Machado's "Anoche cuando dormia" 馬查多的"昨夜睡時"

Whilst I was working on Machado, one of my blog friends "Superman"  was doing exactly the same thing. Without my knowing, he published one of Machado's poems and its English translation he obtained from the internet some time last Sunday. I could not believe my eyes when I clicked into his blog after I was done with mine yesterday morning. Life never ceases to amaze! I told him that I had already done the Chinese translation of that very poem during my vacation and that it might think of publishing the Chinese translation today although otherwise, I had no particular reason to want to deviate from my original publication schedule of the relevant translations. This is what I like about Life. It always manages to spring surprises upon you at moments you least expect them. Whatever the truth maybe, here's my Chinese translation of Machado's poem. Machado did not give it any title. So in line with convention, it is called by its first line " Anoche cuando dormia" ( Last night when I slept) and as usual, I shall set in parallel, the original Spanish text and my English and Chinese translations, for ease of comparison. In line with my philosophy of translation, I try to stick as closely as possible to the words and word order of the original except where that becomes glaringly impossible because of the exigencies of Chinese grammar of placing the subject at the head of a sentence. As far as possible, I would like the poet to speak in his own words, with his own images, in his own time but obviously it is impossible to reproduce the original rhyme and rhythms. I have not the slightest intention of trying to engage in "creating" Chinese poetry based loosely on the original text and using the latter as a jumping board for my own creation. But my task may not always be easy because quite often Machado follows the rules of Latin grammar, which the Spaniards have adopted and are quite liberal with regard to where one places the objects of the verbs and which thus  permit intermediate phrases or subordinate-clauses whether adjectival or adverbial, to be placed almost everywhere so that sometimes, their Chinese translation becomes a virtual nightmare!

Anoche cuando dormia            When I slept last night           昨夜睡時 

Anoche cuando dormia                  When I slept last night                        昨夜睡時

soñé, ¡bendita ilusion!,                  I dreamt, what a blessed illusion!      作了夢。多有福的幻境！

que un fontana fluia                       a fountain flowing                               在我心中

dentro de mi corazón.                   within my heart                                    一噴泉在流動。

Di, ¿ por qué acequia escondida, Water, through what hidden channel   水，說，透哪暗溝

agua, vienes hasta mi,                  you come to me,                                    你走我前,

manantial de nueva vida               source of new life                                 新生之泉，

en donde nunca bebi?                   where I never  drank?                          在哪我從沒飲過？   

 

Anoche cuando dormia                When I slept last night                          昨夜睡時

soñé, ¡bendita ilusion!,                I dreamt, what a blessed illusion!        作了夢。多有福的幻境！

que una colmena tenia                 I had a beehive                                     一蜂巢

dentro de mi corazón;                 within my heart                                     在我心中

y las doradas abejas                   and the golden bees                               而金蜂

iban fabricando en el                  were going to make in it                         將在其內

con las amaraguras viejas,        with the bitter pasts                               以昔之苦

blanca cera y dulce miel.            white wax and sweet honey.                  泡製白臘與甜蜜。

 

Anoche cuando dormia               When I slept last night                         昨夜睡時

soñé, ¡bendita ilusion!,               I dreamt, what a blessed illusion!        作了夢。多有福的幻境！

que un ardiente sol lucia             a burning sun was shining                  在我心中

dentro de mi corazón.                 within my heart.                                   一熾熱太陽正發亮。

Era ardiente porque daba          It was burning because it gave off       它熾熱因它

calores de rojo hogar,               heat from a red hearth,                        從紅爐放熱，

y era sol porque alumbrada       it was sun because it shed ligh           它是太陽因它照亮

y porque hacia llorar.                 and it made tears.                              而催淚。  

         

Anoche cuando dormia             When I slept last night                            昨夜睡時

soñé, ¡bendita ilusion!,              I dreamt, what a blessed illusion!        作了夢。多有福的幻境！

que era Dios lo que tenia           it was God that I had                            在我心中的

dentro de mi corazón.                within my heart.                                    是神。       

In this short poem, many of the elements I mentioned in my introduction are evident. Machado is using an 8-syllabic line. He writes in 4 stanzas. Three of them had 8 lines but the last stanza stood out by being much shorter, only 4 lines. He uses a rhyme scheme of ababacac ababcdcd ababaaaa and abab.

True to his ideal, Machado's style is quite conversational. He wants to write in the way the ordinary Spanish people uses words. He tries to create a unity of tone and voice by making use of the exact repetition of the first two lines of each stanza which serve as a kind of chorus to link the four sections together. He employs images of the most common sights in small Spanish villages and country towns: fountains, springs, bees and the sun. Mochado likes contrasts, opposites, paradoxes. To him, water is often contrasted with the sun: solid against liquid, hot against cold, fire against water. Water in many of his poems is just another name for Life and but at the same time, it may also signify the incessant flow of time, which often is a cause for memories, of regrets, of sorrow whereas the sun is often the symbol of passion and of hope, something which  lights up the fires within his heart. He also makes use of another image, the hard working bees, a symbol of the hardworking Spanish peasants, which never cease to produce something every one enjoys: honey.

Through the use of such simple images mentioned above, Machado links life, love, memory of past pains and hope for future happiness but as previously argued, his hope is never certain and can only be achieved in dreams and subjective illusions. In the last stanza, he reveals that everything which he describes in the previous three stanzas has their origin in God. But he can find God only as the ":illusion" endlessly repeated at the head of each stanza! His language is simple, so are his images. Why? He wishes to write a poetry of the people and a poetry for the people! But the God that he talks about may not be the Catholic God of the common folks. His God is more akin to the god of natural theology! The idiom of God cannot be more familiar to the man in the street in Spain. To that extent, he has "usurped" the Spanish God for his own poetic purposes! But as he says, if his hopes are illusions, it is a "blessed" illusion!