Mona Kareem’s ‘Nights’: Stanzas 3-4

3
taẓharu naẖlaẗ(un) baiḍā’(u) fauqa ra’s(i) ab(ī)
lā ‘a^lamu kaifa ‘ulawwinu-hā

4
‘al-maṭar(u) yuwaffiru ^alā ab(ī) sabḡ(a) bāb(i)-l-bait(i)
wa-‘a^ḍā’ī-l-latī ‘atabarra^u bi-hā ṭa^ām(an) li-l-qiṭaṭ(i)
lā tuḥawwilu-nī ‘ilā ṭair(in)

This post is continued from here.

Poetry, May 2023 publishes the Arabic text of Mona Kareem’s poem Lailayāt (“Nights”) along with a translation into English by Sara Elkamel.

I can’t vary in any interesting way Sara Elkamel’s excellent, close translation of stanza 3. It’s reproduced here. I do offer an experiment with wording different from hers for stanza 4.

3
A white palm tree appears above my father’s head.
I do not know how to color it.

4
Rain saves my father from painting the door of the house.
And my organs, which I donate as food for the cats,
do not change me into a bird.

Stanza 3 puts me in mind of a children’s coloring book. That’s too literal, of course; is there a cultural reference? Do the preceding 2 stanzas contextualize this one somehow? In any case it’s easy enough to find approximate English for what the Arabic text states on its surface.

The same is true, in fact, for stanza 4. What’s striking to me is the perverse-seeming syntax of its second sentence. Elkamel’s translation is flat and somewhat reductive: “Donating my organs to the cats / doesn’t make me a bird.” It leaves out the Arabic adverbial ṭa^ām(an), “as food.” The omission may seem trivial, but my rule of thumb is: Jettison nothing from the source except for good cause.

More importantly, in the source text the grammatical subject of “change” is “organs,” not the act of donation. Stated differently, agency for changing the speaker (or not) lies with the organs sacrificed as food. This is clear from syntax. The verb for “change” is in the 3rd-person feminine plural, following the rule that broken plurals have feminine markers. The act of donating is nested in a relative clause subordinate to “my organs.” Elkamel’s translation subverts this structuring. I don’t mean to carp at her interpretation. It may seem to be what the verse means to say: The fact of my donating my organs as food for cats doesn’t mean that I’ve become a bird. But it’s not what the verse says!

Should the translator be at pains to make the translation read less strangely than the source?

About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.

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