Bo-beh-o-bi, sang the lips,
Veh-eh-o-mi, sang the glances,
Pi-eh-eh-o, sang the brows,
Li-eh-eh-ey, sang the visage,
Gzi-gzi-gzeh-o, sang the chain.
Thus on a canvas of some correspondences
Beyond dimension lived the face.
Notes
The "non-sense" words are in fact a transliteration from the original Russian sounding words used by Khlebnikov. He invented a "language" known as Zaum of which this is probably an example.
Listen to the original version here http://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/~mdenner/Demo/texts/Bo_beh_o.html
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Comments
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I don't know much about Khlebnikov. However, the sound of his 'language' Gzi-gzi-gzeh-o is more redolent of a chain than a chin. All translations are fraught with difficulties. Many relatively modern English words had very different meanings only a century or so ago. 'Fantastic' meant unbelievable, 'artificial' would mean something created for a purpose rather than the 'ersatz' or not-natural meaning that it has now. Balto-Slavic languages are notoriously difficult to translate into English & a translation can make or break a novel. Those fluent in Russian tell me that Dostoyevsky's characters leap out of the page in Russian. Many translators of Dostoyevsky have problems in duplicating colloquial speech & dialect. Even reading Shakespeare has its difficulties. Who actually knows what a 'burnt pimmeled knave' actually refers to?
I have always maintained that it is not always easy to duplicate semiotic resonances & linguistic tropes that easily. The Danes have a one syllable word (which I can't remember) meaning more or less 'a simplicity & pragmatic design with an aesthetic appeal & yet which is at the same time ergonomic'. The Japanese have a similar adjective 'shubuyi'. We have no real equivalent in English.
The trouble with translations is that one word can change the whole context of a sentence & drastically change what the original author intended. -
I took the chain as meaning the chain of correspondences. All the other parts of the face that are mentioned are plural, so, to me, chin does not seem right and I would not change the translation without consulting someone who can read Russian.
It also reminded me of the idiom to rattle someone's chain and seemed funny to me the many times I have read this. -
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How right you are.
I did find a Russian - English translation and it does have chain. It's linked in the notes. I got called away before I could retrace my hasty steps.
My logic was clear that they were all visual references but what is logic! BTW there are 3 plurals lips, glances, brows and 2 singulars visage and chain (chin).
Please feel free to rattle my chain if I slip up again.
Jim
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Very odd. Presumably it's translated? The first four lines - and the last - refer to the face, so what is the chain in line 5 doing there? Presumably the nonsense syllables are nonsense in the original language (Russian?), but are they as meaningless as they appear here? In English lots of nonsense syllables carry connotations - 'la-la-la' or 'dum-de-dum' mean singing, 'hey-diddle-diddle' or 'nick-nack-paddy-wack' mean children's rhymes, and so on.
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Thanks for checking this Morag.
Line 5 would seem to be clearly chin rather than chain yet the Russian-English site referred to does have chain however illogical that seems. However I do not know who the translator was and so I cannot answer the second part although it does seem likely that there was some significance to the original sounds used.
Jim
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I love this; even though it predates the internet, it seems so very contemporary in its comment on internet posting and correspondences - you can just barely make out that fuzzy face in the offing, (if at all!)that's behind it all - somewhere out there in that fifth dimension.
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Wonderful. Cynical.
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