Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 148 January 28, 1992 1) Bird-watching (Yude-Leyb Proger) 2) Mostly Shakespeare (Yude-Leyb Proger) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Jan 92 12:06:55 IST From: leonard prager Subject: bird-watching To Noyekh shames Re: vol. 1, no. 130 Noyekh shames hot gemakht pleyte un valgert zikh arum in di velder. Af di eltere yorn gevorn a leydik-geyer un kuk im on -- gevorn a feygl-onkuker. Ver volt es gekholemt az undzer tmimesdiker shames farnemt zikh mit histakles-tsiporim gesheftn. Minestam iz er a gants feiker feygl-zeer: "Ver es ken gut toyre iz an emeser roye veeyno nire." Bikhdey tsu zayn a guter feygl-observirer, darf men kenen "nemen di oygn in di hent" -- ober nisht, kholile, onshtrengen di oygn. Ikh shtel zikh for az Noyekh "batrakht dem foygl fun ale zaytn vi men batrakht an esrog." Noyekh iz avade a shporevdiker, vayl "far onkukn tsolt men ka gelt nit." Efsher vet dos feygl-beobakhtn {= daytshmerish} im nit shotn, vayl "Fun zen iz nokh keyner nit blind gevorn." Kh'ob ober moyre Noyekh vet zikh kholile arumshpanen begile-rosh oder efsher zikh farkiln. Zol er haltn in zinen, "Az du kukst af hoykhe zakhn halt zikh tsu dos hitl." Zol er nor umkern tsu undz mit frishe koykhes. Ikh meyn az in a vaytern numer veln mir muzn arumredn dem inyen "Yidish un natur-terminologye." Yude-Leyb Proger (Leonard Prager) 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Jan 92 12:05:49 IST From: leonard prager Subject: nunnery To Mikhl Herzog Re: vol. 1, no 20 Please forgive me, Mikhl, for not responding to your comments of vol. 1, no. 20, which I have now received together with other back numbers. 1) I accept your justification of the one-word gloss 'pretender' for _mekhutan_. 2) How might one say 'pretender to the throne' in Yiddish? My first (impulsive) list included the following: _der tronzukher_, _der tronmoner_, _der kise-hamlukhe zukher_, der kise-hamlukhe moner_; _der pretendirer afn tron/afn kise-hamlukhe_; der pretendent (from NHG der Praetendent). Then I took a look at Stutshkov (Oytser, p. 464), who gives: _(tron-)pretendent_, _pretendirer_. I think that either -pretendent- (despite its similarity to the NHG word) or _pretendirer_ are quite satisfactory, and I am ready to squash my innovations. Nothing is easier, of course, in the event that one cannot find a translation equivalent, than paraphrasing -- which is what dictionaries do when they get stuck. A _pretender_ is thus "eyner vos taynet az davke er iz der emeser yoyresh-etser." The Hebrew _yoresh-etser_ 'heir-apparent' (Ashkenazic Hebrew YOYresh ETSer) is perfectly good Yiddish. Perhaps the _pretender_ might also be called _der kloymershter yoyresh-etser_. I am sure that the above does not exhaust the possibilities, since Yiddish, like English, is component-rich and register-rich. 3) With regard to your Shakespeare "query": a) Ber Lapin translated Shakespeare's _Sonnets_ (New York: Bloch, 1953) -- a bilingual edition introduced by your friend Shmuel Lapin. If Shakespeare wrote any ballads, they have not been found. (In undzere yorn ver hot nit ka ketsishn moyekh?) b) Shmuel Lapin's proposed retort for Ophelia to Hamlet's "Get thee to a nunnery! is _a klug vort, a khokhme_ and were Ophelia _a yente_ (not in the etymological sense), it would be apposite as well. Shmuel Lapin, in his "mit eytses-toyves, adoyni prints, bin ikh shoyn, borekhashem, bazorgt," must be credited for capturing an authentic voice -- but not Shakespeare's! For one thing, a glance at the text shows us that Hamlet's remark doesn't call for a reply. "Get thee to a nunnery" are the first five words that Hamlet speaks to Ophelia in an eleven-line prose address (3.1.122-133), which ends with the sudden and dramatically significant question , "Where's your father?" Ophelia's answer, "At home, my lord," is seen by Hamlet as a lie, especially in productions where Polonius is shown peeking over a curtain. c) Many commentators on "Get thee to a nunnery" hear a double-entendre on the word _nunnery_, one of whose slang meanings in Elizabethan English was 'brothel'. Hamlet, in his sick animus against womankind could conceivably, at least metaphorically, turn Ophelia into a whore -- but not into _a yakhne_! d) Yiddish translations of Shakespeare run the gamut between the superb (e.g. Shmuel Halkin's _King Lear_, Moscow: Der emes, 1937) and the hilarious (-skekspir fartaytsht un farbesert_). The Yiddish translation of Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ that I happen to have at hand is by Yisroel-Yankev Shvarts {Israel Jacob Schwartz 1885-1971}, author of the epic poem _Kentuki_ ('Kentucky') and in the view of Dov Sadan, the best Yiddish translator after Yehoyesh (translator of the Jewish Scriptures). Shvarts'_Hamlet_ is one of the two relatively decent published Yiddish translations of this classic work (the other is by Y. Goldberg, Minsk 1935). But the closer one looks at Shvarts' _Hamlet_ the more one becomes aware of its shortcomings. One is not happy with its old-style _Forverts_ spellings, its many daytshmerisms. In short, like so many translations, it seems dated, though how to translate Shakespeare today into a modern Yiddish poses almost insuperable problems -- mainly because of the absence of a substantial native-speaking cultured secular audience and the absence of the talented translator who could create a meaningful poetic text in a viable Yiddish free for the most part of the (in themselves marvelous) folk rhythms of Sholem-Aleykhem and yet not hopelessly synthetic. It is just as well that the few active Yiddish repertoire theaters concentrate on original Yiddish works. Enterprises such as that of the Long Island group that performs Gilbert and Sullivan operas in Yiddish -- despite the declared admiration of Isaac Asimov and others, the good intentions of the performers, the pleasure given to audiences -- has little to do with Yiddish culture and is somehow related to the widespread and most undesirable phenomenon, the ludicization of Yiddish (see my piece "Ludic Yiddish" in _Mendele_). Even when it is a little hard to keep a straight face, let's take the subject of Shakespeare in Yiddish seriously. e) To get back to "Get thee to a nunnery!" Y.-Y. Shvarts's "Fershlis zikh in a nonenkirkh" seems weak in several respects (in addition to losing the possible pun on _nunnery_). Standard Yiddish (henceforth StY) requires _farshlis_, but the verb itself is pleonastic since a nunnery is a place of self-confinement. Moreover, a nunnery is not 'a nun's church', although nunneries (such as the Carmelite Convent a few blocks from which I am now writing this) generally include churches on their grounds. There are several good Yiddish words for 'num' -- _monatshke_ and _gots-kale_ are fine (see Stutshkov, Section 618: Galkhes) though the second is generally used ironically, which is right for this instance. The command "Get thee" is meant to be demeaning. How do the following sound to your practiced ear? 1) "Klayb zikh ariber tsu di monatshkes!" 2) "Farnem-zikh tsu gots-kales!" 3) "Gey ariber tsum monatshkes-hoyz!" The skilful translator will keep on working until he finds the right phrasing -- very hard work indeed! 4) Zay mir gezunt un shtark! And warm greetings from your friends Kieve and Shifra Ziv whom I just saw while visiting a mutual friend at the Carmel Hospital. How, incidentally, do you say _quadruple bypass_ in Yiddish? My suggestion: "Nit af undz gedakht." Yude-Leyb Proger {Leonard Prager} ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.148