Robert Desnos, J’AI TANT RÊVÉ DE TOI translated by Guy Bennett
I’VE DREAMT OF YOU SO OFTEN
I’ve dreamt of you so often that you’re losing your reality.
Is there still time to reach this living body and kiss on these lips the
birth of the voice I treasure?
I’ve dreamt of you so often that my arms, accustomed to crossing one
another over my chest as I embrace your shadow, might not even
curve to the contour of your body.
And, faced with the actual appearance of what’s haunted and ruled me
for days and years, I may well become a shadow.
O sentimental scales.
I’ve dreamt of you so often that it’s likely past time I wake up. I sleep
on my feet, my body exposed to every semblance of life and love
and you, the only woman who means anything to me today, I could
no more touch your forehead and your lips than the first forehead
and lips to come along.
I’ve dreamt of you so often, so often walked, spoken, slept with your spirit
that maybe all that’s left me, and still, is to be a spirit among spirits,
a hundred times more shadowy than the shadow that walks and will
walk blithely across the sundial of your life.
Commentary:
Like many I suppose, I’ve long loved this poem but have never attempted to translate it. Just never felt compelled or had any reason to do so until now, in response to Chris’ proposal. Since there were likely a gajillion translations already available, why add another if it didn’t feel necessary? I’ll hold off reading any of them until I’m done with mine, then I’ll go take a peek and append any after-the-fact observations / epiphanies to this note.
About my version: a couple phrases feel flat if not hackneyed to me, whereas in the original, for some mysterious reason, they do not (I’ll give specifics below); and one phrase I’m not able to render in a way that stays close enough to the French to satisfy me without being clumsy and clichéd. Then there are a couple of important words whose closest English equivalents are disappointing in one case and almost hokey in another. In sum, though I feel I’ve captured (a telling word!) the sense of the original, I’m not entirely satisfied with my version as a poem.
The unsatisfying renderings:
– the title, unfortunately, since it’s one of the most important bits. It feels flat to me in English, whereas in French it doesn’t. I can’t say why. Perhaps I’m fooling myself.
– the second half of the second sentence. This is the phrase that shoots a hole in my translation, as far as I’m concerned. I’m unable to render it in a way that captures the full meaning and feels natural. There are a few reasons why…
- the adverbial phrase sur la bouche [“on the lips” (more on this in a second)] feels more natural to me following the direct object phrase la naissance de la voix… [“the birth of the voice…”], but since the latter’s so long, the former feels too far from the verb if I put it there, so I keep it, as in the original, right after the verb, though it has always bothered me to have an adverbial phrase before a direct object in English;
- sur la bouche / on the lips… “on the mouth” seems more sensual, but also a little… I don’t know, off in English, drawing attention to itself but not in a good way, so I stick with the more conventional on the lips;
- since it’s not about kissing the body on the lips, nor even the voice, but the birth of the voice, and not even just the birth of the voice but the voice qui m’est chère, I feel like I’m juggling too many things here to be able to do so smoothly and elegantly, and no matter how I put it the complete phrase seems a bit of a clown car;
- qui m’est chère = that’s dear to me (or simply dear), though that feels a bit stilted, probably because I’m American; that’s special to me (or worse, simply special) feels tacky and Hallmarkish, so I opt for I treasure, a little more unusual and sparkly, yet not too attention grabbing, dropping that to trim at least one word from this overly long phrase.
Now those important words and their common English equivalents…
- balances = scales – it comes right in the middle of the poem, giving the text a “scales of justice”-like form; yet that’s not the meaning that first comes to my mind: the qualifying sentimental doesn’t guide me toward the act of weighing, so I fear the reader will stumble between that and other types of scales: musical scales, fish scales… it’s an unfortunate ambiguity that makes for a weak line in my rendering, in my opinion;
- fantôme = ghost, but I can’t bring myself to use that word, which seems cartoonish (think Casper and Spooky), and phantom is even worse, with its comic book / Lon Chaney overtones; I opt for spirit as the least bad option.
I don’t want to give the impression that I’m not happy with any aspect of my translation – there are a few things I’m actually kind of proud of: the natural-feeling language throughout, which mirrors the feel of the original, save my rendering of the 2nd and 5th paragraphs; the use of not even, may well, and likely in rendering the conditional and subjunctive verbs in paragraphs 3, 4 and 6; and the 3rd, 4th, and final paragraphs more or less in their entirety (spirits notwithstanding). So, while not entirely successful, it’s not a total wash either, though I wouldn’t rush to publish it, except as an exercise as here.
P.S. Having taken a peek at a variety of English translations available online, I feel a bit better about mine. 🙂 Re that awkward second paragraph, Mary Ann Caws does a better job of it than me: and to kiss on its mouth the birth of the voice so dear to me? (I like its mouth as it ties those words more closely to the birth for the voice, but wanted to keep the demonstrative adjective this mouth to maintain the echo of this body just before.) And as for the “sentimental scales” line, here are a few renderings I encountered:
- Oh equilibriums of the emotional scales! – Anonymous Internet Translator
- O scales of feeling. – Paul Auster
- Oh the shifts of feeling. – Mary Ann Caws
- Oh the weighing of sentiment. – Caws again
- Oh sentimental hesitations. – Georgie O’Neil (I think)
- O calculations of the heart. – Paul Weinfield
Of the bunch, I prefer Oh sentimental hesitations, though perhaps O scales of feeling is truer to the meaning of the original.
– Guy Bennett, Los Angeles
World Poetry Review 