@shimyereh / shimyereh.tumblr.com
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I’m fascinated by the element of translation in Don Juan.
Sometimes Byron will casually translate part of a foreign text and weave it into his poem. The coolest example of this I’ve seen so far is stanza 3/CVIII, where the first 6 lines are a translation of two tercets from Dante’s Divine Comedy (Purgatory, first two tercets of Canto VIII), but into the rhyme scheme of the first 6 lines of an ottava, and then Byron finishes with his own ending couplet.
3/CVIII. Soft Hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way As the far bell of Vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day’s decay; Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah! surely Nothing ends but Something mourns!
from:
Era già l’ora che volge il disio Ai navicanti e ‘ntenerisce il core Lo dì c’ han detto ai dolci amici addio;
E che lo novo peregrin d’amore Punge, se ode squilla di lontano Che paia il giorno pianger che si more…
I also love this stanza in Canto I, where he quotes Horace and then immediately translates him… with a twist:
1/CCXII. “Non ego hoc ferrem calida juventâ Consule Planco,”* Horace said, and so Say I; by which quotation there is meant a Hint that some six or seven good years ago (Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta) I was most ready to return a blow, And would not brook at all this sort of thing In my hot youth — when George the Third was King.
*[I would not have endured this in [my] hot youth, when Plancus was Consul.]
Then there are the places where he translates various prose source materials into poetry, to add details from outside his personal experience: the shipwreck in Canto II, the festivities in Canto III, the Siege of Izmail in Cantos VII and VIII… It’s so interesting to look at the source texts in parallel and see what he pulled from them, and how he adapted it.
