In 1959, after completing a more modest translation on which she had collaborated, she wrote to a friend, "I vow that this is the last translation I shall agree to let him do as long as I live!" There were still five years of work to be done on "Eugene Onegin".
It does not use gender-neutral language and appears to be, they say, a retreat from the ecumenical goal of a shared liturgy with other Christians that influenced the last translation.
One last translation problem in the story is the title itself.
WHEN the composer Gustav Mahler visited Niagara Falls for the first time in the early 20th century, he exclaimed, "Fortissimo at last!" Translation: "That's what I mean by very loud".
The last translation was difficult, she wrote friends, but at eighty she was alone and unwell, and the work made her happy.
* * * " 'My dear Mr. Bennet,' said his lady to him one day, 'have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?' " Translation: "My dear Mr. Bennet," said his partner to him during one diurnal juncture, "have you heard that a hierarchical contractualized negotiation has been consensitized on Netherfield Park?" * * * "Mr. Bennet replied that he had not".
His writings of this last period include a Latin translation of Epictetus' Manual (1479); a collection of Detti piacevoli (witty sentences), composed in the vernacular between 1477 and 1479; Greek epigrams; a number of vernacular canzoni a ballo ("songs for dancing") and rispetti ("regards"), which show his taste for popular poetry; and Latin letters on problems of style and literature.
This last class suggests that modifications of the translation rate may be an in vivo response to ER stress.
Several participants felt that lasting translations or translations that go beyond the regional level should be considered of greater societal impact than smaller translations.
The last major translation was by Robert Pinsky in 1995, and it was published by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.
