Poetry Translating as Expert Action Processes, priorities and networks

Chapter 6. Translating rhyme and rhythm 

TU209 Right:

TU210 ite # bite – no. dite,

TU211 dight, fight, fite – no. kite,

TU212 skite, light #

TU213 might – well, might also be #

TU214 a possibility: no light #

TU215 yeah, I’ll write that down #

TU216 mite, not really,

TU217 blight, bite, flight,

TU218 light, slight, # might, night,

TU219 spite, right, #

TU220 fright #

TU221 right, fright, sprite?,

TU222 tight, quite -

TU223 OK, write quite down. white,

TU224 bedight, indict, connite, fist-fight

TU225 # alight, delight

TU226 # downright –

TU227 # no.

However, when a little later I translated Line 6’s kad sama je tišina literally as when

it is silence alone, I realised that it paralleled kad sama je tmina (‘when it alone is

darkness’), which ended Line 1. This meant I also had to take Parallelism into ac-

count with Line 1; eventually, my only viable option was to revert to night:

TU293 Yeah, oh dear, that [parallelism] really

is tying me down...

TU294 #

TU295 #

TU296 #

TU297 when there alone is night #

TU298 there isn’t a glimmer of light: no, I can’t have

the positive [= light rather than darkness]

TU299 # because it’s got to [go] with silence.

TU300 night #

TU301 # I’m gonna have to go for night:

TU302 # when it alone – when there is only night.

TU303 – och,

TU304 I guess so

6.3.5.4 Rhythm and fluency

Line rewriting (Phase 2 above) involved building each Line backwards from its

rhyme word, whilst incorporating a hexameter Rhythm plus – a decision made a

little way into Phase 2 – a 15-syllable Line-length. For example, this changed Line

5’s How do I know that in the wood a bird was crying into How do I know in the

woods that there was the shriek of a bird. Like Fleur in Toen wij, I often used

Rhyme Dr1/#3

Rhyme Dr1/#3

Parallelism Dr1/#3