Morning Translation: 23 July 2025, Paul Celan, "Anabasis"
This
narrowly written between walls
pathless-true
going up and down
into the heart-bright future.
There.
Syllable-
jetty, ocean-
colored, way out
into the unvoyaged.
Then:
buoys,
cordon of comma-buoys
with the
breathing bobbing
every second exquisitely —: light-
bell-tones (dum-,
dun-, un-,
unde suspirat
cor),
re-
leased, re-
deemed, ours.
Seeable, hearable, the
freed-
up tent-word:
together.
+
ANABASIS
Dieses
schmal zwischen Mauern geschriebne
unwegsam-wahre
Hinauf und Zurück
in die herzhelle Zukunft.
Dort.
Silben-
mole, meer-
farben, weit
ins Unbefahrne hinaus.
Dann:
Bojen-
Commabojen-Spalier
mit den
sekundenschön hüpfenden
Atemreflexen —: Leucht-
glockentöne (dum-,
dun-, un-,
unde suspirat
cor),
aus-
gelöst, ein-
gelöst, unser.
Sichtbares, Hörbares, das
frei-
gewordene Zeltwort:
Mitsammen.
Notes on poem: this is an example of a Celan poem that *moderately* pushes the limits of what is translatable - which, in this case, includes idiologisms (novel compound words) and enjambments with individual words made twain by the line break, revealing unexpected semantic parallels or meanings that would otherwise be obscured by normal syntax, and which are often so particular to the German as to be impossible to render in English.
A good example of a Celan idiologism that is difficult to translate would be “sekundenschön” which I’ve rendered as “every second exquisite(ly)” but, literally unpacked, would be something closer to [x] every second of which is exquisite/pretty/to be savored — and this all in an elegantly compact adverb! Celan probably had “sekundenschnell” (or “split-second”) in mind, which he tweaked just a little bit so that it is sonically familiar but semantically foreign and thus jars the reader awake - which is a typically Celanian move.
An example of the syntaxis interrupta would be the lines: “re-/leased, re-/deemed, ours.” In the German original, this appears as “aus-/gelöst, ein-/gelöst, unser”. Taken as prose, “ausgelöst” means caused/released/unleashed and “eingelöst” means cashed-in/redeemed/honored {as pertaining to exchange value]. The tricky part is the German verb “lösen”, which on its own means “[to] solve” but also can mean resolve/dissolve/loosen/untie/detach, etc., basically a muddy incline leading into a semantic abyss which Celan excavates by means of his scalpel called enjambment (whether fashioned from sharpened bone, jade, or meteorite, I wonder?). Unfortunately, while I’ve also got some room to play in English with di-/re-/ab-/un- + solve, none of these match the German meaning(s), so I recreated alternate re-/re- echo in the translation. However, who knows; while the meaning(s) are a departure, something like “re-/solved, ab-/solved, ours” might work. It depends on which semantic register is worth preserving here - the larger, syntactically-driven one (i.e. the prosaic) or the slipstream between the fractured lines?
In a word (or two), the sensation of reading Celan in German is jarring and othering; we are reading a language that, while it is semantically accessible, feels alien and removed from any day-to-day human speech. While we might understand, we don’t recognize the language as “German”. At the most intense, I experience a slight panic, like when touching your arm after you’ve napped on it for an hour and have to flop it around for a few seconds until you can even move it again. This “othering” was a manifestation of Celan’s surviving the Holocaust and writing in the language of those who perpetrated it, utilizing the very tool (language) that facilitated its execution at the most basic level. For many years I’ve contemplated Celan’s German and its gesturing and venturing towards, its disappearing into the incommunicable.
The Latin “unde suspirat cor” translates to “from which our hearts sigh”. This is a quote from the libretto of Exsultate, jubilate (K. 165) by W.A. Mozart. The full libretto is as follows (Latin translation curtesy of Wikipedia):
Exsultate, jubilate,
o vos animae beatae,
dulcia cantica canendo,
cantui vestro respondendo,
psallant aethera cum me.
[Rejoice, resound with joy,
o you blessed souls,
singing sweet songs,
In response to your singing
let the heavens sing forth with me.]
Fulget amica dies,
jam fugere et nubila et procellae;
exorta est justis
inexspectata quies.
Undique obscura regnabat nox,
surgite tandem laeti
qui timuistis adhuc,
et jucundi aurorae fortunatae
frondes dextera plena et lilia date.
[The friendly day shines forth,
both clouds and storms have fled now;
for the righteous there has arisen
an unexpected calm.
Dark night reigned everywhere [before];
arise, happy at last,
you who feared till now,
and joyful for this lucky dawn,
give garlands and lilies with full right hand.]
Tu virginum corona,
tu nobis pacem dona,
tu consolare affectus,
unde suspirat cor.
[You, o crown of virgins,
grant us peace,
Console our feelings,
from which our hearts sigh.]
Alleluja, alleluja!
