Giuseppe Ungaretti is an Italian poet, and is famous for his poems, some of which were influenced by the World War I and II. I will translateVeglia and Soldati. My translation process will consist of analyzing the poems, creating literal translation, then creating a more communicative translation, and finally I will be explaining the choices I made as a translator.
1. Veglia
Original
Veglia
Un’intera nottata
buttato vicino
a un compagno
massacrato
con la sua bocca
digrignata volta al plenilunio,
con la congestione
delle sue mani
penetrata
nel mio silenzio
ho scritto
lettere piene d’amore.
Non sono mai stato
tanto
attaccato alla vita.
The poem is about Ungaretti writing a poem about him being up and writing about a friend of his who has died. The word “massacrato” in the 4th line is interesting in the poem because a part of meaning “killed”, it also means that perhaps Ungaretti’s friends’ words were used against him. The word “congestione” creates a challenge, because in the Italian dictionary means that there is excess blood in an organ, perhaps a symbolic meaning to the friend being slightly purple in color due to death. The last few lines “Non sono mai stato tanto attaccato alla vita” literally means “I have never been so attached to life”, but “attaccato alla vita” is means that Ungaretti realizes he was very close to this person.
Literal Translation
Vigil
A whole night
thrown close
to a friend
massacred
with his mouth
gnashing
at times at the full moon
with the congestion
for his hands
penetrates
in my silence
I wrote
letters full of love.
I never stayed
so
attached to life.
Communicative Translation
Vigil
A whole night
thrown close
to a friend
slaughtered
by his own mouth
which were clenching teeth
at the moon,
with the paleness
of his hands
penetrated
me in my silence
and I wrote
letters filled of love.
I have never been
so
attached to life.
In the final communicative translation I made a few changes. I changed “congestion” in the literal translation with “paleness”. I also changed “gnashing” with “clenching of teeth” because I felt it embodied the idea of his friend suffering, more than “gnashing” did, and that is what I thought to be in the spirit of the source text. There was some translation loss, because there was loss of the ambiguous language that Ungaretti uses in his poems, that make his poems so rich in context.
2. Soldati
Original
Soldati
Si sta come
d’autunno
sugli alberi
le foglie.
The title of the poem is “Soldiers”, however, the poem does not use that word or any word related to war. The poem states that is it like autumn with leaves falling. It is referencing how the leaves fall, the soldiers fall.
Literal Translation
Soldiers
It is like
in autumn
on the trees
the leaves.
Communicative Translation
Soldiers
We are like
the autumn
leaves on
the trees.
In this translation I kept the same idea of the source text. One thing I did differently from the literal/ST was to put the word “leaves” in the 3rd line and “trees” on the 4th line, almost switching the two lines, just so it can make grammatical sense in English. I think this translation has very minimal translation loss.