Middle East Forum - Shakespeare in the Arab World

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hakespeare's influence in modern Arabic literature can be traced in the newly developed art of the drama which the Arabs did not know until the end of the nineteenth century, and in the work of the writers and poets of the twentieth century.

Arabic drama, in the European sense of the word, was born in the Lebanon as a consequence of the influence of Italian, French and English cultures. Until the end of the nineteenth century the Arab world had been without any national drama in either the colloquial or the classical languages. Few people had any interest in drama, and those few consisted in the main of two or three cosmopolitan families in Beirut or Cairo-families. with either an English or a French education.

The mass of the people were only aware of the art of the haki or muqallid (JJ.4.0 J\ $l...), the imitator of dialect and of personal peculiarities, the recitations of the storyteller, al-rawi (~J\)I), who related in public places and coffee-houses tales from the Arabian Nights, and the maqama (~.. La..), which is a kind of dramatic anecdote.

These various forms, which were mostly written and recited in the form of dialogue, are comparable to early Church drama in Europe, but can hardly be called drama in the real sense of the word. Apart from these and the shadow-play khayal al-zill (Jli.ll J~), the Arabs had nothing in the way of dramatic art. It would be correct to say that in the Arab world recitation took the place of representation and that there was no drama until the beginning of the twentieth century, when the· impulse towards the representation of plays upon the stage came from Europe and through the translated works of European writers.

Shakespeare was among the first European writers to be translated into Arabic,

and has been one of the formative influences in shaping Arabic drama in its early stages. Despite this, and the fact that there is still considerable evidence of the influence of Shakespeare in modern Arabic poetic thought, the Arabic library lacks a standard Shakespeare edition and does not yet possess an Arabic Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Recently, however, the U.A.R. Cultural Council commissioned a group of expert translators to remedy this deficiency. An ambitious project under the general editorship of Taha Hussein was implemented and a few volumes have just been published. The worth of these translations can only be judged after the project is successfully completed.

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f Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays, the following were translated into Arabic during the first half of the twentieth century: Romeo and Juliet ( 1899) Macbeth ( 1900) Hamlet ( 19°2) The Two Gentlemen if Verona ( 19°5) Othello ( 19°7) The Tempest ( 19°9) A Midsummer Night's Dream (19 11 ) Coriolanus (19 12) Julius Caesar ( 19 13) King Henry V (19 13) The Merchant of Venice (1922 ) King Henry VIII (19 2 5) Pericles, Prince qf Tyre ( 19 2 5) King Richard III ( 19 2 7) King Lear (19 2 7) Measure for Measure ( 1930) The Taming if the Shrew (1937) As You Like It (1944) Twelfth Night (1945) Antony and Cleopatra ( 1946 ) Richard II (1948 )

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Some of these have been translated more than once and by different writers and playwrights, and most of them have been produced several times in more than one Arab country. The most popular with Arab audiences, during the first three decades of this century, were Hamlet, Julius Caesar) lvlacheth) Othello and Romeo and Juliet.

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he very early adaptations and translations from Shakespeare were often crude, ridiculous and inaccurate. Orientalist scholar Curt Prufer's reaction in '9" to these early translations was that "The stiff, ridiculcus Shakespeare translations do not show the least traces of the great British master .... " Not only was the translator's command of English deficient, but at times he translated from French translations of Shakespeare because his French was better than his English. Some of the earlier renderers of Shakespeare into Arabic produced what amounted to adaptations rather than translations. Even Najib aI-Haddad, who demonstrated an integrity rare among the early translators of Shakespeare, tried to "improve" Romeo and Juliet (which he translated as Rumiyu wa Julixvit aw Shuhada al gharam-"Romeo and Juliet, or The Martyrs of Love") by slightly abbreviating the text, introducing certain additions and interpolating a few songs.

Hamlet) translated by Tanyus 'Abduh as Riwayat Hamlit, appeared in '902 with the omission of Act I, sc. i and further omissions, and cuts in the longer speeches. \Vhen produced on the stage these plays must have had a very different effect on the audience from that of the genuine Shakespeare play. N. Barbour summarised the si tua tion: "It is difficult to form a clear idea of what these early performances were

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like; but it is obvious that the very amateurish production, the frequent oriental songs and the changes to suit local taste must have resulted in something very different from the productions of Shakespeare that are current in England .... " Shakespeare continued however to attract the attention of both playwrights and actors. No famous actor missed the opportunity of appearing, at least once, as a Shakespeare hero. Shaikh Salama Hijazi played the part of Romeo in Najib al-Haddad's translation of Romeo and Juliet; al-Qurdahi played Hamlet in a translation by Tanyus 'Abduh; while J urj Abyad, a disciple of the great French actor Sylvain, appeared in several plays of Shakespeare in Khalil Mutran's translations, notably Hamlet) Macbeth and Othello. The Tempest) The Taming of the Shrew and Julius Caesar were also great favorites, the last appealing to the audience on account of Mark Antony's oration.

' I Ath an increase in the production of l"

Shakespeare's plays in translation and in the output of translated plays, one would have expected an improvement in the work of the translators. But as late as '922 the standard of translation was still unsatisfactory. Shakespeare's characters in the translated versions were reduced to mere puppets; the liveliness, loftiness and sweetness of Shakespeare's verse were replaced by archaic and obsolete words that sounded ridiculous and needed a number of footnotes to explain them; the many images and feelings that are brought together without effort and without discord in Shakespeare were lost to the reader in the labyrinth of a stilted and archaic style.

Shakespeare fascinated Khalil Mutran, and although Mutran's translations of

Shakespeare are, on the whole, inaccurate, crude and sometimes obscure, he contributed in no small measure to introducing Shakespeare to his generation. He translated the following plays into Arabic: Hamlet, Richard III, JV[acbeth, Othello, Julius Caesar, The Tempest and The Merchant if Venice. His translation of The illerchant if Venice (1922) was bitterly criticized by both Mikail Naimi and Ibrahim 'Abd al-Sadir a]-Mazini. Like 'Abdul-Rahman Shukri, Mutran attempted to revolutionize Arabic poetry and began to experiment with new techniques learnt from both the French and the English poetic traditions.

An example of these translations is Khalil Mutran's rendering of Shakespeare's Alerchant if Venice, translated as Tajir al-Bunduqryva In 1922. Although this translation is a fairly late one and in many ways superior to those made between 1900 and 1920, it illustrates the defects of the Shakespeare translations in Arabic and the many problems that faced and still face the translators of Shakespeare in the Arab world.

Mutran seems to have translated the play from a French version of the English original, but he does not acknowledge the sources he used. Our suspicion that he has been using a French translation as his original text is strengthened when we find him translating "gentile" in the line (Act II, sc. vi): Now, by ~y hood, a Gentile, and no Jew to mean "gentle" (in Arabic latif ~ instead of the more correct a'jami ~\).

Although such mistranslations are in no way trivial, they are not as serious and absurd as the omissions and abbreviations that the translator chose to make. ,\ considerable number of lines which are neither superfluous nor dispensable are omitted without any justification and a

number of speeches are either truncated or garbled. No justification can be found for the omission of the last four lines at the end of Act I, sc. iii: ANTONIO:

The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind.

BASSANIO:

I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.

ANTONIO:

Come on: in this there can be no dismay.

My ships come home a month bifore the day.

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ften the translation lacks preCISl..On and accuracy. Not only does the translator change Shakespeare's meanings, but he strips Shakespeare's lines bare of their beauty and succinctness by either interfering with the original text or misreading it. In Act I, sc. i, for example, he omits the words "And when I ope my lips" from Gratiano's speech to Antonio: As who should say, 'I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope ~ lips, let no dog bark /' Again in Act I, sc. ii we have a very interesting example of inaccurate translation of a word very carefully chosen by Shakespeare and put into the mouth of Portia, who uses it in describing one of her suitors, the Neopolitan Prince. Portia, in Shakespeare's play, says: Ay, that's a colt indeed . ...

For "colt" Mutran chooses the Arabic word hayawan (0\~), which means "animal," rather than choosing the correct equivalent muhr (x). The translator here misses the whole point; what Shakespeare really aims at by using the .word "colt" is to emphasize the immaturity of the Neopolitan Prince and his narrow world, for "he doth nothing but talk of his horse." If Shakespeare wanted to use "animal" he would have done so. Stran-

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HAMLET: OPHELIA:

HAMLET:

I did love you once.

Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it.

I loved you not.

Photographs are from the 1'167 production of Hamlet h)' the Ba'albtk Festival Theatrical Troupe, directed by Alounir Abu Dibs and performed at Byblos, De" al-h'amttr and Ba'alb'k, Lebanon, in a translation by the

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conl'mpora~y

Leban"e poet Adonis.

ger still is the way Mutran translates Portia's description of yet another of her suitors, the French Lord, Monsieur Le Bon. Portia's words (Act I, sc. ii): God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man .... he hath a horse better than the Neopolitan's . ... He is every man tn no man .... are rendered into Arabic J:.. r. J ~ J ...,.;Ifo l 'iJ .iiI

w.:.

US::...

,J~)I ~

" -f. L:JI .jo t L..-. i)""i J.:- )I ~~ jJ ...•.; 'i §JJ •.;

JS'

yo

to mean: God has created him thus, and I have no objection to the existence of a man like him amongst men. But that man is more generous in horse than the . Neopolitan .... He is everything but nothing.

Very often speeches are abbreviated to the point of unintelligibility and appear in the translated text completely mutilated, such as the Prince of Aragon's speech in Act II sc. ix beginning: And so I have addressed me. Fortune now To my heart's hope!

Two other unforgiveable omISSIons occur in Act IV; the first occurs in sc. i in Antonio's speech, where Antonio stipulates two conditions for Shylock's acquittal by the court: Two things provided more . ...

In Mutran's translation the two conditions are reduced to one; Mutran's Antonio demands one thing only, that Shylock should "record a gift ... unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter." The second is the omission of the whole of sc. ii of the same act.

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also find that some of the most striking and profound lines of Shakespeare seem to lose their quality when translated into Arabic. In Act I, sc. iii the line:

0, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! is translated as:

~4 4.4~)I ~ ~I ~.)u.:1 f'~1

Xi

L..

0, how great in number are the deceptive manifestations that make vice look like virtue.

The rich suggestiveness of the original words and the clearer sense due to the structural economy of the lines disappear, reducing the blazing energy of Shakespeare's line into the weak vagueness of Mutran. By trying to explain what Shakespeare has implied, Mutran loses the effectiveness of this line.

A further obstacle in the way of the translators was the rich reservoir of European mythology in Shakespeare's plays .

Most translators avoided mythological allusions, but when they tried to turn those they thought easy to translate they got into great difficulties. It is interesting, for example, to see how Mutran tried to overcome this difficulty with regard to the "golden fleece" as it occurs in Bassanio's speech in Act I, sc. i: Hang on her temples like a golden fleece, Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strond, And many Jasons come in quest qf her.

He begins by correctly translating "golden fleece" as ~jJl o)j.-I, which is the literal meaning of the two words; but then he spoils it by attempting to explain the image by saying "for this is a golden chain with a story behind it."

Mutran, who is one of the leading Arabic poets of the twentieth century, tries at times to match Shakespeare's verse III The Merchant qf Venice, which IS translated partly in prose and partly in verse and in that respect is near the origi-' nal; and at times he does indeed succeed in catching a faint echo of Shakespeare's verse. The following passage is an ex-

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ample of his failure in turning verse into verse (Act II, Sc. vii) : The first, of gold, who this inscription bearse Who chooseth me shall gain what ma~y men desire.'

The second, silver, which this promise carrzes, e Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'

This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt, e Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath!'

and'in the process he loses the meaning of the original passage: ~J ..,...l:J1 ,;,,;; ...L...w JWz...1 d J-I ,Y>J .J j.ol",Jt.; Jli:.il d

"ÂĽ)1 .J:t: 1..c.",.J~t.; Jl.o.:.:l d Who chooseth me-in the past people have always desired me.

Who selects me deserves me and I him.

Who seeks me [should not mind] what he gives up for me.

Mutran and his fellow-translators did not realise that, as Prufer says, "before anything can be created, either in the province of the drama or in Arabic literature in general, the modern writer must cease to work with forms, words, and metaphors of the language of nomadic desert tribes of 1,500 years ago." Gibran had already advocated this at the turn of the century and was the first to break with the past and begin to make use of the everyday language of the people.

This problem of bilingualism (classical or literary Arabic and colloquial or everyday Arabic) has not yet been definitely resolved.

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he translators of Shakespeare in the early years of the dramatic movement lacked not only the integrity so much desired in a translator, but also the equipment with which to perform their task efficiently-their English was poor and

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their knowledge of English literature in general much poorer.

It \\ a, left to a later generation of Arab writer, and poets to read Shakespeare with more care and understanding and to translate significant and famous passages from his plays. The early translators were mainly playwrights and were chiefly concerned with translating plays; for 'them Shakespeare was a dramatist first, a poet second. The later generation of poets could not think of Shakespeare except as a poet first and dramatist second.

I t is necessary to explain that there was a rivalry between the French and the English systems of education in the Arab world at the beginning of this century; this rivalry was reflected in the various institutions of learning that England and France were very anxious to found on Arab soil. One of the direct results of the two kinds of education available to the Arabs was that modern Arabic literature was greatly influenced by the literatures of England and France. So we find that the new generation of Arab writers and poets is divided into two main groups: the first, influenced by English literature and the English poets and upholding the ideals of Romanticism; the second, influenced by French literature and the French poets and upholding the ideals of classicism. The most prominent representatives of the first group are Ibrahim 'Abd aI-Qadir al-Mazini, 'Abd ai-Rahman Shukri and 'Abbas Mahmud al'Aqqad; of the second Taha Husain and Taufiq ai-Hakim.

Most of the writers and poets who belonged to the first group had a good command of English and had had the opportunity of acquainting themselves with English literature. AI-Mazini and 'Abd aI-Rahman Shukri attended the Teachers' Training College at Cairo,

H.UII,ET:

\\'hat is he whose grief bears such an emphasis? \"'hose phrase of sorrow conjures the wandering stars and makes them stand Like wonder-wounded hearers.

This is I, Hamlet the Dane.

where a thorough and advanced course in English was taught. AI-Mazini taught English for a while in the schools after graduating, while 'Abd aI-Rahman Shukri went to study at Sheffield University.

AI-'Aqqad, on the other hand, educated himself in Engli<;h and read voraciously, thus acquainting himself with the works of the English masters. These three belong, therefore, to a school which can rightly be called the "English School."

They were guided in their efforts to bring about a literary revolution in Arabic literature by the ideas, critical concepts and artistic standards they had discovered in their reading of English literature. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that these three writers were united in their admiration of "the greatest poet," as one of them chose to call Shakespeare. And it is not surprising, either, to find that AI'Aqqad's first volume of collected poems includes a translation of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis (translated as "Venus Over the Corpse of Adonis - u--:-iJ'>\ ~ j<; <...Y' 2)¡

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n the quatrains which he chooses for translating this poem he is able to capture faintly the harmonious symphony of sound created by Shakespeare, and call back some of Shakespeare's voluptuous imagery in a pleasant Arabic style. The translation is not as great as the original; but in comparison with other translations from Shakespeare that had gone before it, it was a great step forward. vVe also find that in 1925 al-Mazini published his first collection of essays, in which he included a long essay on Shakespeare's The Merchant if Venice. Meanwhile 'Abd alRahman Shukri began to experiment with new forms of Arabic meter, and was greatly influenced in all that he did by Shakespeare's blank verse, discernible traces of which begin to appear in his

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early poetry. There were others, as well, who studied Shakespeare, among them Ibrahim Naji, who was also greatly interested in D., H. Lawrence and translated Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" into Arabic verse. Naji has left us some valuable translations from Shakespeare in manuscript form. Another Arab poet, Ahmad Zaki Abu Shadi, became interested in Shakespeare through the work of A. C. Bradley, who became Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1901 and whose book Shakespearian Tragedy (1904) stimulated and fanned into flame Abu Shadi's imagination.

The year 1927 marks an important development in the history of the theatre in Egypt, for in that year Ahmad Shauqi, the poet laureate of Egypt and "The Prince of Poets," as he was called by the Arab poets of his time, wrote the first partly successful poetic drama in Arabic and thus introduced poetry into Arabic drama, which had so far chosen prose as the only medium of expression. This play was entitled Jlasra' Kliyupatra (Cleopatra's Fall \.J;~ tr") and shows some influence by Shakespeare's Anloll)' and Cleopatra. vVhen one mentions Shauqi one can hardly forget Hafiz Ibrahim, Shauqi's contemporary and one of the greatest Arabic poets of the twentieth century.

Hafiz was fascinated by Macbeth, from which he takes the "dagger scene" and renders it into immortal Arabic verse.

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t is interesting to point out in this connection that, whereas attempts to translate whole plays have not met with great success, translations of passages or scenes or sonnets from Shakespeare have been very successful. This becomes very clear when we survey the literature that has been written in the Arab world since

the beginning of this century. We come across brilliant translations such as this very recent translation of one of Shakespeare's sonnets by Hussein Dabbagh: ~.~ ~ ..; ~\ d;p .)~ J->,1 -» JI~I ;,.,lJ 4> .)1~..i:.J ,c 4yi.i .;..j~ ,~)I ~y"j

c4)1 Ai

'iilll ~~ ~J , .UI J::" .j~ ~"'J

il4..J1 .4-,)1 tbJ

JolS"" ~ ~jJ .It; jSJ l.y" ..l: 'iJ

Lr ~ t .)lj ~ i:. J d~ .) i J.:-

.l.:.AJ1 ~1 ;~I .1""':'; , ,4iy

J.:.U 'i

.ll,:. dl; 'i ...s~ 1 ..)1 .sJ.. :;;J ~ .J' 4> l..J J ii.,b:- \.r!.~ !.lG ..Ii .)1 -=..,}.I #.. JJ

"')\.,aAj <.5(J

ill;

J -,?.iJ1 ~~ .;..jlj JL.:. .)~I J il~ W

: JJ..i:.

.J' ..~ r-t: ~r.J

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.l,,:..l,J..1 ..:.• .:.Li.:J ~~J ~ dl;

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed.

And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest, Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Here in the Arabic version of the sonnet we find that the translator has actually

reproduced the complexity of metaphorical elaboration of the original and has even succeeded in recreating the rhythmical, rhetorical and structural elements of the poem. Never before has any translator attempted to make Shakespeare speak in Arabic so well; Mr. Dabbagh has done so and has been successful.

Shakespeare is gradually becoming an important force in shaping the intellectual and artistic life of some of the most talented Arabic poets. Echoes of Shakespeare can be found in Elias Abu Shabbakah's Death Song (u)\ ~\) found in his collection of poems entitled Guitar(;;)~):

~ .)i -=..,WI -IA: d' ~lj ~J ~J:.&- d 'j5:':; .)1 ~I~)I .GJ i)4 5:d1 !.l)' I~!J .)."uIJ')\1;J ~I ~.J....,aj~

~~

JX?

~;I

<..?J ~l!; i')\]Jl

J ~w

~ ~ •.,;.; ~.;.;~

Literally translated these lines mean: My will-which I want you to remember-is to Jorget me when I am dead. And if memories move you one day and your affection chooses to remind you qf me, take the guitar qf my inspiration into the dark night and go to my tomb in silence, and tap the guitar once; Jor it will let you hear a moaning sigh such as mine.

The poem seems to be written with Shakespeare's sonnet No longer mourn Jor me when I am dead in the poet's mind: No longer mourn for me when I am dead Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell.

Nay, if you re'ld this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot If thinking on me then should make you woe.

0, if, I say, you look upon this verse

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When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, But let your love even with my lIfe decay; Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone.

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r again, if we look at the following line in one of Yusuf Ghadub's poems in the collection entitled The Deserted Cage ()~I ..,.wll): ~ 0L;~1 ~ lA ~IJ â&#x20AC;˘ ~.lAJ t;~ .,;-ll ~U I spend a lifetime building and destroying, But of all that man builds the grave alone endures. we are reminded of the grave digger's words in Act V, sc. i in Hamlet: Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating, and when you are asked this question next, say "A gravemaker," The houses that he makes last till Doomsday.

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Further echoes of Shakespeare are repeatedly heard in the voice of the Arab poets of today. Shakespeare i~ still one of the most popular European poets in the Arab world. Some of his famous sayings have become as much a part of Arabic literature as they are of English literature; every Arab schoolboy has at one time or another during his schooldays studied at least one of his sonnets or one or two speeches from his plays. In the United Arab Republic, plans have been made for translating the whole of Shakespeare into Arabic, and a special committee has been set up by the government to produce an accurate and complete translation.

Many Arabs will still feel inclined to agree with Mikail Naimi who said a quarter of a century ago:

ÂŤShakespeare remains a Ka'ba to which we make pilgrimage and a Quibla to which we turn in prayer. . . ."