WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.295 align:middle line:90% 00:00:05.295 --> 00:00:07.870 align:middle line:84% And I've about spent my half hour. 00:00:07.870 --> 00:00:10.860 align:middle line:90% So let me read you-- 00:00:10.860 --> 00:00:14.340 align:middle line:90% 00:00:14.340 --> 00:00:16.560 align:middle line:90% here's a surprising thing. 00:00:16.560 --> 00:00:24.750 align:middle line:84% One of the poems from 1948 is called "A Little Negro Girl 00:00:24.750 --> 00:00:26.840 align:middle line:90% Playing Chopin." 00:00:26.840 --> 00:00:34.350 align:middle line:84% I should remind you that Poland and Russia 00:00:34.350 --> 00:00:41.490 align:middle line:84% and the Lithuania of that time were also slave societies. 00:00:41.490 --> 00:00:43.800 align:middle line:84% Serfdom was abolished around the same time 00:00:43.800 --> 00:00:46.470 align:middle line:90% that slavery was abolished here. 00:00:46.470 --> 00:00:50.490 align:middle line:84% And all through the 18th and 19th century, 00:00:50.490 --> 00:00:53.430 align:middle line:84% Poland was divided between three empires-- 00:00:53.430 --> 00:00:56.040 align:middle line:84% the Prussians, the Austrians, and the Russians. 00:00:56.040 --> 00:01:03.645 align:middle line:84% And Polish people and Polish poetry and Polish novels were-- 00:01:03.645 --> 00:01:08.270 align:middle line:84% all had the dream of a liberated and free Poland. 00:01:08.270 --> 00:01:12.740 align:middle line:84% And the greatest expression of that hunger for freedom 00:01:12.740 --> 00:01:16.680 align:middle line:90% in the 19th century was Chopin. 00:01:16.680 --> 00:01:20.130 align:middle line:84% So here's a little Black girl in America playing 00:01:20.130 --> 00:01:25.830 align:middle line:84% Chopin at some recital that this Polish diplomat is going to-- 00:01:25.830 --> 00:01:28.350 align:middle line:90% not seeing many Black people. 00:01:28.350 --> 00:01:31.920 align:middle line:84% And he came to America with European prejudices 00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:33.300 align:middle line:90% about this country. 00:01:33.300 --> 00:01:35.700 align:middle line:84% Another of the first letters he wrote back, he said, 00:01:35.700 --> 00:01:38.010 align:middle line:84% the only people here with souls are the Negroes. 00:01:38.010 --> 00:01:42.470 align:middle line:90% 00:01:42.470 --> 00:01:46.450 align:middle line:84% "If only you had seen her, Sir Fryderyk, 00:01:46.450 --> 00:01:49.450 align:middle line:84% How she places her dark fingers on the keys 00:01:49.450 --> 00:01:53.230 align:middle line:84% And diligently bends her woolly head, 00:01:53.230 --> 00:01:56.440 align:middle line:84% How she places her slender foot on the pedal 00:01:56.440 --> 00:02:00.830 align:middle line:84% Comically childlike, on a well-trodden little shoe, 00:02:00.830 --> 00:02:03.580 align:middle line:84% And when the hall suddenly grows quiet, 00:02:03.580 --> 00:02:07.990 align:middle line:84% The primrose of tone unfurls slowly. 00:02:07.990 --> 00:02:12.550 align:middle line:84% If only you had seen in the hall, in the semi-darkness, 00:02:12.550 --> 00:02:15.820 align:middle line:84% How her teeth glitter in her open mouth, 00:02:15.820 --> 00:02:19.030 align:middle line:84% When the grand piano bears our cares, 00:02:19.030 --> 00:02:22.690 align:middle line:84% And how in slanting ribbons, it falls from the side, 00:02:22.690 --> 00:02:25.300 align:middle line:84% And how in the hubbub of birdsong 00:02:25.300 --> 00:02:27.550 align:middle line:84% through the stained glass splashes. 00:02:27.550 --> 00:02:31.420 align:middle line:84% It was spring in a city unknown to you by name. 00:02:31.420 --> 00:02:34.810 align:middle line:84% It was spring in a city unknown to you by name. 00:02:34.810 --> 00:02:38.620 align:middle line:84% If only you had seen how those tones flew, 00:02:38.620 --> 00:02:42.400 align:middle line:84% Pulled the dust moats into columns of sunlight, 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:46.370 align:middle line:84% Over her dark face as it rested on her palm. 00:02:46.370 --> 00:02:49.190 align:middle line:84% You would have said it was worth it." 00:02:49.190 --> 00:02:50.240 align:middle line:90% That's the poem. 00:02:50.240 --> 00:02:55.160 align:middle line:84% So it was interesting in translating this poem. 00:02:55.160 --> 00:03:03.130 align:middle line:84% David, my-- what are we going to do about these racial markers? 00:03:03.130 --> 00:03:06.370 align:middle line:84% Should we just leave them out in the translation? 00:03:06.370 --> 00:03:10.615 align:middle line:84% "Places her fingers on the keys and diligently bends her head," 00:03:10.615 --> 00:03:14.800 align:middle line:84% and leave out the "dark fingers" and the "woolly hair." 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:17.230 align:middle line:84% Leave out the "glittering white teeth." 00:03:17.230 --> 00:03:19.323 align:middle line:90% We made versions of both. 00:03:19.323 --> 00:03:20.740 align:middle line:84% And then I thought, I guess what I 00:03:20.740 --> 00:03:23.800 align:middle line:84% should do, thinking of Czeslaw saying, mouse. 00:03:23.800 --> 00:03:25.660 align:middle line:84% I'd better just translate what's there 00:03:25.660 --> 00:03:28.590 align:middle line:90% and let people deal with it.