I found a beautiful english translation from one estonian poetess Kristiina Ehin, whose "Luigeluulinn" I really liked. The poems are so colourful in estonian language and full of a kind of rhythm, which is hard to explain, when you do not know the language.. But: here the translator has succeeded to find the way to share it in other language..
Cows come from the sea...
Kristiina Ehin
Translation by Ilmar Lehtpere
Cows come from the sea
on this morning at the beginning of time
blue-green cows
udders full of salty sea milk
and the Sea Mother drives them ashore
with a switch of sea-grass
Sea Maidens come keep the cows
and keep yourselves
from lecherous herders by night
In autumn may a hundred blue-green cows
be back here in the bay between mottled stones
May their horns glisten in the mist
and may your eyes sparkle
But keep your hearts clear and cool
like the morning dew
You will never get used to the life of human women
it puts fetters on the heart
dreams are never fulfilled
and feelings only give rise to grief
People are beautiful but cruel
They keep to their kin like insects
they gather the gold of dreams by night
squander it all away in the morning
To become someone’s own means being
dangerously close to a human star
But your eyes are like the sea of the world
stars drown in it
Sea Maidens come keep the cows
But keep your hearts clear and cool
like the morning dew
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Photo: Mai-Liis
The translator sais:
By the translator Ilmar Lehtpere
An exile, transplanted into a foreign society, strives at all costs to retain his or her identity. A translated poem is, in a sense, also an exile, transplanted into the alien environment of a foreign language. One of the translator’s many tasks is to be sensitive and welcoming, helping the poem retain its identity and adapt to its new environment without making compromises. To this end my bilingual upbringing as the child of Estonian refugees has been an enormous benefit, giving me a native speaker’s understanding of the cultural and linguistic nuances of both Estonian and English.I have been translating Kristiina Ehin’s poetry, prose and drama for nearly five years and have translated nearly all of her published work along with much of her as yet unpublished work as well. Working so intensively with the work of the poet I admire most in any language, I have gained a deep understanding of her work and an increasingly clear insight into the complexity of the translation process. It goes far beyond linguistic competence and is in itself an act of creativity.
At the heart of this process is the author’s voice with its own particular music, its idiosyncracies and nuances. When I translate Kristiina’s work, I hear her voice reading what I have written. The music of her voice dictates the music of my translation. Her imagery is sometimes very specifically Estonian, but I trust in the reader’s wish to experience what is Estonian in Kristiina’s work, and I don’t look for British equivalents. My translations strive to be Kristiina’s poems, not my interpretations of them.
The most important factor for me in transplanting Kristiina’s poems into the soil of the English language continues to be a deep inner need to see them thrive there in their own right as they do at home in the Estonian language.
Listen: Estonian band "Evert and the two dragons": "Good Man Down" was voted "Hit of the year 2011" in Estonia by Radio 2 listeners. Awards at the Estonian Music Awards gala 2012: "band of the year", "album of the year" and "song of the year" awards.
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