Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Research in Social Sciences and Humanities
Year: 2024
DOI:
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The Concepts ბედი (Bedi) Fate/ Destiny And განგება (Gangeba) Providence in Shota Rustaveli`S Epic “The Knight in The Panther’s Skin” In Comparison to English Translations
Mariam Gobianidze
ABSTRACT:
Shota Rustaveli, a Georgian poet and outstanding writer of the Georgian Golden Age, is a world-famous author: the manuscript collection of his epic “The Knight in Panther’s Skin” (about 160 manuscripts) is integrated into the UNESCO World Intangible Heritage list, and the epic, created in the 12th century, has been translated into 58 languages.
The aim of this paper is to analyse the concepts ბედი (/სვე) bedi(/sve) fate/ destiny and განგება (gangeba) providence in the English translations of the epic. We used the multilingual parallel corpus Rustaveli goes digital for our research, in particular, the English translations by five translators working at different times:
- The first English translation by Marjory Wardrop (prosaic version, made in 1912);
- The translation by Venera Urushadze published in 1968, in poetic form;
- The third translation by Katherine Vivien published in 1977, the main text of which is translated in prose, but the prologue and epilogue are translated in the poetic form;
- At the same time (1977), the fourth translation of the epic was published by Robert Stevenson. The translation is made in the form of rhythmical prose;
- The most recent translation is made by Lyn Coffin (2015, poetic version) based on the word-for-word translation by Dodona Kiziria. This research analyzes both concepts – ბედი (/სვე) bedi and განგება gangeba – in the target text and their equivalents in the English translations by Marjory Wardrop, Venera Urushadze, and Lyn Coffin. The aim of this research is to evaluate the quality of the translation
of the concepts highlighted above from “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin” in the poetic translations. Therefore, the research is based on the poetic versions of the translations by Venera Urushadze and Lyn Coffin and the literal translation by Dodona Kiziria. However, as Marjory Wardrop’s translation is the earliest and could have served as a source for other translations, the research also embraces her prosaic translation into English.
The corpus linguistic analysis of the English translations mentioned above has shown that the concepts bedi and gangeba are expressed differently in the translations of the epic: for instance, Chpt.41.St.1039. უგანგებოდ ვერას მიზმენ, შე-ცა-მებნენ ხმელთა სპანი; განგებაა, არ დავრჩები, ლახვარნია ჩემთვის მზანი; Chpt.50.St.1299. არ დასჯერდა ბედი ჩემი მათ პატიჟთა მრავალ-გვართა, The translators have translated these concepts as follows:
| Marjory Wardrop | Venera Urushadze | Lyn Coffin | Dodona Kiziria | |
| უგანგებოდ | undecreed | – | (without) God’s will | Undecreed/ (without) God’s will |
| განგება | decreed | Fate | destiny | fate |
| ბედი | ill luck | Misfortune | ill luck | ill luck |
This research focuses on the meaning of the mentioned concepts in the original text and the semantics of their English equivalents in each of the selected English translations. The aim of this study is to find out whether the translators have managed to preserve Rustaveli’s idea of these two concepts. The research also dwells on these authors’ translation strategies.
keywords: Rustvelology, English translations, Corpuslinguistics, Parallel Corpora