1

2007/2008

UNIVERSITY SULTANE MOULAY SLIMANE,

FACULTY of LETTERS and HUMAN SCIENCES,

BENI MELLAL

Master: Translation, Information Technologies and Languages

Module: Translation Techniques, 2007-8

The Anthem of the Solitary in Full Voice

A translation of the Essay:

Written by Rachid Barhoune

:ملحق بالعربية( النص األصلي للمقال (

تعليق كاتب المقال األصلي على النسخة المترجمة

"Ta traduction est vraiment réussie, c'est un

'texte' en lui même. Le texte se donne à laire

facilement. A+" e-mail Fri, 14 Dec 2007

Rachid Barhoune,

Translation by: Supervised By

Mohamed Jaafari

n°13/27L

Prof. Dr. Redouan Saidi

2

The Anthem of the Solitary in Full Voice

Translated by Mohamed Jaafari

When the poet Idris Al Mliani chooses the title “In Full Voice” for his

collection of poems, the reader is not to think that he will read his poem out,

screaming, but its meaning is that he will lead the poetry farther towards an

impossible attempt at an utmost exhaustion of what the sound can carry from fullness.

And the impossibility complex is the pleasure complex. So, the meaning is not the

power of the voice but its density, rhythm and poeticalness. Let‟s venture here with a

minor comparison between the voice and the uniqueness. The life of a poet is

dependent on the voice. Then, many are the poems that are published, so that the

forgetfulness scatters them like the autumn leaves, and only the poems with

magnified voice remain. And the poets are many, but the unique voice is scarce. Let us

try together to read this density and fullness in the collected poems entitled “In Full

Voice”.

A- The voice and death

The voice is noticeably present in the collection of poems, generating its

metaphorical networks and semantic echoes. It falls within the impossibility complex.

That‟s a running mate to life. So, when the telephone ceases ringing in the apartment,

in the first poem of the collection, that is, in the absence of the voice, the reader is

aware that he is in front of death. The voice disappears, life too. It is the

poeticalness of the silent scene. It is meaningful though without speech. And in the

centre of the scene, a turtle is looking for a caring hand that turns plant into water.

022.25.86.81

It doesn‟t ring

The fixed telephone

In the house

The tortoise lonely

walking in the room

In search of a hand

dropping from its fingers

The lettuce into water.

We all may have guessed that the tortoise concerned is the most famous poetic

characters of Mohamed Zafzaf.

Mohamed Zafzaf is present in an elegiac trilogy to which the poet has given a

comprehensive title, “The Great Poet”, and small subtitles that are “A Dialogue Late at

Night”, “Dreaming of Moscow”, and “Low Homes” where the poeticalness of the

3

speaking scenes is apparent without snivel. They are scenes that open up to a time

game related to the insistent reason of memory:

I„ll come to you tomorrow

In gentle pace

Laden with sorrow and yearn p.11

The scenes also speak of death not as a transcendent, existential concept but

as a surreptitious inherent element of the depth of the movement and life,

penetrating moments of comfort and playing nights.

For each a share

of the death we live for and by it

In the life of prosperity

Only a few minutes

The Prince of Rhymes Added to it

Seconds immolated to the smoke p.12

It is also a pretext to refer the crocodile tears

Sleep deeply then

Oh, lover

So far so near to reach

Don‟t bother

With the shattering of the blades

Nor the tear shedding praise p. 14-15

The scenes talk about metamorphosis when the linden bears the neon; and the

professionals of consolation and praise rush up.

In each direction

There are more or less comforters and flatterers

Depending on the loyal people ·p.47

For this reason, it is not strange that we find the poet borrows this introductory text

as an entrance to his triple-branched elegy: How good is death as beverage!

B. The Voice and Hosting.

The voice in the poems is also the voices of texts and those of the poets coming

from different places and periods of time. As you read this poem or that, you

encounter a poet or a section of the text or style of famous saying in an ample,

controversial dialogue. There is a poetical hosting that is open to experiences,

creating a tree with its related intellectual and artistic creations.

4

He told me: Stop here!

And I stopped

At the wave of Canne, riding

The horseback of the wind and the glass! p19

Let‟s note how the wounded crept into the folds of words and the gentleness of

meaning, holding his glass and riding the waves.

As the glass brought about Oumro Alkaiss, it also brings another solemn voice:

Was I but the second of two

“A cigarette and a glass”! p.58

Let‟s contemplate these texts that give the voice of the poems its plenum.

“Never ask for love even in China” p.26

Are they seven or eight?

How long did they stay? God knows! p. 43

And Noah is not crying

To bring you back life

Nor singing revelation

Brings back life to us p. 77

C. The singular voice in the plural

The paradox seemed obvious in the giving of the poet the title "In Full Voice”

to the poem that entitled the whole collection. In the poem, the poet declares it is the

beginning and end of himself, his cohesion and stuff. And that nothing else is

conductive to him but himself. So, the expression “In Full Voice” may suggest

cheerfulness, rhetorical and the oratorical propensity that refrain from delving into

the matters of the individual self. However, the talk about the self in this poem is not

that of cocooned narcissism, or supreme abstract, but it is the process of discovery

of blithe, simple, individual and personal presence. The process of weakening employs

the different forms of the first person singular either connected or detached. About

this, the poet says:

I am another

I walk and he does

In front of me

And behind…

Me I have

My companion I am and my way I am

And I am on myself evidence…

I lean on and care for myself

I am on me merciful

5

I am clear

And a disciple and magnificent sheikh p. 48-49

The poet gives himself the right to celebrate his simple personal being far away

from the logic of hiding, and close to derision that focuses on the manifestations of

excessive and hypocrite seriousness.

And I laugh loudly

When you spit on the turban of a respectful old man

Who denudate with his look the women‟s gowns p·51

This journey towards the unique self in its simplicity, from bottom to top, is a kind of

personal self image and its characteristics, differentiating between freedom,

childishness, love, life, honesty, irony, and loyalty to friends and names that have

departed: Zafzaf, Nadir and Ali, also to places of amusement and friendship: Beni

Mellal, Moscow, Istanbul and others…

While the poet declares that he goes on and doesn‟t look forward to nothing but

to his words to go on, fly and fall on women‟s breasts and posteriors, and it‟s no

problem to him whether they leave or stay, he comes back and notices the

manifestations of the wicked era, where corruption is widespread:

Is the country hallucinating

The country which each time

corruption hit

I said: my heart is on my country

And I wept in blood

And turn to the souk

Curse the gods of dates

Exposing it for sale p. ·;;

This return, but on the basis of the right to simplicity, difference and freedom, takes

the form of disdain to some types of humans who symbolize the peculiarities of the

atrocious present time. And here emerges anew the technique of drawing the personal

image. This can be illustrated by this part:

That nice nationalist person spirited

For himself only

He may be perfect in fact

But not very artful

Except in praising the camera p.94

And this person doesn‟t stop chewing his words, asking the vast majority to sacrifice

for his treasury which is on the verge of the heart attack. Thus the attributes flow,

rising towards tense verbal violence, revealing its words : rhinoceros, bulimia , the

6

toothless, ill-left eyed, deafness in one ear, paralysis of other things. That imaging of

this enthusiastic person is complemented with the verbal game to the extent of

committing a crime on his earnest tie which is left neither knotted nor untied as is his

not ironed node of the dark suit. (from the poem Mr. Kwan Joan p. 62-63 )

The same mockery comes out in the poem entitled Monalika , where Abel

discovers one day that his organ is robbed from him, for this reason:

He launches

His warning to all the spies

And the informers

Search for it right now

… how can I govern – without which is

not named- my amorous millions? p ·44;

The talk about drawing personal images in the collection of poems is also

bringing about the dimensions of friendship and loyalty to places and persons. Here,

we come through the images of "Bourquiya Hassan and Abdul Karim Jawaiti mixed with

the redolence of space and myth. So, it is Beni Mellal that delineate the features of

Hassan and tickles him to create text out of him. And it is the place and its myths

that outline the features of Jawaiti, confused with images of figures from the popular

local history ( see my poems “Hassan Bourquiya” and “Abdul Karim jwaiti” pages 43-

39). And loyalty leads, on the other hand, to the recalling of the voice in its

concreteness. And here comes the loyalty to the language in its original face so that

the book opens up by words which are echoes of relationship and friendship: Dharagui

Moi,CAC Della and Blokha and other voices and words.

The collection of poems is thus full with harmonious and responsive voices.

There is what is personal and collective. There are texts and guest poets. There are

sarcasm and personal images which are drawn by inspiration from loyalty to places and

people, and also because of motivation to satirize examples of bad present time. And

there is essentially the affiliation to the universal writing tree with its great symbols.

Here once again, loyalty is present; so, corresponding to Penelope with her

continuously flowing text is the myth of Karam and Asli in her garment with buttons

that unfasten just to knot up in order to take us to the heart of the metaphor of

writing.

1. Reading in the collection of poems “ In Full Voice”, Idriss Almalyani Ed.1, Printing

Annajah Aljadida, Casablanca, 2005.

7. .م7002. 2في ضيافة القصيدة. دار الحرف. ط :برهون، رشيد

7

Appedix1

·

:

022.25.86.81

!

:

44

:

45

:

8

4748

:

47

!

:

: !

· 19

·

:

"58

:

-"59

-

76

-

::

:

:

9

···

···

···

· 48-49

:

84

···

:

;;

:

94

9596

:

··

10

···

44;

6<76

·

·

(*) 4 5008.

(*) 5;

5009 · (*)barhounes@yahoo.fr

11

Appedix 2

Feedback of the writer of the original text , Rachid Barhoune,

on the translated version

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 21:55:07 +0100 (CET)

rachid barhoune <barhounes@yahoo.fr> wrote:

Bonjour Jaafari

C'est un vrai plaisir de recevoir ton e-mail. Je te félécite pour ton travail

et aussi pour la discussion que vous avez en classe. Tu sais, ce n'est pas

important d'avoir la réponse, ce qui importe ce sont les discussions et

l'échange des idées. Moi aussi je participe avec vous tous. Le sens de

دالمتوح est non pas l'unique ni l'unifié, mais le solitaire, celui qui choisit

d'être seul pour réfléchir, écrire, avoir le plaisir d'écouter ses propres

voix et les échos du monde qui lui parviennent de loin. Tous les poètes, les

philosophes et les penseurs sont متوحدين c'est à dire des solitaires, des

gens qui aiment la solitude. Pas toujours, c'est vrai, mais parfois pour

créer leur petit monde, à partir du grand monde où les autres vivent.

Je te remercie pour ton message. Tu passes un grand bonjour à tes amis

en classe, à tes professeurs. Quand tu auras fini la traduction, j'aimerais

la voir

A très bientôt

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 09:34:26 +0100 (CET)

From: "rachid barhoune" barhounes@yahoo.fr

To: "Mohamed Jaafari" <jaafarimd@yahoo.com>

" Ta traduction est vraiment réussie, c'est un 'texte' en lui même. Le

texte se donne à lire facilement. Je t'en remercie. A+"