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Church Slavonic to English Dutch to English English Old (ca.450-1100) to English Esperanto to English Persian (Farsi) to English French to English French Old (842-ca.1400) to English French Middle (ca.1400-1600) to English Galician to English German to English Greek (Ancient) to English Hebrew to English Interlingua to English Italian to English Judeo-Arabic to English Latin to English ProvencalOld(to1500) to English Russian to English Spanish to English Portuguese to English Welsh to English Yiddish to English
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Sample translations submitted: 4
Russian to English: "The Upas Tree", a poem by Alexander Pushkin General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - Russian В пустыне чахлой и скупой,
На почве, зноем раскаленной,
Анчар, как грозный часовой,
Стоит - один во всей вселенной.
Природа жаждущих степей
Его в день гнева породила,
И зелень мертвую ветвей
И корни ядом напоила.
Яд каплет сквозь его кору,
К полудню растопясь от зною,
И застывает ввечеру
Густой прозрачною смолою.
К нему и птица не летит,
И тигр нейдет: лишь вихорь черный
На древо смерти набежит -
И мчится прочь, уже тлетворный.
И если туча оросит,
Блуждая, лист его дремучий,
С его ветвей, уж ядовит,
Стекает дождь в песок горючий.
Но человека человек
Послал к анчару властным взглядом,
И тот послушно в путь потек
И к утру возвратился с ядом.
Принес он смертную смолу
Да ветвь с увядшими листами,
И пот по бледному челу
Струился хладными ручьями;
Принес - и ослабел и лег
Под сводом шалаша па лыки,
И умер бедный раб у ног
Непобедимого владыки.
А царь тем ядом напитал
Свои послушливые стрелы
И с ними гибель разослал
К соседям в чуждые пределы.
Translation - English
On scorched and conflagrated sands,
In sapped and grudging desolation,
The solitary Upas stands
Grim sentinel of all creation.
This thing was spawned one day of rage
From nature of the thirsting plain
That slaked the death-green foliage
And deep-set roots with sap of bane.
The venom oozes down the bark
Turned liquid in the midday blaze,
Congealing at the fall of dark
To clots of cruel, translucent glaze.
No tigers come, no birds alight.
None but the wind's black breath will dare
Circle around that tree of blight
And leave with newly deadly air.
And, should an errant cloud imbue
With rain the rank leaves' laden glands,
The branches drip a toxic dew
Onto incendiary sands.
But once a man dispatched a man
With one dread glance to that dead waste
And he obeyed. Away he ran
And brought the poison back with haste:
Its lethal sap, its waxen bough
And desiccated leaves. The sweat
Across his sallow, stricken brow
Ran in a chilling rivulet.
He brought it, stumbled and sprawled, prone
Beneath the tent for his reward:
A poor slave's death before the throne
Of his invulnerable lord.
And in that poison brew the Tsar
Dipped arrows under his command,
And loosed perdition near and far
On men of every neighboring land.
French to English: Page 1 of "Tax expenditures in Tunisia: preliminary estimates, initial recommendations for reforms and their potential impact on the labor market" General field: Bus/Financial
Source text - French Le chômage a atteint un seuil alarmant et occupe depuis le soulèvement populaire de 2011 le devant de la scène. Il est estimé en 2012 à environ 18,6%. Le problème pourrait, si rien n’est fait, s'aggraver dans la mesure où le schéma de croissance tunisienne dans sa structure actuelle ne peut pas, semble-t-il, créer plus de 60 000 emplois.
Quoi qu’il en soit, la réduction du niveau de chômage doit être placée comme une priorité absolue. La nécessité de trouver une solution à ce défi lourd de menaces pour la stabilité sociale fait l’unanimité. Aujourd’hui, la Tunisie est placée devant des difficultés de plus en plus aigües, et elle est obligée de proposer des actions concrètes pour faire passer les chômeurs d'une situation de marginalisation à une situation d'emploi. Lorsque des individus qui pourraient constituer une main-d’œuvre efficace, en bonne santé et productive manquent de compétence, de confiance en eux, de réseaux sociaux et d'expérience pour trouver un travail, nous avons là, à l'évidence, un problème.
Quelle politique économique mettre en œuvre afin de juguler ce problème ? Rappelons au passage que le chômage représente, en apparence, un solde entre l’offre et la demande de travail. En réalité, ses composantes sont profondément liées aux caractéristiques structurelles du pays qui déterminent tant la gestion de la population active que les modes de création d’emploi. A ce propos, nous tentons d’évaluer les dépenses fiscales liées au régime forfaitaire et aux incitations à l’investissement et nous menons une réflexion pour une réallocation des dépenses fiscales à la faveur d’emploi et afin de réduire le chômage.
En effet, et en Tunisie, comme dans de nombreux pays, les principales contraintes de la politique budgétaire et de la gestion macro-économique sont l’étroitesse de l’assiette fiscale et la capacité limitée de collecter les impôts. Les contraintes administratives sur la capacité à collecter les recettes fiscales ont souvent conduit à la mise en place de taux d'imposition élevés sur une assiette fiscale étroite. Cela a eu pour conséquence de l’évasion fiscale ainsi que le développement d'une économie informelle.
En effet, il faut bien admettre que le système productif tunisien est largement dominé par le secteur informel, non structuré. Celui-ci est notamment constitué d'entreprises qui sont, pour un grand nombre d'entre elles, familiales, très petites et dotées de faibles moyens de gestion. Partant de ce constat, il serait absurde de prêter au secteur informel la clé du développement. Celui-ci constitue d'abord une économie de survie, non créatrice d'emplois et où l'accumulation est absente.
La période qui s’ouvre appelle une réorientation, urgente et en profondeur, de la manière de gérer nos finances publiques. Il s’agit globalement de mener des politiques fiscales qui contribuent activement au processus de développement sans hypothéquer l’avenir des générations futures. Il est donc naturel de donner la priorité au financement des projets d’investissement et à la mise en place des réformes permettant d'atteindre les objectifs de lutte contre le chômage, la pauvreté, la précarité et les disparités régionales entre autres.
Translation - English Unemployment has reached an alarming level and, especially since the popular uprising of 2011, has taken center stage, having been estimated at approximately 18.6% in 2012. This problem could be exacerbated if nothing is done, given that Tunisia's present growth rate, it would seem, can create no more than 60,000 jobs.
Regardless, reducing the unemployment rate should be made a top priority. There is unanimous agreement on the need to find a solution to this challenge (which poses a number of threats to social stability.) Today, Tunisia finds itself facing ever more acute difficulties, and must put forward concrete actions to shunt the unemployed out of the marginal position they currently occupy and into the job market. When individuals who could form the basis for an effective, healthy and productive workforce lack the requisite competence, confidence, social networks and experience to find a job, there is obviously a problem.
What economic policy should be implemented in order to curb said problem? (Note incidentally that unemployment represents a labor supply/demand balance or imbalance.) In truth, its constituent elements are inextricably linked to structural features of the country which determine both management of the active workforce and job-creation patterns. With this in mind, we attempt to evaluate the expenditures linked to the flat rate tax scheme and to investment incentives, and consider a reallocation of fiscal expenditures which would foster employment and reduce unemployment.
Indeed, in Tunisia, as in a number of countries, the main constraints of fiscal policy and macroeconomic management are a narrow tax base and a limited tax revenue collection capacity. Administrative constraints on the latter have often lead to higher tax rates on a narrow tax base, which has resulted in tax evasion as well as the development of an informal economy.
One must admit that the Tunisian production system is in large measure dominated by the informal, unstructured sector. The later consists notably of businesses that are, to a large degree, family-owned, very small and have limited resource management. Based on this, it would be absurd to hand the baton of development to the informal sector. The latter constitutes above all else a survival economy, which does not create jobs and where accumulation is not to be found.
The coming period calls for an urgent, in-depth reorientation of how we manage our public finances. We must implement a tax policy which actively contributes to development without compromising the future. It is therefore natural to grant priority to the financing of investment projects and the implementation of reforms which allow us to achieve the objectives of our fight against unemployment, poverty, instability and regional disparity, to name only a few of the issues.
Greek (Ancient) to English: From Plato's "Republic" [329b-c] General field: Other Detailed field: Philosophy
Translation - English And Cephalus said "Let me tell you about old age, Socrates. When we old men gather, when we old birds of wrinkly feather talk and squawk together, most of us just grumble and feel sorry for ourselves, longing for the joys of youth and yesteryear, thinking back on how fun it was to spend every night drinking, partying, whoring and whatnot. The poor men are in anguish, thinking that they've lost what really matters, that they really lived back then and that now they might as well be dead. Some of them whine about how their families and friends don't treat the elderly the way they should, and they go on bending heaven's ear with the ways in which old age is the root of all their misery. But it seems to me that their blame is misplaced, Socrates. For if old age really were responsible, my experience of aging would be the same as theirs, and so would that of all other men who've gotten to be this old. But as things stand, I've run into others who feel very differently. Take the poet Sophocles, for example. Just a while ago I was with him when somebody asked: "How's your sex-life, Sophocles? Can you still get it on with a woman?" And he said "Oh be quiet, man. Honestly, I'm pretty happy to have left all that behind. It's like I've finally made a getaway from some insane, sadistic taskmaster"
Greek (Ancient) to English: Excerpt from "Juan de Mairena: Sentencias, Donaires, Apuntes y Recuerdos de un Profesor Apócrifo" (Juan de Mairena: Adages, Epigrams, Memoranda and Memoirs of an Apocryphal Professor) by Antonio Machado General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - Greek (Ancient) Porque, ¿cantaría el poeta sin la angustia del tiempo, sin esa fatalidad de que las cosas no sean para nosotros, como para Dios, todas a la par, sino dispuestas en serie y encartuchadas como balas de rifle, para disparadas una tras otra? Que hayamos de esperar a que se fría un huevo, a que se abra una puerta o a que madure un pepino, es algo, señores, que merece nuestra reflexión. En cuanto nuestra vida coincide con nuestra conciencia,, es el tiempo la realidad última, rebelde al conjuro de la lógica, irreductible, inevitable, fatal. Vivir es devorar tiempo: esperar; y por muy trascendente que quiera ser nuestra espera, siempre será espera de seguir esperando. Porque aun la vida beata, en la gloria de los justos, ¿estará, si es vida, fuera del tiempo y más allá de la espera? Adrede evito la palabra “esperanza”, que es uno de esos grandes superlativos con que aludimos a un esperar los bienes supremos, tras de los cuales ya no habría nada que esperar. Es palabra que encierra un concepto teológico, impropio de una clase de Retórica y Poética. Tampoco quiero hablaros del Infierno, por no impresionar desagradablemente vuestra fantasía. Sólo he de advertiros que allí se renuncia a la esperanza, en el sentido teológico, pero no al tiempo y a la espera de una infinita serie de desdichas. Es el Infierno la espeluznante mansión del tiempo, en cuyo círculo más hondo está Satanás dando cuerda a un reloj gigantesco por su propia mano.
Ya en otra ocasión definíamos a la poesía como diálogo del hombre con el tiempo, y llamábamos "poeta puro" a quien lograba vaciar el suyo para enfrentarse a solas con él, o casi a solas; algo así como quien conversa con el zumbar de sus propios oídos, que es la más elemental materialización sonora del fluir temporal. Decíamos, en suma, cuanto es la poesía palabra en el tiempo, y cómo le deber se un maestro de Poética consiste en enseñar a sus alumnos a reforzar la temporalidad de su verso.
Translation - English Would our poets sing at all were it not for the anguish of time, that fate-stricken sadness that things are never with us, as they are with God, at one with one another, but put forth in sequence, cartridged like rifle-rounds to be shot off one after another? That we must wait for the egg to fry, the door to open, or the cucumber to ripen...this, gentlemen, is a thing worth pondering.
For inasmuch as our lives coincide with our consciousness, time is the ultimate reality: insubordinate to every order of logic, irreducible and ineradicable, fateful and fatal. To be alive is to live off of time, to wait; and however transcendent that wait may be, it will always be a wait during which we go on just waiting. Even the beatific life, that guerdon of the righteous, could it really (if life it be) go beyond waiting, beyond time? I purposefully have omitted the word "hope", which is one of those tumid superlatives we use to describe our anticipation of supreme rewards that leave us nothing more to wait for. It is a word encompassing theological notions, and therefore quite out of place in a class on Rhetoric and Poetics such as ours. Likewise, I don't want to talk about Hell, since I have no desire to blindside your imaginations so brutishly. Suffice it to say that in that place one abandons all hope, theologically speaking, but not all of time, nor the expectation of an infinite chain of miseries. Hell is the bloodcurdling mansion of time, in whose profoundest circle Satan himself awaits, winding up a gargantuan watch with his own hands.
We have had occasion to define poetry as man's dialogue with time, to call certain poets "pure" because they manage to empty themselves of all inner time for a showdown alone (or nearly so) with time itself; much as one would converse with the buzzing in one's own ears, that most fundamental sonic manifestation of time's flow. In short, we conclude that poetry is the word in its own time, and that it is the duty of a teacher of poetics to teach his pupils to push the timeliness of their verse to the limit.
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Years of experience: 15. Registered at ProZ.com: Nov 2013.
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