Borges on Blindness. 2 (波赫士之失明.2)

Just found another one of Borges' reflection on blindness. Here it is, with my English and Chinese translations.

What is peculiar in this Spanish poem that there is only one sentence of 14 lines! This is possible because whilst the rules of Spanish grammar with regard to tenses, genders are very strict, the Spanish are extremely lax in permitting where one can place the preposition, adjectives, the adjectival phrase, the adverbs, the adverbial phrase or qualifying sub-ordinate clauses and there can be a direct object and an indirect object or object clause to a verb.  Thus an adjective may be placed either before or after a noun. When it is intended to emphasize the quality concerned, is placed in front but otherwise normally placed after the noun it qualifies. Similarly a verb may have what they call a direct object and an indirect object but if so, only the direct object may be qualified by a sub-ordinate clause but one verb may apply to many object each of which may be so qualified. Here, in this the poem, Borges makes use of this peculiar characteristics of the Spanish langauge. He begins it with the verb "Indigno" (I am not worthy or possibly other meaning) followed by the proposition "de" and then followed by five objects  or object clauses each with its own subordinate clause or clauses! This however is a nightmare for the Chinese translator because Chinese sentence structure does not allow the object of a verb to wander too far away from the subject. Otherwise the sentence reads most "un-Chinese". But to retain the original flavor and word order of the Spanish poem, I have followed the advice of Lu Shun, who thought that one of the main purposes of a translation of a foreign work is to give the Chinese a "feel" for the type of sentence structure in that foreign language. I have little choice in the matter. 

Sobre su Ceguera                                 On his Blindness                                              失明一ニ

Indigno de los astros y del ave                I am not worthy of the stars and of the bird       我比不上星星也比不上那

Que surca el hondo azul, ahora secreto,     Which ploughs the deep blue, now secret, 傲翔深藍之雀鳥，而今已成秘密，

De esas lineas que son alfabeto                Of those lines which are alphabet 比不上那些把行行字句如字母般運用的他人

Que ordenan otros y del marmol grave      That the others use and of the grave marble    比不上我廢眼迷失

Cuyo dintel mis ya gastados ojos             in the shadow of whose lintel                      在其半陰影中的 

Pierden en su penumbra, de las rosas         my wasted eyes lose themselves ,                門楣上莊嚴大理石

Invisibles y de las silenciosas                   Of the invisible roses and of the silent          比不上那些隱形玫瑰及  

Multitudes de oros y de rojos                   Multitudes of golds and reds                       那片片默然不語的金黄與嫣紅

Soy, pero no de las Mil Noches y Una I am, but not from the Thousand and One Nights  我就是 , 但不是那在我影子下

Que abren mares y auroras en mi sombra      Which opens seas and dawns in my shadow  敞開海洋與曙光的一千零一夜

Ni de Walt Whitman, ese Adan que nombra Not of Walt Whitman, that Adam who names 也比不上和特、惠特曼，那個在月下給萬物

Las criaturas que son bajo la luna,               The creatures below the moon,                      定名的亞當，

Ni de los blancos dones del olvido              Not of the white gifts of oblivion                   也比不上那些遺忘記憶中的白色禮物

Ni del amor que espero y que no pido.         Not of the love I await but not ask.             也不惱根那我期盼但不索求的愛情。

In this poem, Borges plays around with the starting word "indigno". The word can be treated as a verb, as the first person present indicative form of the verb "indignar", meaning "I am angry with or at"  or "I am outraged that.. ." or alternatively as "I am unworthy of..." Alternatively it can also be treated as an adjective, in which case it means it is contemptible", or  "improper",  or  "wretched" or "dreadful" or "shameful" or "disgraceful" or "degrading" or "humiliating"  that.... The ambiguity therefore adds to the complexity of the meaning of the poem. It certainly seems that that word should be differently translated in different contexts but the difficulty is that Borges just used one "verb" which is distributively and successively used for all 5 subsequent predicate or direct and indirect object of that verb.