Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Goody Blake and Harry Gill

English to French, Goody Blake and Harry Gill

A poem by William Wordsworth about the power of conscience. The lesson - good deeds should be done willingly. 

Un poème de William Wordsworth sur le pouvoir de la conscience. La leçon - bonnes actions devrait être fait de plein gré.



Claquement, claquement, claquement encore!



Oh! what's the matter? what's the matter?
What is't that ails young Harry Gill?
That evermore his teeth they chatter,
Chatter, chatter, chatter still!
Of waistcoats Harry has no lack,
Good duffle grey, and flannel fine;
He has a blanket on his back,
And coats enough to smother nine.
Ô! Ce qui est faux? Ce qui est faux?
Qu'est-ce qui indispose jeune Harry Gill?
Ce toujours qui fait ses dents, comme coup de froid,
Claquement, claquement, claquement encore!
Des gilets Harry ne manque pas,
Bon duffle gris et flanelle pur;
Une couverture sur le dos, il a
De manteaux suffisamment a étouffer neuf.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Aimé Césaire - Epacts

From Lyric and Dramatic Poetry, 1946-82 by Aimé Fernand David Césaire (1913 – 2008)





epacts 


The hill in a soft gesture is dusted 
The mangrove swamps are bitter 
Immediately bogged down; 
I heard the clacking 
Of the beaks and standing more silently than before 
Surrounded by the cacophony of the mandibles. 
And the spittle of remorse of leeches and roots 
Settled and complicit by our collusion 
Soon one slurs the dragons; and in time 
One or two arising from the muck and mire 
Shaking wings and showering all about and in time 
As the departing barks and boats retire 
From the shore in a monsoon dream 
If I myself am blind, I walk in a suffocating childhood 
Which is made clear to those who calculate the differences in lunar days 
For I always refused to agree with a lagoonal calendar

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

La Radioactivite - English/French Translation

 

 

 

Soyez curieux sur les choses, pas les gens - Marie Curie

Marie Curie - Be curious about things, not people

La Radioactivite - English

Radioactivity is a new property of matter that was observed in certain substances. Nothing permits us to say now that this is an elementary property of matter, although a priori this view is not implausible and must even seem natural. Radioactive bodies are energy sources whose emanations are manifested by various effects: emissions of radiation, heat, light, and electricity. This release of energy is essentially linked to the atoms within the substance; constituting an atomic phenomenon; and besides, spontaneous. These two characters are absolutely essential.

We currently experience on our bodies low-level raditation: uranium and thorium, and several highly radioactive bodies: radium, polonium, actinium, radiothorium and ionium. These substances exist in nature in an extremely diluted state, and are not the result of chance. Among the highly radioactive substances, only radium was isolated in a pure salt form; in its richest ores, this substance appears in proportion of a few decigrams per ton of ore.

Radioactive substances emit rays which are observable with sensitive plates, and excite phosphorescence and render its gas as conductors of electricity, while experiencing no regular reflection, refraction, nor polarization. These rays are analogous to cathode rays, positive rays and Roentgen rays. Close examination demonstrated that radiation from radioactive materials can be divided into three groups - beta, alpha, and gamma, respectively, which are similar to the three groups of rays previously named ... Beta rays are formed by an emission of negative electrons, alpha rays by an emission of particles positively charged, while gamma rays are not charged. The emission of alpha and beta rays corresponds to a spontaneous release of electricity (electrons) by the radioactive body. The rays of these bodies produce a number effects of a diverse nature: chemical effects, the most important being the decomposition of water; physiological effects such as its effect on skin and other body tissues, currently used in medical applications. Some radioactive materials are spontaneously luminous.

Radioactive bodies are sources of heat. Radium gives rise to 118 calories of heat per gram per hour, without appreciable modification to the state of the substance for several years. This remarkable fact establishes a fundamental distinction between radium and ordinary elements, and is consistent with the current belief that attributes radioactivity to atomic transformation.

Radioactive substances may exhibit constant activity, at least in appearance, within the limits of our observations: these are uranium, thorium, radium, and actinium. For other substances, for example polonium, a slow decrease in activity was observed over time. Finally one observed radioactive phenomena of a yet shorter duration. Thus radium, thorium, and actinium emit continuously the named radioactive gases, this activity disappearing with time, ...

To conclude this brief overview of the field of radioactivity, I will show to what extent energy is released by the radioactive substance. Thus, for radium, the destruction rate is known with a certain approximation (this speed is such that the amount of radium is halved in approximately 2000 years), and the destruction of a gram of material leads to the release of an amount heat equal to that resulting from the combustion of 500 kg of coal or 70 kilograms of hydrogen.

Francais

La radioactivité est une propriété nouvelle de la matière qui a été observée sur certaines substances. Rien ne permet d'affirmer actuellement que ce soit une propriété générale de la matière, bien que cette opinion n'ait a priori rien d'invraisemblable et doive même paraître naturelle. Les corps radioactifs sont des sources d'énergie dont le dégagement se manifeste par des effets variés: émission de radiations, de chaleur, de lumière, d'électricité. Ce dégagement d'énergie est essentiellement lié à l'atome de la substance; il constitue un phénomène atomique; il est de plus spontané. Ces deux caractères sont tout à fait essentiels.

Nous connaissons actuellement des corps faiblement radioactifs : l'uranium et le thorium, et plusieurs corps fortement radioactifs : le radium, le polonium, l'actinium, le radiothorium, l'ionium. Ces corps se trouvent dans la nature à l'état de dilution extrême, et ce n'est pas là l'effet du hasard. Parmi les corps fortement radio- actifs, le radium seul a été isolé à l'état de sel pur; dans les minerais les plus riches, ce corps se trouve en proportion de quelques décigrammes par tonne de minerai.

Les substances radioactives émettent des rayons qui ont la faculté d'impressionner les plaqvies sensibles, d'exciter la phos- phorescence et de rendre les gaz conducteurs de l'électricité, mais qui n'éprouvent ni réflexion régulière, ni réfraction, ni polarisation. Ces rayons offrent donc des analogies avec les rayons cathodiques, les rayons positifs et les rayons Runtgen. Un examen attentif a prouvé que le rayonnement des corps radioactifs peut se diviser en trois groupes |^, a, y, respectivement analogues aux trois groupes de rayons qui viennent d'être nommés … Les rayons ^j sont constitués par une émission d'électrons négatifs, et les rayons a par une émission de particvdes chargées positivement, tandis que les rayons y ne sont pas chargés. L'émission de rayons a et de rayons [j correspond à un dégagement spontané d'électricité par les corps radioactifs. Les rayons de ces corps produisent de nombreux effets de diverse nature : effets chimiques, dont le plus important est la décomposition de l'eau; effets physiologiques tels que l'action sur l'épi- derme et sur d'autres tissus, action qui est couramment utilisée pour des applications médicales. Certaines substances radioactives sont spontanément lumineuses.

Les corps radioactifs sont des sources de chaleur. Le radium donne lieu à un dégagement de chaleur de i 1 8' '' par gramme et par heure, et cela sans que l'état de la substance se modifie d'une manière appréciable pendant plusieurs années. Ce fait extrêmement remarquable établit une distinction fondamentale entre le radium et les éléments ordinaires, et se trouve en accord avec la conception actuelle qui attribue la radioactivité à une transformation de l'atome.

Les substances radioactives peuvent posséder une activité constante, au moins en apparence, dans les limites de nos obser- vations : tels sont l'uranium, le thorium, le radium, l'actinium. Pour d'autres substances, par exemple pour le polonium, une diminution lente d'activité avec le temps a été observée. Enfin on observe des phénomènes radioactifs de durée beaucoup plus courte encore. Ainsi le radium, le thorium, l'actinium dégagent d'une manière continue des gaz radioactifs nommés émanations, dont l'activité disparaît avec le temps, …

Pour terminer ce bref aperçu du domaine de la radioactivité, j'indiquerai combien grand est le dégagement d'énergie par les corps radioactifs. Ainsi, pour le radium dont la vitesse de destruction est connue avec une certaine approximation (cette vitesse est telle que la quantité de radium diminue de moitié en 2000 ans environ), la destruction d'un gramme de matière entraîne le dégagement d'une quantité de chaleur égale à celle qui résulte de la combustion de 000 kilogrammes de charbon ou de 70 kilogrammes d'hydrogène.

Saturday, October 24, 2015

le bonheur de Voltaire

D'après Nicolas de Largillière, portrait de Voltaire (Institut et Musée Voltaire)

Dans le cours de nos ans, étroit et court passage,
Si le bonheur qu'on cherche est le prix du vrai sage,

Qui pourra me donner ce trésor précieux? 

In the course of our insignificant and brief passage in life,
If the happiness we seek is the prize of true wisdom,

Who can give me this precious treasure? 

Voltaire, Discoures en Vers sur  L'Homme, deuxieme discours (1734)

 

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Mot-macumba – Magic-Word 

the word is father to saints 
the word is the mother to saints 
with the word water-snake one can cross a river swarming with crocodiles 
a word comes to mind and I draw it in the dirt 
with a fresh word one can cross the desert in a day
there are swimming-sticks words with which we ward off sharks 

there are words for iguanas
there are words subtle and stealthy as stick insects
there are shadowy words which awake in a flash anger 

there are words for Shango, god of thunder
a word comes to mind to swim cunningly on the back of a dolphin 

le mot est père des saints
le mot est mère des saints
avec le mot couresse on peut traverser un fleuve
peuplé de caïmans
il m’arrive de dessiner un mot sur le sol
avec un mot frais on peut traverser le désert
d’une journée
il y a des mots bâton-de-nage pour écarter les squales
il y a des mots iguanes
il y a des mots subtils ce sont des mots phasmes
il y a des mots d’ombre avec des réveils en colère d’étincelles
il y a des mots Shango
il m’arrive de nager de ruse sur le dos d’un mot dauphin
Aimé Césaire


Aimé Fernand David Césaire (né 1913 à Basse-Pointe et mort 2008 à Fort-de-France, Martinique) est un poète et homme politique français de Martinique, qui avec Léopold Sédar Senghor et Léon Damas, est l’un des fondateurs du mouvement littéraire de la négritude et voix majeure de la francophonie.

J'habite une blessure sacrée/j'habite des ancêtres imaginaires/j'habite un vouloir obscur/j'habite un long silence/j'habite une soif irrémédiable/j'habite un voyage de mille ans/j'habite une guerre de trois cents ans... Aimé Césaire - Moi, laminaire, 1982.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Elegie pour Martin Luther King - translated to English, parts I - III


Qui a dit que j’étais stable dans ma maîtrise, noir sous l’écarlate sous l’or ?
Léopold Sédar Senghor


Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese poet, writer, and statesman. He became Senegal’s first democratically elected president, a post he held for twenty years. With Aimé Césaire, he co-founded the Négritude movement, to promotes African cultural values. He was a member of the Académie Française, and was awarded honorary doctorates from 37 universities, in addition to other literary honors.

Elégies Majeures was a series of poems published in 1969, with the Elégie pour Martin Luther King being, perhaps, the most significant. This poem was composed after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.It makes reference to many African ideas including the founding of St. Louis by the French in Senegal, the Biafran struggle for independence within Nigeria, as well as the Cold War and the American involvement in Vietnam.





Léopold Sédar Senghor, 1906–2001

Elegie pour Martin Luther King - translated to English, parts I - III


I

Who said that I was steady in my majesty, black under scarlet under gold.
Who said, like the master of the sledge and the hammer,
Master of the dum-dum and tom-tom.
Drum major of the dance, with my baton.
I commanded the Red Forces, better than the tenders of the camels on their long march.
They yield, so supple, and as the wind falls and the rain nurtures.

Who said, who said in this century of hatred and the atom.
When all power is a speck of dust, all force weakened like the Super-Powers.
They tremble at night, over their grand silos of bombs and tombs, when
At the horizon of a new season, I search in the fever of a sterile storm.
A blood feud, but that said, who said,
Flanked by drums, beside the orchestra eyes believing and mouth thirsting (white)
And seeming like the innocent of the village,
I see a vision, I hear the way and the instrument
But words like a herd of confused Cape Buffalo, banging themselves against my teeth
And my voice opens in the emptiness
Quiet the last chord

I (should) divide into nothingness, everything relearned in this tongue
So strange and multiplied,
To face with my smooth lance to confront the monster
The lioness, manatee, siren and serpent in the labyrinth of the abyss
At the edge of the choir, the first step, the first breath through the leaves of my backbone
I have lost my edge, speechless (cat got my tongue), still I am strong in the shaking
And you speak of my happiness,
While, I cry Martin Luther King



II

This night, this bright sleepless night, I remember all those yesterdays, I recall a year.
It was the eighth day, the eighth year our circumcision
The one hundred and seventy-ninth year of our birth and death, at Saint Louis.
St. Louis St. Louis! I remember it as if were yesterday and the day before, such a year
(At the center of the world) In the Metropolis Center, at the prow of the western tip of Africa combating
The law a bitter thing. On the long wide path and as if to victory
Flags of red and gold, the banners of hope fluttering, splendid in the sun.
In this the breath of joy, a people innumerable and black celebrating its triumph
In the stadiums of the spoken word, taking its seat again and regaining its ancient presence.
It was yesterday in St. Louis at the Celebration, and among Linguères and Signares
Young female camels, with robes open over their long legs
Among the lofty hairstyles, among the brilliance of teeth, a flourish of laughter and drink.
Suddenly.
I recalled, I felt a heaviness on my shoulders, in my heart, acknowledgements from the past
I looked, I saw the withered and tired dresses of the smiling Signares and Linguères.
I see their laughter defeated, and the teeth now veiled, by lips like blue black clouds.
I remember Martin Luther King asleep, a red rose at his throat
And I feel what is left in the marrow of my bones, the voices and tears,
A sigh of “ah”, the deposited blood.
Of four hundred years, four hundred million eyes, two hundred million hearts, two hundred million mouths, and two hundred million dead,
Unnecessary; I feel today, my People, I feel
That on the Fourth of April you are twice defeated, murdered, when Martin Luther King died.
Oh my Linguères, Signares, my beautiful giraffes, to me what is important are your
handkerchiefs and your robes (muslins)
Your pins and fobs (fobines???), to me I care that your singing glorifies:

MARTIN LUTHER KING, THE KING OF PEACE?

Ah, Signares light your lanterns, Linguères rip out your hair (wigs)
Servants and you militants, my daughters, whether you are the lowest of the earth,
Close and let fall your robes.
There is only one way your ankles???: all women are noble
That which nourishes the people with their well-bred (smoothe) hands and their rhythmic chants.
For the fear of God, but God has already hit us with his left a terrible blow
For Africa more severely than other 1ES???, and Senegal like Africa
In thousand nine hundred sixty-eight!

III

This is the third year, the third plague, like long ago in our homeland Egypt.
Last year, oh Lord, you never were you so angry since the Great Famine
And Martin Luther King was not there to sing of your spital and appease it.
There in heaven brief days filled with ashes, days of silence, the earth grey.
From the point of the Almadies and even to the foothills of Fongolimbi
To the sea in flames at Mozambique, to Cape Despair
I say the bush is red, the fields white, and the forests boxes of matches
Which crackling. Like grand tides of nausea, you recalled the hunger from the depths of our memories.
Here are our lips without oil holes and cracked, it is under
The cold-dry dusty wind of Harmattan, the backwater ghetto of Poto-Poto .
The sap is dried at its source, the tanks in wonder, sounding
From the lips like buds, the sap does not rise to chant the joy of Easter


But there is the faint call of the sparrow (swi-manga) above the flowers whose leaves are gone
and bees are deadly.
God is an earthquake, a tornado without rain, roaring like the lion of Ethiopia in his day of wrath.
Volcanoes have sprung in the garden of Eden, for three miles kilometers,
Like fireworks at the feast of the fish
At the fires of Zeboim to Sodom and Gomorrah, volcanoes burned the lakes
And savannas. And the sickness, along with the herds and the people
Because we did not help, we did not cry
Martin Luther King.
I say no, it is no longer the kapos, the garotte, the canon, and quicklime,
The crushed peppers and melted bacon, the bag, the hammock, the mish-mash,
Buttocks to the warmth of the fire, these are no longer the beef nerve???and powder of the arse???
Castration, amputation, and crucifixion - you can slice them up delicately,
you can cleverly cook the heart in a small fire
It is the postcolonial war, of festering boils, pity abolishes all code of honor
War where the Super-Powers napalm by proxy.
In the hell of gas and oil, lie wet two and a half million bodies
Consumed not by a soothing flame
Nigeria wiped off the sphere, as Nigritia seven times but seven times seventy years.
Nigeria falls on the Lord, and Nigritia,
The voice of Martin Luther King!

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Sous l’invocation de St. Jerome - Invoking the name of St. Jerome

French to English - Français à l'anglais
 
Valery Laubard (1881-1957)


Invoking the Name of St. Jerome 

In the army of writers, we others, translators, we are the foot soldiers; in the publishing world, we are the interchangeable understudy, marginal and almost anonymous. Save in France and England and a few honorable exceptions, if the cover of a translated book carries the name of the author and publisher, one must look within, and to the interior title, and what’s more to the opposite page, high or low, in the smallest possible type, and better to be hidden, to find the miserable name of the translator. The process by which a text written in a language, finds itself susceptible of being read in another language is probably an act which is vaguely indecent, since politeness requires that we do not notice. Whereupon the world agrees, as well both critics and readers. Some maniacs try sometimes to declare wonders (if any) and more often cry a massacre, but these maniacs are always translators, who hears them? Other translators ... 

We live in a closed circuit. The scourge of Esperanto and Volapuk [and now Google Translate] do not haunt us anymore, but machine translation warily watches us, with a result made quickly and more precisely than we could, say the prophets of doom - and presto, translation with the press of a button. So the difficult times we live in are still a paradise. We must add that we, like all the working proletariat, stranded between supply and demand, and stranded a second time between quality and productivity - we're not even sure we agree among ourselves: "techniques", as we say in our jargon, are the envy of literati because the literati have no difficulties with vocabulary and the literati envy techniques, because techniques possess only the difficulty of vocabulary. 

We strive all the same, as we can, to improve our craft, and from time to time seeking encouragement or consolement, we light a candle before an image of our patron saints: St. Jerome, who made some misinterpretations and St. Valery Larbaud, who made none, St. Etienne Dolet, who gave us our first charter, and Blessed Jacques Amyot, and Chapman, and Galland and Burlon and Schiller, and Nerval, and Baudelaire, who proved for us the existence of a miracle. Sous l’invocation de St.Jerome 


Sous L'Invocation de St. Jerome 

Dans l’armée des écrivains, nous autres traducteurs nous sommes la piétaille; dans le personnel de l’édition, nous sommes la doublure interchangeable, le besogneux presque anonyme. Sauf en France et en Angleterre quelques honorables exceptions, si la couverture d’un livre traduit porte le nom de l’auteur et le nom de l’éditeur, il faut chercher à la page de titre intérieure, et plus encore face à celle page, tout en haut ou tout en bas, dans le plus petit caractère possible, le mieux dissimulé possible, le misérable nom du traducteur. L’opération par laquelle un texte écrit dans une langue se trouve susceptible d’être lu dans une autre langue est sans doute un acte vaguement indécent, puisque la politesse exige qu’on ne le remarque pas. Là-dessus tout le monde est d’accord, et aussi bien les critiques que les lecteurs. Quelques maniaques tentent parfois de signaler des merveilles (il y en a) et plus souvent de crier au massacre, mais ces maniaques sont toujours des traducteurs, et qui les écoule? d’autres traducteurs... 

Nous vivons en circuit fermé. Le fléau de l’espéranto et du volapuck [et à présent Google Traduction] ne nous hante plus, mais la machine à traduire nous guette, qui traduira plus vile et plus juste que nous, disent les prophètes de malheur — el voici venir la traduction presse-boulon. Si bien que les temps difficiles que nous vivons seraient encore un paradis. Il faut ajouter que nous sommes, comme tout prolétariat, coincés entre l’offre et la demande, et coincés une deuxième fois entre la qualité et le rendement. Nous ne sommes même pas sûrs de nous entendre entre nous: les « techniques », comme nous disons dans notre jargon, envient les « littéraires », parce que les littéraires n’ont pas de difficultés de vocabulaire, et les littéraires envient les techniques, parce que les techniques n’ont que des difficultés de vocabulaire. 

Nous nous efforçons tout de même, comme nous pouvons, d’améliorer notre métier, et de temps en temps, peur nous encourager ou nous consoler, nous allumons un cierge devant l’effigie de nos saints patrons: saint Jérôme, qui fil quelques contresens et saint Valéry Larbaud, qui n’en fit aucun, saint Étienne Dolet, qui nous donna notre première charte, et le bienheureux Jacques Amyot, et Chapman, et Galland, et Burlon, et Schiller, et Nerval, et Baudelaire, qui nous ont prouvé l'existence du miracle.