On Translating Elli Paionidou

Andrea Christofidou and I started translating Greek poetry shortly after we met, sparked by our dissatisfaction with the available translations of Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis (C. P. Cavafy). After him, we moved on to Kostas Karyotakis, and then many others. We started on Elli Paionidou’s work when I happened to reread one of her books that I’d bought in the late seventies. This was Earth of Cyprus, and aside from the pleasure that I found in the individual poems, I was especially drawn to the sequence of which “Cypress of Cyprus,” “Fig Tree of Cyprus,” “Pine of Cyprus,” and “Sea of Cyprus” form part.

If the central challenge for a poet is to achieve the desired effect within a set of constraints, for Andrea and I, as translators, the two chief desiderata are: first, that the translation should stay as close to the original as is consistent with the desire that, secondly, it should be a good poem on its own terms. We take note of the poet’s liking for alliteration, internal rhymes, rhythmic discontinuities, etc., but we don’t try to reproduce them case by case.  

Paionidou sometimes uses distinctive Cypriot syntax, vocabulary, or spelling in order to achieve a particular effect. Fortunately, Andrea was born and brought up in Cyprus, so our task in this regard was made easier. Andrea’s experience has also been very helpful in recognizing and conveying a Cypriot’s response to the island’s difficult history in the second half of the twentieth century.