(Mary Jo Bang discusses translation at Hugo House tonight at 7 pm. Tickets are $10.)
The only thing you need to know about poet Mary Jo Bang's translation of Dante Alighieri's Inferno (Graywolf Press, $20) is how readable the thing is. To compare, here's a passage from the opening canto in Ernest Risdale Ellaby's 1874 translation, the first edition that comes up on a Google Book search for Dante's Inferno in English:
Why lingerest thou where groveling cares annoy?
What hinders thee to scale the beauteous mountain,
Which is the source and giver of all joy?
It's dense and serious, but sticky. That "groveling cares annoy" is awkwardly internecine, and the "what hinders thee" also momentarily staggers your approach to the mountain, which is, unspecifically, "beauteous." Have you ever seen a mountain you would consider unbeauteous? Now, take that same passage from Bang's translation:
But you, why return to what made you unhappy?
Why not climb the meringue-pie mountain ahead of you?
It's the ultimate end, and means of all pleasure.
It's simple and direct, and it keeps the rhythm of the poem gallumphing through each word, propelling you forward...
