Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

CWSA 27

Fragment ID: 6787

On Two Translations of Revelation [1]

The rendering of Revelation is even better than the two others, well inspired from beginning to end; the colouring is not quite the same as in my poem, but that is hardly avoidable in a poetic version in another language. To alter it, as you propose, would be to spoil it. There is no point in rendering literally “wind-blown locks”, and it would be a pity to throw out দিপ্তিময়ী [diptimaẏī], for it is just the touch needed to avoid the suggestion of a merely human figure. It is needed – for readers are often dense. An Indian critic (very competent, if a little academic) disregarding all the mystic suggestions and even the plain statement of the closing couplet, actually described the poem as the poet’s memory of a girl running past him on the seashore!!

25 January 1931