Light From Another Angle
by Middlebrow Dilletante
Observations from comparing Robert Alter’s translation of the Psalms
to the Responsorial Psalms used at Mass.
The Book of Psalms, A Translation with Commentary,
Robert Alter, 2007, W. W. Norton & Company, New York.
~
Robert Alter, a professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, has been publishing new translations of the Jewish scriptures for two decades, the David Story here, the Books of Moses, there, the Psalms, and finally, in 2018, the entire canon in a heavy, handsome boxed set the kids gifted me a little while back. All that and 14 other books including “The Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age” which I think was my introduction to his work.
Alter translates the scriptures because he objects to so much conventional, modern fashion in translating Biblical Hebrew. “There is no way of consistently getting this terrific rhythmic compactness into English, but I am convinced that a more strenuous effort to approximate it is called for than the existing translations have made.” He points to the concreteness, the physicality of the Hebrew “seed” for example versus the more abstract and polite “descendants”. And “What I have aimed at in this translation… is to represent Psalms in a kind of English verse that is readable as poetry yet sounds something like the Hebrew...”
In addition to Psalms he has completed the monumental task of translating anew the entire Jewish testament, providing commentary on word choice, sources, history, literary aspects – from a secular viewpoint although sometimes pointing out that this verse is used in the prayers for that Jewish holiday or that idea has influenced Christian thinking.
I am unable to judge his efforts as a translation, as more or less accurate than our mainstream Catholic translations. As literature hey read to me as he intends, pithier, more concrete. In recognizing that, however, I am not criticizing Catholic liturgical translations so much as finding them illuminated.
More than illumination, I need focus. Far too often my prayers at Mass are swamped by swelling to-do lists, urgent headlines remembered and heroic fantasy escapades worthy of Walter Mitty. With regard to the Responsorial Psalm recited after the first reading in the Novus Ordo Mass – since the Psalms are at least ostensibly poetic – my prose mind makes a strenuous effort to find narrative elsewhere.
Long aware of this fault, albeit largely helpless before it, I have tried to lock into the Responsorial Psalm by poring over the externals. Once I started paying attention, no unusual translation was needed to see patterns and anomalies to the usage of psalms at Mass, such as…
Usually there are just three couplets of two Bible verses in the daily Mass Responsorial Psalm. Sometimes four, even five, but usually three.
The Responsorial Psalms are excerpted from the full psalms but rarely are the verses re-ordered.
The response itself is usually a verse from the psalm but not always. I have noticed responses from Mark, Exodus, Samuel and Daniel.
For that matter, there are occasions when the Responsorial Psalm is drawn not from the Book of Psalms, but from Exodus, Samuel, Daniel, Jeremiah and Chronicles.
Sometimes the same psalm is used on successive days, often with overlapping or different verses. In 2020 I found:
2nd week Easter, Ps 34 twice.
3rd week of Easter, Ps 66 twice.
7th week of Easter, Ps 68, three times.
These externals are noticeable just by paying attention to my Missal. Yet they are only marginally helpful in holding focus and can be distracting themselves.
While reading Alter’s translation for reasons literary and historical I realized I might also gain a more substantive insight to those psalms excerpted for the liturgy. Already reading the psalm before attending Mass, I began comparing the Missal’s version with Alter’s. It improved my focus because reading a markedly different translation helps me see better, like light from another angle throws a surface into relief.
Here is a relatively random example…
Ps 74: 20-21
from the missal,
12th week of ordinary time, Saturday
“Look to your covenant, for the hiding places in the land and the plains are full of violence.
“May the humble not retire in confusion; may the afflicted and the poor praise your name.”
First line, 24 syllables
second line 22.
Alter’s version:
“Look to the pact, for the dark places of the earth fill with groans of outrage.
”Let not the poor man turn back disgraced, let the lowly and the needy praise Your name.”
First line: 18 syllables.
Second: 20
Comparing them:
With fewer syllables, Alter’s version is more compact which is one of his goals.
His use of “pact” is an example of his use of a more neutral word, albeit shorter, than the theologically freighted “covenant.” About this, more below.
That “hiding places” are “full of violence” tells of people being hunted more than “dark places” being filled “with groans of outrage” – but reading the latter right after reading the former highlights the former’s horror.
I have to say I find “Let not the poor man turn back disgraced” to be stronger, more vivid than “May the humble not retire in confusion.” Retiring in confusion is anodyne and could easily describe me when attempting to do the laundry.
As noted above, Alter’s is a secular translation and seems determined to avoid words that have acquired theological connotations, words that are foundational to Christianity, for example:
Psalm Missal / Alter
103:20 Angel / Messenger
138:1 Angels / Gods
23:5 Anoint / Moisten
74:20 Covenant / Pact
71:22 Faithfulness / Truth
98:2 Justice / Bounty
110:4 Melchizedek / Righteous King
116:13 Salvation / Rescue
98:2 Salvation / Victory
85:5 Savior / Rescue
85:3 Sin / Offense
57:9 Soul / Lyre
103:1 Soul / Being
23:3 Soul / Life
Alter writes that his resistance to theological language “reflects a commitment to philological fidelity and to the notions of reality manifested in the Hebrew words.” Among other considerations he notes that “soul” “suggests a body-soul split...that is alien to the Hebrew Bible and to Psalms in particular.” The Hebrew word commonly translated as “salvation”, he writes, in Psalms is “strictly directed to the here and now… to get somebody out of a tight fix.”
Rather than troubling me, I find these variant understandings and translations useful.
Useful because in comparing translations the differences point out words that I would otherwise likely gloss over for having read and said and sung them innumerable times.
Useful also because the various translations can illuminate gradations of meaning much as a surface thrown into relief will yield features not displayed previously. “Moisten” in place of “anoint”? Well, yes, anointing does moisten the head or the feet or the hands to which it is applied, but to find “moisten” substituting for “anoint” brings forward the immediacy of the act. Which is interesting. But “moisten” does not convey all that “anoint” does: preparing, crowning, making sacred. But noticing and thinking about the difference makes me see the psalm anew.
Does it help my focus? Sometimes. Sometimes at least, the psalms-in-relief can bring my cavorting mind to heel and sometimes with an extra yank of grace, to prayer and even worship.