Before Buwan ng Wika ends, I published through my social media account “tokhang ang daigdig,” a poem rendered from Alejandro Abadilla’s “ako ang daigdig.” In every illuminating moment of replacing each of Abadilla’s ako with tokhang, the new work gradually forms and reveals itself as something relevant in these dark times, yet conscious of the limits of its being. I leave further reading and thinking up to those who want to dissect the derivative work, which, hopefully, has its own merits. So I can devote enough space to translation. Along the way, what Hans J. Vermeer calls skopos (aim) and/or commission (definition) shifted accordingly, that ended with the translatum (target text), “tokhang the universe.”
I Googled for the definitive English translation of “ako ang daigdig,” and failed. I found a journal article where Bienvenido Lumbera wrote: “Abadilla, since the publication of his free verse poem ‘ako ang daigdig’ [i am the universe] in 1940 had been advocating a ‘modernist’ practice for Tagalog poets of the 20th century.” Most translations I found in blogs opted for the title “i am the world,” and begins with the stanza, “i / am the world.” One proceeds with “i / am the poem,” another with “i / am the poetry,” but if I can have it my way, I might go with “i / am poetry,” and call the piece, “i am the universe,” as suggested by Lumbera, and so on. The first stanza alone establishes how the original piece’s entrancing ambiguity seems lost in translation: whether “ako” and “ang daigdig” function as (a) one unit of a sentence separated by a line cut, which can be approximated in English as “i / am the universe;” or (b) two objects, ideas, or concepts introduced by the persona, which can be approximated in English as “i / the universe.” The first one declares the oneness of the individual with the whole, while the other distinguishes the drop from the ocean, so to speak.
With “tokhang the universe,” I felt ecstatic with the nuances of language and word choices, during the process of translation. Unlike “i,” “tokhang” changes its syntactic role but retains its ambiguity in both the Filipino original and English translatum, because in “tokhang / ang daigdig” and “tokhang / the universe,” the stanzas may still function in both the senses of (a) and (b), as discussed in the previous paragraph. However, with (a), there’s a difference in the tone of the sentence: “tokhang ang daigdig” merely declares, as in “the universe is tokhang,” while “tokhang the universe” demands. In the former, tokhang is a noun, a matter of fact, while in the latter, tokhang is a verb, an act that shall be executed to save the cosmos from itself, a death sentence to the universe suspected of drug abuse. The self-righteous persona insists and issues the shoot-to-kill order against the the uni/verse, in stanzas of chains of commands.
I shall perhaps replace each tokhang with be or being for a new translation of Abadilla’s poem: “be the universe” or “being the universe”? Translationception. (Note: I shall elaborate, expand on and take off from this presumably new version, in the next column.)
Translations say what are unsaid from the original works and vice versa. Other evaluations and insights about word choices, like “universe” for “tula” and “verse” for “tula,” I entrust to readers whose imaginations and interpretations shall fill the gaps I left, to somehow make sense of the texts and the times.
***
“tokhang ang daigdig”
tokhang
ang daigdig
tokhang
ang tula
tokhang
ang daigdig
ang tula
tokhang
ang daigdig
ng tula
ang tula
ng daigdig
tokhang
ang walang maliw na tokhang
ang walang kamatayang tokhang
ang tula ng daigdig
ii
tokhang
ang daigdig ng tula
tokhang
ang tula ng daigdig
tokhang
ang malayang tokhang
matapat sa sarili
sa tokhang na daigdig
ng tula
tokhang
ang tula
sa daigdig
tokhang
ang daigdig
ng tula
tokhang
iii
tokhang
ang damdaming
malaya
tokhang
ang larawang
buháy
tokhang
ang búhay
na walang-hanggan
tokhang
ang damdamin
ang larawan
ang búhay
damdamin
larawan
búhay
tula
tokhang
iv
tokhang
ang daigdig
sa tula
tokhang
ang tula
sa daigdig
tokhang
ang daigdig
tokhang
ang tula
daigdig
tula
tokhang
***
“tokhang the universe”
tokhang
the universe
tokhang
the verse
tokhang
the universe
the verse
tokhang
the universe
of the verse
the verse
of the universe
tokhang
the enduring tokhang
the deathless tokhang
the verse of the universe
ii
tokhang
the universe of the verse
tokhang
the verse of the universe
tokhang
the sovereign tokhang
true to itself
to the tokhang of the universe
of the verse
tokhang
the verse
in the universe
tokhang
the universe
of the verse
tokhang
iii
tokhang
the sovereign
sympathy
tokhang
the living
photograph
tokhang
the endless
life
tokhang
the sympathy
the photograph
the life
sympathy
photograph
life
verse
tokhang
iv
tokhang
the universe
in the verse
tokhang
the verse
in the universe
tokhang
the universe
tokhang
the verse
universe
verse
tokhang
