Translation Project - "Before the Crows"

Before the Crows

                by Fabio Pusteria

Just before the crows,

Into warm yellow, into roads

of ripe wheat, into the last sunlight,

I saw the night coming with owls’ eyes.

Here is the price of heat:

A sky of dark menace, the blue of a nonexistent god,

and inside the blue two vortices,

two blind eagles.

But I accepted it, you know:

nightmares, ears, even the mark of shame,

only to be here, now,

To say I was there.

We definitely struggled with this little 12-line poem. Even the title and the repeated phrase in the first line: “prima dei corvi.” It took us some time to understand that “dei” was a contraction of “of” and “the” (di + i). Then the question was whether we needed either of these, or perhaps only one of them. For the first draft, I had my title as simply “Before Crows.” After more discussion and guidance, however, from both Dr. Davidson and our language partner, “Before the Crows” seemed to be the correct phrase.

“Calore” in line 2 and “caldo” in line 5 also presented a challenge. These mean two different things in Italian, but both translate into “heat” in English. So, how to avoid the repetition of the word “heat” and maintain the subtle differences that these words have in the original language? In the end, I probably would have left “heat” in both lines, but Dr. Davidson’s suggestion of “warm yellow” in line 2 was an acceptable solution to the problem.

“Strade/ di grano mature” (lines 2-3) was the next major sticking point. “Strade” evolved from “straight” into “roads,” and then “rows,” and finally back to “roads.” “Grano” can be translated as “wheat” or “corn” according to the dictionary (though it was tempting at first to simply translate it into “grain,” since that is what it sounds like). In line 10, the poem mentions “ears/orecchie,” so my inclination was to read “grano mature” as “ripe corn,” since we refer to corn as “ears of corn.” Otherwise, “ears” seems completely random and out of place later. The “grano mature” also influenced the translation of “strade” just before it. Because we are talking about fields of something, be it wheat or corn, it didn’t seem to make sense to say “into roads of ripe corn/wheat.” “Rows” seemed much more what was intended. Well…things are not always what they seem. Our Italian partner pointed out that there is an Italian word for “rows,” and if “rows” was what was intended, the poet would have likely used it – “file.” So we changed it back to “into roads of ripe corn.” At this point, it was pointed out to us (by Dr. Davidson) that “ear” and “corn” are probably not related in Italian. We were making a connection from English that doesn’t really exist in the poem. I guess you would call that an Anglicism. We confirmed this with Frederico, our Italian partner, whose look of confusion at the pairing of “ear” and “corn” were all we needed to understand our mistake. Therefore, if there was no wordplay going on between “ear” and “corn,” then “wheat” seemed to be the more correct translation of “grano.” Hence we end up with “into roads of ripe wheat.”

We grappled with plenty of other words and phrases, but in the interest of brevity, I’ll mention just one other: “il marchio d’infamia.” Frederico translated “marchio” initially as “brand” or “label.” Then he also indicated that it could be like a tattoo – a mark or a sign. The literal translation was “brand of infamous.” This is obviously not something we would ever say in English, but our understanding of the poem was not clear enough to flesh out exactly what it might be trying to say. We tossed around “infamous brand,” “infamous mark,” “mark of infamy.” My sense of it was that the speaker is saying he was a marked man after this experience, but the text doesn’t support saying “marked man.” In the end, I settled on “the mark of infamy.” Dr. Davidson’s translation was “the mark of shame,” and I liked that, so I kept it.

Even once the translation was finished, we had difficulty interpreting the meaning until Dr. Davidson gave us the hint: “Vincent Van Gogh.” Suddenly it became clear – the painting with the wheat and the crows. This is an ekphrastic poem based on Van Gogh’s “Wheat Field with Crows.” And what’s the first thing you think of when you think Van Gogh? Ears! That’s where the “ears” come in.