On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 1:59 PM, Stan Kelly-Bootle <
skb@bootle.biz> wrote:
> Tim: I don't have Bend Sinister handy, but the following, possibly relevant
> quotes appear in Priscilla Meyer's Find What the Sailor Has Hidden (p 82)
>
> The original Timon of Athens Act IV sc iii:
> The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
> Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
> And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:
> The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
> The moon into salt tears.
>
> Priscilla then adds: "Kinbote's translation back into English from Uncle
> Conmal's Zemblan translation of Timon reads:
>
> The sun is a thief, she lures the sea
> And robs it. The moon is a thief:
> He steals his silvery light from the sun.
> The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon. (Note to lines 39-40)
>
> Priscilla continues: "We may conclude that in Zemblan, as in Anglo-Saxon and
> modern German, the sun is feminine, and the moon is masculine."
>
> Priscilla doesn't mention that Kinbote's sea is now overtly neuter (it).
> Worth noting the relevance of these gender shifts to the debate with JA/JM
> re-translational hurdles. Many LitCritters go all GIDDY over genders,
> reading irrelevant sex-genders into grammatical-genders! Compare the Russian
> choices of Motherland and Fatherland! I studied Prouvencau in Mouns (Mons),
> Var, and was AMAZED that –o was generally a Feminine ending; -a was usually
> Masculine. SO MUCH FOR INHERENT INTUITIVE PHONOLOGY.
>
> From a quick browse, all her refs to Bend Sinister concern the translations
> of [G/H]amlet, not Timon.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> PS: Good news for iPod Touch and iPhone users. A FREE application from the
> ap.store called SHAKESPEARE, gives you searchable online-text access to ALL
> the plays. And thus on my small hand-held SCREEN, scrolling Act IV of Timon
> of Athens, I meet another ref to moonlight reflections, but this time he
> speaks of the moon as a BORROWER not a THIEF:
>
> ALCBiades: How came the noble Timon to this change?
>
> TIMon: As the moon does, by wanting light to give;
> But then renew I could not, like the moon;
> There were no suns to borrow of.
>
> This is HiTech serendipity at its highest!
>
> skb
>