Translatio mea

Translatio mea William F. Wyatt, Jr. When in Greece over the years I enquired of educated Greeks what I should read. I received various answers from various people, answers which generally accorded with my interlocutor's political leanings. As it happens I seem to have heeded the more conservative Greek, and hence was introduced first to A. Karkavitsas' Ό ζητιάνος, which I enjoyed immensely; then to Papadiamántis' Ή φόνισσα, which I also enjoyed; and then to Vizyenos' Ό Μοσκώβ-Σελήμ. At that time I was primarily interested in learning Greek, reading Greek literature, particularly literature which had an anthropological as well as literary interest: I learned more by reading Greek novels than I did from reading contemporary American. I had no intention whatsoever of translating any of these works. I reread Ό ζητιάνος, however, several times, and the notion gradually grew on me of translating it into English. And, since none of the works mentioned above had yet been translated into English; and since courses in modern Greek literature in English translation had of necessity to omit everything (pretty much, in prose at least) prior to Myrivilis; I formed the idea of translating the three works in question into English, both as a service to the profession and as a pleasurable and educational undertaking for me. I accordingly made application to the National Endowment for the Humanities for support of my translation of Ό ζητιάνος, and was fortunate enough to be supported in this work, work which resulted in the publication of my translation in 1983. Wanting to translate a work and translating it, I found, are quite separate activities. Though I had read Ό ζητιάνος several times, I had not done so with the intention of representing every word: I read as I do English, noting the words, but concentrating on the sense. And the general sense always seemed to come to me. But an accurate or effective rendition into English I had not attempted, and found that such often eluded me. Sometimes the phrasing of a sentence Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Volume 8, 1990. 299 300 William F. Wyatt, Jr. proved difficult; often enough words were not to be found in léxica; sometimes dialectal or colloquial words or phrases resisted rendition into English. As a classical philologist, I had considerable experience both in translating and in attempting exact renditions of words; and as a linguist, I was well aware of the difficulties of semantic representation . I was therefore aware and prepared in a theoretical sense to undertake translation—though I had no theoretical knowledge of or interest in the process of translation itself. I was not prepared, however, to face actual texts which had to be rendered comprehensible to an English audience unaware, for the most part, of the nature of the Greek language or even of Greek literature and mores. Humility struck. I found myself confronted with an impossible task, and, uncharacteristically, I sought help, help from two very good friends in Providence, both educated and sensitive native speakers of Greek, to help me with the translation. I say help, but in fact they more often than not carried me over rocks and shoals on which I would otherwise have certainly come to grief. Despoina Mylonas and Venetia Georas helped immeasurably, and I am grateful to them. Their own interest in my project and in modern Greece was perhaps as important as their assistance to me in carrying it out. It would be pleasant to give actual examples of my procedure, but I (or the Brown Library) have in the ten or so years intervening discarded my τετϕάδια, so that I cannot give actual examples. But I can describe the process. I had text and lexicon (Creighton) to hand and one of those most pleasant soft-covered blue Greek τετϕάδια which Greek school children use for their school exercises and which I love—both for the size and for the feel. I would enter my translation on one leaf, using double space, and leave the facing leaf blank. When I encountered a word or phrase I could not interpret, I would leave a blank in my translation, and would enter the difficult word or phrase on the facing page. I then xeroxed the pages and took them to Mrs...