Translating the Poetry of Amos
This Handbook is the first one in the series to deal with a book of the Bible which is written in the poetic style of the Hebrew prophets. This style makes the translator’s task considerably harder than in earlier books. The fundamental principles of translation do not change, but their application is more complicated.* The translator must still convey the true meaning and purpose of the Hebrew in the best way for his own language. So in translating a poetic passage he should not try to copy everything that makes up Hebrew poetic style. Actually, he may even decide not to translate into poetry at all, but into good prose. But if it is best to translate into good poetry, the poetry must be in the poetic patterns of the language into which he is translating, not of the original Hebrew; and if into prose, the prose must be that of his language without purposeless relics of Hebrew poetic style.
5.1 Things to Know about Hebrew Poetry
Hebrew parallelism. The word “parallelism” refers to the fact that usually two or more lines, one right after the other, say very similar things or different things in a very similar way. On a small scale it is like the balancing we discussed for longer passages in Amos (Translating Amos, Section 2).
Clear examples of this parallelism can be seen constantly in Amos. In the following examples the parallel parts are lined up to show the relationship:
Woe to those who lie upon beds of ivory,
and stretch themselves upon their couches,
and eat lambs from the flock calves
and calves from the midst of the stall;
who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp,..
who drink wine in bowls,..
(Amos 4.4, rsv)
Come to Bethel, and transgress;
to Gilgal, and multiply transgression;
bring your sacrifices every morning,
your tithes every three days;..
I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings
and cereal offerings,
and the peace offerings.
I will not accept them,
I will not look upon.
Such parallelism is an extremely common Hebrew poetic device, and without it there is no poetry from the Hebrew point of view. Parallelism in some degree occurs in all language, both in prose and in poetry, and will certainly be found in translation. However, the important point to remember here is that such parallelism should come into a translation where it contributes to effective communication in the language of the translation and should not be carried over only because it is in the Hebrew or an English translation of the Hebrew. This means that quite often when something is said twice in the Hebrew in this way, it will be said only once in a good translation, or if it is said only once in Hebrew it may need to be said more than once in translation. It also means that by comparing the parallel lines of the Hebrew, the translator can sometimes get a better idea of the main point which the original writer was driving at.* In English, for example, it is more common in some oratorical styles (such as might well be used in translating Amos).
Hebrew picture language. Picture language is technically called “imagery.” It expresses an idea by drawing a picture with words. There are some outstanding examples in Amos:
The Lord roars from Mount Zion;
his voice thunders from Jerusalem.
(Amos 3.12, tev)
The Lord says, “As a shepherd recovers only two legs or an ear of a sheep that a lion has eaten, so only a few of Samaria’s people ….”
(Amos 5.24, tev)
Let justice flow like a stream, and righteousness like a river that never goes dry.
Picture language, of course, is to be found in all languages and in prose as well as in poetry. However, the particular types of pictures which are suitable in one language may not all necessarily be used in another. And poetry tends to have quite a bit more picture language than prose does. This means that the translator has to adapt the pictures of the original and decide in every instance whether the original purpose can best be kept in his translation by the same pictures, different pictures, or no pictures at all.
For example, here is a strong Hebrew picture:
(Amos 1. 3, rsv)
… they have threshed Gilead
with threshing sledges of iron.
The translators of the tev, however, felt that this picture language would not be understood if translated literally into English because it is based on Mideastern agricultural work not known to modern English readers. The tev therefore translates instead:
They treated the people of Gilead
with savage cruelty.
This expresses the same meaning but not the same picture, and the emotional force is not as strong because the picture is not as strong.
However, it would be possible to translate this passage into picture language in English as well:
They treated the people of Gilead with savage cruelty, as though they drove their oxen over them, pulling great beams with iron spikes to rip up their flesh.
With such a translation much of the horror of the Hebrew picture could be kept. However, the translation is “wordy,” without the precise, brief power of the original. Perhaps a further improvement would be:
… pulling great hooks to rip up their flesh.
Meter. Hebrew poetry has a regular rhythm or beat, with a limited number of stressed or loud syllables per line (often three). We cannot illustrate meter from the Hebrew because if anyone does not know Hebrew he will not feel the meter anyhow. So we take an English illustration instead, a verse from a familiar hymn, just to show what meter is in English. The stressed (strong, loud) syllables are in bold type.
Oh, worship the king, all glorious above,
And gratefully sing his wonderful love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavillioned in splendor and girded with praise.
(Sir Robert Grant)
We can show this more clearly by representing each bolded syllable above with x and the other syllables with o. And when we do that we find that there are some pauses which have the beat of an o. They are represented by ():
o x o o x () o x o o x ()
o x o o x () o x o o x ()
o x o o x o o x o o x ()
o x o o x o o x o o x ()
Each line has the same pattern except that the first two lines have () in the middle whereas the last two have o. The parentheses (), in fact, seem to be an alternative for o at the end of the first half of a line. All English styles have a difference between x type syllables and o type syllables, but in meter the different syllables are arranged to create a pattern, of which the above is only one of many possibilities.
In some languages meter is not related to stressed or loud syllables at all, but to patterns of long and short vowels. The principle of patterning is the same, however. The long and short vowels create a pattern which is repeated in the poem.
Meter does not show up in most English translations. If there should be meter in the English translation, it is not Hebrew meter, but English. The tev does not normally have meter, even in the sections which are written to look like poetry, but if the translator is translating into poetry and if poetry in his language uses meter, he will want to use the patterns which are required.
Arousal of emotion. The characteristics of Hebrew poetry which we have been discussing so far are ones by which the author built up some of his poetic affects. We should go on, however, to something deeper, to the qualities which are necessary to a great deal of poetry in most languages and which must be reproduced in the translation. They are part of the basic purpose and meaning of the poetry.
The first of these is strong feeling. Amos is full of strong feeling, feeling of indignation, of terrible horror against injustice. And the feelings change from passage to passage. There is bitterness against the treatment of the poor, and there are hymns of praise to God, with the ending full of hope and promise. No translation is adequate if the reader does not feel the changes and intensity of the moods throughout the book. To achieve strong feeling in the translation, the translator must, of course, write forcefully and effectively in his own language. Notice that the emotional effects must often come from the way in which the translation is expressed, not by simply trying to carry over the way the original writer did it in Hebrew.
An attempt to provide an example of what we are talking about can be seen below. The tev (in prose, and already heavily rewritten from the Hebrew poetic form) is first, and another suggested writing follows:
Listen to this, you that trample on the needy and try to destroy the poor of the country. You say to yourselves, “We can hardly wait for the holy days to be over so that we can sell our grain. When will the Sabbath end, so that we can start selling again? Then we can overcharge, use false measures, and fix the scales to cheat our customers. We can sell worthless wheat at a high price. We’ll find a poor man who can’t pay his debts, not even the price of a pair of sandals, and buy him as a slave.” (Amos 8.4–6, tev)
Listen, you merchants who trample the needy and destroy the poor. You can’t wait for business again. You overcharge; you use false measures, and fix your scales to cheat your customers. You even take what you sweep from the floor of the wheat bin and sell it to the hungry at a high price. Then you go out and look for a poor man, who cannot pay his debts, and make him your slave because he owes the money for his cheap sandals.
There are many obvious changes from the tev to the following restructuring, but the major one is that the quotation is taken out. In this passage the rich merchants are being accused of all kinds of selfish and cruel acts against the poor, and it seems to us that for English the quotation with its questions weakens the accusation. It seems stronger with the direct “you … you … you ….” The emotion of the last lines is also increased by the more specific picture language: “to make him your slave because he still owes the price of his cheap sandals.” The use of specific terms like “merchants” and “the hungry” also helps, as does the shorter, more direct sentence structure.
Not all readers in any language necessarily react in the same way, and what is effective in one language is not necessarily effective in another, so it would often be wise for a translator to test different possibilities on a variety of readers to see what seems more forceful to most.
Making the reader think without saying something directly. Another very important characteristic of Hebrew poetry is making the reader think or feel something without saying it directly. This is often done through the use of picture language, but also by drawing the reader to make his own interpretation of what is being said. This quality is also to be found in poetry and prose of many other languages, and is very important for the translation.
Here is a good example:
How terrible it will be for you who long for the day of the Lord! What good will that day do you? For you it will be a day of darkness and not of light. It will be like a man who runs from a lion and meets a bear! Or like a man who comes home and puts his hand on the wall—only to be bitten by a snake! The day of the Lord will bring darkness and not light; it will be a day of gloom, without any brightness. (Amos 5.18–20, tev)
In this passage we are not told what will happen on “the day of the Lord,” but we are left with the strong feeling that it will mean disaster, that it will be worse than the situation from which we are escaping. It makes us think about the dangers without stating them directly.
By no means can all passages of indirect statement be translated indirectly. The knowledge of the modern reader is very different from that of the original reader, and he would in many cases not understand, or would misinterpret what the original writer was driving at. In Amos 7.7–8, for example, the tev has made the indirect language of the Hebrew clearer:
He asked me, “Amos, what do you see?”
“A plumb line,” I answered.
Then he said, “I am using it to show that my people
are like a wall that is out of line.”“Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel.”
The tev is doubtless correct in thinking that the Hebrew figure is not clear enough for its readers and needs to be made more explicit. However, the meaning is stated so directly that the quality of making the reader think for himself is destroyed, too. Perhaps something of this quality could be kept, and the passage still be made clear, by translating:
I am checking my people with it.
or, I am using it to see how straight my people are.
or, I’m measuring my people against it.
A translation must be clear, but for it to be without any of this kind of indirect statement would mean a serious weakening of its effectiveness.
Subject matter of Hebrew poetry. The last thing to keep in mind with regard to Hebrew poetry is the wide range of different purposes for which poetry was used. These included songs and hymns, curses and blessings, judgments of God and announcements that punishment was coming.
Some other languages have just as many subjects for which poetry is very natural. In still other languages it is not so. In English, for example, especially in modern times, poetry is used for love and worship and humor, but not for history, preaching, teaching, blessing, etc. When Hebrew poetry contains subject matter which is not suitable to poetry in any language it will often need to be translated as prose. This is what has been done throughout most of the book of Amos in the tev. Prophetic judgments are not appropriate to modern English poetry. In many other languages, of course, they most certainly are.
5.2 Things to Think about in the Poetry of a Language.
Before a translator can make an intelligent decision about how to translate the poetry of the Bible, he must stop and think about the poetry of his own language from several points of view. He needs to do this both to decide whether or not he is going to translate into poetry at all, and then if it is to be poetry, in order to decide what kind of poetry he wants to use. In doing this he should consult with literary specialists in his own language if there are such people, or with people who are known to be effective poets and writers or storytellers.
Subject matter. Here are some questions the translator can ask himself and literary specialists: What do people write poems about in this language? Are all subjects equally suitable for poetry? How about religion? Suffering? Love? Hatred? History? Law? Moral qualities? Other Biblical themes?
Of course, it may well be that within the culture of which this language is an expression, various types of Biblical subject matter simply do not exist at all. But the translator still needs to think about the poetry that does exist in order to help decide whether or not these new subjects would be appropriate within poetic tradition.
The situations in which poetry is used. Or, to look at it from another point of view, what do poets try to accomplish with their poetry in this language? Is poetry only associated with music? Only with entertainment? And for the book of Amos, particularly, are pronouncements of God’s judgment appropriately expressed in poetic form?
Users of Poetry. Then there are questions about who uses poetry in this language. Is it only older people? Only the young? Are there certain kinds of poetry which are restricted to particular groups of people? For example, do older people like classical poetic forms but younger people like a free verse modeled after European patterns? The translator must decide whether or not the poetry which he might create in translation is suitable to the particular audience of the translation.
Poetic forms. The translator needs to think also about the different forms of poetry as they exist in his language. Some languages have only a very limited variety of poetic forms and others an enormous range. Are some poetic varieties associated only with particular subjects or a particular class of people? Do some forms require a greater degree of skill for the poet, and are they more likely to require changing the meaning in order to be able to keep within the requirements of the poetic rules? The more difficult the kind of poem, of course, the less likely it is that it can be successfully used in translation. Forms which are limited to a fixed number of lines are particularly unsuitable for the purposes of translation; for example, the sonnet in English allows only fourteen lines of fixed length. It would be a rare poem in Hebrew which could be suitably translated into a sonnet. In the same way, poetic forms with complicated rhyming or rhythm patterns and many rules become very difficult to manage in translation.
The poet. If poetry is to be translated into poetry, who can do it?
Very often it will have to be someone different from the person who translates the prose passages, because writing poetry is often a special skill. Can people who have this skill be included in the translation team? Can they be trained to understand the principles of good translation such that their poetic gifts can be used, as they understand that the meaning of the text must be kept? To be successful, the translation of poetry must be done by a skillful person. Such a person has to be sought out, and the search may be difficult.
The basic decision: prose or poetry. With these various considerations in mind the translator will have to decide whether all or some of the Hebrew poetry should be translated into poetry or prose in his language, and also what particular forms and styles would be best. All of the various different types of poetic literature in the Bible should be thought about, and a decision made for each one in light of the styles and uses of poetry in the language.
5.3 How to Proceed when Translating Hebrew Poetry into Prose.
If the translator decides to translate certain passages of Hebrew poetry or all of the Hebrew poetry into prose, he may think that this solves all his problems, and that he may continue in the same way that he has been translating other parts of the Bible. It is not as simple as that, however, because he will probably have to make changes which are not required in translating the prose passages of the Bible. He may find that he has to work extra hard because the Hebrew poetic elements do not fit too well into a prose framework. We notice this in English translations of the parallelism of Hebrew poetry. A certain amount of parallelism is quite acceptable in English prose and may considerably strengthen its force. However, the amount of parallelism which exists in the Hebrew, if carried over fully into English prose, makes the prose extremely heavy, repetitive and uninteresting to read. This means that some of the parallel lines have to be reduced so that something is said only once. For example:
In all the squares there shall be wailing,
and in all the streets they shall say, “Alas! Alas!” (Amos 5.16, rsv)
This has been translated in the tev simply by:
There will be wailing and cries of sorrow in the city streets.
At this point the tev is translating into prose, and the simpler structure is preferable. This does not mean that it would be preferable in all cases in all other languages, of course. Notice that the meaning has not been changed, but the repetition has been reduced.
In translating from Hebrew poetry into the prose of any language the translation principles have not changed; the application is a little bit more complicated. The translator still wants to give the same meaning as the original. He wants to have the same emphasis, to keep the same mood or feeling, as far as is possible in prose; he wants to have the same ability to make people think, and in every way to accomplish the same purpose, even though the style is different.
In the case of Amos, the tev will be of help in translating the Hebrew poetry into prose because that is what the tev has done, except for a few passages which it considered suitable for poetry in English. However, here as in all other cases, the translator should not translate the tev literally. He should make his own judgment as to what is the best way to put the meaning in his own language. This handbook will help to explain the meaning and to give ideas of ways in which it can be expressed in various languages. The original forms of parallelism (as seen in the rsv) may give ideas concerning ways of expressing this meaning in vivid fashion in translation. Sometimes the forms of the language of translation will be more like those of Hebrew than English is.
And when the draft is done, as in all translating, the translator should go over his prose translation again carefully to make sure that it really sounds like good, free-flowing and forceful prose in his language, and that it has the strong emotion of Amos. The translator will often find after he has put it aside for a while that he wants to do further improving.
The final improvements will sometimes be very small ones, but they will lend smoothness, clarity and emotion. Look, for example, at the following rewriting of the first three verses of Chapter 2 of the tev Amos. The changes are very slight, but the total effect is smoother and clearer:
The Lord says, “The people of Moab have sinned again and again, and for this I will certainly punish them. They dishonored the bones of the king of Edom by burning them to ashes. I will send fire on the land of Moab and burn down the fortresses of Kerioth. The people of Moab will die in the noise of battle, while soldiers are shouting and trumpets are sounding. I will kill the ruler of Moab and all the leaders of the land.”
(Amos 2.1–3, tev)
(Rewrite): Listen to what the Lord says: “The people of Moab have sinned again and again. They have even dishonored the dead king of Edom by burning his bones to make lime!
“So, I will punish the people of Moab. I’ll send war, like a fire, on their whole country, and burn down their great fortress of Kerioth. People will die in the noise of battle, with the soldiers shouting and trumpets sounding their defeat. I will kill the ruler of Moab also, and all the leaders of the land.”
That is what the Lord says!
Some of these changes would be necessary whether the original was poetry or not. However, in the process of translating from poetry into prose the result can often be more uneven than in translating from prose because the amount of rewriting required is much greater. But whatever the reason, final improvements to create a good, smooth prose form are essential.
Here are some of the changes that were made from the tev in the above rewriting:
1. The addition of “Listen to what.” This makes the Lord’s saying more immediate, more directed to the listener and less like the recording of an abstract quotation.
2. “They have even.” This unites the example of sinning with the general statement about the sinning and implies the very great repulsiveness of this action with the word “even.”
3. “To make lime.” The justification for this is to be found in the discussion of the text under 2.1.
4. “So I will punish the people of Moab.” The order of I will punish is changed so that it does not divide the discussion of sinning and so that it comes directly with the description of the punishment to the sinning; “people of Moab” is required by the new paragraph.
5. “War, like a fire.” See the discussion under 2.2.
6. “Great.” The word helps to show how great is the disaster that is to come to Moab, and helps to smooth the passage.
7. “With … their defeat.” These words help to show the changes from the confusion to the outcome. As the text stands in the tev, the soldiers shouting and trumpets sounding almost sound like victory for Moab rather than for the enemy. The rewriting keeps the point of view completely on the side of the people of Moab and smooths the presentation.
8. “Also.” This serves to tie in the sentence with what has gone before.
9. “That is what the Lord says!” (rsv: “says the Lord.”) tev does not translate, probably because it may have seemed overly repetitive. The rewriting uses it to emphasize the point and carry back to “Listen to what the Lord says:” at the beginning.
5.4 How to Proceed when Translating Poetry into Poetry
As we said before, to translate a poem by a poem, the translation must have the qualities of a good poem in its own language. It must contain the ideas and the purpose of the original, but it cannot also carry over all of the details of the original poetic structure. If some of the Hebrew poetic devices create the same effect in the language of the translation, that may make it easier, but such help will not usually be very great. The translation should, as much as possible, have the same meaning, the same emphasis, the same feeling as in the original. It should have the same ability to provoke the reader to thought. However, the words, the images, the parallelism, the turns of language will often have to be different.
When translating the poetry of Amos into the poetry of his own language, the translator should be very cautious about the tev. The tev has usually translated as prose, for reasons we have already discussed. In other cases it takes the visual form of poetry with lines of different lengths beginning with capital letters, but it is not true English poetry. Some of these problems are discussed as we come to them in the text. Alongside the tev, the rsv can help the translator see what some of the poetic characteristics of the original were, although they do not all come through in any translation, by any means. The literal translation and the structure of some passages analyzed in the Appendix may also help to give a better sense of what the author may have been trying to do with the poetic structure than the tev sometimes gives.
The first step in translating into the poetry of any language is to make a simple translation of the ideas of the original into meaningful prose, without being too concerned with the poetic form. As that is done, the translator should keep track of the kinds of images used, the kinds of emotion that he wants to reproduce. This step is necessary in order to make sure that the meaning is preserved. After that, the same translator, or someone else who is more skilled in poetic style, can take this prose translation and restructure it into the poetic form of the language.
We suggest this procedure because it is easier for a poet to work within his own language as he tries to sense the feelings and rhythms that will make a suitable poem. In our experience, the translation is more successful if the two steps are done one after the other in this way, although the person rewriting a poem should keep referring back to the original so that he does not begin to miss the meaning. Then his work should be checked by someone else skillful in the original to make more sure that he has not distorted it.
“He who translates a biblical verse according to its form (i.e. literally), such person is a liar (misrepresenting the sense), and he who adds to it, such person is a blasphemer.”
Rabbi Yehudah
Tosephta Megilla 4.41.
* There have been several articles on the translation of Biblical poetry in TBT over the past few years: Aleksander Bierwisch and Paul Ellingworth, “Psalms in Serbian Popular Verse,” TBT 24.2 (April 1973): 234–240; Keith R. Crim, “Translating the Poetry of the Bible,” TBT 23.1 (January 1972):102–109; Wesley Culshaw, “Translating Biblical Poetry,” TBT 19.1 (January 1968):1–6; Howard A. Hatton, “Translation of Poetry: A Thai Example,” TBT 25.1 (January 1974):131–139. See also Jan de Waard, “Biblical Metaphors and Their Translation,” TBT 25.1 (January 1974):107–116; William A. Smalley, “Restructuring Translations of the Psalms as Poetry,” in On Language, Culture and Religion: In Honor of Eugene A. Nida, edited by Matthew Black and William A. Smalley. The Hague: Mouton, 1974:337–371.
rsv Revised Standard Version
* Parallelism in Hebrew poetry can become extremely complicated, as may be seen by some of the patterns shown in the Appendix.
tev Today’s English Version
Waard, Jan de ; Smalley, William Allen ; Smalley, William Allen: A Translator's Handbook on the Book of Amos. Stuttgart : United Bible Societies, 1979 (Helps for Translators), S. 9
