Responses to Translations of "Song of Rain"

2005-05-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

"Doing research is never an easy task in the present Iraqi situation! Your kind response, however , can make it possible." Could you please respond / forward to other colleagues?

Bilinguals and translators were very much suspected and policed in
Saddam's dictatorship, and are slaughtered by present extremists
under the pretext of being collaborators with the 'enemy'. Your
response can help me enlighten this area and enlighten others as well
of a true and sincere relationship between the foreigner, who are you,
and the enemy, who is he, 'the extremist'. So would you spare me
some of your precious time to give your response on the translations
attached. Your answers will be confidentially utilized in a Ph.D.
project on “Assessing Responses of Non - Arab English Speakers
to Arab l Iraqi Poetry Translated into English”. Kindly note the
following:
1.Kindly read the three translations well before responding to them.
2. Please fill in personal information. Your name may be needed for further information on your responses. Age and sex may be taken as variables in the study, so please do not forget
them.
3. Please note that this research depends on your personal response; taking it seriously, however, promotes translation and academic research in new Iraq.Moreover, as it is personal, there is no need for seeking the help of other people.
4. I would appreciate any enquiry on the questions and the
subject as well.

Kindest Regards

Kadhim Al – Ali
Ph.D. Candidate
Iraq
kadhimalali@hotmail.com

Responses are welcomed until the end of 2005

Please fill in the following:

1. Full Name:2. Age:3. Sex:4. Nationality:5. Proficiency in English:
6. Degree (university ,other):7. Occupation:
8. Are you interested in world’s literature / poetry?
9. Are you interested in Arabic literature / poetry?
How do you respond to / enjoy / evaluate these
translations? You may consider ambiguity, meaning
indeterminacy, cultural differences and loads, word
choice, sentence structures, themes, rhetorics…etc.

Translation (1)
Translated by:Basima Bizrgan & Elizabeth Fernea

In the hour before the dawn
Your eyes are two groves of palm - trees
Or two balconies
Passed over by the moon
5 When your eyes smile, vines flower
And lights dance … like the reflection of the
moon in the river
Disturbed gently by the movement of oars
In the hour before dawn,
As if stars throbbed in their depth
10 The stars drown in a mist of sorrow
The sea opens its arms
In the warmth of winter, the chill of autumn
Embracing death and birth and darkness and
light,
The shiver of a sob wakens in my soul
15 And a wild ecstasy courses through me
reaching the sky
The ecstasy of a child who fears the moon.
Smaller clouds are lost in the heavy dark
clouds
Which, drop by drop, disperse in rain;
The children’s giggling in the grape arbors
20 Tickles the silence of the sparrows in the
trees.
Then comes the song of the rain.
Rain …
Rain …
Rain …
25 The evening yawns and the clouds continue
to gush
And pour, pour their heavy tears down
Like a child weeping in his sleep
For his mother whom, when he a year
ago,
He did not see
30 And when he persisted in asking,
They told him,
“She’ll be back the day after tomorrow.
She must come “
Though friends whisper that she’s there
35 At the side of the hill, sleeping the sleep of
the dead,
Down in her own earth, drinking the rain
Like a disappointed fisherman gathering his
nets,
And cursing the fates and the waters,
Singing his mournful songs when the moon
wanes.
40 Rain …
Rain …
Do you know what grief the rain brings?
When gutters resound with the sad music of
the falling rain,
And how the lonely feel a sense of loss when
it rains
45 Endlessly … like bleeding, like hunger,
Like love, like children, like death
Is the rain.
I see your eyes
Which seem to float with the rain
And across the waves of the Gulf, lightning
Sweeps the shores of Iraq with flashes of
stars and coral ,
As though the shores themselves would rise
up
Before the night draws over them a cover of
blood.
I cry aloud to the Gulf:
55 ‘O Gulf,
Giver of pearls and coral and death’
I can hear Iraq storing thunder,
Storing lightning on mountains and in
valleys,
And when she has finished,
60 She will stamp them as her own.
(The great storm left no trace in the valley
of the village Thamud. )
I can hear the palm - trees drinking rain.
I can hear the villages moaning, and
emigrants
Battling, with oars and rough axes,
65 The storms of the Gulf and the thunder,
singing:
Rain…
Rain…
Rain…
How many tears we shed the night we
departed,
70 Excusing our sorrow by saying, ‘ It’s only the
rain.’
Rain…
Rain…
Since the days of our childhood, the sky
Was always cloudy and dark in winter,
75 And the rain beat down.
Rain…
Rain…
Rain…
Each drop glows
80 Red or yellow, from the petals of flowers
Each tear of the naked and hungry,
Each drop of blood shed by slaves,
Becomes a smile awaiting a new mouth,
Or a nipple pink from the sucking
85 Of the newborn child
In the world of a new tomorrow, the world
that will offer life.
Rain …
Rain …
Rain …
90 Iraq’s fields grow green in the rain …
I cry aloud to the Gulf:
‘O Gulf,
Giver of coral and death.’
My words return
95 In the echo of a sob:
“O Gulf “
Giver of coral and death.’
The Gulf spreads its gifts on the sands,
A foam of flaming coral.
100 And the bones of the drowned,
One of the emigrants who drank death
In the fathomless depths of the Gulf.
Countless serpents in Iraq drink the nectar
Of the flowers watered by the Euphrates, the
innocent dew.
I hear the echo
Ringing across the Gulf
Rain…
Rain…
Rain…
110 Each drop glows
Red or yellow, from the petals of flowers,
And each tear of the naked and hungry,
Each drop of blood shed by slaves
Becomes a smile awaiting a new mouth,
115 Or a nipple pink from the sucking
Of the newborn child …
In the world of a new tomorrow, the world
that will offer life.
And the rain pours down.

Translation (2)
Translated by: Nadia Bachai

1Your eyes are forests of palm at dawn
Or lattices behind which the moon sets;
When they smile the vines burst into leaf
And lights dance like moons on a river
5Stirred by an oar which flags at break of day,
Its depths throbbing with stars.
They drown
In mists of sorrow serene as the sea
When the night spreads its hands over it.
10They quiver with tremors of autumn,
With death and birth, with darkness and with
light.
My soul wells over with sadness and an
ecstasy
Fierce as that of a child which fears the
moon.
It embraces the skies like rainbows which drink in the clouds
15Till drop by drop they melt into rain.
Children gurgle in the vinebowers
And the silence of the birds on the trees
Tingles with the song of the rain.
Rain…
20 Rain…
Rain…
The night yawns and the clouds
Still drip with heavy tears
Like a child who rambles in his sleep
25About having woken up one morning
To find his mother gone.
And to his persistent questions
They had replied,
“She will come back
30 The day after tomorrow,
No doubt she will return”.
Yet friends whispered that she lay
There on the side of the hill,
Sleeping the sleep of death,
35 Breathing in the dust,
Drinking in the rain
Like a sad fisherman who gathers in his nets
While he scatters his song
To where the moon sets.
40Rain…
Rain…
Do you know what sorrow brings rain?
How the waterpipes burst when it pours,
How desolate a man feels when he is alone?
45 Rain without end, like blood that is shed,
Like hunger and love and children and the
dead.
Rain…
And in your eyes I surge along with the rain,
50 And across the waves of the gulf
Flashes of lightning sweep the shores of Iraq
With shells and stars, making them glow
When at sunrise the night casts veils
Of blood over them. I cry out,
55 “O gulf, giver of pearls, of shells, of death” .I can almost hear Iraq
hoarding
Thunder and lightning in the mountains and
the plains
If ravished by men these will release
Gales that will leave no trace
60 Of Thammud in the valley.
I can almost hear the palms
Drink in the rain,
And I hear the villagers moan
And the refugees struggle with sail and oar
65 Against the storms of the gulf.
I can hear peals of thunder singing
“Rain…
Rain…
Rain…”
70 There is hunger in Iraq
And corn is scattered to feed
The locusts and ravens in harvest time.
In the fields the mills go round and round,
Grinding grain and stones,
75 Grinding men.
Rain…
Rain…
Rain…
How many tears have we shed
80 On the eve of departure
Pleading - for fear of blame -
The rain.
We have always known the sky
To gather with clouds in winter
85 And the rain to fall.
We starve each year when the soil
Breaks forth into shoot;
Not one year has gone by
Without hunger in the land.
90 Rain …
Rain …
Rain …
In every drop which falls,
Yellow or red from the heart of a flower,
95 In every tear shed by the hungry and the
naked,
And every drop spilt of the blood of serfs,
Is a smile awaiting a fresh one
To follow in its wake, or a nipple
Which flowers at the mouth of a babe
100 In the brave new world of tomorrow.
Rain …
Rain …
Rain …
Iraq will burst forth into leaf
105 With the rain.
And I cry, “O gulf,
Giver of pearls, shells, of death”.
And the echo wails an answer,
“O gulf, giver of shells, of death”.
110 And it strews its many gifts over the sands:
Shells, brine and the scattered
Bones of some immigrant
Who has drunk deeply of death from the gulf.
In Iraq there are a thousand snakes
115 Who have sucked the scent of a flower
Watered by the Euphrates with dew.
And I hear an echo
Ringing through the gulf,
Rain …
120 Rain …
Rain …
In every drop of rain which falls
Yellow or red from the heart of a flower,
And every tear shed by the hungry and the
naked,
125 And every drop spilt of the blood of serfs
Is a smile awaiting a fresh one
To follow in its wake, or a nipple
Which flowers at the mouth of a babe
In the young world of tomorrow;
130 World, giver of life.
And the rain falls heavily.

Translation (3)
Translated by: Isa Balata

1Your eyes are two palm groves at the hour of
dawn
Or two balconies from which the moon
recedes.
When your eyes smile, vineyards leaf
And lights dance like moons in a river
5 Which an oar shakes at the hour of dawn
As if, in their depths, stars are throbbing.
Like the sea when evening spreads its hands
over it
They are drowned in clouds of transparent
grief
Full of the warmth of winter, the shiver of
autumn,
10 Death, birth, darkness and light.
The tremor of weeping awakes in my soul
With a frightful thrill embracing the moon.
Like a child’s when awed by the moon
As if the rainbow drinks the clouds
15 And drop by drop melts in rain
And children babble under vine trellises
And the song of rain
Tickles the silence of birds on the trees
Rain …
20 Rain …
Rain …
Evening yawns, and the clouds
Pour down their heavy tears
Like a child who before sleeping raves
25 That his mother - whom he did not find
On waking up a year ago and was to
After persisting questions
That she would return day after tomorrow
Must by all means return
30 Although his comrades whisper that she is
there
On the hillside mortally sleeping in her grave
Eating earth and drinking rain;
As if a sad fisherman gathers his nets
And curses water and destiny
35 And casts a song where the moon sets.
Rain…
Rain…
Do you know what sadness the rain evokes?
And how roof-gutters sob when it pours?
40 And how in it the lonely person feels lost?
Endless is the rain: like shed blood,
Like hunger, love, children and the dead.
Your eyes come to my fancy with rain
And cross the Gulf’s waves lightning
burnishes
45 With stars and shells the coasts of Iraq
As if they are about to shine
But night covers them with a robe of gore.
I cry to the Gulf, “O Gulf,
O giver of shells and death.”
50 The echo comes back
Like sobs,
“O Gulf,
O giver of shells and death.”
I can almost hear Iraq gathering thunder
55 And storing up lightning in mountains and
plains
So that when men break open their seals
The winds will not leave of Thamud
Any trace in the vale.
I can almost hear the palms drink the rain
60 And hear the villages moaning and the
emigrants
Struggling with oars and sails
Against the tempests and thunder of the Gulf
while they sing :
“Rain …
Rain …
65 Rain …
And there is hunger in Iraq!
The harvest season scatters the crops in it
So that ravens and locusts have their full
While a millstone in the fields surrounded by
human beings
70 Grinds the granaries and the stones.
Rain …
Rain …
Rain …
How many a tear we shed, on departure
night,
75 And - lets we should be blamed - pretended it was rain.
Rain …
Rain …
Rain …
Ever since we were young, the sky was
Clouded in the winter,
80 And rain poured,
Yet every year when the earth bloomed we
hungered.
Not a single year passed but Iraq had hunger.
Rain …
Rain …
85 Rain …
In every drop of rain
There is a red or yellow bud of a flower.
And every tear of the hungry and the naked,
And every drop shed from the blood of slaves
90 Is a smile waiting for new lips
Or a roseate nipple in the mouth of a babe
In the young world of tomorrow, giver of life.
Rain …
Rain …
95 Rain …
Iraq will bloom with rain.”
I cry to the Gulf, “O Gulf,
O giver of pearls, shells and death.”
The echo comes back
100 Like sobs,
“O Gulf,
O giver of shells and death.”
Of its many gifts, the Gulf strews
On the sand its salty surf and shells
105 And what remains of the bones of a
miserable, drowned
Emigrant who drank death
From the Gulf waters and its bottom,
While in Iraq a thousand snakes drink nectar
From flowers blooming with the dew of the
Euphrates .
110 I hear the echo
Resounding in the Gulf,
“Rain …
Rain …
Rain …
115 In every drop of rain
There is a red or yellow bud of a flower.
And every tear of the hungry and the naked,
And every drop shed from the blood of slaves
Is a smile waiting for new lips
120 Or a roseate nipple in the mouth of a babe
In the young world of tomorrow, giver of
life.”
And rain pours.

translationcritiqueandresponse

Responses to Translations of "Song of Rain"