(Essential questions) Translator's words|Xiao Tianyou: Why did I use "quatrains" to translate Dante's "Divine Comedy" more than 700 years ago?
China News Service, Beijing, December 16th, title: Xiao Tianyou: Why did I use "quatrains" to translate Dante's "Divine Comedy" more than 700 years ago?
China News Agency reporter Ying Ni
The epic poem "The Divine Comedy" more than 700 years ago is presented to Chinese readers in the form of "quatrains" today, and the incomprehensible classics have become quite easy to read.
This is the result of decades of hard work by Xiao Tianyou, a well-known Italian literary translator and Italian professor at the University of International Business and Economics.
A few days ago, Xiao Tianyou accepted an exclusive interview with China News Service “Question about East and West” in Beijing to explain in detail his understanding of "Divine Comedy" and the ups and downs of the translation process.
Xiao Tianyou translated "The Divine Comedy".
China News Service sent the interviewee's picture
The transcript of the interview is as follows:
China News Agency reporter: Why did you choose "Queju" in the translation of "Divine Comedy"?
Xiao Tianyou:
Chinese readers have been exposed to "The Divine Comedy" since the beginning of the 20th century. So far there are three versions of the Chinese version of "Divine Comedy" directly translated from Italian. They are the prose version of "Divine Comedy" by Professor Tian Dewang of Peking University in 1990 and Mr. Huang Wenjie in 2000. The free verse version of "The Divine Comedy" and the metrical version of "The Divine Comedy" by the Hong Kong translator Mr. Huang Guobin.
The metric of Dante’s original poem is "eleven syllables and three rhythms". Each verse has eleven syllables, and every three verses constitute a verse. The final rhyme deduction is based on the first and third lines of a verse. The ending rhyme is the same, the second sentence uses another rhyme, but the ending rhyme of the second sentence should be used as the ending rhyme of the first and third verses of the next verse.
From the perspective of the above three elements, in the current three versions, "eleven syllables per sentence" cannot and does not need to be copied, because Chinese is not a Pinyin script and there is no syllable.
"Every three verses constitute a stanza" Professor Tian gave up, and both Mr. Huang's translations imitated.
However, only Mr. Huang Guobin imitated the interpretation of the final rhyme of Ding Yuan's poems.
I personally decided to abandon the three rhymes and use the "quatrains" in traditional Chinese poetry in a new way, because this form is more familiar to Chinese readers.
There are two ways of translating "The Divine Comedy": one is to grasp the content of the work and translate it into a concise and easy-to-read version, so that ordinary readers and those who want to dabble in Italian Renaissance literature but do not understand Italian can read this incomprehensible Masterpiece.
The other is for scholars and researchers to consider, the rhetoric does not avoid the past and the present, and the annotations strive to be detailed.
My translation pursues the first one, in addition to using words and sentence structures commonly used in modern Chinese, with as few annotations as possible.
China News Agency reporter: What is the biggest challenge in choosing the form of "quatrains"?
Xiao Tianyou:
Poems, especially classical poems, are almost rectangular or square in appearance, whether they are Chinese or foreign, and they are beautiful in form.
"Queju" poem translation requires a high level of foreign language and Chinese proficiency for the translator. The biggest challenge is to construct sentences in accordance with the Chinese grammar and poetry norms, and arrange the words and word order in accordance with the thinking habits of the Chinese.
The sentences of Dante's "Divine Comedy" are very long, and the three verses of a verse are often a compound sentence.
In other words, although each verse of the original language is not a complete and independent sentence, each verse of our traditional "quatrain" is a relatively complete and independent sentence or sentence component.
It is not easy to make such a conversion between Chinese and Italian languages.
For example, the three verses at the beginning of "Hells" are all long compound sentences, which must be simplified into short sentences in Chinese poetry.
The three verses at the beginning of "Hell".
Drawing by China News Agency reporter Zhang Jiuling
Adopting the traditional five-character, six-character, or seven-character alone is a lot of difficulties.
The Chinese language has undergone major changes after thousands of years.
Take the traditional five-character as an example. The well-known Li Bai's "Jing Ye Si" is mainly monosyllabic words, while modern Chinese monosyllabic words are becoming less and less, and di-syllable words are more and more, even three-syllable words and four-syllable words. There is a trend of dual-sounding, so it is impossible to stick to the traditional five-character.
In my translation practice, I try to use the traditional format of ancient poetry as much as possible. If it is really difficult to apply, I will derive the following rhyming formats: imitate the rhyming format of the first, second, and fourth sentences, and change to the first, third, and fourth sentence. The sentence rhymes, the second sentence does not rhyme, such as "there is another lion, / walks up to the face; / if a hungry lion roars, / the air will tremble"; refer to the rhyme of the second and fourth sentences, the first and third sentences In the non-rhyme format, change the first and third sentences to rhyme, and the second and fourth sentences do not rhyme, such as "I am the same,/with love and respect,/read your poems repeatedly/study the rhyme of your poems"; refer to the sentence The rhyming format is changed to rhyme for two adjacent sentences, that is, the first and second sentences rhyme with the third and fourth sentences respectively. That is to say, the rhyming method cannot be sticky.
In this way, the translation is fluent and easy to understand, which is in line with the positioning that the translation is "tailored for Chinese readers".
It is worth pointing out that no matter which version of "The Divine Comedy", it reflects the translator's ideas and choices in translating the "Divine Comedy", which is worthy of respect.
Different versions are developed on the basis of predecessors and need to be tested in practice.
China News Agency reporter: Why are you so obsessed with translating this work, doing such a huge project when you were eighty years old?
Xiao Tianyou:
From the perspective of world literature, Balzac's "Comedy on Earth", Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and Dante's "Divine Comedy" are all classic works.
"Divine Comedy" is the oldest and most influential work among these classics.
Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet" was obviously influenced by the love story of Francesca and Paul, the fifth song of "Inferno", and the composer Tchaikovsky based on it created "Françescas" "Da Rimini" Symphonic Fantasia.
As early as the 1990s, I had the idea of translating "The Divine Comedy".
After retiring at the end of 2013, I was determined to borrow ancient poetry to fulfill this wish.
For this reason, I have formulated a "three-year plan", and I will work 4 to 5 hours a day "I can't move."
In the autumn of 2017, the first draft was finally completed and a publishing contract was signed with the Commercial Press.
From submission to publication, I continued to repair and improve the manuscripts. In 2018, I added a "Chinese and Foreign Proper Nouns Comparison Table" at the end of each section to make some contributions to those engaged in research and translation.
After the official publication at the beginning of this year, it has been recognized by readers in just a few months. I am very pleased.
I hope this version of my translation in poetic style will enable readers to better understand the "Divine Comedy".
In the translation, I have also repeatedly obtained aphorisms.
For example, "Hell" writes, "You have to abandon laziness; sitting on a feather cushion or lying on a bed will not make you famous. If a person has no reputation and spends his entire life in vain, what is left to the world / can only be this This kind of trace; either in the wind or in the water. You must overcome the panting, get up quickly from the ground, and use your energy to defeat/your heavy body, so that it will not overwhelm you."
In November 2016, the modern magical dance "Dante's Divine Comedy" (trilogy) by the Italian Zero Gravity Dance Company debuted at the 18th China Shanghai International Arts Festival.
Photo by Song Jihe, China News Agency reporter
China News Agency reporter: "The Divine Comedy" is hailed as the "Encyclopedia of Medieval Civilization". What is the significance of reading it for contemporary Chinese readers?
Xiao Tianyou:
The biggest feature of "The Divine Comedy" is that it has a distinct moral and political orientation. The focus is on exposing the corruption of the Italian church at that time, as well as the chaos of secular life and politics.
Dante explained in a large amount of space that in Italy at the time, due to the pope’s dual powers of secular and religious powers, the greed of bishops and monks, and the buying and selling of priesthoods, the church became increasingly corrupt; while secular power (represented by the Holy Roman Emperor) gave up its duties. , The feudal separatist forces were in constant disputes and fell into chaos.
Dante insisted on writing in Florentine colloquialism and made great contributions to the formation and development of Italian. He can be called the "father of Italian".
When composing "The Divine Comedy", Dante’s friends suggested that he switch to Latin writing, because at that time literati wrote in Latin, but Dante did not change his original intention, and promoted the Tuscan dialect based on the Florentine dialect to be able to " "Satisfying the needs of Italian poets and thinkers" "glorious colloquialism".
From today's perspective, we must "read" the "Divine Comedy" and the exchanges between the people of China and Italy.
Historically, the exchanges between Italy and China surpassed that of any European country. There was Marco Polo in the Yuan Dynasty, Li Matteo in the Ming Dynasty, and Castiglione in the Qing Dynasty.
2022 is the China-Italy Year of Culture and Tourism, and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries will become more enthusiastic.
The cultural exchanges between the two countries represented by the translation, dissemination, and reading of "The Divine Comedy" are just a part of it.
Xiao Tianyou (left) presented the Chinese translation of "The Divine Comedy" to Franco Amadei, Director of the Cultural Center of the Italian Embassy in China and Cultural Counselor.
China News Service sent the interviewee's picture
Finally, I would like to make a suggestion to Chinese readers: Dante’s "Divine Comedy" is more than 700 years away from us, and the language, culture and historical background have undergone tremendous changes. To fully understand it, it is not enough to rely on the translated language to be easy to understand. Yes, readers still need to savor carefully.
The purpose of the guide I wrote before each song is to help readers overcome the differences of the times.
There is also a simple and easy way to read. "The Divine Comedy" is composed of relatively independent tunes. You can read only one tune a day and pause after reading. It will not affect the next day to read the next tune.
"The Divine Comedy" adopts the popular "frame structure" at the time, with one hundred songs and one hundred stories. Isn't the familiar Decameron also composed of one hundred stories?
(Finish)
Expert profile:
Photo courtesy of Xiao Tianyou
Xiao Tianyou, a famous Italian literary translator and professor of Italian at the University of International Business and Economics. He was awarded the honorary title of "Italian Language and Culture Ambassador" by Perugia University for Foreigners in 2006. He was the president and representative of the Chinese Italian Teaching Research Association. Translations include "Decameron", "Divine Comedy", "If it's a Winter Night, a Traveler" and so on.