It’s time I mentioned my favourite book on translation: Le Ton beau de Marot – In Praise of the Music of Language, by Douglas Hofstadter, whom many will know as the author of Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
Le Ton Beau (a play on words on “tombeau”) takes as its starting point a short poem by Clément Marot, written in 1537. Here is that poem, and an English translation by Hofstadter:
| A une Damoyselle malade Clément Marot |
My Sweet Dear Douglas Hofstadter |
| Ma mignonne, Je vous donne Le bon jour ; Le séjour C’est prison. Guérison Recouvrez, Puis ouvrez Votre porte Et qu’on sorte Vitement, Car Clément Le vous mande. Va, friande De ta bouche, Qui se couche En danger Pour manger Confitures ; Si tu dures Trop malade, Couleur fade Tu prendras, Et perdras L’embonpoint. Dieu te doint Santé bonne, Ma mignonne. |
My sweet dear, I send cheer — All the best! Your forced rest Is like jail. So don’t ail Very long. Just get strong — Go outside, Take a ride! Do it quick, Stay not sick — Ban your ache, For my sake! Buttered bread While in bed Makes a mess, So unless You would choose That bad news, I suggest That you’d best Soon arise, So your eyes Will not glaze. Douglas prays Health be near, My sweet dear. |
Hofstaedter sent the poem to dozens of friends and colleagues and asked them to have a go at translating it, (mostly but not exclusively into English) and their efforts are scattered throughout the book and serve as a pretext for an extensive study of the art and theory of translation.
It’s full of wonderful examples and ideas and insights. And Hofstadter thinks of translators as interpreters, rather like musical performers. How is it, he asks, that a recital by a famous pianist can be advertised without reference to the composers whose music is to be played, and yet an English translation of Pushkin’s Evgenii Onegin can be published without any reference to the translator as “A Russian novel in verse”?
