








































Preface

The year 2018 reverberates with the echoes of historical events— the end of 
World War I in 1918, the revolutionary protests of 1968. For the editors, con-
tributors, reviewers and readers of this journal,  there is a more par tic u lar echo: 
the founding of Delos at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas in 1968.

The wish to celebrate and commemorate Delos as a literary translation jour-
nal has led one of the editors to two research visits in the summer of 2018: 
one to the Greek island of Delos in the Cyclades Archipelago, and one to the 
Iwalewa- Haus, a cultural center for African art in Bayreuth, Germany. 
Iwalewa-­Haus­is­significant­­because­its­first­director­was­the­late­Ulli­Beier,­
an impor tant contributor to the second 1968 Delos issue. Two books, each full 
of photo graphs and graphic art as documentary evidence have been entered 
in the editorial library of Delos: Fotini Zaphiropoulou, Delos: Monuments and 
Museum (Athens: Krene, 2016), and Ulli Beier, Neue Kunst aus Australien, 
Fidschi, Indien, Japan, Nigeria, Papua- Neuguinea und Tonga (Nürnberg: Ver-
lag für moderne Kunst, 2003).

The connection of our journal and its content  today to Iwalewa- Haus, as 
part of the University of Bayreuth’s and the State of Bavaria’s commitment to 
African art and culture, is obvious. Transcultural communication between 
Africa and Eu rope, with En glish as the linking language, is central. And 
 because of the explosion of cultural events and the valuable collection of works 
of art, this center of African art is well- rewarded by Bavarian banks, as evi-
denced by the fact that the Iwalewa- Haus, downtown Bayreuth, is  housed in 
a former bank building.

In­explicit­cele­bration­of­the­fiftieth­anniversary­of­a­journal­of­transla-
tion called Delos, we pres ent in this issue a retranslation into Yorùbá of Ulli 
Beier’s 1968 En glish versions of fourteen poems composed by Yorùbá oral 
poets. Beier and his friends never published the originals, and the reverse 
translation, which can be recited as the originals  were, is explic itly an attempt 
to give back to Nigerians something of Beier, as the translator, Dr. Abidemi 
Bolorinwa, tells us.

The Greek island of Delos, a sanctuary of Apollo since 700 BCE, is per-
haps less obviously connected to the pursuit of literary translation in the pages 
of Delos, but the original editors of the journal did not choose its name wrongly. 
The most prominent and accessible symbol of the sanctuary of the island is 



vi    Preface

the gallery of the over- life size sculptures of lions.1 Certainly, one impor tant 
function of  those lions in the minds of the citizens and priests of Naxos and 
Delos back then was to safeguard the  temples, statues and works of devotion 
from pos si ble invaders and profane plunderers—of which  there  were many 
in the course of the centuries. The lion, often in the classical form of a pair, 
as guardian of valuable property and works of art has survived to this very 
day. It is not too fanciful to recognize the roaring lion as part of the credit 
picture of the Hollywood Metro- Goldwyn Mayer movies as a symbol of such 
guarding of the sacred function of art works and of art itself.

Another such symbol, though far more tormented, is the Sphinx, and this 
issue offers Stephen Rojcewicz’s meditation on Oedipus, informed by history, 
early artistic depictions, and psychoanalysis. In a chronological leap, we move 
ahead to the Eu ro pean  Middle Ages, Provence and Iceland, to a singable trans-
lation of a troubadour song and to a Saga account of a dark- skinned ninth- 
century Viking who retired to Breiðafjord.

Two French stories purportedly for  children, written ninety years apart, 
follow. The earlier is by Théophile Gautier, and it evokes folklore and Chris-
tian lore with an irony that approaches the tragic, as the accompanying essay 
by the translator, J. E. Rivers, makes clear. The other is a lighter work; Mar-
cel Aymé does not so much evoke as bounce off the tale of Red Riding Hood.

Our se lection of twentieth-century Rus sian poetry includes Mandelstam, 
Brodsky, and the surrealist Nicolas Zablotsky. Fi nally,  there are Ulli Beier’s 
poems, with their Yorùbá retranslations, reminding us that, in the world of 
translation, lit er a ture may be a river into which one cannot step twice.

We­have­found­some­photo­graphs­and­other­illustrations­to­fit­some­of­the­
works presented. Special thanks to Egisto Sani and Örn Óskarson for the use 
of their wonderful photo graphs!

Hal H. Rennert
Judy Shoaf

1 Our logo (based on a photo graph) and the title page drawing by the late Hiram Williams 
depict one of the lions of Delos.


