აბრაამ მამისთვალოვის ერთი თარგმანის შესახებ

Abstract

According to Abraam Mamistvalov’s translation, “The Poem of Poems” (the Hebrew name of the book is „šir hašširím“; the title traditionally widespread in Georgian is “The Song of Songs” (literally – “the Praise of Praise“) is one of the books of the Old Testament ”Tanakh“. It is of poetic genre and, together with 12 other books, belongs to the third part of the Old Testament “Ketuvim” i.e. letters. Both in the Judaic and Christian canons, the text comes after “Solomon’s Fables” and “Ecclesiastes”, presumably written by Solomon, King of Israel. However, currently there are different opinions regarding this issue. It should be noted that the language of “The Song of Songs” differs from the prosaic texts of the Bible in its vocabulary, word meanings, form and syntactic relations. The text embraces dialogues and monologues and consists of 8 chapters. The book has interesting history and definitions. It has been translated into different languages, including Georgian, and the translations are of great interest as well. None of the Biblical books has been translated into Georgian as many times as “The Song of Songs”. In the 20th century, the book was translated into Georgian by: Gertzel Baazov, Nathan Eliashvili, Grigol Peradze, Zurab Kiknadze, Yitzhak David, Shalom David and Abraam Mamistvalov. Each of these translations plays a significant role in the history of Georgian translation of Biblical books. The paper analyzes Abraam Mamistvalov’s translation of “The Song of Songs”, published in Israel in 1994. The translation is preceded by the author’s preface and appended with comments and definitions. As mentioned above, the Hebrew title of the book is „šir hašširím“. According to Abraam Mamistvalov, “The Praise of Praise” is not the exact translation of the poem’s title. According to Even- Shoshan Dictionary, „šir“ has the following definitions: 1. Verbal-musical work (lyrics and melody); 2. Rhymed or unrhymed work of poetry, whereas „šir hašširím“ itself denotes a book of poetry. A. E. Grafov’s Biblical Dictionary defines „šir“ as a song. Hence, the exact translation of the title of the text is The Song of Songs or The Poem of Poems. According to a contemporary Jewish scholar and translator Jacob Eidelkind, “The phrase “Song of Songs” means “The Best of Songs””. According to Abraam Mamistvalov, „the text is of eulogistic genre, but it is not praise...“. Therefore, Mamistvalov used the term “The Poem of Poems”. Although “a poem” is a precise semantic equivalent of the Hebrew word „šir“, there is a certain alteration in the title, namely, the members of the sentence are represented in an inverted order. Abraam Mamistalov’s translation is made in the form of blank verse. For the purpose of accurate translation of the idea, there are additional words and phrases given in brackets after some verses. For instance, Verse Fifteen, Chapter One: “Catch for us the Foxes / little foxes,–/that ruin the vineyards,/ our vineyards (that can be seen) in bloom”, or Verse Sixteen, Chapter Four: “Awake (the wind) of North/ and come (the wind) of South...” and so on. Abraam Mamistvalov made other additions in his translation. In order to denote male and female sex, he gave the names of characters before each verse: shepherd, Sulamyth. Separate mention of characters seems to be a tradition, which is proved by the ancient manuscripts of the Book – the Bibles of Oshki and Saba, as well as a contemporary translation made by Nathan Eliashvili (in this regard, there are errors in N. Eliashvili’s translation: the names of characters who utter monologues are mixed up, and, as A. Mamistvalov notes, some parts of the text are unclear). Although the text itself is not bulky, it contains ample onomastic vocabulary. According to translation theoreticians, proper names may be translated, transcribed or transliterated in the translation. In A. Mamistvalov’s translation, Hebrew anthroponyms and toponyms are preserved in their original form. The translator mostly offers proper names in transcribed or transliterated form: შელომო (Shelomo), შულამითი (Shulamyth), ირუშალაიმი (Jerusalem), ციონი (Zion) and so on. The paper also analyzes the means used for the translation of structural elements of the text: alliteration, assonance, anaphora, anadiplosis and paronomasia; the paper underlines how the translator managed to cope with the difficulty of preserving all these peculiarities of the original text.