Eva

Die Fret

Genoeg, fret: wees vry. Jou nie meer

vasloop in stoephoeke nie, beton of

marmer onder jou pootjies wat móét grawe—

Jý, sélf, langgelyfde tonnelaar,

jou stert gebós van hoop teen alle hoop in,

dapper klein angstige self—Ek het my

ander verwese selwe gesê ek sién jou soek

na uitkoms, hulle gemaan om roerloos te sit

op die treetjies wat afloop na die wye meer,

opdat jy kan draai en vreesloos vlug

verby ons die treetjies af: hoe bittermooi

is jou pels—Kom, en welkom, en vaarwel,

en red my in die fynbos, die meerduine.

Tonnel vir my, tonnel: eindelik verloste fret.

–Sheila Cussons

The Fretter

Enough, don’t fret. Don't get trapped:

Caught where you can't escape, no concrete,

No marble. Your little paws must dig—

You, elongated digging creature,

With bushy tail, your utmost wishes,

Brave little fretter— I told my

inner beings you're looking for

escape, you choose to sit quietly

On the footpaths that lead to water

You can turn, bravely run and

fly past us: how beautiful is

Your pelt— come, in welcome and farewell,

Save me in the fynbos and the anthills.

Dig for me a tunnel: fret not.

–Translated from Afrikaans by Eva

The Ferret

Enough, ferret, go free. Don't get trapped:

Caught where you can't escape, no concrete,

No marble. Your little paws must dig—

You, elongated digging creature,

With bushy tail, your utmost wishes,

Brave little timid thing— I told my

inner beings you're looking for

escape, you choose to sit quietly

On the footsteps that lead to water

You can briskly turn, bravely run and

fly past our forms: how beautiful is

Your pelt— come, in welcome and farewell,

Save me in the fynbos, the anthills.

Dig for me a delve: fret not, ferret.

–Translated from Afrikaans by Eva

Translator’s statement

A bridge assumes an existing gulf, almost impassable ordinarily, between two entities… A translator is the maker of bridges between languages” — Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

I chose, in my translations, to represent the loss of a language that I had perceived as my own through grasping at straws to remember the country I identify as a part of. This language is Afrikaans. For my blackout poem, I took the text from an interview with my mother, whose ancestors spoke German. Her family lost German to assimilate into the English and Afrikaans white population of South Africa. However, I focused on a different language: Afrikaans. Afrikaans is the creole created by the Dutch settlers of the Kaapkolonie, which is currently known as Cape Town. It contains elements of Dutch, German, French, and English. I feel that I have lost this language because it is the only non-English language that the three adults in my house share, but all of them learned it in school during the apartheid regime. This has led to mixed feelings about the language, but it is punctuated by the fact that I am only able to understand and speak snippets of a language that comes from a country I am a citizen of.

Sheila Cussons (1922-2004) was a South African fine artist born in Piketberg, Western Cape. She has stated that she “considers herself a fine artist first before a poet” (Cussons), but translating artwork over poetry is rather more difficult. She matriculated at Hoër Meisieskool in Pretoria and graduated from what is now known as the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where she studied fine art. She went on to study in Amsterdam and lived in countries such as Spain, England, Israel, and the Netherlands. It is reported that she was advised to write in Afrikaans by fellow poet D. J. Opperman (Cussons).

Her first collection of poems was Plektrum, published in 1970, which won the Ingrid Jonker, Eugène Marais, and W. A. Hofmeyr Prizes. After returning to South Africa in 1983, Cussons won the Hertzog Prize, Afrikaans literature’s highest award. One year later, she published Membraan, which is the book in which Die Fret is found (van Membraan).

Die Fret is a 14-line poem that reads like prose, with around 9 syllables in each line. It lacks a rhyme scheme or major structure, and loans words from English. However, it ‘corrupts’ them. For example, tunneler is tonelaar, and other words follow this pattern. It is difficult to ascertain how much of this is due to Afrikaans’ status as a creole or how much is simply the loan word phenomenon, but it does mean that the Afrikaans in the poem reads like English. There is also an uncertainty regarding the meaning of fret, which can either mean ‘ferret’ or ‘worry’.

I focused on two main features of the poem for my translations: the double meaning of the word fret and the nine syllables per line. The poem with the play on words led to me excluding the use of the word “ferret” entirely — instead calling the animal a ‘fretter’. I also left in parts of the literal translation, which I did with my grandmother due to my lack of knowledge of Afrikaans, that I found amusing, like “elongated digging creature.” (This may be the best description of a ferret I have found.)

For the second translation of the poem, I focused on what I would turn into a rigorous line structure: 14 lines, 9 syllables per line. This led to some strange syntax and enjambment, but prose was not the requirement. I also emphasized the use of em-dashes by the author, which were used often. To translate is to attempt to stay as close as possible to the form or the content of a poem, and one has to choose which.

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Bibliography

“Sheila Cussons”. South Africa History Online. 6 Nov. 2020, https://www.sahistory.org.za/

people/sheila-cussons. Accessed 24 Apr. 2023.

“van Membraan”. Asymptote. https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/sheila-cussons-

membrane/afrikaans/. Accessed 24 Apr. 2023.

wa Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ. The Language of Languages: Reflections on Translation. Seagull Books, 2003.

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Eva is a 10th grader at Meridian Academy in Boston, MA. She lives in Watertown, MA. Her favourite author is Randall Munroe and she will occasionally spend upwards of ten minutes clicking the 'random' button on xkcd.com. She does not get enough sleep.