Within the regime of representation, the dream of originality breaks against the grid of intelligibility. Ungraspable radix. There is no and can never be an original. No Platonic ideal: we remain bound, our eyes transfixed on the shadows of shadows (of shadows…) against our respective cave walls. (But only a Platonist would understand those shadows as shadows, those caves as caves.) What if—and here I must really ask for an almost transcendent suspension of our all-too-easy Platonisms—the real world were only and ever coterminous with the world, and what if translation were that world worlding itself, the very process by which the world enworlds? What translation then can only ever be: the act, the work of translation.
A poem, already a translation and therefore not an original (sic), from the Polish-language poet-translator Józef Czechowicz, written some time between 1923-1939:
Przyśnienie w śnie Pocałunek na skronie przyjm! Kiedy czas się rozstawać nam, ja to jedno wyznać ci mam: dni me były li tylko snem. Sądząc tak nie błądziłeś w tem... Że nadzieja odlata stąd w noc czy w dzień na prawdziwy ląd w przywidzenie (czy aby w nie?...), masz dlatego być pewnym mniej ostatniego odlotu jej? Co widzimy, co wydaje się, to jest tylko przyśnieniem w śnie... Oto stoję, a ryczy brzeg! Drze go fali rozbitej bieg! W mojej dłoni, w złocistych skrach, drobinkami jaśnieje piach. Mało go... a jak sypie się sam spośród palców ku głębi... tam... Kiedy płaczę, gdy łkam... gdy łkam... Boże, czemuż to brak mi sił ująć mocniej ten złoty pył, uratować ze srogich fal okruszynę, której mi żal?... Co widzimy, co wydaje się, to jest tylko przyśnienie w śnie...
He beckons back beyond the task assigned, for which he is charged, to record not ciphers but the very encipherings, not signs but assignations. Literality, he knows, is but another name for origin. The literal only ever makes stones speak, and the stones have nothing to say except their dead weight as they’re cast from the shore. In translation of translation like water in water (a dreaming within a dream…). Herein lies language’s intimate abyss, that which haunts the very dream of poetry and only ever shows itself as stony betrayal. Translalalalation as surrenenender to the wawawawaves. The stustustustutterance of watery meanings.
If you’d like to try your own luck with translating this poem, then here is my trot—a tool used in the translation of poetry (though I often resort to trots when working with some of the thornier sections of prose). Most people describe it as a word-for-word translation, but my trots wind up being much more than that. Because Polish is such a highly inflected language, I also map out the grammatical relationships among all the words. This is especially helpful when translating poetry that forgoes capitalization and punctuation. (The italicized lines are my grammatical notes). Hopefully, you can make sense of my code: there are seven cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (N, G, D, A, I, L, V—you’ll need to look up what those stand for and how they’re used, if you don’t know Slavic linguistics), and they are either grammatically masculine (m), feminine (f), or neuter (n), singular (s) or plural (pl); verbs can be either imperfective (Imp) or perfective (Pf), and either 1st-, 2nd-, or 3rd-person, and also either singular (s) or plural (pl).
Analysis
Twenty-five lines organized into 4 stanzas; the first stanza — 12 lines; the second — 7; third — 4; fourth — 2, and those 2 are repeated from the last 2 lines of the first stanza (highlighted). Almost all the lines are 8 syllables each, with the exceptions being lines 11, 17, and 24 (lines 11 and 24 are the same line repeated). Rhyme scheme: ABBCCDDEE1E1EE/FFGGBBB/HH1II/EE, though A, B, and C can be considered slant rhymes with variations in vowel sounds but repeated M’s. (Letters with subscripts denote slight variations in final sounds—the difference between ie and iej, for example, or between ił and ył. I’m also resorting to common colloquial pronunciation of final ę as losing its nasal quality and thereby making it a homophone or perfect rhyme with e.)
Just as there is no original (sic), there is no literal (sic) translation, but let us retain the water metaphor and say here’s a draft that instead attempts to trace the shoreline, a draft that attempts to focus solely on semantic meaning:
Dreaming Within a Dream Receive my kiss on your head! When it's time for us to part, I will have one thing to confess to you: my days were only just a dream. You weren’t wrong thinking so… That hope flies away from here night or day for its true land within an illusion (or is that not the case?…), isn’t that why you have to be less certain of its final departure? What we see, that which seems, is only dreaming within a dream… Here I stand while the coast roars! The course of the crashing wave tears it apart! In my hand, in golden sparks, the sand sparkles with little flecks. There’s not much of it… but how it rains down all by itself from my fingers toward the abyss… there… When I’m crying, as I sob… as I sob… O God, why is it that I lack the strength to hold this golden dust more tightly, to save from the harsh waves a crumb on which I take pity?… What we see, that which seems, is only dreaming within a dream…
But there are more meanings than just the semantic. There are structural meanings, so let me attempt to record more accurately this poem’s poetic wavelength, all the while swimming toward the literary:
Dreaming Within a Dream I anoint your head with a kiss! When time bids us to take our leave, there's just one thing you must believe: more than a dream my life, but no—. You were not wrong in thinking so… That my hope hastens hence away for its true kingdom night or day into a figment (trick of light?…), you have to be less definite, do you grant, of our final flight? What we're seeing, and all that which seems— only dreaming within a dream… Here I stand as surf doth thunder! Crashing waves tear it asunder! In my hand, with resplendent specks, sparkles the sand with little flecks. Such a lack… but see how it sifts through my fingers to that deepest rift… When I cry, as I sob and sob… O God, why is it strength I lack and holding this gold dust so slack, one tiny crumb I wish to save and rescue from the harshest wave?… What we're seeing, and all that which seems— merely dreaming within our dreams…
By no means is this draft perfect or even close to being finalized, ready for publication. (In fact, let’s pretend it’s not being published here.) Before moving on, let’s apply the same analysis that we applied to the Polish version to this second English version.
Comparison
The line and stanza divisions were retained. Almost all the lines of this second English version are 8 syllables each, with the exceptions being lines 11, 18, and 24. Rhyme schemes of the Polish version (copied from the analysis above) and the second English version:
ABBCCDDEE1E1EE/FFGGBBB/HH1II/EE
ABBCCDDEE1EFF1/GGHHII1J/KKLL/FF
I shifted the action from passive to active in line 1, retaining the religious tonality of “receive” in Polish by employing “anoint.” I am dissatisfied with the leave/believe rhyme of lines 2 and 3, and any subsequent draft would attempt to make that rhyme stronger. My line 4 (“more than a dream my life, but no—.”) muddies the meaning of the Czechowicz version. I’m still not sure how to better translate the parenthetical phrase of line 8: (czy aby w nie?…)/(or is that not the case?…)/(trick of light?…), but in this last version I stopped trying. (Sometimes while translating or writing in general, stop trying can be an acceptable strategy.) The prosody of line 10’s “do you grant, of our final flight?” is terrible. I’m happy enough to have found an opportunity to use archaic English (“hence” and “doth”) because of the archaic Polish in Czechowicz’s version. I couldn’t easily retain the rhyme scheme of the final three lines of the second stanza, so I ended up with an orphan rhyme in the final line, but I did appreciate the internal slant rhyme of “sob” with the “O God” of the following line. Finally, I amplified the theme in the final 2 lines of the poem compared with the final 2 lines of stanza 1:
What we’re seeing, and all that which seems—
only dreaming within a dream…
What we’re seeing, and all that which seems—
merely dreaming within our dreams…
It would be ridiculous to insist that just because the Polish uses the exact same words then so too must the English. Moreover, the tension of the slant rhyme in the former is finally resolved in the perfect rhyme of the latter. In other words: poetry.
But we’re not quite finished. As mentioned, the Czechowicz version is already a translation. Czechowicz was, according to many sources, just as accomplished a translator as he was a poet and playwright. Some of his translations include works by James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Rimbaud, Guillaume Apollinaire, Jaroslav Seifert, Alexander Blok, William Blake, and Osip Mandelstam. And his poem “Przyśnienie w śnie” was a translation from English of Edgar Allan Poe’s 1849 “A Dream Within a Dream”:
A Dream Within a Dream Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow— You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand— How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep—while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
Assessment
Poe’s English version contains 24 lines divided into 2 stanzas: 11 lines + 13 lines. Line lengths are either 7 or 6 syllables each; the only exception is line 11, which is 8. (Thirteen total lines are 7 syllables; 10 are 6 syllables.) Rhyme schemes of the Polish version and my second English version compared to Poe’s version:
ABBCCDDEE1E1EE/FFGGBBB/HH1II/EE
ABBCCDDEE1EFF1/GGHHIIJ/KKLL/FF
AAABBCCDD1BB/EEFFGGGHHIIBB
I wasn’t surprised to find that Czechowicz’s version contained longer lines than Poe’s. In general, Polish requires fewer words but more syllables and characters, which we can see when we compare: Czechowicz’s version—131 words, 203 syllables, 726 characters; Poe’s version—141 words, 159 syllables, 626 characters. Curiously, Poe’s and my versions both have a save/wave rhyme near the end, and both of our poems do not duplicate the final two lines of the first and last stanzas.
If I were to teach a translation workshop, an early assignment would be to translate translations of a poem such as Poe’s “A Dream Within a Dream” from whichever languages the participants were translating from into English. This kind of project might help students discard simplistic ideas about originality (sic), about faithfulness (sic), and about an author-function that doesn’t see itself as already manifold. Because as we learned as children playing the telephone game and reinforced in every single act of communication since, language, no matter how seemingly incomprehensible, remains already available for interpretation, for translation, and it is the work of language (like water in water) to never coalesce or solidify around one single, original (sic) meaning.
Writer and translator Frank Garrett shops in Dallas, Texas, and is essays editor at Minor Literature[s]. His series Better Shopping Through Living will appear monthly. He has never been original.
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