Translated from french by Grok

Cretan epic-lyric romance of the 17th century

In this note we will address and explain various difficulties encountered in the verse translation of V. Kornaros’s romance. These difficulties stem from the intrinsic structure of the Greek language (particularly the Cretan dialect of that era), the chivalric framework of the romance, and of course the choice of a verse translation to render this text into French.

In this article we will not develop arguments to justify the choice of rhymed translation, even though that would be easy. We will simply treat the verse translation as an existing object consisting of 2216 lines for Canto A and 2464 lines for Canto B. We recall that Kornaros’s work is composed of 5 cantos representing approximately 10,000 political verses, i.e., 15-syllable lines with a caesura after the eighth syllable, in couplet rhymes (rhymes plates) and systematically stressed on the penultimate syllable. In order to represent the spirit of this Greek verse as faithfully as possible, we chose the alexandrine or, more precisely, 12-syllable lines with assonance. Apart from one or two exceptions in Canto A, the translation is done line-by-line and therefore respects enjambment in particular. However, since the original author does not always observe the classical caesura of the political verse, we introduced a caesura at the hemistich only when it felt natural.

Let us now turn to the difficulties themselves.

Possession / The Genitive Construction

One characteristic of the Greek language is that possession is postposed. For example, to say “my object,” we literally say “the object to me.” And obviously, since this is very convenient for rhyming—especially when you need to produce 5000 rhymes—possession appears very frequently. In French, however, the rhyme disappears because possession is essentially preposed.

The Caesura

It is quite delicate to render the classical caesura of the political verse with a caesura at the hemistich in the alexandrine. The reason is very simple and arithmetic in nature: the Greek line has the form 8 – 7, whereas the French line has 6 – 6. The fact that the French numbers are on average smaller is not a problem, because translation from Greek to French generally involves contraction. What is truly difficult to transform, however, is the “asymmetry” of the Greek line into the “symmetry” of the French line.

Concatenation

This phenomenon is very common in Greek and represents one of its riches. It is, so to speak, absent from French. What aggravates this difference is that it is particularly abundant in Kornaros’s writing. To translate into French a word that is the concatenation of two others, it is often necessary to add articles to explain the relationship between the two components. The immediate consequence is an increase in the number of feet in the translated line—a problematic procedure when one has chosen a fixed metrical scheme of 12 feet.

The Couplet / Paired Rhyming Words

The difficulty of rendering in French a pair of words used for rhyming comes both from the words themselves (translations with different sonorities) and from their abundance (due to the context). For example, consider Canto B, where the pan-Hellenic tournament takes place—an emblematic event of the work. In this canto, due to the context, the following pairs are very frequent (because the original author needs them for the progression of the action): kavalari-patari, liontari-kavalari, or kontari-pallikari. These are translated as: cavalier-tribune, lion-cavalier, and lance-palikare. This makes it impossible to use them together for rhyming.

Inflection

A similar phenomenon in terms of its impact on the number of feet is inflection. Greek, the inflectional language par excellence, declines practically everything. This property makes the word very rich within the sentence, and the sentence consequently very flexible. For example, no matter where a word in the accusative appears in the sentence, the reader can easily identify it as accusative. French, lacking such inflection, relies on word order to handle relational complexity in sentence structure. Although the French poetic sentence is more flexible than prose, it remains far more rigid than the Greek one. Moreover, rendering inflection (like concatenation) requires adding articles to clarify the meaning.

Proper Names

Another consequence of inflection is the polymorphism of proper names. The transcription of the hero’s name into French is Rotokritos (we chose the nominative to designate the hero unambiguously), but in the accusative it becomes Rotokrito, in the vocative Rotokrité, and in the genitive Rotokritou. This greatly facilitates the poet’s task for rhyming—something impossible in French. Furthermore, the polymorphism of names includes another aspect: diminutives and affectionate forms. The hero’s true name is Erotokritos, which literally means “the one who suffers from love,” but this form appears only in the title of the work; the form chosen by the author saves one foot. He also uses Rokritos. What would a French reader think if asked to understand that Erotokritos, Rotokritos, Rokritos, Rotokrito, Rokrito, Rotokritou, Rokritou all refer to the same person! Finally, it is easy to see that since many Greek masculine names end in -os (a rare ending in French), rhyming necessarily pushes proper names inside the line.

Vocabulary

This point touches on another delicate aspect of translating this romance: its historical period. Belonging to the 17th century, its vocabulary is closely tied to that era. Notions that were perfectly common then have become obsolete or have completely disappeared today, making translator’s notes necessary for contemporary readers to understand the text. Here are some notes I had to use in my translation of the Erotokritos canto:

– Bluettes A734: taken in its original sense, i.e., small sparks.
– Ecouteuses A690: rare 12th-century word. Person who listens with curiosity, indiscretion.
– Lait (et miel) A2080: expression attested since antiquity, common in traditional songs.
– Nègrepont B1289: medieval name of the island of Euboea.
– Palikare A1292: word attested in French since 1821. Here in the sense of young brave man.
– Remontantes A2016: generally applies to plants that flower or bear fruit twice a year. Here used in an extended sense for fruits, as in Greek. According to Denis Kohler, the rarity of the phenomenon led popular tradition to attribute special virtues to these fruits, which were offered to the sick as a token of good recovery.
– Tournois A1830: Venetian bronze coin.
– Véritable A1522: taken in its original sense, i.e., one who speaks the truth, who does not seek to deceive. “To show you that I am véritable…”

Molière

This phenomenon is even more frequent in Canto B, which, as mentioned earlier, is the canto in which the tournament takes place. Thus the vocabulary concerning weapons, horses, and jousts is very abundant. Here are, by way of illustration, some of our notes:

– Brasse B1638: (brace “the two arms, their length” 1080) exactly the same etymology as the Greek word in the original.
– Cabasset B471: (1284; from cabas) old. Helmet without visor.
– Coron B245: Venetian name of the city of Koroni.
– Denture B1059: literary and didactic. Set of teeth of a person or animal.
– Empan B268: archaic. Unit of length representing the span from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger when the hand is fully open.
– Encoche B14: the notch on the arrow where the bowstring is placed when shooting.
– Frontal B1637: (Fronte, 12th c., Lat. frontalis) forehead band. The original literally says: straight to the head.

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