Parsing the Bard
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Shakespeare versus Friam! Oh, My! Seems like a hugely mismatched intellectual exercise! Well, Will wrote words for that, too! Perhaps: “A concatenation of cats”. Or: “What fools these mortals be!” It’s poetry, fellas! Didn’t anyone tell you? Before penning ab initio, ab ignorantio analyses, just study a leetle of the overwhelming volume of criticism on the Melancholy Prince. A good modern one, of the tens of 1,000’s of articles, is in Marjorie Garber’s, Shakespeare after All (2004). Read, and then write. But, but, but, to the horror of literalists, in the “To be, or not...” soliloquy (III, i) our forgetful Prince describes death as “The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns,” when two acts earlier (I, ii, iii), on the battlements, he’d actually been hearing some unpleasant revelations from his father’s ghost, “sy pappie se spook”, as the inelegant Afrikaans translation has it! Ah, consistency -- the hobgoblin of small minds -- but nevah the Bard’s! I view with delight all foreign versions of the play in “tongues unknown and accents yet unheard” that I can dig up. The Russian “Gamlet” (1964), with Smoktunovsky, and Shostakovich’s score, is pretty good. A darkly grand gothic revenge horse-opera. Much cold steel and poisoned chalices!! The Russian dialog is very impressive, sonorous and sinister, but a particular delight are the English captions. They are good, and grammatical, but weirdly, unaccountably, contain none of Shakespeare’s lines!! I have a vision of some good, grey Apparatchik Soviet State Translator, in the editing room earnestly listening to the spoken words and transcribing same into nice twentieth century English dialog with not the slightest inkling that there had actually been an English script (First Quarto, 1603), that a lotta Capitalists, over the centuries, found pretty inspiring! Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for. 1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA tel:(505)983-7728 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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And Gamlet is available on Netflix I see. That's one for the queue.
Your comment about the mistranslation reminds me of the (almost certainly apocryphal) anecdote about the early days of computerized translation. The researcher types the phrase "out of sight, out of mind" and requests English-Russian followed by Russian-English translation, only to get "invisible lunatic".
Of course, I've also heard versions where the mediating language is Arabic, Chinese etc. But a good anecdote (even a poor one) is always more truthy than mere facts. -- R
On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 11:00 PM, <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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The machine translation story I've heard is: "The spirit is willing,
but the flesh is weak," after a round trip from English to Russian and back, became "The vodka is good, but the meat is spoiled." ~~James On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 1:16 AM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote: > And Gamlet is available on Netflix I see. That's one for the queue. > Your comment about the mistranslation reminds me of the (almost certainly > apocryphal) anecdote about the early days of computerized translation. The > researcher types the phrase "out of sight, out of mind" and requests > English-Russian followed by Russian-English translation, only to get > "invisible lunatic". > Of course, I've also heard versions where the mediating language is Arabic, > Chinese etc. But a good anecdote (even a poor one) is always more truthy > than mere facts. > -- R > > On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 11:00 PM, <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> Shakespeare versus Friam! Oh, My! Seems like a hugely mismatched >> intellectual exercise! Well, Will wrote words for that, too! Perhaps: “A >> concatenation of cats”. Or: “What fools these mortals be!” It’s poetry, >> fellas! Didn’t anyone tell you? Before penning ab initio, ab ignorantio >> analyses, just study a leetle of the overwhelming volume of criticism on the >> Melancholy Prince. A good modern one, of the tens of 1,000’s of articles, >> is in Marjorie Garber’s, Shakespeare after All (2004). Read, and then >> write. >> >> >> >> But, but, but, to the horror of literalists, in the “To be, or not...” >> soliloquy (III, i) our forgetful Prince describes death as “The undiscovered >> country from whose bourn no traveler returns,” when two acts earlier (I, ii, >> iii), on the battlements, he’d actually been hearing some unpleasant >> revelations from his father’s ghost, “sy pappie se spook”, as the inelegant >> Afrikaans translation has it! Ah, consistency -- the hobgoblin of small >> minds -- but nevah the Bard’s! >> >> >> >> I view with delight all foreign versions of the play in “tongues unknown >> and accents yet unheard” that I can dig up. The Russian “Gamlet” (1964), >> with Smoktunovsky, and Shostakovich’s score, is pretty good. A darkly grand >> gothic revenge horse-opera. Much cold steel and poisoned chalices!! The >> Russian dialog is very impressive, sonorous and sinister, but a particular >> delight are the English captions. They are good, and grammatical, but >> weirdly, unaccountably, contain none of Shakespeare’s lines!! I have a >> vision of some good, grey Apparatchik Soviet State Translator, in the >> editing room earnestly listening to the spoken words and transcribing same >> into nice twentieth century English dialog with not the slightest inkling >> that there had actually been an English script (First Quarto, 1603), that a >> lotta Capitalists, over the centuries, found pretty inspiring! >> >> Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures >> >> Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for. >> >> 1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA >> tel:(505)983-7728 >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Absolutely Wonderful James,
After struggling with Wittgenstein I wondered what he would have made of the two versions. I suspect the words were translated but the sense was lost. And the mistake is worthy of preservation. I swear that could have come directly from the pen of Bulgakov. Befitting Azazello's table manners as he picks at his fang. Dinner at the house of Titus Andronicus with a new twist. Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky Ph.D.(Civil Eng.), M.Sc.(Mech.Eng.), M.Sc.(Biology) 120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd. Winnipeg, Manitoba CANADA R2J 3R2 (204) 2548321 Phone/Fax [hidden email] -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of James Steiner Sent: December 3, 2010 12:45 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Parsing the Bard The machine translation story I've heard is: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," after a round trip from English to Russian and back, became "The vodka is good, but the meat is spoiled." ~~James On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 1:16 AM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote: > And Gamlet is available on Netflix I see. That's one for the queue. > Your comment about the mistranslation reminds me of the (almost certainly > apocryphal) anecdote about the early days of computerized translation. The > researcher types the phrase "out of sight, out of mind" and requests > English-Russian followed by Russian-English translation, only to get > "invisible lunatic". > Of course, I've also heard versions where the mediating language is Arabic, > Chinese etc. But a good anecdote (even a poor one) is always more truthy > than mere facts. > -- R > > On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 11:00 PM, <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> Shakespeare versus Friam! Oh, My! Seems like a hugely mismatched >> intellectual exercise! Well, Will wrote words for that, too! Perhaps: A >> concatenation of cats. Or: What fools these mortals be! Its poetry, >> fellas! Didnt anyone tell you? Before penning ab initio, ab ignorantio >> analyses, just study a leetle of the overwhelming volume of criticism on >> Melancholy Prince. A good modern one, of the tens of 1,000s of articles, >> is in Marjorie Garbers, Shakespeare after All (2004). Read, and then >> write. >> >> >> >> But, but, but, to the horror of literalists, in the To be, or not... >> soliloquy (III, i) our forgetful Prince describes death as The undiscovered >> country from whose bourn no traveler returns, when two acts earlier (I, ii, >> iii), on the battlements, hed actually been hearing some unpleasant >> revelations from his fathers ghost, sy pappie se spook, as the inelegant >> Afrikaans translation has it! Ah, consistency -- the hobgoblin of small >> minds -- but nevah the Bards! >> >> >> >> I view with delight all foreign versions of the play in tongues unknown >> and accents yet unheard that I can dig up. The Russian Gamlet (1964), >> with Smoktunovsky, and Shostakovichs score, is pretty good. A darkly grand >> gothic revenge horse-opera. Much cold steel and poisoned chalices!! The >> Russian dialog is very impressive, sonorous and sinister, but a particular >> delight are the English captions. They are good, and grammatical, but >> weirdly, unaccountably, contain none of Shakespeares lines!! I have a >> vision of some good, grey Apparatchik Soviet State Translator, in the >> editing room earnestly listening to the spoken words and transcribing same >> into nice twentieth century English dialog with not the slightest inkling >> that there had actually been an English script (First Quarto, 1603), that a >> lotta Capitalists, over the centuries, found pretty inspiring! >> >> Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures >> >> Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for. >> >> 1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA >> tel:(505)983-7728 >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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