Zalmoxis , Obscure Pagan
Translator’s Forward
The eloquence of Lucian Blaga’s play Zamolxe, Mister Pagin, is its earnest attempt at fording an imposing barrier that separated a latinized people from a dissociated Roman past. Recorded by Herodotus in his Histories, and since sustained by oral tradition Zalmoxis is reported to have been a prophet-priest to a branch of the Thracian people called Getae by Greek writers, and Dacian by the Romans. The Thracians were an extensive tribe stretching from the north of Greece throughout the Balkans, with the Dacians occupying the Danube basin in present day Romania. Although Zalmoxis persists historically in an opaque light as an obscure, passionate hero in the orphic tradition, Blaga openly creates a myth that speaks to the complex and innovative religion of the Thracians at that time; the concept of immortality. He germinates the historical component of Zalmoxis into a mythical persona in order to explore the substance of the myth, thus the story of the enigmatic prophet-priest possesses little more than the invariant core conceived by ancient Dacians in terms of factual content in Blaga’s play. Herodotus, after all identifies Zalmoxis as the god of the Dacian religion, whose central tenet was immortality. Beyond that, Zalmoxis is pure Blaga.
The dynamics of translating a work that in its own heart remains conflicted with issues of cultural transmission and autochthonomy presented curious challenges on several levels. Fortunately, Lucian Blaga is remarkable as a writer for his ability to reconcile poetical and philosophical arrays of reasonable inference. The latitude for convergent meaning is generous; the focus of Blaga’s myth has a built-in inevitability that allows the task of translation to operate within very stable territory. Therefore, despite a Nabokovian temptation to render the real work over a cosmetic embellishment, I focused on the inherent relativity between characters, plot, and theme, while aiming at “transposing” the three-dimensional attributes of language. For practical purposes I strove to translate the first draft in a Ciceronian style before exploiting cultural and historical associations of individual words and phrases. I tried leaving as few of my fingerprints as possible for as many times as I turned words over (and over). Romanian—the source language—is replete with more than two thousand years of culture, folklore, history, and as many mysteries as Orpheus and Dionysus combined, since linguistic and historical evidence make the point that its origins include a significant non-Latin root.
The translatability of the text revealed just how pertinent translation theory was to a play whose action is both spatially and temporally remote. Blaga undertook to translate a significant historical and folkloric component of an indigenous culture without the luxury of knowing the ancient source language. In addition, he was attempting to access a non-Roman ancestral culture via a latinized people and language. It is not the present concern of this translation to speculate on the political implications of Blaga’s intentions, although they are exquisitely present; such integral properties of the play make for fertile discussions in their own right. It is worth noting, however, that such issues of national identity and cultural birthdright contribute heavily to the dynamics of the play proper. Part of the myth-making process is, finally, a matter of timing, arrangement, and purpose. Not only does Blaga create Zamolxe as a myth; he does it in a contemporary language of Zalmoxis’ posterity—a correctly anticipated maneuver. The fact that he extends an ancient culture to what would be its natural endpoint relfects Blaga’s perception of language as subject to forces of evolution. He manages, hence, to create also a sense of synchretized strangeness in contemporary Romanian by reinforcing key aspects of oral tradition, not limited to remote metaphor, complex imagery, and extremely inert semiotics. For example, Herodotus tells us that Zalmoxis preached immortality and at some point sequestered himself in a cave for four years before returning among his people. Blaga invents the circumstances that shape his play at great risk, no doubt. But he succeeds in providing stunning, yet subtle insight into aspects of dionysiac and orphic mysteries, as well. Even in its source language, translatability becomes an issue, insofar as it must depart from the vertical and horizontal axis of theoreticians, and operate within a cultural continuum that has a Moebius feature to it. For this reason, I contemplated translation as the first intent of conveyance, even when functioning within a single language system. By way of illustration, Blaga must translate a distant culture from an unknown ancestral language via the account of Herodotus, and others. The source language is virtually embedded in the vague but authenticated documentation of a real figure. I might agree that it is quite impossible to convey the entirety of one meaning into another language, but not even language can do this in capturing a sense from non-utterance to utterance.
Rather, everything is a series of conveyances whose sole objective is not merely to inform the subtleties of myth but sustain them as well, through language. In other words, within the limits of a musical scale that permits twelve pitches, and only twelve, octaves of the same note produce a different “sound” in terms of frequency and timbre. So, too, with translating.
Consequently, I solved what struck me as a problematic passage in Zalmoxis’ opening monologue, and again in the end of Act III, by creating an internal dialogue. Although a risky stylistic transposition, I tried to converge upon Blaga’s meaning a better translation of that which Zalmoxis was attempting to convey. Since this is a spoken part, the length in pure translation would be far too heavy on a western audience. Likewise, the relationship Blaga is trying to feature between Zalmoxis and nature would be difficult to tease out of such dense language. I introduced, therefore, the voice of Zalmoxis as an aspect of his orphic/dionysiac emblem so that the audience has immediate access to a crucial concern in the play, without the monotony of a monologue. But this bold device is less a departure from the invariant core, than a convergence upon it.
By translating Zamolxe into English, I hope to offer western scholarship a refreshing work of extraordinary possibilities vis-à-vis traditional classics such as The Bacchae, by Euripides. Blaga’s work reveals healthy contrasts to traditional views of tragedy, irony, mysteries, death, and myth. It provides a different vantage point, relative to character, structure, and theme from which to perceive and redefine our discriminating approach to literature.
I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Dr. Anca Vlasopolos for her meticulous guidance, enthusiasm, and genuine understanding of the craft of translation. Most of all I express my appreciation for her tacit urging to do what I love. I want also to thank Lucian Vasilie for his advice and encouragement, and for his insight into all things Thracian.
Doris Plantus-Runey
December, 1998