Thus the day has dawned for another installation in the much awaited (and for me, the work-horse, personally, dreaded) series of translation comparisons of Japanese versions of classic literary works, this time staying in the theme of Hans Christian Andersen with Nattergalen ("The Nightingale").
I briefly covered it in a one-off post highlighting the usage of Japanese terminology in regards to rich fabrics and gems, when the bedroom of the Emperor of China is described as he is moribund and the mechanical nightingale refuses (read: has gone to the eternal choir of singing mechanical animals such as that fish) to sing.
I will in this first part cover the translations from the first half 1900 - 1955, thus 1900 - 1924. There are 15 translations in total for this comparison, so I will only mention them briefly as we go through the decades, thus covering 7 translations for these two instalments.
I will specifically look at the way that the two of the principal characters speak, the Emperor of China and the Nightingale, as well as the translation of the three imperial titles that are awarded to the Kitchen Girl, Messenger from Japan and the Mechanical Nightingale.
The particular details of the story will also be mentioned as we encounter them.
The translator covered in this part are: Nakura, Wadagaki, Ueda, Kondou, Sakuma, Morikawa and Taketomo, all of which have translations covering the stretch from 1907 to 1924. A few of these will be familiar faces to people whom have been reading my previous translation comparisons of Andersen and Dickens.
I shall considering the vastness of the project only be delving briefly into the individual translations, but will be highlighting anything of note.
The translation of Meiji-era English-Japanese translator Jirou Nagura (奈倉次郎, 1871 - 1947), which stems from, 1907, is in its original form part of a bilingual text-book teaching Japanese students English, and it is paired with Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne ("The Little Girl with the Matchsticks", glossed in the text-book here as "The Little Matchgirl"), another famous Andersen fairy-tale. He thus sets the scene for the following seven decades of translations that this blog-series will cover.
The Emperor of China - Preface:
Nagura, Wadagaki, Ueda, Kondou and Sakuma (whose translations span 1907 - 1915) all have the Emperor of the tale using language adequate for an ancient emperor, i.e. using the first person pronoun chin (朕), which in modern times has been translated as the Majestic Plural, or Royal We, but as such have no connotations of plurality, but has since antiquity been a pronoun reserved for emperors and monarchs - stemming from Qin Shi Huang's first exclusive usage of it to early modernity. Pronominally we see a switch around 1922 where he in Morikawa's 1922 translation uses ore (俺) and watashi (私), former being an assertive masculine pronoun and the latter a gender-neutral polite or aloof pronoun, though this is more the case in fiction, when it comes to expressing a manner of aloof nobility. Taketomo (1924) gives the Emperor the pronoun washi (わし), a pronoun stereotypically associated with ageing seniors, and finally Kusuyama (1924) makes him use watashi (わたし).
Furthermore, they all address his monarchical title as variously, all except for Morikawa refer to him with the words for Emperor: 天子様 (tenshi-sama, "the Lord Child of the Heavens") and 皇帝 (koutei, "emperor"), whereof the latter is the standard Japanese word for any emperor be they from ancient Rome or modern times. The former is more reserved for the Emperor of China. Only Morikawa calls him 王様 (ou-sama, "king"), which presumably appertains to a time where knowledge to European politics was still a new field of knowledge in the 1920s Japan, having just left the Meiji-era and entered the Taisho-era.
Going more into depth with Nagura, there are some things worthy of noticing:
It uses notably more archaic vocabulary along with Ueda, concerning specific Imperial terms when referring to the Emperor's person or actions: Ryougan (龍顔, lit. "dragon's countenance,") = Emperor's face Konryou (袞龍, "garbed dragon," or "dragon robes") = Emperor's clothes Seishu (聖主, lit. "sacred lord") = The Emperor as a wise or virtuous divine ruler.
Specific verb-forms are also used, namely the causative-passive respect form ooserareru (仰せられる, "the sir/madam says"), which only appears in much later translations.
The Emperor of China - The Analysis:
The Emperor of China's most critical moment of speaking is when he voices not only his dissatisfaction about his Courtier doubting the veracity about any such bird as the Nightingale even existing and not just being the purest fabrication.
Quoth Nagura:
『（誰れあらう）尊ふとくも日本國の大皇帝より朕に贈られたものである、だに依って嘘のあるべき筈はないぞ。其鶯を是非とも聽く。今夜此處へ連れて来い。其鳥が非常に氣に入った。して若し其れが来ぬなら、夕食を濟ますと直ぐ様、宮中の者共誰れ彼れの（容赦なく）踏み苛責でやるぞ。』
"(Dare arou) toutoku mo nipponkoku no daikoutei yori chin ni okurareta mono de aru. dani yotte uso no arubeki hazu wa nai zo. Sono uguisu wo zehi tomo kiku. Konya kono tokoro he tokoro tsurete koi. Sono tori ga hijou ni ki ni itte. Shite mosi sore ga konu nara, yuushoku wo sumasu to sugu sama, kyuuchuu no monodomo darekare no (youshanaku) fumi sainande yaru zo."
"None other than the exalted Grand Emperor of the Realm of Japan has gifted Us this very thing, which cannot possibly be due to some untruth. We shall assuredly hear this Warbler. Thou shalt bring said bird to this place, at this evening. We would be most please if the bird was in Our possession. However, if thou bringest it not here, then will ye, the entire court, anon after dinner be without relent trod upon and condemned."
A thing worth noting is that the word for "condemn" is here a formal and highly obscure word kashaku (苛責), whose meaning I could only find via a Chinese online dictionary, but through related synonyms it seems to mean "blame"/"condemnation" in Japanese, where it is further elaborated of being both used in the meaning of "excruciatingly blaming someone" and it is used primarily in the context of Buddhism.
it is however written as if it was the gerund form of saimu (苛む, "to scold, to condemn"), thereby the author adds a layer of depth of meaning to the verb.
He uses, as mentioned in the previous paragraphs, the pronoun chin, hence the choice of the Majestic Royal in translation. Otherwise it is using the plain if archaic forms for the copula dearu, thus giving the Emperor the lofty and formal diction of a ruler.
A critical scene that shows a complete redemption of the Emperor, where he is also delivered from the moribund fate of Death and the ghosts slowly dooming him for his past sins, by the Nightingale.