Rumi and the Vision of the Qur'an

[MineralMan]

43. I'm sure the help will be appreciated.

I once translated a Russian exile's book of poetry. I worked directly with the author. My Russian was aided by his explanations of his poems and stories that explained idioms in his writing. As a sometimes poet myself who has been published in various journals, I also talked with him about the form and language of his poetry.

There were decisions to make constantly. His poetry had both rhyme and a solid meter. Russian lends itself easily to rhyme, due to its complex declensions and conjugations which naturally rhyme. Russian poetic meter is somewhat different from that of English. And then there are colloquial meanings, connotations, and associations that words possess in Russian that are not part of English in the same way.

The Russian poet wanted to preserve rhyming and meter in the translation, even it it wasn't identical. He also wanted idioms to make sense to the English reader. His command of English was not as good as my poor command of Russian. Working together was fascinating. He would explain the connections of his words with concepts and associations. I would find English equivalents for those associations.

Working from a literal translation of each poem, I turned each into a poem in English that included rhyme and steady meter. Both English and Russian lend themselves to an iambic rhythm, so the meter was not too difficult. Finding equivalent idioms that make the words sing to an English ear was more difficult and the rhymes required an extensive English vocabulary to find appropriate wording that included the rhymes.

Eventually we managed, working together, to translate his chapbook into English in a way that pleased both him and readers.

Sadly, the bilingual book was published by a long-defunct press and the poet, himself, died almost 30 years ago, but I learned a great deal by working directly with him on the project. Not only about his poetry, but about the process of translation. It was a rewarding year.

Creating a "translation" of Rumi's writings based on other translations but without knowing the original language seems to me to be a fraudulent thing to do. How strange the process must have been on the part of the translator, I would think.

Whoever reads such a translation has no idea what the original work said. It is too far removed.