"From Gilgamesh to Qasida: Semitic Poetry in Original Version and in Translation" is a research into the old Semitic poetry. It was pursued to find answers to the two following questions: Are there certain prosodic and verse building features characteristic of Semitic languages? Is it possible to translate Semitic poetical works into Polish keeping their original form, particularly their meter, stanza organization, texture and style? Should parallel syntactic structures and stress arrangement be kept in their Polish versions? Should their translations make use of rhymes? Is it possible to stick to monorhymes? The book offers a comprehensive analysis of sixteen poetical works (or their excerpts), composed between 18th century BC and 15th century AD. Each original has been transcribed and glossed. Its prosodic and stylistic features classified and characterized. The analysis of Akkadian poems proved that an important verse making feature of is a paroxytonic ultima of every line. Akkadian verses consist, most frequently, of three or four stressed syllables. This regularity, which partially results from their syntactic parallelism, accounts for the high uniformity of poems’ phonetic structure. The verses are not isosyllabic. The lack of enjambement makes every line a prosodic-syntactic unit. In poems composed after the Old Babylonian period, there are also caesuras, which are explicitly marked in the cuneiform script. In Ugaritic verses there are mainly three, sometimes four, stressed syllables. The line with four stresses very often opens or closes a group of verses which create a stanza. Verses of Ugaritic poems are not isosyllabic. The lack of enjambement makes every line a prosodic-syntactic unit. The typical stichic form is a couplet with syntactic parallelism based on the sentence/sentences identity or on the similarity of their structure. In Biblical poetry there are usually three stressed syllables per a hemistich. Verses with two stressed syllables usually close a stanza. The characteristic feature of Biblical Hebrew poetry is thus a word stress. The verses are not metrically divided into feet. The lack of enjambement makes every line a prosodic-syntactic unit. The typical stichic form is a couplet with syntactic parallelism as in Ugaritic poetry. In Mandaic poetry every verse is a prosodic-syntactic unit what is intensified by the lack of enjambement. The high uniformity of its phonetic structure may ascribed to the presence of three stressed syllables in each verse. Verses of Mandaic pieces are not isosyllabic. The strict isosyllabism typical of Syriac poetry emerged, most probably, in the 3rd century AD. It should not be surprising: one of the features characterizing Syriac lines was constant number of stressed syllables.
The key feature of Arabic poetry is rhyme and poems have metrical structure. There are made of verses composed from hemistichs, usually separated by a caesura. Their characteristic features are: meter which has a set number of feet and in the fixed arrangement, rhyme (monorhyme), within verse caesuras, interverse caesuras, and prosodic structure of clauses. It is worth mentioning here that rhyme as a poetic constant was a hitherto unknown feature of Semitic poetry. Ethiopic poetry is also based on rhyme. Neither vowel length nor number of syllables however, play in it a structural role. Lack of other prosodic features, such as a set number of stressed syllables, feet, isosyllabism, makes it archaic. It also may be a proof that it was developing independently of Arabic verses. The analysis let distinguish several prosodic features which appear in poems composed in all the above mentioned languages and therefore may be regarded as characteristic of Semitic poetry as such. They are: the verse that is at the same time a prosodic-syntactic unit; the lack of enjambement; the syntactic parallelism of verse structure; the proparoxytonic, paroxytonic or oxytonic stress as a delimitative element of a verse (or hemistich); the relatively constant number of stressed syllables in a verse (hemistich)/ line. Isosyllabism, characteristic of classical Syriac poetry, and a regular rhyme appearing solely in Arabic and Etiopic poetry, should be described separately. In the later times some prosodic features characteristic of Arabic were adopted by Syriac (rhyme) and Hebrew (meter based on vowel length and rhyme) poetry. The selected texts have then been translated into Polish with the use of various forms and meters. The translation of asyllabic verses of Gilgamesh makes use of a prosodic-syntactic verse, the oldest Polish verse system. It preserves the syntactic parallelism of original lines. As the rhyme was not the clause marking element, it does not appear in the translation. The Acadian sentence order S-O-V (subject - object - verb) sounds archaic in Polish therefore it has been used sparingly. ʾEnūma ʾeliš has been rendered in a blank hendecasyllable verse with a caesura after the fifth syllable. The arrangement of stresses in translation (2+2) is however more regular that in the original. The translated lines, similarly to the original ones, have within a within verse caesura. The verse itself however, has been stabilized in accordance to Polish meter. It seems that an isosyllabic verse with a fixed caesura fits Acadian poetry very well. In order to preserve the poetic form of Aqhat Epic, again a asyllabic (a prosodic-syntactic) verse has been used. The verses of the Book of Job remain asyllabic, exactly as in the original. All the verses have identical number of stressed syllables (3+3). The syntactic parallelism of their structures have also been maintained. It has also been kept in the asyllabic translation of Mandaic "The Great Treasure". The 30th Ode of Solomon has been rendered in asyllabic verse, similarly to the original. The translation, alluding to Polish intonation-syntactic verse (where each verse is a separate sentence), preserves couplets with their syntactic parallelism. In translating the hymn of Ephrem octosyllabic verse has been used. It is one of the oldest and the most popular Polish meters. In translations of Arabic poetry strict and not relative syllabism has been used. Qurʾan is often claimed to be untranslatable. To prove otherwise translations of two selected chapters have been included. The Polish version of surah XCII is completely devoid of rhyme. The translation characterizes relative syllabism: almost all verses, except the invocation, have eleven syllables. As it has been impossible to stick to monorhyme, the poetic character of the surah has been emphasized by a relatively regular hendecasyllable verse with a main caesura after the fifth syllable (5+6). Translation of surah CXII is strictly syllabic: it is rendered in enneasyllabic verse with two verses without a caesura and two verses with a caesura (5+4). The translation preserves strict monorhyme structure which most probably can not be used in the translation of all the surahs. Rajaz by Hind bint ʿUtba has been put into an enneasyllabic verse without caesura with the "aa bb cc" rhyme scheme. In a passage by ʾAl-ʾAḫṭal the regular hendecasyllabic verse has been used in both hemistichs. As a result we have 11+11 verse structure, with a regular main caesura. ʾAbū Nuwās was rendered in a blank verse, in regular thirteen syllable lines 7+6 (with a caesura after the seventh syllable). Its poetic structure is thus 13+13 with a regular main caesura. Qasida by ʾAl-Mutanabbī has been translated in a blank thirteen syllable verse with a caesura after the seventh syllable (7+6). Its poetic structure is thus identical to ʾAbū Nuwās. The complete cadence usually signals a closure of the verse but not the hemistich. The translation of Salâm ad Mariam retains both poetic structure and rhyme arrangement "aaa bbb ccc ddd eee fff gggg" of the original. Its verses are also asyllabic. They contain exclusively feminine, paroxytonic rhymes whereas in the original there are mainly oxytonic ones. Polish version of Salâm of Jared is devoid of monorhyme and it preserves the relative syllabism of the original. The translations of all sixteen pieces try to keep form and prosodic features of original versions that undoubtedly have been very difficult to render and therefore have often been lost in hitherto renderings. And though it is quite obvious that poetry is about meaning and not about stress, isosyllabic structures, caesuras or rhythm, Polish translations offered in this book can be seen as a tentative attempt made to resolve an old dilemma: form or meaning. (Translated into English by Anna Seretny)