Tolkien har ett svåröversatt favoritord som han använder ofta i böckerna:
bend eller
bent, som t ex i "all his thought is bent on it". Frågan är förstås för det första - hur översätter man det? Och för det andra - finns det någon poäng med att försöka översätta det likadant överallt där det förekommer, eller blir det bättre att hitta en separat lösning för varje fall?
Här är de många ställen jag hittat där ordet förekommer:
Tolkien skrev:
FotR 2, The Shadow of the Past
But he knows now that it has not perished, that it has been found. So he is seeking it, seeking it, and all his thought is bent on it. It is his great hope and our great fear.
FotR 2, The Shadow of the Past
'Yes, to Mordor,' said Gandalf. 'Alas! Mordor draws all wicked things, and the Dark Power was bending all its will to gather them there.
FotR 2, The Council of Elrond
We could not now take it back to him, unguessed, unmarked by any spy. And even if we could, soon or late the Lord of the Rings would learn of its hiding place and would bend all his power towards it. Could that power be defied by Bombadil alone?
TTT 5, The White Rider
So the forces that he has long been preparing he is now setting in motion, sooner than he intended. Wise fool. For if he had used all his power to guard Mordor, so that none could enter, and bent all his guile to the hunting of the Ring, then indeed hope would have faded: neither Ring nor Bearer could long have eluded him. But now his eye gazes abroad rather than near at home; and mostly he looks towards Minas Tirith.
TTT 5, The White Rider
Did you know that he was at hand, Gandalf?'
'Yes, I knew,' said the wizard. 'I bent my thought upon him, bidding him to make haste; for yesterday he was far away in the south of this land. Swiftly may he bear me back again!'
TTT 11, The Palantír
For alas! he has handled it and looked in it, as should never have happened. He ought never to have touched it in Isengard, and there I should have been quicker. But my mind was bent on Saruman, and I did not at once guess the nature of the Stone.
TTT 11, The Palantír
How long, I wonder, has he been constrained to come often to his glass for inspection and instruction, and the Orthanc-stone so bent towards Barad-dûr that, if any save a will of adamant now looks into it, it will bear his mind and sight swiftly thither? And how it draws one to itself! Have I not felt it?
TTT 8, The Stairs of Cirith Ungol
The terrors of the land beyond, and the deed to be done there, seemed remote, too far off yet to trouble him. All his mind was bent on getting through or over this impenetrable wall and guard. If once he could do that impossible thing, then somehow the errand would be accomplished, or so it seemed to him in that dark hour of weariness, still labouring in the stony shadows under Cirith Ungol.
TTT 9, Shelob's Lair
And She that walked in the darkness had heard the Elves cry that cry far back in the deeps of time, and she had not heeded it, and it did not daunt her now. Even as Frodo spoke he felt a great malice bent upon him, and a deadly regard considering him.
TTT 9, Shelob's Lair
But still the hatred of the Watcher lurked behind them, blind for a while, perhaps, but undefeated, still bent on death. And now there came a flow of air to meet them, cold and thin. The opening, the tunnel's end, at last it was before them.
RotK 1, Minas Tirith
He has long sight. He can perceive, if he bends his will thither, much of what is passing in the minds of men, even of those that dwell far off. It is difficult to deceive him, and dangerous to try.
RotK 1, Minas Tirith
And the Lord Denethor is unlike other men: he sees far. Some say that as he sits alone in his high chamber in the Tower at night, and bends his thought this way and that, he can read somewhat of the future; and that he will at times search even the mind of the Enemy, wrestling with him. And so it is that he is old, worn before his time.
RotK 5, The Ride of the Rohirrim
Now silently the host of Rohan moved forward into the field of Gondor, pouring in slowly but steadily, like the rising tide through breaches in a dike that men have thought secure. But the mind and will of the Black Captain were bent wholly on the falling city, and as yet no tidings came to him warning that his designs held any flaw.
RotK 8, The Houses of Healing
My lord, if your sister's love for you, and her will still bent to her duty, had not restrained her lips; you might have heard even such things as these escape them. But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?'
RotK 2, The Land of Shadow
The stench of the sweating orcs about him was stifling, and he began to gasp with thirst. On, on they went, and he bent all his will to draw his breath and to make his legs keep going; and yet to what evil end he toiled and endured he did not dare to think.
RotK 3, Mount Doom
Now at last they turned their faces to the Mountain and set out, thinking no more of concealment, bending their weariness and failing wills only to the one task of going on. In the dimness of its dreary day few things even in that land of vigilance could have espied them, save from close at hand.
RotK 3, Mount Doom
The Eye was not turned to them: it was gazing north to where the Captains of the West stood at bay, and thither all its malice was now bent, as the Power moved to strike its deadly blow; but Frodo at that dreadful glimpse fell as one stricken mortally. His hand sought the chain about his neck.
RotK 3, Mount Doom
For they were forgotten. The whole mind and purpose of the Power that wielded them was now bent with overwhelming force upon the Mountain. At his summons, wheeling with a rending cry, in a last desperate race there flew, faster than the winds, the Nazgûl the Ringwraiths, and with a storm of wings they hurtled southwards to Mount Doom.
RotK 8, The Scouring of the Shire
But many of the strongest and most desperate got out on the west side, and attacked their enemies fiercely, being now more bent on killing than escaping. Several hobbits fell, and the rest were wavering, when Merry and Pippin, who were on the east side, came across and charged the ruffians.
I min egen översättning har jag hittills bara hunnit till två av dessa. Så här blev det där:
Kamelen skrev:
Men han vet nu att den inte har förgåtts, att den är återfunnen. Så han söker den, söker den, och den upptar alla hans tankar. Den är hans stora hopp och vår stora fruktan.
Kamelen skrev:
”Ja, till Mordor”, sade Gandalf. ”Ack! Mordor drar till sig alla illasinnade varelser, och den Mörka makten uppbjöd nu all sin vilja till att församla dem där.
Det där är väl, tycker jag, helt OK översättningar sedda var för sig. Men de erbjuder ingen generallösning på det allmänna
bent-problemet. Finns det ens någon sådan?
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) är så jämra jobbig (och jämra rolig!) att översätta.
. En mening närmare ett avslut.
