My good friend, thanks for your engaging queries.
I have been studying Okigbo for about 40 yrs now. So few people are as prepared to translate him as I am. My novitiate into Okigbo was mentored by an Igbo native who wrote his doctoral on Okigbo.
If you look at the chapter I wrote on Poet as Historian (Oyebade 2001) you will come across the names you mentioned and more.
As a trained LITERARY translator translating Okigbo is a project to demonstrate how to do literary translation and just not how to translate. The first draft was completed 2013 but was left for aperiod of gestation to turn my attention to music since Okigbos preoccupation with music galvanised a similar interest in me.
Proof of Okigbos ties to oracle and divination as well as music is contained in the third poem in Path of Thunder. Elegy to Slit Drums as well as Elegy to Alto. Lament of the drums stretching to about 20 pages reinforces the same theme. Words like 'broken monody' 'threnody'and Eunices playing the organ at the passage way in Heavensgate also reinforced. the music motif.
I will be unable to give the line to line correspondence you seek since that is asking for transliteration which LITERARY translation is NOT.
For a good guide to literary translation I refer you to the translation of Euripedes Bacchae by your society patron WS. He stated specifically that Ogun chants have been seamlessly embedded in the panegyrics of the Greek pantheon. Okigbo himself did the same thing in Labyrinths.
All I did was climb on the shoulders of giants to see far.
Regarding the ties betwern Esu and music this is part of the ongoing project initiated on this forum to develop African indigenous languages as languages of rigorous scholarship. These are extrapolations of the known attributes of the deities involved.
In the fin de siecle we have been teaching in history classes that the 21st century is the Asian century. Two of Asian countries alone (India & China) account for 2/3 of the world population.
Majority of these populations are polytheists. Forget about neo-colonial appendages to the two dominant monotheisms; the future belongs to (as indeed the distant past did) polytheism.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Date: 23/05/2017 07:48 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ewi Igbokegbodo Keta
Powerful summation on Okigbo in terms of the motif of the cross, particularly in relation to the Yoruba Orisa tradition deity Esu Elegbara in the context of the musical intersections of the beat and the chord, the numerical and the verbal. I wonder where one can learn more about these relationships between Esu and music, this being a new idea to me.
Was Okigbo "committed to oracular divination"? I would like references to the sections of his sole poetry collections Labyrinths that demonstrates that.
How readily could one develop correlations between Labyrinths and Ifa? Would it be the description of Okigbo's incorporation of chant/s of the Timi of Ede and Yoruba idioms?
I would very much like to learn about the specific lines in Okigbo's poetry with their Yoruba correlates. Romanus Egudu and others has done beautiful work on Okigbo's adaptation of Igbo proverb/s, folklore and spirituality.
thanks
toyin
On 22 May 2017 at 22:25, Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
Thanks Prof. The series is part of the annotated translation of Christopher Okigbo' Labyrinths from a Yoruba ideological perspective in particular the significance of the cross to Yoruba thought.
It elaborates poetically on themes which Henry ( Atandare Onibode) Gates Jr has worked on to demonstrate how deities like Esu-Elagbara accompanied captives on the Middle Passage to help structure strategies of emancipation through rhetorics and songs of freedom.
These songs of freedom persists to this day in the lyrics of musical giants like Bob Marley, the development of Blues and Jazz and of course back home in genres such as Juju music.
The effort is to extrapolate the age long mytho-poetic structuration of music as a method of polemics of deliverance in particular the efficacy of music (psychologically opening the interstices of the soul where bland rhetorics prove insufficient.)
This effort explains why Okigbo was so committed to music in his lifetime that his poetry shows the unmistakable signs that he viewed poetry as modern surrogate to music. His commitment to oracular divination means that he sees (rightly) the oracle as the link between poetry and music since music comprises the beat (the numerical element) and the chord (the verbal element). The Yoruba deity in charge of both is Esu- Elegbara.
This would not have been lost on Okigbo (who came to prominence in Yoruba land) who in his eclectic style included chants of monarchs like the Timi of Ede in his poetry as well as Yoruba idioms like 'owo omode ko to pepe' .
Okigbo apparently thinks ( through the lament of the poet-protagonist)Africans lost their culture to the influences of Christianity (symbolized by the cross). The translation shows how the African pre- Christian notion of the cross (through Elegbara) symbolizes redemption.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------From: Michael Afolayan <mafolayan@yahoo.com>Date: 22/05/2017 01:37 (GMT+00:00)Cc: Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ewi Igbokegbodo Keta
This is beautiful, Alagba, but we are awaiting the interpretation o. E ku ohun . . .Michael
On Sunday, May 21, 2017 7:00 PM, Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
--Odùṣọ Ifá
Àwọn ìràwọ ti wá rékọjá,Àwọ sánmà pẹlú awò ojúkan rẹNwòye ayé abẹ rẹ.
Awon ìràwọ ti rekoja,Ṣùgbọn o, èmi –nibo ni emi wà?Múra ki o túnramú, ìwòye mi,Lati dìrọmó wakati yi,Ki o si mú ileri ìgbà yi ṣẹPelu orin àti ẹyẹ.
Odùṣọ ifá yọ si miGegebi yemọja òkunAbara rọgbọdọO wipe:
Túraká! Ifá kò robi sẹni kanKókó ifa ni lati ta ibi nùAti lati kó ire wọlé.Kọlọfin ibi ilà gbé pàdéNi oríta Ẹlẹgbára.Kọlọfin ibi ilà gbé pàdéNi àgbélèbú ti paradà di oríta ọnàKọlọfin ibi ti Ila gbe padeNi bèbè Náìlì tí ọmọ gbẹnọ gbẹnọGbé sọ ẹnọ àmójúbà Ẹlẹgbára;Kọlọfin ibi ilà gbé pàdé ni Ojú Ẹlẹgba*Ni olùdándè ojú inu ti o sọnù,Ti a ṣe ìràpadà rẹ si ìparadà orin kíkọ;Ilà èkíní ni ti ohùn òkèAti ti ìsàlẹ orin alárinrin ni ipasẹGbédègbeyọ Ẹlẹgbára;Ilà èkejì ni ti òṣùnwọnÌgbà mélǒ ni ìlù lílù pẹlúIrinṣẹ orin Lákáayé pẹlu atọkùn Ọrúnmìlà;Ni ibi ti ewì gbé paradàDi ìmọ orin ayérayé…
Odùṣọ Ifa t'ẹnu b'orin:Ẹ má s'Èṣù d'èkéẸ ma sọ'fá d'ọlẹKos'ésìn kẹsìn ti o bori ifa.Odùṣọ, oníbodè ibode ÒrunỆlà, onílànà ọrọ ìrètí ògo.
*Fún ìwòye itumọ Ojú Ẹlẹgba, mo dúpẹ lọwọ ògbóntagí iyèkọn akẹkọ mi, onímọ iṣẹ onà gbólóhùn, Ọjọgbọn Adémọlá Dàsylvà.
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