Translating Psalm 51

Update: new image - more circles. Several Bloggers are discussing translation (Peter Kirk) and teaching (Henry Neufeld) and psalm 51 (Update see also John Hobbins' later post here and my personal thoughts here). Psalm 51 is a psalm I am sure we all are very familiar with. These discussions speak of dynamic equivalence, literal, literary, and translations as lies as expressed in a comment on Doug's post, the slip and slide of Scripture. Here is my attempt at English. The words in bold outline the circles of the first half. The italics point to the keywords of the second half. The underlines mark the items circled by the repeated words of the first half and their reflection in the second half. In final copy even these reminders of the Hebrew word repetitions and synonyms have to be removed. But what we see in the inner thought is a move from the horror of the self-recognition of crime (I like John's word here but it demands criminals in the second part), to the recognition that God will accept the self-offering of the criminal. So the completion with cultic imagery is not an afterthought in the poem.

David's sin is blotted out by its being recounted in the great congregation. As it is written, the smoke of their torture goes up before the Lord and his saints for ever. Whoever says criminals cannot be saved does not know the power of God to effect his pleasure in the sacrifice.

I followed my preliminary prosodic structure in completing and refining this translation. I would welcome further criticisms and corrections.
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A psalm of David when Nathan the prophet came to him because he had come to Bathsheba.

Have mercy on me, O God,
in your loving kindness.
In the multitude of your tender mercies,
blot out my crime.
Fully wash me from my guilt,
and from my sin purify me.
For I know my crime,
and my sin is continually in my face.

Against you, you only, I have sinned;
this evil in your sight I have done.
So you are right to speak,
you are clear to judge.

Indeed in guilt I was brought forth,
and in sin my mother conceived me.
Indeed, you take pleasure delight in the inner parts,
and in hidden wisdom you make me know.
You will offer me with hyssop and I will be pure;
you will wash me and I will be white as snow.
Make me to hear rejoicing and mirth,
rejoice the bones you have crushed.
Hide your face from my sin,
and all my guilt, blot out.

A clean heart create in me, O God,
and a right spirit, renew within me.
Do not cast me from your presence,
and your holy spirit do not remove from me.
Return to me the joy of your salvation,
in a willing spirit, support me.
I will teach criminals your ways,
and sinners to you will be turned.

Deliver me from the guilt of shed blood O God,
my God of my salvation;
my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
Lord, my lips you will open,
and my mouth will make evident your praise.
For you do not delight in sacrifice or else I would make it,
burnt offering you will not accept.

The offerings of God are a broken spirit,
a heart broken and crushed O God, you will not despise.
Do good in your acceptance of Zion;
build the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will delight in sacrifices of righteousness,
burnt offering and whole offering;
then they will offer young bulls on your altar.

Psalm 51 - is this prosody or what?

Here is a picture of psalm 51 - colors muted - in the form of 4 stanzas English-Hebrew here, French-Hebrew here. If you are interested - count the versets, lines, strophes etc and see if I have followed John's general rule. I have to admit it is not that easy to juggle and occasionally I feel a bit arbitrary. The stanzas appear to have some conceptual coherence. [French courtesy of Les psaumes redécouverts (51-100) by Marc Girard, Bellarmin 1994]

Now to content - I have not marked enough of the Hebrew sound patterns though my coloring on the original is fantastical. There are the obvious four words for sin, guilt, transgression, and evil where in translation we must find equivalent differences. Then there are less obvious verbal repetitions which even in my raw translation of 9 months ago I have used creative synonyms instead of the same word (but the colors are consistent). E.g. I translated מְחֵה as blot out and erase. I have sinned against this poem in so doing. It is part of a 4-word concentric form that should be maintained: in the English blot out - wash - purify - know - know - pure - wash - erase. That must have been deliberate.

The edge of this circle intersects with the last stanza through sacrificial imagery - offer-rejoice-crush (not symmetric). This in turn surrounds the poet's prayer for renewal - clean heart, new spirit, not to be abandoned.

There are then more subtle relations: like face, eyes, presence, in front of / make evident ... and hide / hidden wisdom, the crushed bones = contrite heart.

I know this psalm in my body and life better perhaps than any - but I cannot translate it yet. I know from John's post that neither Alter nor Kugel is satisfactory. I will try later - how much later I am not sure. I know that if the concentric structure I have already pointed out is to be preserved, then those words must not be used synonymously anywhere else in the circles. And verses 6-8 are the critical centre - what is it that they mean? That God is just and David agrees. That David recognizes his emptiness from his beginnings. That God will teach him yet - wisdom secretly.

Studying Hebrew in French

My study partner whom I met again this morning at synagogue needs to practice French - so having survived my cycling I went to the Morissette Library and got out Les psaumes redécouverts (51-100) by Marc Girard, Bellarmin 1994, (he was born in the same year I was - and both of us in Quebec). It looks like he has taken Vanhoye's approach to structure, an approach I like very much.

I began with his translation of Psalm 51. The outline is very clever. He arranges the words in a circular table so you can read down the left column and up the right column. This allows him to show the concentric structure and place the keywords adjacent to each other on the page. (I have used the same colours I did the English in since the tool I am using supports English and French concurrently. But the idea of representing the nested macro and micro structures is appealing - it would fit with John Hobbins' request for more of the prosodic structure to be shown - must consider this ... flat surfaces are a challenge to multi-dimensional thinking.)

I am somewhat astonished at how close his French is to my literal English - but maybe I have had too much French wine with my chicken. See the French here. (And I am delighted to have absorbed some of the tedium of correcting my own missed plural constructs from last year.)