Fate Poem by David Stern

Cyprian Kamil Norwid was a 19th century Polish poet.
A short poem but an incredibly profound description of righteous human attitude in face of misfortune.

Translated by David Stern on May 19,2017

August 21,2017 Note:
I translated Norwid's 'Fatum' and other poems into English on a whim in a short period of time this year (2017) because my mood commanded me to reach for my old country's poetical masterpieces. Only after that I looked online and I found Agata Brajerska-Mazur's 1996 essay: ‘Trzy tłumaczenia Fatum na język angielski' ('Three translations of ‘Fatum' into English language') . I did not read this or her other papers before doing any of my translations.
The author quotes and analyzes three older translations of the poem. Then in 2011 Danuta Borchardt's translation was published, which apparently was a fruit of collaboration/discussion between Brajerska-Mazur and Borchardt.

I am providing all earlier translations here for comparison.



Burns Singer (with Polish consultation from Jerzy Peterkiewicz) ,1960

FATE

Mischance, ferocious, shaggy, fixed its look
On man, gazed at him, deathly grey,
And waited for the time it knew he took
To turn away.

But man, who is an artist measuring
The angle of his model's elbow joint,
Returned that look and made the churlish thing
Serve his aesthetic point.
Mischance, the brawny, when the dust had cleared
Had disappeared.


Adam Czerniawski,1973

FATE
Like a wild beast tragedy startled a man
And pierced him with her fateful eyes
− Waiting −
Will he swerve?

But he gazed back steadily like an artist
Sizing up his model's shape:
Aware of his gaze
How can she take advantage of her foe?
She staggered with all her weight
− And now she's gone! −


Edmund Ordon,1975

FATE
Like a wild beast misfortune came to the man;
Its fatal eyes sunk in him, bide
− And scan. − −
Will man turn aside?

But, like an artist who wants to know
His model's measures, he looked back at it,
And it saw that he gazed at his foe
In order to see h o w he might benefit.
The entire weight of its form trembled thereupon
− − And it was gone!


Danuta Borchardt,2011

FATUM

I
Like a fierce beast — Misfortune came to man
And pierced him with its fateful eyes...
— It waits — —
Will, man, swerve?

II
But he gazed back — as an artist would
Take measure of his model's form —
And it saw him watching — what? will man
Profit from his foe:
It reeled — with the full weight of its being…
— — And was gone!


Of all these translations I like Borchardt's one the best because of the fidelity to the original poem. Any attempts to rhyme create a significant divergence from the original meaning. In my translation I did choose different words in key areas though:

'FATUM' vs 'FATE': I agree with Borchardt that 'Fate' does not carry the same ominous weight as 'Fatum'. When one says: 'What fate brings', it is a little bit more fanciful way of saying 'What future brings'. 'Fatum' is a disastrous fate but unfortunately 'Fatum' is not a word in English so I fell back to 'Fate' like other translators did. I was torn here and sticking with Greek 'Fatum' is a fine choice as well.

'fierce' vs. 'wild': I am surprised at the choice of 'fierce beast' here because 'wild beast' is the right translation of the corresponding term in Polish. Norwid's language is often strange and the translator should carry over the strangeness from one language to another but this is not one of these cases. These expressions are the same in both languages. The poet creates a visual description of a staring contest between the beast and the man. The beast is waiting for the man's mistake but there is no fierceness in that moment of waiting. There is an intense stillness in this standoff but no action.

'Misfortune' vs. 'Misfortune': I agree here that this is the right word, not a 'tragedy' or 'mischance' as others used.

'fateful' vs. 'fatal': this is very subtle and it might feel like splitting hairs but 'fateful' is most often used in English in reference to event, time or action, especially when told in retrospect: 'that fateful night', 'the fateful battle'. It is less fitting for 'eyes'. 'Fatal' is 'death-bringing' and helps intensify the sense of how dangerous this beast is.

'Swerve' vs. 'stray': surprisingly none of the translations used the word 'stray'. I like it a lot because it is very close to the Polish term here, especially when you think about 'straying from the right path'. This is a critical moment in this poem - if you don't get it right, the English reader will be mislead what it is about. Others had 'Turn away' or 'turn aside, ' which are even further from the original. When you ask what harm the misfortune can bring to a man, you might think of depression, poverty, physical or mental harm, breaking the person down but what Norwid emphasized here was that misfortune might make the righteous person wander off his or her right path and stray. I think we can trust Norwid that he knew the meaning of misfortune and we should preserve what he wanted to convey here.

'Take measure' vs. 'assess the shape': the differences here are insignificant. The dramatic turn in the second part is that the man starts to study the beast like an artist, looking back at it from the distance as if it was not affecting him. All the translation needs to preserve here is that it is a long and studied look or gaze - the situation changes that the beast is not ominous anymore but becomes more of a curiosity.

'make use' vs. 'profit', vs. 'benefit', vs. 'take advantage': I don't feel the differences here are critical. The man studies the beast now to understand what happened to gain something from it. 'Profit, ' however, does not seem like the best word to describe that gain. Czerniawski made a bad mistake by misinterpreting who benefits from whom and this spoiled an otherwise fine translation.

'foe' vs. 'enemy': both terms seem fine here. Most translators favored 'foe' but for me 'enemy' worked better because it is a longer word, closer to the five syllable 'nieprzyjacielu' and making that line read better in English.

'full weight of its being' vs. 'whole weight': frankly I like Borchardt's version. I could not make that 'whole figure's weight' read well in English so I shortened it.