Literary translation of a non-literary text
The blogabout on literary translation has been continuing since I last looked in. Among the more recent posts are two stimulating ones, one by John Hobbins (who references a good number of useful links), and the other by Iyov (which promises to be the first of a fascinating series). Unfortunately for my linguistic shallowness, their concentration is on the Hebrew Scriptures, where there is, admittedly, a much greater literary style in many texts. So I thought I would try to complement this with a reflection on a simple part of a (lexically and grammatically) simple narrative: part of Mark’s introduction to Jesus’ ministry. This offers a different challenge as having a great many oral as opposed to literary features.
Here is Mark 1:19-22, drawn first from the NRSV, tending to formal equivalence, then the NLT as an example of dynamic equivalence, with the Greek below. I follow this with a number of observations, and then essay my own attempt.
As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
A little farther up the shore Jesus saw Zebedee’s sons, James and John, in a boat repairing their nets. He called them at once, and they also followed him, leaving their father, Zebedee, in the boat with the hired men. Jesus and his companions went to the town of Capernaum. When the Sabbath day came, he went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority– quite unlike the teachers of religious law.
Καὶ προβὰς ὀλίγον εἶδεν Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου καὶ Ἰωάννην τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ αὐτοὺς ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ καταρτίζοντας τὰ δίκτυα, καὶ εὐθὺς ἐκάλεσεν αὐτούς. καὶ ἀφέντες τὸν πατέρα αὐτῶν Ζεβεδαῖον ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ μετὰ τῶν μισθωτῶν ἀπῆλθον ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ. Καὶ εἰσπορεύονται εἰς Καφαρναούμ· καὶ εὐθὺς τοῖς σάββασιν εἰσελθὼν εἰς τὴν συναγωγὴν ἐδίδασκεν. καὶ ἐξεπλήσσοντο ἐπὶ τῇ διδαχῇ αὐτοῦ· ἦν γὰρ διδάσκων αὐτοὺς ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων καὶ οὐχ ὡς οἱ γραμματεῖς.
A few observations aimed fundamentally at capturing a sense of vivid oral narrative :
- One question is how to convey in English the immediacy of that unusually repetitive καὶ (and). One option is to go for much shorter sentences: here while the NLT has five, the NRSV has four. That’s not a major difference, though the NLT probably represents a step in the right direction. Oral discourse often employs parenthetical phrases which break up sentences as well.
- Modern oral English story-telling (recounting events in the pub, say) does tend to mix and match historic presents and simple pasts, as a vivid technique. There’s only one in this passage, and neither translation chooses to pick it up. In English usage one would either need none, or more than one: the present once used, tends to last for at least the sentence it’s in, before a tense switch occurs again.
- I don’t know if it’s just my idiolect, but that “little farther” sounds literary. I am well aware that it has been the correct choice for distance, and that some people continue to maintain the distinction between “farther” for distance and “further” for time. In common speech I find most people say “further” for both (at least in the UK). The NLT is odd here, since it gives no sense of Jesus moving on, just looking further (sic) ahead.
- I’m not entirely sure about that “mending” (NRSV), “repairing” (NLT). It’s accurate, but καταρτίζοντας has a wider semantic field, and can include preparing as well as mending. When possible I think we should try to reflect ranges of meaning that are not restricted by the context. I think “fixing” carries some of that same range of meaning.
- I’m not sure about that phrase “the hired men”: It has form, as implying a certain untrustworthiness. The loss of family motif may need either stressing, or footnoting. “Agency employees” gives the sense of impermanence, but has too much baggage. Day workers is a bit culturally specific, but might be a better option.
- There are two of Mark’s characteristic uses of εὐθὺς (immediately) in this text. Both translations go for the first and ignore the second.
- The NRSV’s “astounded” is a little literary.
- In NRSV that phrase “one having authority” is hardly spoken English, but the NLT’s “he taught with real authority” loses any sense of a class of person.
- How to translate οἱ γραμματεῖς.is tricky. In one sense NRSV is quite right, it means “scribes” but this doesn’t convey today the role in relation to Torah in particular of this specialized group. I’m not sure about NLT’s “the teachers of religious law” because the specialism includes that, but is not restricted to that, and it doesn’t convey the sense of professional skill. This may be one of those places where we should keep a nice simple word, and stick with scribes, rather than replace it with an expansive phrase that pads the narrative out, and make sure it’s well footnoted. One possible English option might be “the commentators.” This would still benefit from a footnote, since the class it conveys it not exactly the same one, although there’s an argument to be made for it capturing a style of teaching.
Now an attempt to put those observations into practice. It’s far from perfect, but I hope it captures the sense of someone telling this story in English, while not straying too far from the Greek.
He went on a little further, and saw James, Zebedee’s son, together with his brother John – they were in the boat fixing the nets – and straightaway he called them. They left their father Zebedee behind in the boat with the day workers, and went off following Jesus.
They go on to Capernaum. Then it’s the Sabbath day and straightaway Jesus goes into the synagogue and begins to teach. Everyone was astonished by his teaching because he taught like someone with authority, not like the commentators at all.
Feel free to pick this apart in the comments.
October 17th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Reading your translation, I was struck by how much it sounds like what a pastor will do from the pulpit, summarizing the parts of a passage not essential to his message. It feels like there is a greater literary passage underlying what is read, but in this case there isn’t! I think it would be shocking (in a good way) to read a translation like this - making the oral features read like an actual oration.
October 17th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Bravo, Doug! Appreciate your analyses of Mark 1:19-22 and translations in NLT and NRSV. More, I really like your translation. And I like how you say, “Feel free to pick this apart in the comments” just after your translation has warned that the most astonishing stuff is “not like the commentators at all“!
questions:
1) how would you rate your translation with respect to formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence?
2) were you “in a pub” when translating? and how do you imagine context and audience to affect even modern English story telling? In other words, is good story telling in a pub and astonishing teaching in synagogue and fine retranslating in a blog post complementary?
3) Would you agree with Mikhail Epstein that “interlation”, or what you did by putting “a simple part of a (lexically and grammatically) simple narrative” in two languages side by side with three versions of the one, actually gives us readers of both languages more? Rather than much getting “lost in translation” there’s a “doubling of benefits,” an emergence of a new layer of imagery in a rather straightforward clip of narrative? (Epstein writes in English on this at http://www.fascicle.com/issue01/Poets/epstein1.htm).
4) Despite your humble confession of “linguistic shallowness” (which I disagree with), I see you followed the NRSV and the NLT in adding the explicit reference to “Jesus” not in Mark’s sentences except by implicitness of the back referencing pronouns. But what do you think of calling him “Joshua” and the first-name son of Zebedee “Jacob”? Don’t you think those older names (יְהוֹשֻׁעַ and יַעֲקֹב as translated in LXX and other places in NT) would better get at who οἱ γραμματεῖς are and what they are teaching in such a less-astonishing way? And so do you think my suggestions are too outlandish in Aristotle’s (sub)Text for the Bible Writers’(pre)Text?
October 17th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
We can reproduce some of the style of Mark in English by literally copying its “And”s at the beginning of sentences and its historic presents. But we must realise that this works in English, at least some varieties, but in other languages it might not work at all, indeed it might even signal something quite different. In at least one language present tense in a narrative signals fiction, and so would be highly inappropriate in the gospels.
Of course the idea of a misthotos “hired man” being untrustworthy is found in John 10:12,13, so perhaps this is a better translation than you think.
“Farther” causes difficulties in public reading because in many British accents (but perhaps not your rather western one in Droitwich) it is pronounced the same as “father”. Perhaps this is why “further” is preferred in spoken English. It should be a reason for it to be preferred in Bible translations, especially those intended for public reading. Otherwise readers might wonder what NLT’s little father was doing up the shore.
Do you mean by that that it is inappropriately so for a translation of the highly non-literary Mark? I would say so.
For “one having authority”, the natural English phrase is probably “someone in authority”. The problem is that both mean something a little different from what Mark probably meant, a person with official governmental authority or (in the context) perhaps authority in the religious establishment. I agree that “someone with authority” is a good compromise which avoids the misleading “in authority”.
I don’t think “the commentators” would work as an alternative to “the scribes”. A commentator, if not a broadcaster as clearly not here, is “One who writes or delivers a commentary or commentaries.” That may have been one role of the scribes, but is not the one prominent in gospels. I would suggest something like “the religious lawyers”.
I like the overall style of your rendering, except that the historic presents seem choppy. Actually I don’t know why you have it for “Jesus goes into the synagogue and begins to teach”, as the Greek verb here is imperfect. Yes, it sounds very informal, but that is probably how Mark sounded to its first readers.
ElShaddai, your comment presupposes a particular solution to the “Synoptic Problem”, that Mark is an original composition. Another solution is that Mark is essentially a retelling of Matthew in a less literary style, maybe actually a record of how it was presented by a preacher.
October 17th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
[...] is with interest then that I read the latest from Doug at Metacatholic, a “literary translation of a non-literary text“, in which he examines traditional translations of Mark 1:19-22 vis-a-vis oral features that [...]
October 17th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Thanks for this feedback. I’ll try to reply later - time’s tight right now.
October 17th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Peter,
I actually didn’t mean to imply that Mark was the original synoptic gospel in my comment:
It feels like there is a greater literary passage underlying what is read, but in this case there isn’t!
What I meant was that Doug’s translation feels like an oral retelling of a more formal work, but because he was working from the original language text, there actually isn’t more to Mark’s written gospel.
As such, this would actually correspond nicely with a solution that Mark’s account is “a retelling of Matthew”.
I’ve written a little more on this topic on my blog; see the Pingback link below.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Whether one defines what Doug is trying to do as a literal, literary, or dynamically equivalent is less important than realizing that the goal here is to respect in translation the stylistic choices of the original. That is Iyov’s ideal in translation. It is mine as well. It is clearly Doug’s. Really, I think Peter and everyone on this thread could agree with this ideal.
In practice, it is just as hard to respect a colloquial style in translation as a literary style. I agree with Peter that “commentator” probably doesn’t work here, but I’m not sure I have a better suggestion.
My main beef with Doug’s translation has to do with its prolixity relative to the Greek. But I like its overall tenor very much.
When I read Mark, I try to hear Peter preaching to a small crowd of fellow Jews. I realize that’s a debatable way to read the text, but I’ve always found it helpful.
Shortened up here and there, this is how Doug’s translation might then read:
He went on a little further, and saw James, Zebedee’s son, and his brother John – they were in the boat fixing the nets – and straightaway he called them. They left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired hands, and went off after Jesus.
They go on to Capernaum. It’s the Sabbath and straightaway Jesus goes into the synagogue and begins to teach. Everyone was astonished by his teaching because he taught them like someone who has authority, not like our scribes at all.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Nice and crisp - Secundus says: it would be a shame to leave out any repetition of uncle Mark’s favorite words - And and immediately.
October 17th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
A few comments on the comments. first, thanks for such helpful interactions. I largely like John’s amendments to my proposal - and he caught an error where I’d accidentally omitted the “them” in the last sentence. Mind you, given what he says about “prolixity” I note that there’s hardly any difference between our word counts. I’m not sure about his “our scribes” because they’re not the audiences scribes. I still wonder about scribes, it may still be the best option (with footnote) as mentioned above. Another possibility might be “the professionals”. (!)
On Peter’s points. I continue the historic present through the sentence’s thought, because I think that’s how it works in English (as noted). I’m not sure about the untrustworthy connotations of misthotos being inherent. John has to work at them.
For J K Gayle - I’ll try to get round to the Epstein you mention. Since I’m translating to English and there are well-established English equivalents for the names, I wanted to stick to them. And I’ve no idea how one classifies this type of translation, nor too worried about the theory, but I guess “stylistic equivalence” or “affective equivalence” would not be inappropriate.
To ElShaddai and Bob, just thanks. There are no specific points I want to pick up
Finally, because I can’t resist a red herring – Peter, it sounds like you are one of the few non-RC fans of the Augustinian hypothesis known to humanity. But that’s an argument for another time. Me – I’m Markan priority all the way
October 17th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
If we must hear Uncle Matthew in Uncle Mark, then why not look for some answers to our repeated “repetitious ‘AND’ question” here?:
in Stephanie L. Black’s Sentence Conjunctions in the Gospel of Matthew: Kai, De, Tote, Gar, Oun and Asyndeton in Narrative Discourse
in Robert G. Bratcher’s “That troublesome kai in Matthew 21″
Or if we must stick with Uncle Mark, then some of his ground has been plowed well too:
by Robert E. Longacre in his “Mark 5.1-43: Generating the Complexity of a Narrative from its Most Basic Elements”
Of course, there may be more generic patterns among the various NT writers:
as noted in Kermit Titrud’s “The overlooked kai in the Greek New Testament”
as in Iver A. Larsen’s “Notes on the function of gar, oun, men, de, kai, and te in the Greek New Testament”
But then again, I hear Uncle Homer and Uncle Aristotle in Uncle John and Uncle Paul and Uncle James. Does anyone dare talk about these men and their ANDs?
October 17th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
I did exaggerate on the prolixity issue. FYI, I measure length in terms of syllable counts, not word counts.
October 17th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
I may have miscounted but (on a modern Greek pronunciation) Mark has 149 syllables, and my translation has 128. Who’s the prolix one?
October 18th, 2007 at 4:59 am
[...] Doug at Metacatholic is musing on literary translations along similar lines: Literary translation of a non-literary text [...]
October 18th, 2007 at 6:00 am
Good job, D.
“Prolixity.” Huh?! [Looks it up in Encarta.] Hmph. Why didn’t he just say so?
I don’t think καὶ is signalling a hurried pace or immediacy. It’s just Mark’s standard way of conjoining propositions. So don’t worry too much about trying to overtly reflect that. Using short sentences is another way of accelerating the narrative pace.
You counted the syllables!?!?!?!?!?!?!
October 18th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Lingamish is right, of course, to laugh that I count syllables.
But I will make you laugh some more by going on about it. I don’t count the way Doug does. I compare syllable length on a per word basis, not in terms of a sum total, except impressionistically.
Furthermore, I compare syllable-length options within a given language, not across languages.
Across languages, this is the most important observation to make: Greek, in terms of phonological length, is more prolix than English, and English more than Hebrew.
That can’t be fixed. As Greek goes, Mark’s style is terse. A stylistically equivalent translation will imitate that terseness. The result in English should be a total syllable count significantly lower than the count in Greek.
I just split Lingamish’s gut, I realize. I’m even funnier in person.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
It is comforting to know that there are people in the world far, far more geekier than I am.
October 19th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Oh, I think I’m really Markan priority, but I just noted that an alternative hypothesis would fit better with ElShaddai’s suggestion that Mark “sounds like what a pastor will do from the pulpit, summarizing the parts of a passage not essential to his message.”
As for syllable counts, it reminds me of how someone complained that a modern translation of a psalm had fewer words than KJV and LXX. I looked at the Hebrew and found it had only about half the number of words of the allegedly over-abbreviated modern translation! But all this shows is that, sorry John, comparing numbers of words or even syllables between different languages is not a very useful idea.
October 20th, 2007 at 2:40 am
This is the reason why shorthand began with Greeks. The consonant blends all had their own symbol completely independent of the alphabet. Add the vowel with a tittle and you could make Greek look a lot less prolix, visually at least. Same number of syllables, but it didn’t take up so much space, one symbol per syllable. Nifty, eh?
The result in English should be a total syllable count significantly lower than the count in Greek.
Exactly which syllables did you want Doug to leave out, John? But that is what I was trying in 1 Cor. 13, to reduce the number of syllables.
October 21st, 2007 at 2:10 pm
‘v gt n d! Lt’s wrt wtht vwls!
October 21st, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Have any of you heard of The Mark Experiment? Andrew Page, a British expatriot living in Austria with some kind of church-related job, has put together an analysis of Mark as a text structured to be memorized. (No, it was the other end of Austria from where I was. I have yet to meet the man.) It’s worth looking into. Personally, I suspect he’s right. But some folks think that Page’s approach verges on the heretical because he says the parts of the Jesus story are selected and arranged to make them readily memorizable.
October 21st, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Rich, sounds interesting. I’m surprised that some people would be upset by the idea.
Lngmsh, gd d
December 6th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
[...] more discussion and examples of literary translation, see here, here, here and especially here. I realize that I’m quite late to the party on this topic, but hopefully [...]
March 11th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
[...] literary translation, with some specific examples, of a rather different genre and register from my own earlier example. I don’t know what he thinks of the literary qualities of the ISV translation he was praising [...]
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:33 pm
and can include setting up instead of mending.
καταρτίζοντας setting up; teaching (not as you say:”mending, fixing”)
the distinction between “farther” is not the question since the word “εκειθεν” is not in the MSS.
προβας come forward, go forward, proceed…” He going forward a little προβας saw James come ”
uses of εὐθὺς “At Once”, “outright” and not as you say, “immediately”.
that phrase “one having authority” is hardly spoken English… but “one having sway” conveys the idea of control, especially when you include the last partof the sentence….”and not as the “one’s learned in the Mosiac law”.
εξουσια sway, dominion, control, power, authority,
γραμματέας, one learned in the Mosiac law; clerk, a scribe,