The poetics of F. G. Lorca's play "Yerma" translated by N. L. Trauberg and A. M. Geleskula

Sitnikova Inna Senior Lecturer; Department of Romano-Germanic Philology of the Oriental Institute-School of Regional and International Studies; Far Eastern Federal University 690087, Russia, Primorsky Krai, Vladivostok, 52 Balyaeva str., sq. 65 agur77@mail.ru

Federico Garcia Lorca's play "Yerma", written in 1934, according to the author's definition is a "tragic poem" and "a real tragedy" ^{[1, p. 208]}. Created in the form of an ancient Greek tragedy, it is distinguished by a special lyricism based on the tradition of Spanish folk song and the style of the ancient art of Cante hondo. The play has similarities to a lyrical drama. According to Ch . Dobrev, "lyrical drama has a special plot, a special type of hero and a special emotionality. All attention here is focused on the inner experiences of the characters, monologues prevail over dialogues, external action may be devoid of external dynamics" ^{[2, p. 82]}. In the drama "Yerma", the main image is the feelings, the feelings of Yerma. This is a living development of passion, the author discards everything external, "exposes" the soul of the heroine. Thus, according to the remark of the poet's brother Francisco Garcia Lorca, this drama "in the strict sense of the word, has no plot", and "by design and embodiment is closest to the genre of tragedy, its plot is completely subordinated to passion" ^{[3, pp. 263-264]}. N. R. Malinovskaya calls the play "Yerma" "lyrical", since "all its events come from the inner characterization of the heroine. Yerma is an extremely complete person. The meaning of her life is concentrated in one desire, from which all her torments, dreams, mistakes come," the researcher writes ^{[4, p. 19]}.

The main theme of the play, motherhood as the meaning of a woman's life, is revealed in the juxtaposition of the motives of fertility and infertility, flowering and withering, joy and suffering, life and death. For the main character, life has no meaning without a child, in desperation she kills her husband, who did not share her hopes and dreams of being a mother. Her longing leads to tragedy.

The lyricism of the play is associated with the creation of the image of Yerma, and its basis is the ancient form of the Andalusian folk song style — kante hondo. The play itself is like a sad long-drawn song, revealing the tragic story of the heroine. "It lacks fantastic elements in order to emphasize the drama of the action and focus it on the inner world of the heroine. <...> the tragic in Yerma is due only to the force with which the heroine experiences an internal conflict, and nothing else," writes Francisco Lorca ^{[3, p. 263]}. The researcher points out the special role of the poetic principle in creating the image of Yerma. She pours out her bitterness, longing and loneliness in poems, songs and poetic monologues alone with herself.

According to G. I. Tamarli, the play "Yerma" "largely corresponds to the ancient canons <...> as in the ancient monodrama, Yerma is depicted at a vital moment, showing all the steps she takes to achieve her dream" ^{[5, p. 54]}. The thirst for motherhood and the inability to have a son leads to loneliness and suffering. The heroine has no power over an insurmountable life circumstance, she struggles with it, remaining faithful to both duty and her desire, but she cannot overcome fate ^{[5, p. 282]}.

E. Sarmati calls the play "Yerma" – "a real tragedy, where there is a Fate, a higher law, a kind of blind force that does not obey the human will. <...> Lorca used a whole palette of symbolic images — water, rose, sand. These images are closely connected with the theme of tragedy, with the juxtaposition of the fertility of the surrounding nature and the infertility of the heroine" ^{[6, p. 29]}.

In Russian, the drama "Yerma" is presented in three translations: A. V. Kagarlitsky and F. V. Kelin (1944), N. L. Trauberg and A.M. Geleskula (1975) and N. R. Malinovskaya and A.M. Geleskula (1986).

The first translation of the play was performed in 1944, when little was known about the life and work of Garcia Lorca. Of course, this translation is valuable, it introduced the Russian reader for the first time to the little-known drama of Lorca at that time. We are attempting to analyze the following translation of the play in order to create a more complete picture of it in the Russian reception.

The main principle of translation for N. L. Trauberg, according to her, was: "to make the impact of your text equal to the impact of the original," in translation, "you always need to decide what can be sacrificed and what cannot. There are writers who need to be very precise when translating, and there are books where the main thing is impact. And for the sake of this impact, you can do anything. If only the impact of your translation was equal to the impact of the original" (from an interview with N. L. Trauberg for E. Kalashnikova's book "In Russian with Love: Conversations with translators". Moscow: New Literary Review, 2008). In our opinion, with regard to the text of Lorca's play, the translator follows this principle. Transforming the original, sometimes admits inaccuracies, but recreates the atmosphere of the tragedy and the image of the main character, at the same time makes the speech of the characters more dynamic, understandable to the reader and accessible to the stage embodiment of the play.

A.M. Geleskul is a poet, translator, essayist, researcher of Spanish folk song poetry. He translated all the lyrical works of Garcia Lorca. N. Y. Vanhanen says this about his translations — it is "not a translation from one language to another, not a rhymed story about the thoughts and feelings of a foreign-language author, but as if the phenomenon of this author. <...> What he does is always poetry. <...> Geleskul set up that tuning fork, to which the following Lorca translators voluntarily and involuntarily listened" ^[7].

In translation, A. M. Geleskul strives not so much for accuracy as for recreating expression. In an interview in 2008, A.M. Geleskul said that he considers translation not a craft, not creativity, but art: "Another thing is, you always doubt how skilled you are yourself. It is an art akin to performing, but not quite — rather, it is an arrangement from one musical instrument to another. And that's what's important. There are arrangements of Bach for guitar, but at the same time the guitar should not suffocate under the unbearable burden of sounds, but speak with its own voice. But it already depends on the musician" (from an interview with A.M. Geleskul for the book by E. Kalashnikova "In Russian with love: Conversations with translators". Moscow: New Literary Review, 2008). This is the essence of A. M. Geleskul's translation strategy — to get away from literalism, make the text understandable to the Russian reader, but at the same time "sing in unison with the author's voice."

Yerma means barren, or dry land. The motive of death arises already in the remark to the beginning of the action of the drama. When the curtain rises, Yerma is asleep. A shepherd appears, leading a little boy in white by the hand. This is the ghost of Yerma's failed love and the child that she will never have. The shepherd disappears and "the scene is illuminated by a cheerful, spring, morning light" ^{[8, p. 248]}. A lullaby is playing. But it is sung by a voice behind the stage, it is a folk lullaby, it does not calm the baby, but warns of the danger of the outside world. According to C. G. Jung, "a dream predicts the future, it arises from the subconscious, from an unknown but important part of the soul and is closely related to our desires. Desire is the source of sleep, the fruit of the unconscious" 9, p. 23]. A lullaby is like the line between sleep and reality, the height of an unconscious desire that sought to break free. The song creates an antithesis with the name of the heroine, it is the basis of the tragedy and the mental state of Yerma. Garcia Lorca, in his lecture "Lullabies" (1928), notes that in the poetic world of folk lullabies, the child, and sometimes the mother, "are in danger" and they "need to shrink, diminish, shrink between the walls of a hut, climb into something small" ^{[10, p. 463]}.

Table 1. Lullaby from the first act of the drama

A.M. Geleskul brings her motif closer to the Russian lullaby, adds the chorus "bye bye, sleep dear, go to sleep", phrases that lull, soothe the baby. There is a sense of danger: "let's build a hut" / "let's live alone", but in the original the motive of the threat sounds clearer, awakening a sense of anxiety: the mother and child must hide, hide from this danger. The phrase "Let's live alone" in translation confirms that Yerma does not need anyone except the child.

The action of the drama opens with a home scene. Early in the morning, Yerma accompanies her husband to the field. He worries that his spouse works a lot, he does not have enough strength, he used to be different: “A mí me gustaría que fueras al río y nadaras y que te subieras al tejado cuando la lluvia cala nuestra vivienda, veinticuatro meses llevamos casados y tú cada vez más triste, más enjuto, como si crecieras al revés” ^{[11, p. 20]}. In translation, her remark is more concise: "You should go to the river, swim or climb on the roof in a downpour. We've been married for two years, and you're getting sadder, thinner, as if you're growing into the ground" ^{[8, p. 249]}. In the original, they have been married for twenty—four months, not two years - time drags on for the heroine, she counts the days, hoping that her dream will come true. According to B. I. Zingerman, "time in Lorca's dramas lasts exactly as long as it takes for clouds to gather in a stuffy, frozen haze and a thunderstorm to break out, so that the afternoon heat is replaced by the angry coolness of the night" ^{[12, p. 219]}.

K. Brian Morris calls Yerma "incomplete", not only because "she does not and will not have a child", but also because "she does not need him alone, but also love, tenderness, understanding, passion, freedom" ^{[13, p. 20]}. In need of love and care, she presents: “Si yo estuviera enferma me gustaría que tú me cuidases. “Mi mujer está enferma. Voy a matar ese cordero para hacerle un buen guiso de carne.” “Mi mujer está enferma. Voy a guardar esta enjundia de gallina para aliviar su pecho, voy a llevarle esta piel de oveja para guardar sus pies de la nieve.” Así soy yo. Por eso te cuido”^{[11, p. 20]}. "If I were ill, I would be glad of your pity: "My wife is ill, I'll kill a lamb, roast her delicious meat"; "My wife is ill, I'll heat chicken fat, rub her breasts, bring sheepskin, wrap her white legs." That's what I want, that's why I take care of you" ^{[8, p. 249]}. "As soy yo" — "I am like that" — Yerma takes care of her husband only because she expects such an attitude from him, but this is not love. To be ill is an outdated version of the word to be ill, the colloquial style simplifies the speech of Yerma the peasant, introduces the motif of withering. The translation emphasizes that a beautiful young woman, ill as an old woman from a long-standing illness, cannot have children.

In a dialogue song with a non-existent child, the image of Yerma as a lyrical heroine is created, her sad song is similar in tone to the songs of Kante hondo. Kante hondo — "deep singing", according to A. M. Geleskul, "is literally inseparable from the singer: not in melody or words, but in performance it acquires the highest final meaning" ^{[14, p. 37]}. The poems in Kant are "sad, frank <...> and brutally true ^{[14, p. 47]}. "Kante is united with Spanish song poetry and its general desire to raise everyday drama to the height of eternal questions. But this effort—through his own pain to comprehend the mystery of human fate— in Kant becomes desperate and almost heroic.", <...> Kant is difficult because his end—to–end thought about the incorruptibility of suffering is difficult," writes A.M. Geleskul ^{[14, pp. 34-35]}. The main image of Kante's songs is longing against the background of the Andalusian night. According to Lorca, "endless shades of Suffering and Grief are expressed in Kante hondo with the greatest precision and truthfulness." <...> Kante hondo is the song of a nightingale without eyes, singing blindly; and therefore the best setting for the words and ancient melodies of kante hondo is the night" ^{[1, p. 30]}. In Kant's artistic world, night is associated with mystery, and for Lorca, both life and death are a mystery.

Yerma sings:

Table 2. Yerma's song from the first act of the drama

"Chu! Our yard dog barked / cows mumbled in a dream" creates a feeling of anxiety, approaching danger. The line "the wind is crying and the night is dark" added by the translator enhances the sad mood, and the final phrase: "And I have the moon in my braid" almost accurately recreates the image of the original associated with the motive of death. Wind and cry are the leading images of Kante Hondo's songs.

Yerma is ready to endure any pain in order to become a mother, waiting for "when the body smells of jasmine." Jasmine is the flower of love, marital union. In Andalusia— it is also a symbol of fertility, "flowering", for which Yerma yearns. As A. Bensoussan notes, "for the Andalusian soul, the white color of jasmine with its strong dizzying aroma symbolizes fertility in its purest form" ^{[15, p. 336]}. In Lorca's works, jasmine symbolizes passion. Here it is Yerma's passionate desire to give birth to a son. M. K. Salatino de Subiria writes that "the scent of jasmine, the sun and flowing streams bring to the stage the feeling of Yerma, who wants to become a mother, not only at the call of the soul, but also because of the inevitable attraction of instinct. It is a mysterious force that stretches branches towards the light and makes streams dance" ^[16].

Table 3. Yerma's song from the first act of the drama

The double-repeated lines of the original: “Que se agiten las ramas al sol y salten las fuentes alrededor!” translated in different phrases: "Curl a bindweed in the night, / Braid streams, a wreath!" — at the beginning of the song and lines reminiscent of a prayer addressed to the life—giving forces of nature: "Braid a bindweed at dawn, / Play streams at your feet!" - complete the song of Yerma. The bindweed and wreath are connected with the motif of life, symbolize family happiness, love, eternal renewal. The phrase from the original text: "how my belt hurts / where your first cradle will be" in translation becomes more expressive due to repetitions and rhyme: "and I carry you like a wound / and I will become your cradle" — Yerma imagines that her desire has come true, she feels it physically. And the cry of despair: "But when will you become a son?" is like the exclamation of a singer when performing Kante.

In the last scene of the first act, Yerma hears the song of the shepherd Victor, in which the motif of failed love sounds. According to P. Pinto, "Yerma is dying of thirst, and Victor's voice is like a stream of water, he is the source that she is looking for to quench her thirst" ^{[17, p. 294]}. “Y qué voz tan pujante. Parece un chorro de agua que te llena toda la boca” ^{[11, p. 37]}. "What a ringing voice! It's like water flowing in your mouth" ^{[8, p. 258]}, she tells Victor. Yerma picks up and continues the song, and this song explains the reason for her suffering.

Table 4. Victor's song from the first act of the drama

In translation, there is a "veil of hair" instead of a "woolen blanket", where "a shepherd would sleep sweeter," but the possibility of mutual love as a guarantee of the birth of children is missed. The translator departs from the original, creates rhyming lines and, despite the lexical discrepancy, explains the meaning of the song very accurately and enhances the tragic mood. The heroes could not recognize the nascent tender feeling, and now, without love, Yerma is like a "stone mountain" that "will give birth to a prickly droc".

The first picture of the second act of the drama begins with the song of the village women. The scene is built in the form of a dialogue with lyrical inserts — coplas, quatrains with a plot. Copla (“copla”) is the most common form of Spanish folk poetry. According to A. E. Panova, "the minimum verse space that can accommodate both reasoning and small plots, and even two situations (two plots) that are considered in parallel" ^{[18, p. 299]}.

Table 5. The song of the laundresses from the second act of the drama

The first quatrain is a folk song, where Lorca changes only one word: claro (pure) to fr – o — cold stream. The translator strives to recreate the form of a folk cople. Washerwomen are several folk characters at once, which clearly reveal the way of village life and its values. It's the chorus that comments on the action. Their couplets describe the mystery of the birth of a new life, the waiting period and the birth of a child, in the end they foreshadow the grief of one who does not live according to established laws, does not love her husband. The choir celebrates sensual love and the continuation of life. As G. I. Tamarli notes, "in a village where people get drunk from the sun, earth, grass, flowers, live in the vicinity of cattle yards, love and eroticism are fused together" ^{[5, p. 234]}.

Table 6. The song of the laundresses from the second act of the drama

Repeated lyrics of the song:"¡Alegr i a, alegr i a, alegr i a!" ("Joy, joy, joy") in translation sounds like this: "Oh, wonder, wonder, wonder / Oh, mystery, mystery, mystery!", repetitions are preserved, but the semantics are changing, instead of the author's bodily metaphor, comparing the "umbilical cord" with the "delicate cup", this is the "mystery from under the seven seals". Such a translation solution indicates the desire to convey the sacred meaning of birth as a mystery, the motive of life becomes the leading one, the importance of motherhood in a woman's life is emphasized. But the lines reinforcing the motif of infertility end the song: "Trouble, trouble of the barren — / You have a dry bosom, anhydrous sand!". Anhydrous — without water, without life, Yerma no longer lives.

In her own house, she is like in prison, she is forbidden to go out even for water: “Quiero beber agua y no hay vaso ni agua, quiero subir al monte y no tengo pies, quiero bordar mis enaguas y no encuentro los hilos” ^{[11, p. 51]}. "I want to drink, but there is no water, I want to go to the forest, but my legs do not walk, I want to embroider, but I will not find threads" ^{[8, p. 267]}.Yerma can no longer contain the pain and despair.The translation is close in both meaning and rhythm, despite some shortening. In the original, she has "no glass, no water" (no hay vaso ni agua), and literally: "no legs" (no tengo pies) — Yerma does not feel alive, she is buried alive. Water certainly symbolizes life, the thirst for motherhood for Yerma is the thirst for life. Repetitions and parallel constructions are preserved, and the use of dashes in translation gives dynamism and high emotionality to the heroine's speech. According to V. Y. Siliunas, Yerma is characterized by "the energy of poetic inspiration, which is reflected primarily in the heightened imagery of her speeches" ^{[19, p. 233]}.

The meek, caring Yerma at the beginning of the play, according to M. I. Tamarli, gradually turns into a "stormy stream during the five years of marriage!" ^{[5, p. 242]}. She is still honest, faithful and obedient to her husband. But hatred is growing in her soul, she is ready to object to her husband and she is not afraid of what people will think, and honor is the main value for her. L. S. Ospovat writes about Yerma as follows: "her honor is her own thirst for integrity, purity, truth, the need to live without betraying herself and people" ^{[20, p. 374]}. Garcia Lorca emphasizes the integrity of the character of the heroine and loyalty to her beliefs.

Yerma is very bitter, her infertility is unbearable against the background of blooming and fruitful nature. In desperation, she tells Juan: “Vivo sumisa a ti, y lo que sufro lo guardo pegado a mis carnes. Y cada día que pase será peor. Vamos a callarnos. Yo sabré llevar mi cruz como mejor pueda, pero no me preguntes nada. Si pudiera de pronto volverme vieja y tuviera la boca como una flor machacada, te podría sonreír y conllevar la vida contigo. Ahora, ahoradéjameconmisclavos” ^{[11, p. 49–50]}. "I do not offend you, I obey you in everything, and my grief is in my heart. And it's going to get worse every day. Let's keep quiet. I'll take down my cross, but don't ask me. If I could get old sooner, fade away, I would smile at you and live your life. In the meantime, do not touch me, do not disturb my soul" ^{[8, p. 266]} — here again the motive of withering arises. Grief is not only in her heart, but "pegado a mis carnes" — literally "fused with the body."

Yerma asks not to torment, not to reopen her wounds, left alone, as if in a dream, pronounces her poetic monologue:

Table 7. Yerma's monologue from the second act of the drama

In her monologue, images associated with the motives of life and death are contrasted: earth, grass, rainwater and wasteland, burning goads, "withered breasts". The metaphor of the pain that Yerma is experiencing is tangible, this physical pain is conveyed through bodily images. Comparing "withered breasts" with "two turtledoves, blinded in captivity, that are naughty like horses in a windfall", the translator changes the semantics, but recreates the expressive image of the original, increases the emotional intensity of the entire monologue, turning it into a prayer ritual. The interjection "Ow!" ("Ah!") characteristic of cante hondo songs is also omitted, but exclamation sentences remain: "What a wasteland of grief! / And God's world outside the walls is getting more beautiful!", this strengthens the juxtaposition of the motives of the flowering and fertility of the outside world and the sad infertility of Yerma. The motif of death in life sounds again in the phrase: "O my blood, which has rotted away!" (in the original "blood in captivity") — emphasizes the impossibility of maternal happiness without love.

In the third act of the drama, Yerma turns to a healer, performs prayer and rituals at the cemetery, goes on a pilgrimage to the miraculous icon of Jesus along with other women. Prayer to God sounds more in a pagan key than in a Christian one, women seem to be praying to the Mother Goddess, the earth itself, to give them a piece of her fertility: "In the bright slaves, kindle the dark flame of the earth!" they sing.

Table 8. The song of the pilgrims from the third act of the drama

This prayer song is contrasted with the song of the mummers, it describes what actually happens on a pilgrimage, where women meet men. The action turns into a bacchanal with songs and dances of mummers, calling for sensual, bodily love.

Table 9. The song of the mummers from the third act of the drama

“Coronas y guirnaldas" in the original — crowns /wreaths and garlands create an atmosphere of a cheerful holiday with a pronounced natural origin, corona is primarily a wreath of plants – a symbol of fertility and renewal, omitted in translation. In the midst of the ritual, Yerma meets an Old Pagan Woman (Vieja Pagana). She believes in her gods, in the power of nature and offers Yerma to go to her son, have a child and become happy. But a proud woman is not ready to cheat, she only needs a child from her husband, this is her natural right. Her speech is poetic, sublime, confident. “¡Calla, calla, si no es eso! Nunca lo haría. Yo no puedo ir a buscar. ¿Te figuras que puedo conocer otro hombre? ¿Dónde pones mi honra? El agua no se puede volver atrás ni la luna llena sale al mediodía. Vete. Por el camino que voy seguiré. ¿Has pensado en serio que yo me pueda doblar a otro hombre? ¿Que yo vaya a pedirle lo que es mío como una esclava? Conóceme, para que nunca me hables más. Yo no busco” ^{[11, p. 76]} — she says to the pagan Old Woman. Translated: "Shut up! That's not what I want. I would never do that. I don't need anyone else's. Did you really think that I was capable of knowing another man? What is my honor to you? The water does not flow backwards, the moon will not appear at noon. Go ahead. I'll go where I was going. How could you think that I would submit to another man? I will not beg, like a slave, for what is already mine!" ^{[8, p. 282]}.

The scene ends with a conversation with Juan. Yerma finally hears his confession that he never wanted to have a child. A fragile woman in despair acquires an unknown power and kills her husband, and with him her dream, repeats: "Marchita, marchita, pero segura. Ahora sí que lo sé de cierto.Y sola. Voy a descansar sin despertarme sobresaltada, para ver si la sangre me anuncia otra sangre nueva. Con el cuerpo seco para siempre. ¿Qué queréis saber? ¡No os acerquéis, porque he matado a mi hijo, yo misma he matado a mi hijo!” ^{[11, p. 77]}. Translated: "I'm withered, but I know everything. Now I know everything. And there's no one with me. Now I'll rest, I don't have to wake up, I don't have to think — what if there's new blood in me? My body is withered forever. What are you doing here? Don't come any closer! I killed my child, I killed my child myself!" ^{[8, p. 284]}. The last remark was translated accurately, almost verbatim. This is how recognition takes place and tragic peace ensues, just like the Mother in the play "The Bloody Wedding", Yerma is left all alone. As I. A. Terteryan notes, in the drama "Yerma", "catharsis (purification) is no longer possible, and the tragedy ends not with a mournful, but a life-blessing requiem, but ends with Yerma's cry of death and a hopeless end. The play ends in prose, not verse" ^{[21, p. 515]}. The heroine, who passionately wanted to give life, takes it away.

As a result of the conducted research, we can conclude that the poetics of the translation of Federico Garcia Lorca's play "Yerma", performed by N. L. Trauberg and A.M. Geleskul, is close to the poetics of the original and the author's idea. The translation creates a lyrical image of the main character, reveals her "Spanish" character: strong, passionate in her desire, honest, proud, but infinitely unhappy woman. The motifs of life and death are recreated thanks to the vivid images and intonations of folk songs, especially in the poetic text. The translation by N. L. Trauberg and A.M. Geleskul is not always accurate, but it retains a tragic expression based on the style of Andalusian art by Kante hondo and the author's desire to "return tragedy to the Spanish theater."