Gürkan Dağbaşı
A selection of Mahmoud Darwish’s poems, translated by Metin Fındıkçı, was published in 2009 under the title Yalnızlık Yenilemeden Kendini (Solitude, Without Renewing Itself). I bought it with great excitement the moment I saw it and read it, believing I had breathed in at least a little of Mahmoud Darwish – or so I thought until now. Although I read some of Darwish’s poems in the original Arabic, I came to know many of them through their Turkish translations, and for some reason I had never felt much need to compare the original with the translation. That was until I came across a different poem by Darwish in another translator’s version. When I read the poem translated by Mehmet Hakkı Suçin, an internationally recognised figure in Arabic language and literature and in translation studies, my mind clouded over. The Darwish poem I had read in Fındıkçı’s version and the one I read in Suçin’s were the same poem, yet they differed from title to last line – they were utterly different.
In this piece I will try to compare some sections of Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “Sinunu al-Tatar” (The Swallow of the Tatars) on the basis of the translations by Mehmet Hakkı Suçin and Metin Fındıkçı. Let us begin with the title:
سنونو التتار (Sinûnû et-Tetâr)
Tatarların Kırlangıcı
Trans.Mehmet Hakkı Suçin
Tırtılın Dişleri
Trans.Metin Fındıkçı
My first surprise came with the title. Of course there could be differences between two translations; after all, every true translator is something of a poet and brings their own style to a translation. But Darwish’s poem was greeting me with two entirely different titles. Did the words sunu (swallow) and al-Tatar (the Tatars) have other connotations? No! The first word was the familiar “swallow” and the second the familiar “Tatars”. I did not want to lose my optimism; my first thought was that Suçin had stayed faithful to the original while Fındıkçı had opted for free translation. But when I compared the two translations of the poem, which in the original consists of six sections with differing numbers of lines, I had no difficulty seeing that they were completely different.
على قَدْرِ خَيْلي تكونُ السماءُ. حَلُمْتُ
بما سوف يحدُثُ بعد الظهيرة. كان التتارُ
يسيرون تحتي وتحت السماء، ولا يحلمون
بشيء وراء الخيام التي نصبوها. ولا يعرفون
مصائرَ ماعِزِنا في مهبِّ الشتاء القريب.
على قدر خَيْلي ويكون المساء وكان التتارُ
يَدُسُّون أَسماءَهُمْ في سقوف القرى كالسنونو،
وكانوا ينامون بين سنابلنا آمنين،
ولا يحلمون بما سوف يحدث بعد الظهيرة، حين
تعودُ السماءُ، رُوَيْداً رُوَيْداً،
إلى أهلها في المساءْ
Mehmet Hakkı Suçin’s translation reads:
Atlarım kadardır gökyüzü. Öğleden sonra olacakları
düşledim. Tatarlar altımda yürüyordu ve göğün
altında. Bir şey düşlemiyorlardı diktikleri çadırların
arkasında. Keçilerimizin kaderlerini bilmiyorlardı
yakındaki kışın estiği yerde.
Atlarım kadardır gökyüzü. Adlarını sokuşturuyordu Tatarlar
kırlangıçlar gibi köy damlarına. Başaklarımız arasında
uyuyorlardı selametle. Ve düşlemiyorlardı ne olacağını
öğleden sonra, dönünce gökyüzü yavaş yavaş akşamleyin
kendi halkına
Metin Fındıkçı’s translation:
Hüküm gökyüzündeki bulutta olsaydı. Çiçeklerden
sonra anlatılırdı bu düşüm. Altımda tırtıllar
yürürdü ve gökyüzünün altında, dikilen çadırların
ardında hiçbir şeyi düşlemeden. Keçilerin işkembesini
bilmeden yakında bastıracak bir kışta.
Hüküm gökyüzündeki bulutta olsaydı. Tırtıllar gökleri
ezerlerdi dişleriyle köydeki tavanlarda,
güven içinde ekinimizin içinde uyuyor olacaklardı,
düş kurmazlardı çiçeklerde anlatılanlarla, göğe
döndükleri zaman, aheste aheste,
akşamda akrabalarıyla.yken, Fındıkçı’da “tırtıllar dişleriyle gökyüzünü ezmekte”ydi. Oysaki ortalama bir Arapça bilgisine sahip biri, bu şiirin ilk bölümünde eylemi gerçekleştirenlerin tırtıllar değil de Tatarlar olduğunu rahatça anlayabilirdi.
Suçin begins his translation with “horses” (atlar), while Fındıkçı chose “judgement” (hüküm). The word meaning “noon” in the original became “flower” in Fındıkçı, “Tatar” became “caterpillar”, and “fate/end” somehow became “tripe”. In Suçin, “the Tatars, like swallows” appear; in Fındıkçı, “caterpillars crush the sky with their teeth”. Yet anyone with average Arabic could easily understand that those acting in the first section of the poem are Tatars, not caterpillars.
Moreover, when we read Fındıkçı’s translation in one breath, it is almost impossible to find any unity in the poem. From an utterly unrelated sentence such as “If judgement were the cloud in the sky, this dream of mine would be told after the flowers”, we move on to “caterpillars walking without dreaming of anything” – I could not help wondering what a caterpillar might dream of – and so we see sentences in the translation that have nothing to do with the Arabic text. The part about the “goats” and the “tripe” in particular leaves one speechless.
In Suçin’s translation, by contrast, the poem’s inner coherence is immediately apparent: the Tatars walk, dream of nothing, do not know the fate of the goats, and sleep among the ears of wheat.
لنا، نحن أَهْلَ الليالي القديمة، عاداتُنا
في الصعودِ إلى قَمَر القافيةْ
نُصَدِّقُ أحلامَنا ونكذِّبُ أيَّامَنا،
فأيَّامُنا لم تكن كُلُها معنا منذ جاء التتارُ،
وها هم يُعِدُّون أَنفسهم للرحيلِ
وينسون أَيَّامَنا خَلْفَهُمْ، وسنهبط عما قليل
إلى عمرنا في الحقول. ونصنع أَعلامنا
من شراشِفَ بيضاءَ. إن كانَ لابُدَّ
من عَلَمٍ، فليكُنْ هكذا عارياً
من رُمُوزٍ تُجَعِّدُهُ… ولنكُنْ هادئين
لئلاّ نُطَيِّر أحلامَنا خلف قافلة الغرباء
Mehmet Hakkı Suçin’s translation:
Biz ki kadim gecelerin sakinleri
Geleneklerimiz var
kafiyenin ayına tırmanışta
Düşlerimize inanırız, yalanlarız günlerimizi
Zira günlerimiz yanımızda değildi tümüyle
Tatarlar geldi geleli
İşte göçe hazırlanıyorlar
Unutarak arkalarında günlerimizi. İneceğiz
yakında tarlalardaki ömrümüze. Beyaz çarşaflardan
yapacağız bayraklarımızı -bir bayrak
olacaksa illa- böyle çıplak olsun
onu buruşturan sembollerden… Sakin olalım
uçurmamak için düşlerimizi
yabancıların kervanının arkasından
Metin Fındıkçı’s translation:
Bizler, biz kadim gecelerin ehli, âdetlerimiz
sarp kayalarda ayın kafiyesi
günlerimizi yalanlayıp düşümüzü onaylarız,
onca gelen tırtılla bütün anlamlar günlerimizde değil
işte onlar giden benliklerine geri dönüyor
peşlerinde günlerimizi unutup, azıcık ineceğiz
ömrümüz tarla. Bayrağımızı beyaz
çarşaflardan yaparız. Bilimden başlamadı,
böylece çıplak olan
yol olan im’de… İki armağan olsak
gurbetin kapısı ardında illa ki düşlerimizi bekleriz.
As we see, the stylistic differences between the two translations become ever clearer. Reading Suçin’s lines we encounter a clear text that flows like water, whereas we feel the need to read the lines of Fındıkçı’s “translation” again and again. Expressions such as “…günlerimizi yalanlayıp düşümüzü onaylarız, / onca gelen tırtılla bütün anlamlar günlerimizde değil” or “Bayrağımızı beyaz / çarşaflardan yaparız. Bilimden başlamadı, / böylece çıplak olan / yol olan im’de…” read almost as if they had been translated so as not to be understood.
لنا حُلُم واحد: أَن نَجِدْ
حُلُماً كان يحملنا
مثلما تحملُ النجمةُ الميتين!
Tek bir düşümüz var: Bizi taşıyacak
bir düş bulmak
nasıl taşıyorsa yıldız ölülerimizi!
Trans.Mehmet Hakkı Suçin
Düşümüz aynı: yenileriz
bizi düşleyen düşümüzü
iki yüz yıldızı taşır gibi!
Trans.Metin Fındıkçı
At the end of the poem Darwish addresses us once more with his dream. While Suçin expresses clearly in his translation what this dream is, Fındıkçı, again through misreadings, translates the word “the dead” as “two hundred” and so, regrettably, fails to carry the poem to its final point.
In this poem, full of symbols, myth and images, Darwish is probably trying to portray, through the image of the Tatars, the occupiers who did not exist in the past but arrived later and invaded the land of Palestine – most likely the Zionists – identifying them with swallows trying to build nests in places that do not belong to them. These occupiers, who appeared out of nowhere, cared about nothing; they lived on without a care or worry. Darwish’s dream was for time to pass as soon as possible and for the strangers to disperse with the smell of coffee. Jerusalem had been occupied so many times, and so many prophets had desired this beautiful city in Darwish’s homeland. Yet it should belong to its true owners, and this was our poet’s one and only dream. This dream was so precious that even the thought of losing it was frightening, for if the dream ended, everything would end. Until the Tatars – that is, the occupiers – came, everything had in fact been beautiful, but those days were now in the past. One day, however, they would have to go back, and on that day the people of Palestine would return to their real life. And if death came, so be it: white shrouds would be flags enough for the people of this land, as long as their dreams did not follow these occupiers, because they needed them so much.
To return to the translations of this poem, which I have tried to compare in broad outline: Suçin offers us a genuine Mahmoud Darwish poem in terms of both content and form. In Fındıkçı’s “so-called” translation, on the other hand, as the translation itself makes clear, we face an entirely different text because of the translator’s inadequate command of Standard Arabic. As a result, the poem has ceased to be Mahmoud Darwish’s and has become the translator’s. There is no doubt that if we could translate Fındıkçı’s version back into Arabic and have Darwish read it, he would not recognise his own poem. Considering that Fındıkçı has produced more than thirty “so-called” translations of Arabic poetry, it is not hard to see what a great “translation massacre”, so to speak, we are facing.
Here a great responsibility falls on publishers. In literary translation, and above all in poetry translation, they must be very careful in choosing translators, and they must make the editorial mechanism work in the true sense. On the other hand, the translation style of Mehmet Hakkı Suçin, who has brought major names of Arabic poetry into Turkish, is a good model from which young translators can learn a great deal. It is also important that Suçin, who is an academic as well, passes on his experience to the young generations who will translate poetry through his Arabic poetry and literature workshops.
Finally, I believe poetry can, in one way or another, be translated into other languages. Indeed, it must be translated, so that we can come to know other lands, cultures and nations – as long as, in doing so, the poet is not killed in the translated text by careless, “so-called” translations.
Cins, April 2016, no. 7, pp. 46–47.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gürkan Dağbaşı
Faculty member, Department of Translation and Interpreting, Hacı Bayram Veli University.
Translated from the Turkish for this site.