The Importance of Emphasis

I was discussing, with a friend, Mishima Yukio's prose style -- specifically, whether or not it might be characterised as beautiful. We were not focusing necessarily on stereotypically beautiful effects, but also on all that is atmospheric, lyrical and so on. My friend was saying that Mishima's style is largely neutral, though finely executed. I was looking for counter-examples to this and for some reason thought of the opening to The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji). Having the book close to hand, I began to read out the first paragraphs. 

Ever since my childhood, Father had often spoken to me about the Golden Temple.

My birthplace was a lonely cape that projects into the Sea of Japan north-east of Maizuru. Father, however, was not born there, but at Shiraku in the eastern suburbs of Maizuru. He was urged to join the clergy and became the priest of a temple on a remote cape; in this place he married and begot a child, who was myself.

"Hmm. Maybe you're right," I said. "At least, this isn't the good example I thought it was."

I mused that some of the effect comes from a knowledge of Japanese geography and culture. For instance, the side of the country that faces the Sea of Japan has more of a dark, ominous image than that which faces the Pacific Ocean.

But something was troubling me. It really was as though I was had read a different opening to that I remembered. Then it occurred to me to read the same paragraphs in the original.

My hunch was confirmed, and it was a small detail that somehow made the greater part of the difference. I won't copy out the entire two paragraphs in Japanese, but will focus on this detail.

私の生まれたのは、舞鶴から東北の、日本海へ突き出たうらさびしい岬である。 

And here is the same sentence in English again:

My birthplace was a lonely cape that projects into the Sea of Japan north-east of Maizuru. 

I have bolded the same phrase in both sentences. One thing that should be noted is the relative positions of the phrase. Before I get on to that, however, I would ask you to read over the English sentence again. My impression -- and perhaps you share it -- is that the adjective 'lonely' is one that it is hard to linger on here. It is almost sentence-filler, as if 'cape' needed a descriptor and that one did the job. This is most definitely not the case in the original Japanese. For a start, the normal word for 'lonely' in Japanese is 'sabishii', but in this case we have the emphatic 'urasabishii'. 'Ura' usually indicates something like the back of something, the reverse, or the hidden or shadow side. In this case there is the possible connotation that a scenic impression is also felt deeply in the heart. There is certainly the sense of this word being more profound than the merely 'sabishii'; even the extra syllables encourage one to linger. 'Desolate' might be a better word than 'lonely', although perhaps that might too much imply a desert landscape, without life. 

The above is one aspect of the difference in emphasis between the original and the translation, but it's really the second aspect that I find most interesting. In the Japanese, 'urasabishii misaki' ('desolate cape', let's say) is in the sentence-final position. After it comes only a version of the copula (is), closing the sentence with grammatical confirmation of the predicate. In other words, this is the conclusion of the sentence -- it's denouement, you could say. This is the final image that the flourish of the sentence presents to the mind: desolate cape. The fact is, it was precisely that image that made me remember the first two paragraphs so that I brought it up as an example in the discussion. That is how powerful a well-placed and well-presented image can be. But that image, the most vital image of the first two paragaphs, is rendered non-existent in the English translation, partly because of the inadequacy of the word 'lonely', but mainly because of the placing of the phrase in a mid-way position in the sentence, where the eye simply glides over it, landing on 'Maizuru', as if this were the real import of the sentence.

I am not sure what I would suggest as an alternative to the above translation; I would need to think about it. I hope I have at least succeeded in illustrating the importance of emphasis in translation. Emphasis can change the whole meaning and imaginative impact of a sentence. I see misplaced emphasis in translation gutting what was vigorous, vivid prose again and again.