Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 1. Poetry and its Creation
Section 4. Translation
Practice

Remarks on Some Translations [1]

I do not think it is the ideas that make the distinction between European and Indian tongues — it is the turn of the language. By taking over the English turn of language into Bengali one may very well fail to produce the effect of the original because this turn will seem outlandish in the new tongue, but one can always by giving a right turn of language more easily acceptable to the Bengali mind and ear make the idea as natural and effective as in the original; or even if the idea is strange to the Bengali mind one can by the turn of language acclimatise it, make it acceptable. The original thought in the passage you are {{0}}translating[[I have not numbered half the brilliant birds(((1)))In one green forest ...(((1)))Nor have I seen the stars so very often(((1)))That I should die.(((1)))— Sri Aurobindo, Love and Death]] may be reduced to something like this: “Here is all this beautiful world, the stars, the forest, the birds — I have not yet lived long enough to know them all or for them to know me so that there shall be friendship and familiarity between us and now I am thus untimely called away to die.” That is a perfectly human feeling, quite as possible, more easily possible, to an Indian than to a European (witness Kalidasa’s Shakuntala) and can very well be acceptable. But the turn given it in English is abrupt and bold though quite forcible and going straight home — in Bengali it may sound strange and not go home. If so you have to find a turn in Bengali for the idea which will be as forcible and direct; not here only but everywhere this should be the rule. Naturally one should not go too far away from the original and say something quite different in substance but, subject to that limitation, any necessary freedom is quite admissible.

October 1934