Translating Háy, ‘Petőfi híd’, 2007
Háy, Házasságon
Csak a felszín locsogott, minden fület eltömített a hangja.
Malcolm translated Háy’s first sentence last, not least because of the nod to the opening stanzas of Attila József’s 1936 poem ‘A Dunánál’:
A rakodópart alsó kövén ültem,
néztem, hogy úszik el a dinnyehéj.
Alig hallottam, sorsomba merülten,
hogy fecseg a felszín, hallgat a mély.
All further allusions to ’surface din’ in the translated Háy text then had to refer back to the opening sentence.
An old lady, overdressed on a warm spring day – neither her neighbour Mariska nor her children would be able to look after her if she fell ill -, makes her way to the Danube. She engages in a mild bout of competitive morbidity with a woman ten years her junior and, having thought about how the noise might cover her pain, decides to make her way over to Buda. Going at her own inimitable pace, neither fast nor slow, she notices the handiwork of ‘delinquents’ (as they are called on TV), economics students she believes to be bankers, and sociology students she believes to be beggars, while traffic whizzes past. She is unable to see details on the other side of the river until she reaches the top of the Buda steps. Worried about the wind on bridges, she wonders how many people who passed her by, which reminds her of the time she lied to her husband about his terminal cancer. The old lady reaches the steps, takes in the scene, and slowly turns around, ‘like a lorry in a tight space’, to face the Pest side again:
Majd elmesélem, gondolta magában, majd elmesélem a Mariskának, hogy láttam ma Budát.
(Malcolm’s translation: ‘I’ll tell her, she thought to herself, I’ll tell Mariska: today I saw Buda’.)
Discussion concentrated on possible ways to translate the following:
De neki volt még elég ereje, úgyhogy elindult a maga tempójában, azzal a nem hasonlíthatóval, hogy átjusson a túlsó partra. (p. 157)
where the speed at which the old woman walks across the bridge is brought into focus as ‘incomparable’; the proliferation of meg in colloquial speech:
Hanem azt mondta, hogy bízni kell a gyógyulásban, meg csak azok gyógyulnak meg, akik meg akarnak. (p. 161)
and possible English regional translations of ‘Kicsi pénzből élt’, and ‘Most ha több lenne, akkor csak bajt jelentene’. (p. 159)
If we accept that Anglophone cultures tend not to discuss death readily, it was agreed that humour be prominent in the translation, otherwise the casual mortality of the original might threaten to overwhelm the non-Hungarian reader. Discussion also touched upon The Brothers Karamazov versus The Karamazov Brothers, and whether Liverpool is better than Birmingham.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:09 am
Extremely detailed! Liverpool is better than Birmingham. Well that’s what we agreed, right?
June 1st, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Hanem azt mondta, hogy bízni kell a gyógyulásban, meg csak azok gyógyulnak meg, akik meg akarnak. (p. 161)
Here only that middle “meg” is the one typical of colloquial speech – a conjunction with a lighter force than “és.” The other two “meg”s are verbal prefixes that are not restricted to or typical of colloquial speech – but I guess I’m just stating the obvious.
June 1st, 2008 at 4:01 pm
True, I guess you could take the last one as a “focus-giving” meg,- which is colloquial – rather than a verbal prefix. Would the omission of the verbal prefix here truly be optional (i.e., could you take it as “akik meg *akarnak* meggyógyulni”)?
June 18th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
The ’surface din’ also brings to (my) mind the disquiet, sleepless tension in Radnoti Miklós’ poem Éjtszaka:
ÉJTSZAKA
Fekszik a test, de a sok
lebegő árny áll a falaknál.
Jár a zsebóra, mereng
a pohár víz, hallgat a naptár.
1944. március (Radnóti Miklós)
A few Hungarians I have related this poem to refuse to believe ‘éjszaka’ is spelt with a ‘t’ in Radnoti’s verse. I presume, as in some of Arany János’ works this is either an old or a lyrical form?
p.s. Great to fall across this blog. I had always wanted to study Hungarian properly at UCL-SSEES, but I never had the money. As compensation these days I live in Budapest and try to pick up what I can.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:28 am
I agree with everything that has been said about meg but I am not sure I understand the last comment: ‘Would the omission of the verbal prefix here truly be optional (i.e., could you take it as “akik meg *akarnak* meggyógyulni”)’. The co-verb (or verbal pre-fix) meg which precedes akarnak is the co-verb of meggyógyul, and here it stands in the pre-verbal position ensuring the neutrality of the sentence. (Akar and several other semi-auxiliaries normally separate the co-verb from its verb thus focalising the co-verb. Unless there is a real focus in the sentence – negation, question word, etc. – that is the typical position of co-verbs. Therefore, in answers given to yes/no questions which involve verbs with co-verbs the latter stands alone as a positive answer: Meg akar gyógyulni? – Meg.)
So,
Meg akar gyógyulni – ok
(Nem) akar meggyógyulni – ok
Ki akar meggyógyulni? – ok
*Meg akar meggyógyulni. – does not exist
I have read the ‘middle’ meg as a conjunction but I think it is a very interesting suggestion that it could be read as a co-verb, perhaps as a perfectiviser. (C.f. el csak akkor megyek, ha…, meg csak akkor veszem, ha…) But in such cases there is no need to repeat the co-verb after the infinitive, thus it would be rather
1 meg csak azok gyógyulnak, akik (meg) akarnak (gyógyulni)
or even
2. …meg meg csak azok gyógyulnak, akik( meg) akarnak (gyógyulni)
cf. megnézni megnézem, meg meg is veszem (ha tetszik)
and never
*(meg) meg csak azok gyógyulnak meg, akik…
Where 2 is most like the sentence on p.161.
Does this make sense?