeare would be my gateway into poetry, but no. Or rather, I do like dramatic and epic poetry—it’s lyric poetry that I struggle with, except for Shakespeare’s sonnets and some poems here and there by Donne, Milton, Keats, Tennyson, etc. I like stories, that’s the thing, and I like characters (my love for Shakespeare’s sonnets is possibly because I read them as part of a sequence, and there are characters). 

Anyway, that’s why I picked up The Oxford Book of Sonnets, to try to get into poetry. Here are some sonnets I like from the 16th and 17th centuries that were not by Shakespeare (in the same order as in the book).  

Edmund Spenser 

Amoretti LXXV

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

“Vain man,” said she, “that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalise;

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise.”

“Not so,” (quoth I) “let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,

And in the heavens write your glorious name:

Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew.”

Amoretti LXXVII

Was it a dream, or did I see it plain,

A goodly table of pure ivory:

All spread with junkets, fit to entertain

The greatest prince with pompous royalty.

’Mongst which there in a silver dish did lie

Two golden apples of unvalued price:

Far passing those which Hercules came by,

Or those which Atalanta did entice.

Exceeding sweet, yet void of sinful vice,

That many sought yet none could ever taste,

Sweet fruit of pleasure brought from paradise

By love himself, and in his garden placed.

Her breast that table was so richly spread,

My thoughts the guests, which would thereon have fed.

Sir Philip Sidney 

Astrophil and Stella 39 

Come Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,

The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,

The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release,

Th’ indifferent judge between the high and low.

With shield of proof shield me from out the press

Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw:

O make in me those civil wars to cease;

I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.

Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,

A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,

A rosy garland and a weary head:

And if these things, as being thine by right,

Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,

Livelier than elsewhere, Stella’s image see.

Samuel Daniel 

Delia 45 

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,

Brother to Death, in silent darkness born:

Relieve my languish, and restore the light,

With dark forgetting of my cares, return;

And let the day be time enough to mourn

The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth:

Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,

Without the torment of the night’s untruth.

Cease dreams, th’ imagery of our day-desires,

To model forth the passions of the morrow;

Never let rising sun approve you liars,

To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.

Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain;

And never wake to feel the day’s disdain.

John Donne 

I am a little world made cunningly

Of elements and an angelic sprite,

But black sin hath betray’d to endless night

My world’s both parts, and oh both parts must die.

You which beyond that heaven which was most high

Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write,

Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might

Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,

Or wash it, if it must be drown’d no more.

But oh it must be burnt; alas the fire

Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore,

And made it fouler; let their flames retire,

And burn me O Lord, with a fiery zeal

Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal.

At the round earth’s imagin’d corners, blow

Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise

From death, you numberless infinities

Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go;

All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’erthrow,

All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,

Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you whose eyes

Shall behold God and never taste death’s woe.

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,

For if above all these my sins abound,

’Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace

When we are there; here on this lowly ground

Teach me how to repent; for that’s as good

As if thou’hadst sealed my pardon with thy blood.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurped town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,

But am betrothed unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

William Habington 

To Castara. Upon Beauty

Castara, see that dust, the sportive wind

So wantons with. ’Tis happ’ly all you’ll find 

Left of some beauty: and how still it flies,

To trouble, as it did in life, our eyes.

O empty boast of flesh! Though our heirs gild

The far fetch Phrigian marble, which shall build

A burthen to our ashes, yet will death

Betray them to the sport of every breath.

Dost thou, poor relic of our frailty, still

Swell up with glory? Or is it thy skill,

To mock weak man, whom every wind of praise

Into the air, doth ’bove his centre raise.

If so, mock on. And tell him that his lust

To beauty’s madness. For it courts but dust.

John Milton 

Sonnet 19 

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide;

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need

Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Sonnet 23 

Methought I saw my late espoused saint

Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,

Whom Jove’s great son to her glad husband gave,

Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint.

Mine, as whom wash’d from spot of child-bed taint

Purification in the old Law did save,

And such as yet once more I trust to have

Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,

Came vested all in white, pure as her mind;

Her face was veiled, yet to my fancied sight

Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined

So clear as in no face with more delight.

But Oh! as to embrace me she inclined,

I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

Aphra Behn 

Epitaph on the Tombstone of a Child, the Last of Seven that Died Before

This little, silent, gloomy monument, 

Contains all that was sweet and innocent;

The softest prattler that e’er found a tongue,

His voice was music and his words a song,

Which now each listening angel smiling hears,

Such pretty harmonies compose the spheres;

Wanton as unfledged cupids, ere their charms

Has learned the little arts of doing harms,

Fair as young cherubins, as soft and kind,

And though translated could not be refined,

The seventh dear pledge the nuptial joys had given,

Toiled here on earth, retired to rest in heaven, 

Where they the shining host of angels fill,

Spread their gay wings before the throne, and smile.

Reading the Bible: Judges, Ruth

1/ Judges and Ruth precede the Books of Samuel—I’ve been reading the Bible in the wrong order, I know, but then I don’t think Christians read the Bible from cover to cover, so…

Like the Books of Kings, the Book of Judges is drearily repetitive: the clause “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD” appears over and over again. The narrative is a cycle of the children of Israel betraying God and being punished and getting saved and again betraying God, over and over again. One interesting thing I’ve noted however is the use of the phrase “went a whoring”—nothing to do with whoredom/ prostitution/ promiscuity—to mean betraying God (Yahweh) and worshipping Baal/ Baalim. 

There are some violent images. 

“Then Jael Heber’s wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.” (Judges 4:21) 

That’s disturbing, no? 

“She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.

At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.” (Judges 5:26-27) 

Christians probably won’t like that I say this, but reading the Bible out of interest in its influence on Western culture and literature means that one has to wade through lots of tedious stuff and violent stuff. 

“And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech’s head, and all to brake his skull.

[…] Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren:

And all the evil of the men of Shechem did God render upon their heads: and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.” (Judges 9:53-57) 

2/ The highlight of the Book of Judges—so people say—is the story of Samson. I can see that there are striking and iconic images—Samson killing a young lion with his bare hands and eating honey from its carcass, Samson killing 1000 men with an ass’s jawbone, Samson pulling down the pillars and killing the Philistines together with himself, and so on—but the story of him and Delilah is plain silly. Look at it: three times Delilah asks about his weakness; three times she tries it and delivers him to the Philistines; and yet he not only stays with her but also tells her the truth so that he loses his superhuman strength and falls into the hands of the Philistines? It’s on him, I’m afraid. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; etc. 

This is not a story about a woman’s treachery, but about a man who thinks with his other head. My complaint is that the Bible doesn’t depict his passion and doesn’t give us their thoughts—I don’t know what goes through Samson’s (stupid) mind when he decides to tell Delilah his weakness after all she has done.  

3/ The Book of Judges also contains the story of the Levite’s concubine, which is brutal and horrific—from the gang rape of the concubine, to the war afterwards between the children of Israel and the children of Benjamin. 

This is especially disturbing: 

“But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go.

[…] And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel.” (Judges 19:25-29) 

It’s odd though that the Levite and his concubine aren’t named; it’s also odd that the Bible doesn’t quite explain why the concubine leaves him at the beginning of the story and returns to her father.  

4/ The Book of Ruth I do like much better, as it’s about the relationship between Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth. Naomi, having lost her husband and then both her sons, decides to return home and urges the daughters-in-law to go back to their own parents, but Ruth refuses. 

“And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.” (Ruth 1:16-17)

It is so moving.  

This is also moving, when Naomi returns to Bethlehem: 

“And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.

I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?” (Ruth 1:20-21) 

I didn’t know the meanings of Naomi (pleasant, sweet, delightful) and Mara (bitter), but I could guess—I could feel her anguish in the lines. 

5/ I must thank Himadri (Argumentative Old Git) for reminding me of these lines in “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats: 

“Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

         Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

                She stood in tears amid the alien corn…” 

I have always liked Keats. Must read more. 

Reading the Bible: Genesis

1/ Not only did I not grow up in a (culturally) Christian country, I grew up in Vietnam, a communist and thus anti-religious country—I only knew about Adam, Eve, Noah, and Jesus—all the biblical references in classic literature and art flew over my head. It’s a big hole, I know. That’s why I’m now reading the King James Bible. 

Honestly if you’re a Christian, you might want to skip all these Bible posts so as not to read the thoughts of a bumbling idiot. 

2/ Is it not fascinating that multiple ancient texts mention a great flood that destroys civilisation, as an act of divine retribution, or purifying humanity of corruption? We all know about the Great Flood in Genesis and I’ve now read it, but there’s also one in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and, as I’ve been told, in some other ancient texts. 

3/ I’ve finally encountered Ishmael! 

Abram (later Abraham) has a son with his Egyptian slave Hagar, named Ishmael, and a son with his wife Sarai (later Sarah), called Isaac. Isaac has two sons with his wife Rebekah, named Esau and Jacob (later renamed Israel). Ishmael has I don’t even know how many children. 

“And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” (Genesis 16:12)

Hagar and Ishmael are cast out when Sarai has her own son. Is that how the narrator of Moby-Dick sees himself? 

My next revisit of the novel is going to be interesting when I have known the Bible (and hopefully Paradise Lost), the way my second reading last year was more enriched when I had several years immersed myself in the works of Shakespeare. 

4/ A lot of stories in Genesis are quite disturbing: Abram being wiling to sacrifice his own son Isaac; Jacob deceiving his father Isaac and stealing the blessing meant for his brother Esau; Jacob getting tricked by Laban into sleeping with Leah when he only wants Rachel; God’s interference into Jacob’s family “And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren” (Genesis 29:31); Jacob’s other sons selling Joseph (son of Jacob and Rachel) to merchants; Judah (son of Jacob and Leah) having sex with Tamar, his daughter-in-law… 

Thanks to Himadri for sharing this poem though: 

“The Parable Of The Old Man And The Young”

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,

And took the fire with him, and a knife.

And as they sojourned both of them together,

Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,

But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,

And builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.

When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,

Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him, thy son.

Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,

A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

(Wilfred Owen) 

5/ The story of Jacob and Laban is referenced in The Merchant of Venice, when Shylock tells the story to justify usury.  

“ANTONIO This was a venture, sir, that Jacob served for, 

A thing not in his power to bring to pass, 

But swayed and fashioned by the hand of heaven. 

Was this inserted to make interest good? 

Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams? 

SHYLOCK I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast. 

But note me, signior—

ANTONIO Mark you this, Bassanio, 

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose…” 

(Act 1 scene 3) 

People can argue about these characters’ interpretations of the story, but the interesting thing to me is that Jacob cheats Laban but Laban has been trying to trick and exploit him, not different from the way Shylock tries to trick the Christian characters who have been using and abusing him; it’s also interesting to see that Jacob is not a morally good and passive character, but a trickster.

Let’s hope I’ll have some more interesting thoughts later on. 

The Rape of Lucrece—I have now read everything in the Shakespearean canon

1/ Published in 1594 (apparently written during a plague), The Rape of Lucrece was around the same time as Henry VI Part 1 (if we assume, as many scholars do, that it’s written after Part 2 and Part 3), Richard III, and The Comedy of Errors. Early Shakespeare. 

I can’t help wondering what a narrative poem, or epic poem, by Late Shakespeare would have been like.

One thing that fascinates me, now that I’ve read the Phaedra plays by Euripides and Racine, is that Shakespeare depicts sexual assault a few times (rape in The Rape of Lucrece and Titus Andronicus, attempted rape in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Tempest, sexual coercion in Measure for Measure); he depicts women getting falsely accused of cheating a few times (Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale); he even depicts women sexually assaulting men a few times (Venus and Adonis, All’s Well that Ends Well and arguably Measure for Measure—the bed trick); but he doesn’t seem to have much interest in the subject of women making false rape allegations. If only! A Phaedra play written by Shakespeare would have been fascinating. 

2/ I don’t have a lot to say about The Rape of Lucrece, so I’m just gonna poke at it from different angles.

The word “black” appears a lot through the poem: “so black a deed”, “blackest sin”, “black payment”, “black lust”, “Night’s black bosom”, etc. Contrasted with that is white—the colour of chastity and innocence. 

“When at Collatium this false lord arrived,

Well was he welcomed by the Roman dame,

Within whose face beauty and virtue strived

Which of them both should underprop her fame.

When virtue bragged, beauty would blush for shame;

    When beauty boasted blushes, in despite

    Virtue would stain that o’er with silver white.

But beauty, in that white intituled

From Venus’ doves, doth challenge that fair field.

Then virtue claims from beauty beauty’s red,

Which virtue gave the golden age to gild

Their silver cheeks, and called it then their shield;

    Teaching them thus to use it in the fight,

    When shame assailed, the red should fence the white.

This heraldry in Lucrece’ face was seen,

Argued by beauty’s red and virtue’s white.

Of either’s colour was the other queen,

Proving from world’s minority their right.

Yet their ambition makes them still to fight;

    The sovereignty of either being so great,

    That oft they interchange each other’s seat.”

The odd thing—odd to me—is the coupling of the colours white and red throughout the poem. 

“O how her fear did make her colour rise!

    First red as roses that on lawn we lay,

    Then white as lawn, the roses took away.” 

Again, white and red together: 

“Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.” 

Again: 

“… But she with vehement prayers urgeth still

    Under what colour he commits this ill.

Thus he replies: ‘The colour in thy face,

That even for anger makes the lily pale,

And the red rose blush at her own disgrace,

Shall plead for me and tell my loving tale.

Under that colour am I come to scale

    Thy never-conquered fort; the fault is thine,

    For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine…’” 

 

3/ The poem is thick with comparisons to animals and birds, which we see in Homer, in Ovid, in other poets, so I’d like to draw attention instead to other metaphors and similes that I find more interesting. 

“Far from the purpose of his coming thither,

He makes excuses for his being there.

No cloudy show of stormy blust’ring weather

Doth yet in his fair welkin once appear,

Till sable Night, mother of dread and fear,

    Upon the world dim darkness doth display,

    And in her vaulty prison stows the day.”

I like this: 

“… And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly,

    But coward-like with trembling terror die.”

Lots of interesting lines in the poem: 

“Tears harden lust, though marble wear with raining.” 

This is Lucrece after the rape: 

“‘.. O hateful, vaporous, and foggy night,

Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,

Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,

Make war against proportioned course of time;

Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb

    His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,

    Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.

‘With rotten damps ravish the morning air;

Let their exhaled unwholesome breaths make sick

The life of purity, the supreme fair,

Ere he arrive his weary noontide prick.

And let thy misty vapours march so thick,

    That in their smoky ranks his smothered light

    May set at noon and make perpetual night…’” 

All these metaphors are brilliant. The problem with Shakespeare’s depiction of Lucrece’s mind after the rape is that for some time he seems to get carried away by rhetoric, by metaphor, by language—Lucrece rails at Night, at Opportunity, at Time—that many stanzas are devoid of emotional depth and feel hollow, compared to numerous tragic passages in his plays. It gets better in the passages where Lucrece decides to kill herself: 

“My honour I’ll bequeath unto the knife

That wounds my body so dishonoured.

’Tis honour to deprive dishonoured life;

The one will live, the other being dead.

So of shame’s ashes shall my fame be bred,

    For in my death I murder shameful scorn;

    My shame so dead, mine honour is new born.”

That’s moving. But then Shakespeare gets bogged down in rhetorical digressions again when Lucrece looks at a painting of Troy—clearly inspired by the scene in the Aeneid—and compares herself to Troy and Tarquin to the brutal, treacherous Greeks (especially Sinon). It’s over-long, it’s mannered, it delays the climax. 

I like this passage though: 

“‘… Why should the private pleasure of some one

Become the public plague of many moe?

Let sin, alone committed, light alone

Upon his head that hath transgressed so;

Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe.

    For one’s offence why should so many fall,

    To plague a private sin in general?” 

But I shouldn’t be so negative. Colin Burrow’s introduction to The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Sonnets and Poems offers a thought-provoking analysis of The Rape of Lucrece, particularly the idea about reading (Tarquin reading/ interpreting the signs, Lucrece “reading” the painting, Lucrece imagining that strangers can read the guilt on her face, and so on) and the extent of Lucrece’s guilt (as Tarquin gives her a simulacrum of choice—either yield her body to him, or get raped, killed, placed next to the dead body of a slave, and forever defamed). The poem raises interesting questions about rape, choice, consent, and about Lucrece’s feeling of guilt and sense of inner taint. It’s also interesting because Lucrece is a victim of rape, but in choosing to name her rapist and then kill herself, she shapes the way her story will be told. 

4/ Having finished The Rape of Lucrece means I have now read everything in the Shakespearean canon. It was a good idea to save it—I understood the references to the Trojan War, and the allusions to the Aeneid. 

If I am to rank Shakespeare’s works, at the top would be most of the plays (the tragedies, then the Roman plays, then the history plays, then the comedies and romances), then the sonnets, then the narrative poems. The Rape of Lucrece I don’t like as much as Venus and Adonis—a lighter, sexier poem—but it’s definitely more sophisticated than Shakespeare’s early plays and the collaborations at the end of his career. 

PS: Please spare some thoughts and prayers, as we in the UK are experiencing an infernal heatwave. No air con and it’s especially bad in my room as I live in a literal little white attic. I’m getting baptised in hell-fire. I’m seeing demons. 

My 10 favourite literary works

A list of the 10 literary works I think about, or revisit, most often: 

• The Iliad 
• The Odyssey 
• King Lear 
• Othello 
• Shakespeare’s Sonnets 
• Don Quixote 
• War and Peace
• Anna Karenina 
• Moby-Dick 
• Mansfield Park

This looks quite basic, does it? But the central figures of my personal canon do happen to be Homer, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, so I can’t pretend they’re not, just to avoid being called pretentious. 

I refuse to choose between the Iliad and the Odyssey, the same way I refuse to choose between War and Peace and Anna Karenina. 

2 epic poems, 2 plays, 1 sonnet sequence, 5 novels (4 of which are over 700 pages). 2 in ancient Greek, 5 in the English language (4 English and 1 American), 1 in Spanish, 2 in Russian. 2 from the 8th century BC, 4 from the 17th century, 4 from the 19th century. All Western. 9 written by men.

If you have been reading my blog and/or my tweets, I’m sure I’ve been annoying enough about these works for any choices to be a surprise. Maybe the Sonnets, as I don’t blog about them, but I do revisit them often—there’s a Shakespeare sonnet for every mood (I went out yesterday and on the way home thought of Sonnet 34—guess what happened). The only surprises, I guess, are the exclusions of Greek tragedies (couldn’t pick one) and Chekhov’s stories (what do you do with short stories on such a list?)—a longer list of my personal canon would include Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, The Tale of Genji, all of Shakespeare, Molière, the (dirty) poems of Hồ Xuân Hương, Tom Jones, Hong lou meng (better known as Dream of the Red Chamber or Story of the Stone), Wuthering Heights, Charles Dickens, John Keats, Madame Bovary, The Brothers Karamazov, the plays of Henrik Ibsen (especially The Wild Duck and Rosmersholm), the short stories of Akutagawa, the short stories of Flannery O’Connor, The Metamorphosis (Kafka), Invisible Man, Lolita, Pnin, the poems of Hàn Mặc Tử (especially Đau thương), etc. 

The only thing that bothers me, which is perhaps irrational, is that my literary tastes are strongly Western. I am Vietnamese, I can read well two languages (my Norwegian isn’t on the same level), I spent years promoting East Asian classics, but in the end, my favourite 18th century novel is still Tom Jones, not Hong lou meng; my favourite female writer is still Jane Austen, not Murasaki Shikibu; the central figures of my personal canon are still Homer, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, not Nguyễn Du… Japanese cinema may be the one I know and love the best after English-language cinema, but in literature, my tastes are markedly Western. 

Does this mean I have lost my roots? Mất gốc? (The Vietnamese phrase carries much harsher overtones). 

I suppose the main thing is that I’m most fascinated by human nature and the human mind, and most interested in characters, which is probably also why I much prefer the Greeks to the Romans (you probably have noticed, with horror, the absence of Virgil and Ovid on my personal canon). Generally, Japanese writers—at least the ones I have read—don’t seem to explore the complexities and contradictions and irrationalities of people as we see in Western literature. Their characters are more opaque, even impressionistic; on the one hand, Japanese novels convey that sense of human mystery, the sense that we can never truly know another human being, which I like; but on the other hand, the characters also feel less alive, and don’t leave deep impressions on my mind like Akhilleus, Cleopatra, or Andrei Bolkonsky. The characters in Hong lou meng in comparison are alive, especially Shi Xiangyun (Sử Tương Vân) and Weng Xifeng (Vương Hy Phượng), but they don’t have the depth and complexity of Elektra, Hamlet, or Anna Karenina, and frankly I think Cao Xueqin takes a lot more pages to give life to a character (which Shakespeare can do in five words: “I was adored once too”). 

I’m also not much of a poetry person, despite liking the little I have read of Donne, Keats, Bùi Giáng, etc. I have The Oxford Book of English Verse, and lately have been slowly getting through The Oxford Book of Sonnets, trying to be less of a philistine, but unfortunately still have a strong taste for narratives and characters. My favourite poet (restricting to only those I can read in the original) is therefore a dramatic poet (and before you ask, I read Shakespeare’s sonnets as dramatic monologues, not autobiographical pieces). 

(If I were pretentious, as some people might call me, I would pretend to love poetry, but I acknowledge my failing).  

My tastes are also predominantly classic. When I first got into literature properly, I was mostly reading the 20th century, then slowly went further back, and further back. Over the years, those 20th century novels for some reason haven’t had a lasting impression, haven’t been part of my mental furniture—I barely remember much of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or Toni Morrison. But it’s not just because I read them in my late teens and early 20s, not just because I read them before finding my favourite writers—since my discovery of Tolstoy, Shakespeare, and others, I have read and enjoyed modern books only for them to have caused nothing but a few ripples in my mind—I haven’t found myself thinking about Muriel Spark, R. K. Narayan, or Soseki, for example. Even Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, which I read only last September and considered highly, has left no imprints. Shouldn’t they resonate more, being more recent? But they don’t, and I don’t know why. My favourite 20th century writer right now is possibly Primo Levi, but that’s non-fiction. 

It’s curious which works of literature speak to us and haunt our minds. 

On picking a translation

Under my last blog post, I got a comment from Thomas Parker asking how I selected translations, so let’s jot down some thoughts. 

1/ Anyone who loves Russian literature knows about the translation wars. Anna Karenina and War and Peace each have about a dozen translations—how do we choose? Here are my rules: never Constance Garnett (except her Chekhov); never Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Garnett, because she has a reputation for being fast and making mistakes and throwing out difficult passages. Pevear and Volokhonsky, because their sentences are clunky and I’m no fan of the literalist school of translation (nor am I a fan of their pumping out one translation after another of books that have been translated a million times—how convenient—contrast them with Robert Chandler, who introduced the Anglophone world to Vasily Grossman). 

Anna Karenina I’ve read in two translations—Aylmer and Louise Maude, and Rosamund Bartlett—both were enjoyable, I preferred the latter’s prose. 

War and Peace I’ve also read in two translations, and I tend to recommend Aylmer and Louise Maude, revised by Amy Mandelker. Other versions may modernise the language or anglicise the names or remove the French passages or remove the feminine endings in names—the Maude-Mandelker seems to be the best option—I want something close to the original without being clunky or awkwardly literal. 

My choice of Ignat Avsey for The Brothers Karamazov went against my general preference and habit (I’m full of contradictions), largely because of my struggle to get into Dostoyevsky in the translation of David McDuff. Next time will be a different version. It flowed well and I ended up loving the book, but once in a while something stuck out like a sore thumb, such as the phrase “my ex”. 

2/ It’s because of my wish for something close to the original that I read The Tale of Genji as translated by Royall Tyler. Madness. But Murasaki Shikibu referred to her characters by title or nickname or relation to someone else—the characters have no names—Royall Tyler retains the same effect and it reflects the world in which Murasaki and her characters live.  

As for you, read Seidensticker if you wish. No strong opinion there. But I would advise against Washburn—I know I’m no expert, but The Tale of Genji is a very subtle novel and Washburn removes all subtlety—he explicitly states that he incorporates explanations into the text itself rather than use notes. 

3/ If I read Chinese literature, which you may have noticed I don’t often do, it’s a matter of course that I would always go for a Vietnamese translation rather than an English one. 

So I might not be able to read Hong lou meng in the original, but at least I’m closer, much closer to it than an English speaker is. 

4/ More is lost in translation of poetry. Perhaps all is lost. Nguyễn Du in translation is no longer Nguyễn Du. Is Hàn Mặc Tử? Is Bùi Giáng? 

People ask me what I recommend for Truyện Kiều and I never know what to say except to stay away from Timothy Allen. 

5/ I haven’t read Pushkin, but then I also don’t read poetry in translation. 

But I don’t read poetry anyway, you’re going to say— but I do a little and will do more—even if I am to take the extreme position of never reading poetry in translation, there’s still a world of Vietnamese poetry and English poetry to read. 

6/ I might contradict myself and read Tang poetry in (Vietnamese) translation. 

7/ I’m sad I can’t read Cervantes, Flaubert, Proust, Pushkin, Homer… in the original. English native speakers complaining about Shakespeare’s English and saying that the rest of the world have the “advantage” of reading/ watching his plays in translation is something I could never understand.