How Art Thou Translated!

For the usual prizes competitors were invited to translate into English verse an e -tract from Baudelaire's La Chevelure : O toison moutonnant jusque sur l'encolurel 0 boucles! 0 pad um chargé de nonchaloir! Extasel Pour pen pier cc soir l'alcave obscure Des souvenirs dormant dans cette chevelure, le la Vela agiter dans l'air comme tin tnouchoir!

Cheveux bleus, pavilion de tenebres tendues, Vous me rendez l'azur du ciel immense et rond; Sur les bards duveth de vos meches tordues le m'enivre ardemment des senteurs con fondues De l'huile de coco, du ntusc et du goudron.

Longtemps! toujours! ma main dans ta criniere lourde Setnera le rubis, la perle et le saphir, A fin qu'a mon des& tu ne sois jamais sourdel N'es-tu pas l'oasis oà je rive, et la gourde Oh je hume a longs traits le yin du souvenir?

IN the preface to his The Art of Translation, Mr. Theodore H. Savory speaks of the problems in- volved. 'Their attractiveness lies in their Ustract- ability, in the varied attempts that men have made to overcome the difficulties that translation offers and in the absence of any final and univer- sally accepted solutions.' He might have been .reporting on this competition.

Apart from the general difficulties of trans- lating French verse (with its wealth of easy rhymes) into English (with its dearth), of con- veying the sensuous warmth of the original without falling into sensuality, there were two keywords that particularly tried the ingenuity of the respectable field of competitors.

Nonchaloir was rendered as 'listlessness' (Helena Broun), 'unconcern' (Zeno), 'disdain' (Trooper Jones and R. Kennard Davis), 'impas- sivity' (A. M. Sayers), 'lassitude' (Mrs. V. R. Ormerod), 'carelessness' (P. J. McGeeney) and 'coolness' (G. J. Blundell). Clearly it means all of these, and more besides. How, then, put it in one word? There lies the 'glory, jest and riddle' of translation.

Cheveux bleus—what does this mean? Black hair with blue shadows? Helena Broun made a valiant attempt with 'raven-blue.' Considering, however, the classical tradition informing all French poetry, and not least Baudelaire's. 1 rather fancy 'cerulean' (P. M. Cook and G. J. Blundell). My own prescription for verse-translation is that the result should come out as a decent piece of English verse, following within reason the natural English word-order with nothing added and nothing left out. Despite flashes of brilliance or originality, few competitors came consistently up to this standard. Of those who did, Goodwill is outstanding for fullness combined with brevity, and gets first prize of two and a half guineas. P. M. and A. G. Rochelle get one and a half guineas and one guinea respectively. Finally, half a guinea each to W. K. Holmes, for a charming piece of audacity, and to Roger M. Nuttall, of Exeter School, for the most original effort of all.

PRIZES (000Dwit.t.)

A fleece! It hangs down shoulder-long All ringlets, full of wayward scent. I'll wave it kerchief-wise, to throng (With memories that lurk among Its curls) our darkened tenement.

Blue tresses, whose outspreading shade

Is wider than blue heavens are, Along your downy edge is laid A drunken sweetness as if made By coco-butter, musk, and tar.

For years, for ever, may I strew

Pearls, rubies, sapphires in that hair, So find you willing, find you true. You are my dream-oasis, you

The gourd !drain of memories there.

(p. st.)

Long fleecy waves that break about the breast?

Curled scented coolness! With what ecstasy

I stir the shadows, broach the slumbering nest,— Filling the night with ghosts, by me untressed

And from their silken kerchief shaken free?

This dark arched canopy, this springing hair

Is now my sky, a dome of blue-black dusk Whose downy fringe 1 savour, browsing there Intoxicated in the resinous air That blends faint fragrances of oil and musk.

Come let me bind you, heavy strand on strand,

With sapphire, pearl and ruby mark you mine- () brimming gourd that lies beneath my hand, 0 heart's oasis, where I dreaming stand

And draw long draughts of Love's remembered wine!

(A. G. ROCHELLE)

0 tumbling fleece about your shoulders rolled! 0 ringlets! Perfume charged with languidness! 0 bliss! To fill this dark alcove with gold Of memories that the curling mass must hold,

want to wave it scarf-like, tress and tress.

Blue locks where the tense shadows have ,their lairs, Your blue evokes the sky—vast, round and far.

Against the fringed edge of those coiling hairs

I drowse and swoon among the heady airs

Of oil of coconut, and musk, and tar.

Hours—years—for evert In that heavy mane

Pearls, rubies, sapphires shall my hand entwine.

But do not let my longings burn in vain.

Are you not in my desert the green plain,

The gourd which gives deep draughts of memory's wine?

(w. K. HOLMES)

That into English? Surely just as well

Translate the feigned sea-murmur of a shell, Paraphrase ecstasy, parse joy or pain,

Construe a passion, an emotion spell!

My English wits surrender in despair; Yet has an English heart not depths to share The music of the Frenchman's? In three words

I will put all his poem; a girl's hair.

(ROGER M. NUTTALL)

C) judge's mode curving as a ramp! Old Curly ! Weariness excludes the official key! Cat jumps how? To spread to the farthest camp The unconscious pleas of this old tramp, You'd have to wave them like a hanky.

Seven o'clock shadow, mouthpiece of disturbing decrees Committing to the vault of heaven true and vast : From crooked company and luxurious ease, I sentence you with elation, to appease

By natural products wrung from labour hard and fast.

A long stretch! For life! To tear one's hair Is the fear.

Dismiss s all thought of ruby, pearl and sapphire collections,

For all my pleas he refused to hear!

Public disgrace causes not depression, but beer Which saps the spirit leaving only recollections.