Imagery in Translation
Rook stood there on his cart goggling at his daughter.
"Don't wriggle about in front of the 'osses," he cried in despair. "Take a-hold on the wheeler by the bridle; you want to ruin my 'Sosses?"
Rook stood on his cart and waved his whip. Little Basya took the wheeler by the bridle and led the horses off to the stable. She unharnessed them, and then went off to fuss in the kitchen. The girl hung her dad's foot-wrappings on a line, scoured the sooty teapol with sand, and started wanning hash in a cast-iron pot.
"Your dirt is unbeatable, dad," she said, and tossed through the window the sweat-soaked sheepskins that lay about on the floor. "But I'll get rid of this filth," cried Little Basya, and served her dad his supper.
... The gleaming eye of the sunset was falling into the sea beyond Peresyp, and the sky was red like a red-letter day. All the shops of Dalnytskaya had now shut, and the gangsters were driving past to Glukhaya Street, where Joe Samuelson kept his whorehouse. In lacquered carriages they drove, dressed up like birds of paradise, their jackets all colours of the rainbow. Their eyes were agoggle, each had a leg jutting out on the footboard, and each held in an outstretched arm of steel a bouquet wrapped in tissue-paper. Their lacquered jaunting ears moved at a walking-pace. In each carriage sat one gangster with a bouquet, and the drivers, protuberant on their high seats, were decked with bows like best men at weddings. Old Jewish women in bonnets lazily watched the accustomed procession flow past. They were indifferent to everything, those old Jewish women, and only the sons of the shopkeepers and shipwrights envied the kings of the Moldavanka.
EXERCISES FOR COMPARISON
• Compare the forms of names in both texts and the semantic and emotive difference between them. Comment on such trans-
_
Практикум
по художественному переводу
f
ormations
asRook
for
Грач,
Little
Basya for
Баська,
and
Pyat-irubel
for
Пятирубель.
' Compare the translator's choice of words and their stylistic colouration with the source text. Comment on the reason for transformations. Does cart equal биндюга!
Translating from Russian into English comment upon morphological problems of translation and their solution. Point down such forms as колотится до твоего помещения or '0.9.9- es.
Comment upon syntactic transformations in the Russian translation.
Compare the amount and quality of emotive information lost or added in translation.
Read the two texts aloud and compare the difference in their rhythmic patterns and their role in perception.
Think of your own amendments to the translation.
Task for translation: Король
КОРОЛЬ
... Друзья Короля показали, что стоит голубая кровь и неугасшее еще молдаванское рыцарство. Небрежным движением руки кидали они на серебряные подносы золотые монеты, перстни,коралловые нити.
Аристократы Молдаванки, они были затянуты в малиновые жилеты, их плечи охватывали рыжие пиджаки, а на мясистых ногах лопалась кожа цвета небесной лазури. Выпрямившись во весь рост и выпячивая животы, бандиты хлопали в такт музыке, кричали «горько» и бросали невесте цветы, а она, сорокалетняя Двойра, сестра Бени Крика, изуродованная базедовой болезнью, с разросшимся зобом и вылезающими из орбит глазами, сидела на горе подушек рядом со щуплым мальчиком, купленным па деньги Эйхбаума и онемевшим от тоски. Обряд дарения подходил к концу, шамесы 204