_The Mendele Review_: Yiddish Literature and Language (A Companion to _MENDELE_) ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 03.013 31 August 1999 Perets' "Bontshe Shvayg" Revisited (Part One) 1) Translating "Bontshe Shvayg" 2) Critics on "Bontshe Shvayg" * Readers are reminded that the story in this double issue of _The Mendele Review_ can be read in Yiddish letters. It is available in the TMR Archive in both PDF and UNICODE formats. http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele/tmrtoc03.htm 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 31.8.99 From: Leonard Prager Subject: Translating "Bontshe Shvayg": Helena Frank; A.S. Rappoport; Moshe Spiegel; Hilde Abel; Hillel Halkin Translating "Bontshe Shvayg" Perets' "Bontshe Shvayg" is not only one of the most famous of Yiddish stories, it is also one of the most translated.(1) English versions of the story span the entire twentieth century, from Leo Wiener in 1899 to Hillel Halkin in 1990. Hilde Abel's "Bontsha the Silent" in the groundbreaking Howe and Greenberg anthology (1954) brought the story to the attention of a broad non-Yiddish-reading audience. The academization of Yiddish has influenced standards of literary translation, which must be why some students of Yiddish reacted critically to the liberties Abel (among others) took with the text, both her "filling out" meanings and explaining, and her omitting descriptive and other details. At the same time a number of her turns of phrase were quite felicitous. Satisfying a wide range of readers, much less Yiddish cognoscenti, is no light task. Translating anew a widely translated story also carries the perils of conscious or unconscious plagiarism.(2) The following grouping of paragraphs [1], [11] and [99-102] from five English translations of "Bontshe Shvayg" shows us how variously the translators worked and how great were the choices facing them. The intricate verbal art of the author was all too often ignored -- regard the cadences and emphases of the opening paragraph in Yiddish -- as well as Perets' plain meaning. The rendition of the final sentences especially challenged the translators' skill -- and influenced the reader's total response. ----------------- Helena Frank [1] Down here, in this world, Bontsye Shweig's death made no impression at all. Ask anyone you like who Bontsye was, _how_ he lived, and what he died of; whether of heart failure, or whether his strength gave out, or whether his back broke under a heavy load, and they won't know. Perhaps, after all, he died of hunger. [11] When they carried Bontsye into the hospital, his corner in the underground lodging was soon filled -- there were ten of his like waiting for it, and they put it up to auction among themselves. When they carried him from the hospital bed top the dead-house, there were twenty poor sick persons waiting for the bed. When he had been taken out of the dead-house, they brought in twenty bodies from under a building that had fallen in. Who knows how long he will rest in his grave? Who knows how many are waiting for the little plot of ground? [99-102] "_Taki_?" asks Bontsye again, this time in a firmer voice. "_Taki_! _taki_! _taki_!" they answer him from all sides. "Well, if it is so," Bontsye smiles, "I would like to have every day, for breakfast, a hot roll with fresh butter." The Court and the angels looked down, a little ashamed; the prosecutor laughed. [in _Stories and Pictures_ by Isaac Loeb Perez. Translated from the Yiddish by Helena Frank. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America. 1936, pp. 171-181] ---------------- A.S. Rappoport [1] Here, in this world below, the death of Bontshe produced no impression whatever. In vain you will ask: "Who was Bontshe? How did he live? What did he die of? Was it his heart that burst, his strength that gave out, or his dorsal spine that broke under a burden too heavy for his shoulders?" No one knows. Maybe it was hunger that killed him. [11] When they took him to the hospital, Bontshe's corner in the basement did not for long remain unoccupied; ten people of his kind were already waiting for it, and they knocked it down among themselves to the highest bidder. When they carried him from his hospital bed to the mortuary chamber, twenty poor patients were already waiting for the place vacated. And scarcely had Bontshe left the morgue, when twenty corpses extricated from underneath the ruins of a house that had fallen down were brought in. [99-102] "Really?" Bontshe asks again, but this time his voice sounds more firm and assured. "Certainly, certainly, certainly," he is assured on all sides. "Then, if such is the case, says Bontshe with a happy smile, "I should like to have every morning a hot roll with fresh butter." Abashed, angels and judges drooped their heads; while the accuser burst out into loud laughter. [in _Bontshe the Silent_ by I.L. Peretz. Translated from the Yiddish with a Preface and Glossary by Dr. A.S. Rappoport. London / Philadelphia: David McKay Company, n.d. (ca. 1927?), pp. 13-22] -------------- Moshe Spiegel. [1] In this world, the death of Buntcheh the Silent passed utterly unnoticed. Just try to ask whether anybody knew precisely _who_ Buntcheh was, _how_ he lived, _why_ he died: because his heart had burst, because his strength was exhausted, or because perhaps his back had broken under his inordinate burden? [11] When Buntcheh was carried off to the hospital, the corner which he had occupied in a cellar did not remain unrented; it had been coveted by a dozen people just like Buntcheh, and they cast lots for it. From his cot in the hospital, Buintcheh was carried to the morgue -- and his cot was awaited by a dozen of the indigent sick.... When he was carried out of the morgue, they carried into it twenty corpses -- bodies of people who had been killed when a house had caved in and buried them under its ruins. And who knows how many people are already waiting for this patch of ground? [99-102] "Really?" asked Buntcheh, by now in a firmer tone. "Naturally! Naturally!" he was answered from all sides. "Well, in that case," Buntcheh announced with a smile, "I would like to have a hot roll with butter for breakfast every day!" The judges and angels were stunned. The Heavenly Informer burst into laughter. [_In This World and The Next_. Selected Writings by I.L. Peretz. Translated from the Yiddish by Moshe Spiegel. New York: Yoseloff, 1958, pp. 58-65] ------------- Hilde Abel. [1] Here on earth the death of Bontsha the Silent made no impression at all. Ask anyone: Who was Bontsha, how did he live, and how did he die? Did his strength slowly fade, did his heart slowly give out -- or did the very marrow of his bones melt under the weight of his burdens? Who knows? Perhaps he just died from not eating -- starvation it's called. [11] When Bontsha was brought to the hospital ten people were waiting for him to die and leave them his narrow little cot; when he was brought from the hospital to the morgue twenty were waiting to occupy his pall; when he was taken out of the morgue forty were waiting to lie where he would lie forever. Who knows how many are now waiting to snatch from him that bit of earth? [99-102] "Really?" Bontsha asks again, and now his voice is stronger, more assured. And the judge and all the heavenly host answer, "Really! Really! Really!" "Well then" -- and Bontsha smiles for the first time -- "well then, what I would like, Your Excellency, is to have, every morning for breakfast, a hot roll with fresh butter." A silence falls upon the great hall, and it is more terrible than Bontsha's has ever been, and slowly the judge and the angels bend their heads in shame at this unending meekness they have created on earth. Then the silence is shattered. The prosecutor laughs aloud, a bitter laugh. [in Irving Howe/Eliezer Greenberg, _A Treasury of Yiddish Stories_, New York: The Viking Press, 1954, pp. 223-230; in Irving Howe/Eliezer Greenberg. _Selected Stories / I.L. Peretz_ Edited with an Introduction by Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg. London: Paul Elek, 1975, pp. 70-77.] -------------- Hillel Halkin [1] Here on earth the death of Bontshe Shvayg made no impression. Try asking who Bontshe was, how he lived, what he died of (Did his heart give out? Did he drop from exhaustion? Did he break his back beneath too heavy a load?), and no one can give you an answer. For all you know, he might have starved to death. [11] Whe Bontshe was brought to the hospital, the corner of the cellar he had called his home did not remain vacant, because ten men bid for it at once; when he was taken from the hospital ward to the morgue, twenty sick paupers were candidates for his bed; when he was carried out of the morgue, forty men killed in the fall of a building were carried in. Think of how many others were waiting to share his plot of earth with him and well may you wonder how long he will rest there in peace. [99-102] "Truly?" asked Bontshe again, a bit surer of himself. "Truly! Truly! Truly!" clmored the heavenly host. "Well, then," smiled Bontshe, "What I'd like most of all is a warm roll with fresh butter every morning." "The judges and angels hung their heads in shame. The prosecutor laughed." [in _The I.L. Peretz Reader_ edited and with introduction by Ruth R. Wisse. New York: Schocken Books, 1990, ed.; text read by Harold Gould in the audio cassette _Jewish Short Stories from Eastern Europe and Beyond_, So. Hadley, MA: Nat'l Yiddish Book Cener, 1996] 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 31.8.99 From: Leonard Prager Subject: Critics on "Bontshe Shvayg": Irving Howe / Eliezer Greenberg (1954); Efroyem Oyerbakh (1969); Sol Liptzin (1972); Irving Howe/Eliezer Greenberg (1975); Ruth Wisse (1991); Irena Klepfisz (1994); David Roskies (1995) The critical statements randomly assembled here reflect a range of readings between the satirical and the eulogistic. Perets's main intent is clear; the shift in readers' attitudes due to a host of historical events is equally evident.(3) It is indeed curious that many readers forget the story's last line, but can quote Bontshe's pathetic request. The sharply political thrust of the author may indeed have been dulled by time, but there are still many readers who would never choose to canonize the incredibly unfortunate Bontshe -- no martyr by virtue of his own complicity in his victimization. His silence, awesome to some, leaves unmoved those for whom the fable itself is deeply flawed. ------------------- Irving Howe/Eliezer Greenberg (1954) '... Peretz's gift for enriching and complicating folk themes... is also to be seen in "If Not Higher" and "Bontsha the Silent," two of his best-known stories, which are folk tales in origin yet clearly reveal the hand of a sophisticated artist -- in the subtle distance from faith that is maintained in the first story and in the desperation with which the second one ends.' [Irving Howe/Eliezer Greenberg, "Introduction," _A Treasury of Yiddish Stories_, New York: The Viking Press, 1954, p. 70.] ------------------- Efroyem Oyerbakh (1969) Bay der oyfgevakhter yidisher arbetershaft iz P. gevorn alts mer populer un alts mer un mer balibt un mit umgeduld hobn proste horepashnikes gevart oyf a nayer numer _Yontev bletlekh_... Inem... _Lekoved shvues_, hot P. opgedrukt a shafung, vos hot im nor mer balibt gemakht bay di arbeter; 'Di aseres hadibres; mit a peyresh fun a kleyn balebesl', a sotsyale satire kegn rabonim un kley-koydesh biklal. In di vayterdike _Bletlekh_ hot P. gedrukt felyetonen, vos zaynen sharf gevendet kegn der yidisher traditsye, bifrat kegn azelkhe dinim, vi khalitse, kegn di hebreyistn un khoyvevey-tsien un kegn di 'aristokratn', vos vern dertsitert, az zey hern vi shrayber heybn on tsu nutsn 'zhargon'. Inem eygenem nusekh shraybt P. zayne dertseylungen 'Dos shtrayml' un 'Bontshe shvayg', vos zenen geven gedrukt in _Literatur un leben_ [lebn]. Di beyde dertseylungen hobn shtark bavirkt di yidishe arbeter-leyener un zey bakert tsum sotsializm." [Peretz became more and more popular and beloved among the awakened Jewish working class, uneducated laborers looking forward eagerly to each new issue of the _Yontev bletlekh_ ('Holiday Pages')... In the Shavuot number Perets published his "The Ten Commandments; with a Commentary from a Small Householder," an anti-clerical social satire. In further issues of the _Holiday Pages_ Peretz printed feuilletons which were hostile to Jewish tradition, especially laws such as those of khalitsa, to Hebraists, Lovers of Zion and to the 'aristocrats' who quaked when they heard that writers were beginning to use Yiddish. In the same style Peretz wrote the stories "Dos shtrayml" ('The Sabbath and Holiday Hat') and "Bontshe Shvayg, which were published in _Literatur un lebn_ ('Literature and Life'). Both of these stories strongly influenced Jewish worker-readers and turned them towards socialism.](tr.: LP) [Efroyem Oyerbakh. "Y.-L. Perets," _Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur_ New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, 1969, 7:243-4.] ------------------- Sol Liptzin (1972) "... Peretz['s]... supreme achievement must be sought in his short stories and sketches. These combined clear observations of real life with flights into romantic, mystic heavens. In his tales, visible phenomena were overtopped by higher strata of eternal truths to which one ascended via the ladder of faith or through the medium of dreams. His humble characters, such as Bontsie the Silent... were not crushed by their hard tasks and endless dull routines, because they had faith in a higher reality, a more just existence awaiting them at the end of their earthly journey." "The title hero of 'Bontsie Shvaig' was unnoticed by his fellow-men and mistreated by his wealthy employer. He endured in silence the deprivations and humiliations to which he was subjected until his death. In heaven, however, he ranked with the most deserving saints because there true, eternal values prevailed." [Sol Liptzin. _A History of Yiddish Literature_. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David, 1972, [paperback] 1985, p. 58.] ----------------------------- Irving Howe/Eliezer Greenberg (1975) "In the main, the voice dominating these stories is ironic, ambivalent, skeptical, a modern voice that knows enough not to be content with being merely modern. The skepticism is sharpest in Peretz' single most famous story, 'Bontsha the Silent', in which the archetypal _kleyne mentshele_ (little, little man), whose life contained little of either good or evil*, evokes from the prosecutor 'a bitter laugh', as if shamed before the paltriness of most human desire. Peretz -- and here he does seem a litte like Kafka -- touches in this story on one of the major themes of modern literature, the radical, hopeless incommensurability between morality and existence, the sense of a deep injustice at the heart of the universe which even the heavens cannot remedy." * Peretz, who knew something about Nietzsche, had an evident horror before the idea of moral vacuum. [Irving Howe/Eliezer Greenberg. _Selected Stories / I.L. Peretz_ Edited with an Introduction by Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg. London: Paul Elek, 1975, p. 18.] ---------------------------- Ruth Wisse (1991) "... Peretz challenges the ideal of goodness that had a powerful grip on the folk imagination. So you think that passive goodness in this world will be granted divine recompense in the world beyond?.... [E]verything works schematically as it should, except that this creature is beyond redemption. His soul is too meek and his outlook too narrow to make possible any ultimate restitution.... [It] is the prosecutor who has the last laugh.... Yet... The times soon began to exert their influence on the text.... showing Bontshe as suffering saint, a holy fool, the Jewish martyr." Ruth Wisse (whose remarks are best read in their entirety [pp. 47-51]) also points out that "When the story of Bontshe was dramatized in the Broadway production, _The World of Sholem Aleichem_ [sic], a halo of light was cast on him as he made his request." (fn. 14, p. 117). (This might at first suggest Christian symbolism, but the use of light to image holiness is widespread in Judaism.) Ruth Wisse. _I.L. Peretz and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture_. Seattle/London: University of Washington Press, 1991, pp. 47-51; 117. ------------------- Irena Klepfisz (1994) Of the three classical writers, Peretz openly championed "the women's cause," understanding the price women paid for men's unreflective piety and the need for social reform. But like many who argue for a political position theoretically, Peretz never internalized it as a moral imperative and it is conspicuously absent from much of his writing. Critics have described _Monish_ (1888), his first Yiddish literary endeavor, as expressing the feelings of a whole Jewish generation. Yet _Monish_ is a man's poem about men's conflicts, sexual needs, attachments to Judaism and artistic aspirations. Peretz's interest in Hasidic tales, as well as his conceptualizing of "_di goldene keyt_/the golden chain" of Jewish tradition in terms of male dynasty, contributed to the defeminization of Yiddish literature. In the early stories of _Impressions of a Journey through the Tomaszow Region in the Year 1890_ and in the later, more overtly political ones, when not focussed on the plight of women, Peretz reverts to stereotypes. This is true even in his famous "Bontshe the Silent" (1894), whose title character embodies passive Jewish masses incapable of protesting his/their oppression or conceptualizing a future. Among Bontshe's burdens is a cruel wife who abandons him and the son he is unaware is not his. This story calls for workers' liberation from their own passivity _and_ for men's liberation from women's basic deceitfulness. Bontshe, Everyworker, is a "universal" man. So not only how these writers views themselves, but also what they wrote, point to a desire to create a literature by men and for men.... [Irena Klepfisz. Introduction to _Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers_, ed. Frieda Forman et al (Toronto: Second Story Press, 1994, pp. 38-9). The context of the following passage is in a section called "The 'Classical' Period: The Defeminization of _mame-loshn_."] (Submitted by Ron Robboy) --------------------- David Roskies (1995) [quote from and summarize pp. 7, 109-111, 137, 138, 307, 308, 309] "...I.L. Peretz's 'Bontshe the Silent' turned the Jewish sacred legend of the hidden saint on its head." (p. 7) "By trial's end the folksy facade was just as surely obliterated as any pretense of heavenly justice. The divine judge -- voicing the story's political message -- counseled Bontshe if he had broken his silence he might have brought down the walls of Jericho.... The folktale burlesque is what packed the final pumch.... Just as Bontshe stood by and watched the proceedings in terror, so the teller of his tale observed how the naive conventions, the supernatural trappings, and the grotesque characters all self-destructed in a gale of cynical laughter." (pp. 109-111) "Most readers misread the...irony [in 'Dray matones' (Three Gifts)] and took it as a paean to martyrdom -- as they would consistently misread 'Kabbalists' and 'Bontshe the Silent'."(137) "[Yosl] Bergner recast Peretz's most pathetic character in a tragic mold."(p. 308) [David G. Roskies. _A Bridge of Longing_. Cambridge, MA/London, UK: Harvard University Press, 1995, pp. 7, 109-111, 137, 308. ___________ Endnotes 1) The following have translated the story (names with an asterisk are illustrated above): Hilde Abel*, Mark Feder (dramatization), Helena Frank*, Henry Goodman, Hillel Halkin*, Elly Margolis, A.S. Rappoport*, Henry T. Shnittkind, Moshe Spiegel*, Leo Wiener. Translations of "Bontshe Shvayg" in English (see _The Field of Yiddish_ 1, 1954) not illustrated above include the following (listed according to date of publication): _History of Yiddish in the 19th Century_ by Leo Wiener. New York: Scribner's / London: John C. Nimmo, 1899, pp. 333-353 ["Bontsie Silent" tr. by Leo Wiener]. _Best Short Stories of the World_, ed. Konrad Bercovici. Boston: Stratford, 1925, pp. 61-73. [Bontsye the Silent tr. by Henry T. Shnittkind] _A Book of Jewish Thoughts_, sel. and arr. Joseph H. Herts, New York: Bloch, 1926, pp. 109-116. ["Bontsye Shweig" tr. by Helena Frank] _Jewish Advocate_ [Boston] 27 Sept 1927 ["Bonzye Schweig" tr. by ??]. _The Jewish Caravan_, ed. Leo W. Schwarz. New York: Farrar and Reinhart, 1935, pp. 342-348 ["Bontche Shweig" tr. by ??]. _Jewish Spectator_ [New York] July 1940 ["Bontzye Shweig" tr. by ??]. _Australian Jewish Forum_ [Sydney] 34 (Dec 1944), pp. ??-?? ["Bontsie Shweig" tr. by ??] _Three Gifts and Other Stories_ by I.L. Peretz. New York: Book League of the Jewish people's Fraternal Order, I.W.O., 1947, pp. 23-30 ["Bontche Shweig" tr. by Henry Goodman] _A Treasury of Jewish Folklore_, ed. Nathan Ausubel. New York: Crown, 1948, pp. 507-513. ["Bontshe the Silent" tr. by A.S. Rappoport] _Prince of the Ghetto_ by Maurice Samuel. Philadelphia: Jewish Publicaiton Society of America, 1948, pp. 75-83 ["Silent Bontche" tr. by Maurice Samuel]. _I.L. Peretz: A Sourcebbook on Programming_. New York: National Jewish Welfare Board, 1951, pp. 15-19 ["The Trial of Bontche" (dramatized) and tr. by Mark Feder]. _As Once We Were; Selections from the Works of I.L. Peretz_, tr. Elly Margolis, Los Angeles, 1951, pp. 209-220. ["Silent Bontsie" tr. by Elly Margolis] Ed. note: I have not seen the following Peretz collection: _Selected Works of I.L. Peretz_, contributions by Marvin Zuckerman and Gerald Stillman, ed. Marion Herbst. Malibu, CA: J. Simon, Pangloss Press, 1995. 2) Compare A.S. Rappoport's last sentence with Leo Wiener's 1899 version of the last two lines. Wiener: "Judges and angels drooped their heads abashed. The Prosecuting Attorney laughed out loud." Rappoport: "Abashed, angels and judges drooped their heads; while the accuser burst out into loud laughter." In innumerable instances of this kind it is impossible to pinpoint borrowing. 3) A popular humorist and journalist on the staff of _Moment_ in interwar Warsaw, Avrom Rozenfeld (1884-1941/2), was widely known by his pen name, Bontshe Shvayg, sometimes reduced to "Bontshe". Borekh-Nakhmen Vladek-Tsharni (1886-1938) used the pen name "Bontsye Shvaygs Eynikl" ('Bontshe Shvayg's Descendant'). Such pseudonyms are hardly imaginable in the period after the Shoa. -------------------------------------------------- End of _The Mendele Review_ 03.013 Leonard Prager, editor Subscribers to _Mendele_ (see below) automatically receive _The Mendele Review_. Send "to subscribe" or change-of-status messages to: listproc@lists.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele mail postpone b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail ack c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. 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